Rakuten Open Championships 2019, Tokyo, Japan, ATP 500

[Bonaca]

2016 Doha was pretty easy for him too. He did not lose a set and won the final 6-1, 6-2, although he did have to go to a tiebreak in the second set of the semifinal against Berdych.

Yeah it was easy, but the big difference to Tokyo is the level of play.
Novak was playing out of this world at Doha, espacially in the F. If he can play that level again i would be the happiest.
Tokyo was easy because he had, despite his B-game, no real opponent.

 

[Fiero425]

Yeah it was easy, but the big difference to Tokyo is the level of play.
Novak was playing out of this world at Doha, espacially in the F. If he can play that level again i would be the happiest.
Tokyo was easy because he had, despite his B-game, no real opponent.

500 points is 500 points he so desperately needs to retain his #1 ranking! It's gonna go to the last days of the season yet again! :whistle:

 

[Bonaca]

500 points is 500 points he so desperately needs to retain his #1 ranking! It's gonna go to the last days of the season yet again! :whistle:

Why did he? If he loses No1 he could get it back. There are more important goals for him.
The biggest question for me: Is he motivated enough to raise his level of play and his health status? To focus on the raw game , not this celebrating bullshit.
If he coudn´t , no 1 record is his smallest problem.

 

[Fiero425]

Why did he? If he loses No1 he could get it back. There are more important goals for him.
The biggest question for me: Is he motivated enough to raise his level of play and his health status? To focus on the raw game , not this celebrating bullshit.
If he coudn´t , no 1 record is his smallest problem.

I just hate that dead period for #1 over the winter being wasted being counted uselessly to Rafa! It can only make a difference w/ Nole at this time since he's in a battle with Fedal for ultimate "Goat-Dom!" True enough he has more important things to worry about, but it appears the injury we thought could've been so serious, isn't! If Djokovic closes out the season well in Paris and takes the YEC, he can maybe secure #1 for another 10 weeks without even playing!:whistle:

 

[Moxie]

I just hate that dead period for #1 over the winter being wasted being counted uselessly to Rafa! It can only make a difference w/ Nole at this time since he's in a battle with Fedal for ultimate "Goat-Dom!" True enough he has more important things to worry about, but it appears the injury we thought could've been so serious, isn't! If Djokovic closes out the season well in Paris and takes the YEC, he can maybe secure #1 for another 10 weeks without even playing!

Oh, boo hoo. Seems I've heard this whining from some Djokovic fans before, when Rafa got the YE#1, and the "free weeks" he was going to get. Well, as a Nadal fan, I don't see them as "wasted." He needs them more than Novak does. You're the same guy that complains about Murray "stealing" the YE#1 from Novak...you don't seem to understand how the rules work, with all of your complaining about them.

 

[Bonaca]

Oh, boo hoo. Seems I've heard this whining from some Djokovic fans before, when Rafa got the YE#1, and the "free weeks" he was going to get. Well, as a Nadal fan, I don't see them as "wasted." He needs them more than Novak does. You're the same guy that complains about Murray "stealing" the YE#1 from Novak...you don't seem to understand how the rules work, with all of your complaining about them.

Funny I was just thinking about that year end when Andy became No1..
The thing I couldn’t understand was that YEC, Novak destroyed Kei that easy, and loses the Final against Andy, pretty easy too. Murray was playing good that second half of the year, but it was amazing to me ( in a negative way) to see him beat Novak that easy. He wasn’t never a bad match up for Novak.

 

[Fiero425]

Funny I was just thinking about that year end when Andy became No1..
The thing I couldn’t understand was that YEC, Novak destroyed Kei that easy, and loses the Final against Andy, pretty easy too. Murray was playing good that second half of the year, but it was amazing to me ( in a negative way) to see him beat Novak that easy. He wasn’t never a bad match up for Novak.

