CAMELOT FANTASIES

Rafa is done.

he hangs around for the spotlight and the money.


he is making more money now than ever before. his star shines brighter than ever because he is one of the legends of the sport.

he is doing nothing to improve and he has done nothing to improve in nearly 4 years.

in the past at least he played a lot which kept his ground game sharp enough for him to win titles.

he simply has no hunger and no drive.  but he does have lots of lip service for his fans and his sponsors.

he will get torched in Shanghai and at some point there will be more of stupid exos and then there will be IPTL.

this man has zero interest in winning anything.

Rafa invited Federer to his Academy for the "official opening".  These are 2 of the world's top fan draws and sponsor magnets.
Their combined value is off the charts.

But that is off court.  Tennis is another matter. 

1. Federer hasn't played since Wimbledon trying to rest and recover fully from his knee injury, surgery, and aggravation of the injury at Wimbledon.  In that time he has taken holiday, been taking altitude hikes in the Swiss Alps, been appearing at various social and media events.  So no real tennis, except hitting around a bit.  Now he is going to start the hard work.  Here he is a couple of days ago doing agility drills in the gym. From twitter and instagram:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall.  Who is fastest of them all?


Nobody knows, including Federer, what will happen.  He's following the advice of medical professionals.  Will the knee take the strain of getting fit to play top level singles tennis?  Will it take the strain of hours of practice?  Will it take the strain of match play, and playing against the best?  Roger has a positive outlook, but anything can happen. 

But positiveness, negativity aside, one must talk about reality in serious tennis analysis.  Roger is in his 36th year on the planet and has over 1300 matches played. It is extremely tough to recover from injury at that age and mileage. Most great pros have been retired for years.  Only a few, in a bygone age, when tennis was played quite differently, managed to succeed in singles tennis at such an advanced stage. "Muscles" Ken Rosewall, "Pancho" Richard Gonzales(z) played and won tournaments into their 40's.  But that was a different age in tennis.
 
Later, Jimmy Connors played his last major final at the 1102 match mark at Wimbledon, close to 33 years old.  More recently, Agassi got to his last major final at 1119 matches at 35, after a mid-career interlude. This was the mark for longevity until Roger.  Federer reached his last final in the 2015 US Open at 1282 matches played.  Nobody has come close.   Lendl's last major final was at the 1061 mark.  Federer's due date is long past in terms of other modern players.   It's very difficult to see him being a factor from now on. But like all great players, we cannot so simply write him off.  If he can overcome the knee problems maybe he'll be competitive and play into his 40's.  Who knows?



2. Nadal has been playing, and he says he has recovered from his niggling wrist issues earlier in the season. But now he and Uncle Toni have added another player to the list of players where they say the level is very high - Grigor Dimitrov.  On the other hand, Nadal has done well in doubles this year.  Olympics Gold and he and Carreno-Busta just won the China Open title over Sock/Tomic for his second doubles title, equaling his singles title mark this year (MC, Barc).  Doubles doesn't require the fitness singles does. Rafa can extend his career in this way if he wants.

Rafa's last major final was over 2 years ago at Roland Garros, his 834th match.  He did not make a QF this year.  Now he has played 979 matches on tour.  He is obviously getting up there in mileage as he approaches 31.  Should he continue to play much in conditions which are normally difficult for him, like hard courts and indoors, or should he focus on his best surface, clay?  Regardless, he must be fit enough to compete at a high level.  The hard work must be done and he needs to be strong enough and have the endurance to play his game.  For him, and his style, it is a tough task.  As he gets older, he might have to adjust the old game.  General Hercules and I have spoken of this before.  He needs to centralize his court positioning.  He can't be playing out of his backhand corner whipping forehands.  He must rely more on his backhand so he can play more centrally.  He also can't play near the stands; he must play closer to the baseline.  One believes to have a chance of succeeding in majors, he must focus on clay.  It is where he can achieve the highest level relative to other players.

Again, as with Federer, we can talk all day about all the great things he does off the tennis court. All of his positive traits, his contributions, his Academy, his family.  But as far as the actual tennis goes, and to assess his chances of winning at the highest levels, we have to analyze objectively.  Wishful thinking won't get it done.  As with any aging player, he has to work harder and smarter than before to be as fit as he needs to be to last into deciders, especially the 5th set in majors.   He needs some luck too.  He has to hope he doesn't get into repeated long battles.  One, here or there, ok.  But not consecutively.  Long gone are the days of beating Verdasco in 5 and Federer in 5.  Unfortunately, since 2015, what I've observed is that he has trouble playing more than 2 sets well against the better players.  This just isn't good enough to get it done in a major, and in many lesser tourneys.  In my opinion, his best singles tennis of this year in any tournament was at Monte Carlo. True that he didn't play Djokovic, but He won the title beating Thiem, Wawrinka, Murray and Monfils,  and he won the last two in 3 sets each. 

Rafa is 39-13 this year.  That's a .750 winning pct. same as 2015.  Those are his lowest percentages since 2004.  If nothing changes, one cannot see how he is going to improve.  As General Hercules says he isn't seeing the overall improvement in fitness and segments of his game.  The same pattern appears.  He plays well for a couple of matches, then has a poor match, and if it is against a better player, he loses.  Two steps forward, one step back.  This is not being negative.  These are the facts. Rafa admits it himself.  From this, it doesn't look encouraging that he can win another major, but like Roger, I will not write a great player like Rafa off until he hangs the racquet up.

Respectfully,
masterclass