CAMELOT FANTASIES

we need to verify this. I saw this on facebook as I was having a lightening quick look there.



Toni Nadal said," We don't deserve the victory, Nishikori deserves it. He played better than us the whole time... We had a lot of luck today. We didn't really come back, he was hurt."



it almost sounds like uncle tony is not really happy with the way clay warrior played.


I have been looking at the highlights. rafa did not return well and he also tried running around his backhand a bit too much.

also I thought rafa's shots lacked the venom and the mustard. he did not hard enough and forcefully enough.


rafa has one hell of a window. he really needs to be taking advantage of this:

nole has wrist issues
andy murray is not 100%
roger is getting old
del potro is out of the game


rafa is allowing himself to be pushed around by the players he has not lost to in 10 years.


still there is a way out of this: just do all you can to win rome and RG and many of the issues go away temporarily.

for the long run, rafa has got to start putting in the hard yards in practice. that is the only reason others are catching up. they are more hungry and are working harder.


he has to do the following:

1. work on the backhand
2. the return
3. the serve
4. fitness

His inner motivation is not as strong as it used to be and that is understandable. He is definitely distracted with all the charity work, poker, golf and whatnot. So hopefully those losses to Ferrer and Almagro plus the scare against Nishikori give him a good dose of reality and he realizes that something serious needs to be done if he wants to be a contender for any big title from now on.

Rafa:

“My legs didn’t answer after a tough week, not [good enough] to arrive and to produce the power and to hit the ball longer so I let him play in positive positions,” Nadal said. His opening three wins were three of the four longest matches in Rome this week, with his first match against Gilles Simon lasting 3 hours and 19 minutes. It was the longest three-set match of the season. ” A lot of times when he had the first ball good, for me it was very difficult to arrive to the ball and to change the dynamic of the point. In general I can do a little bit better. But in general I am very proud about this week.”

Fitness, or lack thereof, plus his propensity to make things harder on himself with his court positioning that made matches longer than they should have been against those opponents, did him in, and Novak Djokovic is a good enough player to take advantage.

General, you know it, Rafa knows it, and so do his opponents.  There is no place to hide on the tennis court.  It's not like team sports where you can slowly play yourself into shape without affecting the outcome greatly. You have to be prepared.  It's a cruel sport and vultures are everywhere just waiting for signs of weakness.

The good news for Rafa is that he has a week and a few more matches to be ready for another RG final, if he can survive the first week.

Respectfully,
masterclass

princess TT and general masterclass have been right all along and I am in that camp also:


it is not really a confidence crisis. rafa likes to say that these days and he means well. in a way he is even right.

how can you be confident when you are not winning and you are not as supremely fit as in the past.


in the past even a bad rafa was still plenty good for his opponents on the red clay because of his physicality and because of his fitness and speed.


lady TT has said this best: this is not rocket science. we have seen this coming for 2 years now. sure he put together a few good weeks last year at the north American hard court circuit but he has--on the average---become far more vulnerable in the best of 3 sets formats.

but I can assure you that a very big reason for his success on the hard courts last year at the north American circuit was because he was able to dominate clay.

he lost the monte carlo final to nole last year but he went one to win Barcelona, Madrid, rome and RG. and that is what gave him the confidence to do so well on the north amrican hard court circuit.


at any rate I do not see this as a confidence issue. he has dominated these players for a decade on the red clay. he is not hurting for belief.


what is costing him is that he does not work as hard as he used to. both on his ground game and his fitness.

he even boasts about the fact that he does not train more than 2 hours. sometimes just 90 minutes.  well that is not going to cut it and it is not cutting it.

players 5 years older than him are working twice as hard as he is. he needs to find his motivation.


he stands alone to be able to challenge history and yet cant seem to find the proper motivation.



I did not see the match today and I have zero intentions of watching it. I know his game too well and I know exactly what happened. I don't want to see nadal this way.

nadal lost today for only 2 reasons:

1. he has not been working hard enough on his ground game on the red clay like he needs to
2. he has let some of his fitness go. he said he was tired today. that is not acceptable at his level. he is a world #1 and in a unique position to challenge history. and still only 27. why the hell was he tired? nole played 2 back to back matches that were 3 hours long each just before the final. well almost 3 hours long each. the match against milos was slightly over 3 hours and the one against ferru was 2 hours and 38 minutes.

you don't even need legs to take your fitness to some amazing level if you want to and if you want it bad enough. why has nadal chosen to drop his fitness at a time when he can least afford to. and at a time when it is so damn clear that players like nole, ferru, and so many others are working so much harder on their fitness.


he just beat nole in montreal and at flushing meadows on nole's best surface a few months back. so nole is not that much better than nadal. nole is certainly not better than nadal on the red clay.

nadal can beat them all when he is properly motivated and properly focused on his practice and his fitness.


so that is what nadal has to do: he has to hit a million balls on the practice courts and he has to improve his fitness.


he has only 1 card left to play now: he has to get into the RG final and take down who ever he faces. he just needs 1 good match in the final as far as I am concerned.

for next year he has to try to come back a lot fitter and a lot healthier and then take it from there.


rafa is not winning montreal and cincy this year. I just don't see it happening at the current rate.