Everybody has bad days on court! It's not automatic out there even for the best of them! Sometimes I could tell how I was going to play by the 1st strike in the warm-up! If it's a nice start, confidence flows, otherwise as Stolle used to say while commentating, "it'll be a bad day at the office!" Missing 1st serves also changes the dynamics of a match and if you're allowing an opponent chances to break; it makes a difference! If you listen to the stats, when Nole's at his most effective is when he's getting a nice percentage of 1st serves in! I know I needed free points to win and if my 1st serve wasn't clicking, better players had a good chance of beating me! For some strange reason, Djokovic owns a handful of players for the most part, but they've each taken him down in important matches! I don't have to go down the list of bad losses, but they've all come from the likes of Wawrinka, Murray, Cilic, & Del Po! Fedal don't seem to let their pigeons off the hook as often if ever, so I'll give them that! Djokovic is still the most vulnerable of the "Big 3!" :whistle:

 

[Bonaca]

Everybody has bad days on court! It's not automatic out there even for the best of them! Sometimes I could tell how I was going to play by the 1st strike in the warm-up! If it's a nice start, confidence flows, otherwise as Stolle used to say while commentating, "it'll be a bad day at the office!" Missing 1st serves also changes the dynamics of a match and if you're allowing an opponent chances to break; it makes a difference! If you listen to the stats, when Nole's at his most effective is when he's getting a nice percentage of 1st serves in! I know I needed free points to win and if my 1st serve wasn't clicking, better players had a good chance of beating me! For some strange reason, Djokovic owns a handful of players for the most part, but they've each taken him down in important matches! I don't have to go down the list of bad losses, but they've all come from the likes of Wawrinka, Murray, Cilic, & Del Po! Fedal don't seem to let their pigeons off the hook as often if ever, so I'll give them that! Djokovic is still the most vulnerable of the "Big 3!" :whistle:

Yes he is, but Roger is quickly claiming that hill too in the last years.
Bull is an exception until now.
I know what you mean , but this defeat to Murray was for some reason, totally weird to me. And still is.

 

[Moxie]

Funny I was just thinking about that year end when Andy became No1..
The thing I couldn’t understand was that YEC, Novak destroyed Kei that easy, and loses the Final against Andy, pretty easy too. Murray was playing good that second half of the year, but it was amazing to me ( in a negative way) to see him beat Novak that easy. He wasn’t never a bad match up for Novak.

Murray was on an upswing and Novak on a downswing. That was pretty obvious. The YE#1 and the YEC came down to that one final, which Andy won. The trend was obvious, but more importantly, it came down to a winner-take-all, which Murray won. It was the beginning of a downslide for Novak, so not that weird.

 

[Bonaca]

Murray was on an upswing and Novak on a downswing. That was pretty obvious. The YE#1 and the YEC came down to that one final, which Andy won. The trend was obvious, but more importantly, it came down to a winner-take-all, which Murray won. It was the beginning of a downslide for Novak, so not that weird.

Murray deserved it, no question about that. It is still weird to me, that he coudnt make it closer.
Another match like that was his Rome Final 2017, he destroyed the Austrian ****** in the SF like only a few could on slow clay, the next day he loses to Giraffe pretty easy. I know it was a bad version of Novak that time, but anyway it still is weird to me. He beat Juan and Thiem and than had nothing left for the fake German?

 

[Moxie]

Murray deserved it, no question about that. It is still weird to me, that he coudnt make it closer.
Another match like that was his Rome Final 2017, he destroyed the Austrian ****** in the SF like only a few could on slow clay, the next day he loses to Giraffe pretty easy. I know it was a bad version of Novak that time, but anyway it still is weird to me. He beat Juan and Thiem and than had nothing left for the fake German?

Well, that was early-ish in a pretty weird and long walkabout for Novak. The Rome final was when it was getting even weirder. Our friend Mastoor tried very hard to make it about Novak being tired, but as I disagree, as you seem to. He just wasn't stringing enough good days together with bad ones.