Would Rafa be wiser to cut back on...

[Federberg]

I just love these 'what if' speculations The reality is that Rafa could quite easily surpass 17. If he doesn't he's not getting a free pass because of so called rivalries. As others have noted he's lost to several less than stellar players. If he'd only lost to greats there might be some point to bringing up such excuses, but he didn't. Fedfans could bring up woulda coulda scenarios, but reality has a bitter-sweet flavour which we all have to live with..

 

[Kieran]

In fairness, he's played about 37 slams. Compare Roger at the same: not a huge diff...

 

[Federberg]

precisely

 

[Tennis Miller]

lets not get carried away with the old "but lendl skipped the French to focus on Wimbledon"..scenario.

i think he missed FO in 1990 and 1991, lendl was 30yrs old in 1990, won FO 3 times, got to sf/f of Wimbledon loads of times, it made more sense back then, also the contrast between fo / wimby was greater then.

rafa isn't going to miss the FO in order to try for Wimbledon again, he will go all out in the clay season and turn up for grass with whatever he has left, which is not much by the look of recent years.

Certainly, when Rafa is 30, skipping RG should be considered. Until then? Skip Barce - and Madrid. And play no more clay than MC, Roma and RG...

One point, though. Rafa at 28 is closer to the point in his career that Lendl was at 30. Rafa's prime started/peaked at an earlier age than Ivan's. I stil wouldn't argue that Rafa should skip FO now though. Cutting back as you suggest makes some sense.

Cheers
TM