CAMELOT FANTASIES

Roger demolishes Darcis.


no contest. Bring on the next victim.

it is sad that he is allowing this to happen to him but we cannot say that we did not predict this.



no way in hell was he going to go face djokovic.

so he decided to bail today.


he had a 2 sets lead even. he decided to just end it today and get the hell out of here.



well I am glad it is over. now he can go back to Mallorca and ask himself if this is helping his legacy.  he can also ask himself if it is even worth the bother if he knows so clearly that he cant beat the top players.


in other words he knows he cant win any important titles given his current level of drastically reduced fitness and just about 20% of the ground game he used to have.


I am afraid the decline continues.

he was actually spent in his last match.



we have to live with this general masterclass: he does not care to win anymore.


I also knew that he was going to bail in this match one way or another and he did.


it says it all on his face. he does not care to win anymore.


Sampras has this right: rafa is playing like he is retiring.


there is plenty of motivation from roger and serena but he does not care.



it was cool in hamburg. he had a very easy semifinal and he was spent after 40 minutes of play against Fog there.


he started cramping up and even threw up by one account.


he is spent force unless he starts logging in massive long yards on the fitness front.


this year is over for him and I cant see him winning any titles next year either at this current rate of decline.



this dramatic a decline for an all time great player still in his 20's is unprecedented.


he simply walked away from the sport.


and he was no ordinary all time great. he had the best ground game the world had ever seen and he had a winning record against all of the top 30 players.




it is sad and at the same it is not sad because we saw this coming as early as 2009.

more on this later.

General, Lady TT, great posts.

Aside from fitness, which is obviously important for him, here is what I think of the state of his game and what he should do.  That's if he still has the desire to do it.

Some people mention his serve as a problem, but I never thought that was a big key to Rafa's success, except for maybe the 2010 US Open.  On most surfaces played these days, clay and slower hard courts, all he needs is a good percentage in on first serve and some depth on his second serve so that players can't tee off on it,  all just to start the point.

The bigger problem now is his return of serve and consistency of his ground strokes. Many times his return doesn't even bounce past the service box. The opponent gets on the front foot right away and dominates the point, while Rafa has to work extremely hard defending and to try to transition from defense to offense.

His timing has also been very inconsistent, at times almost non-existent. I think this is happening because he is trying his best to adapt to faster hard courts. He's practicing on them too much, and he's playing in too many tournaments. He's changed his style to trying to play more aggressive, closer to the baseline. He can't sit back a couple of meters behind the baseline and prepare his mighty topspin, as he can on clay. But at times, on hard court, he really wants to do it, and needs that topspin, but his timing is way off and his game is just confused, and then it affects his mind and confidence.

At this point in his career, he should do like Roger has done. Focus on his best surface and tournaments, and play his best style of tennis. As general hercules has said many times CLAY is the wellspring from which he flows. There is no better clay court player in the world when he is focused and on song on clay. I seriously believe he needs to get back on clay, practice on it, play on it, and stay on it, only playing hard courts when he is required to do so, with no expectations, and NO change in style to adapt.

I also believe that him trying to adapt and do well on hard courts in the last few years has adversely affected his normal clay court game. Playing the Australian Open is the worst thing for him. Look how well he did the rest of the year when he skipped it in 2013. How many times has injury resulted at the AO, or Rotterdam faster hc indoors, and affected him the rest of the year?

Yes, as he ages, I'm totally convinced he should rededicate himself to being the clay court specialist of the world.

It's clearly what he does best. Hard work and practice on clay, and match play on clay will bring back his natural timing for clay with the big topspin swings and cyclones of death. It seems he has slowed down a notch, as is natural at this age, so he needs to stop relying on the run around forehand from his backhand side. Practice the backhand so he can rely on it, and not put himself out of position on the court, where he would need his tremendous youthful speed to get back to his forehand side.  He just doesn't have that anymore.  So he needs to play a more honest game and stop trying to camp in his backhand corner to hit the forehand instead of a backhand.

If he does these things, the serve is not a high priority. It never has been on clay. He only needs to get his first serve in 70+% of the time or more and the rest will take care of itself.

I think he has at least 1 or 2 Roland Garros titles still in him if he takes this approach.  Of course he needs to seriously build his fitness as well.  Players don't win best of five on clay without fitness. Borg knew it, Muster knew it, Nadal knows it.  He can't spend his off season playing meaningless though lucrative exhibitions.  Vacations need to be few, not long, and far between.  He needs as I said earlier, to rededicate himself to the sport.  If he does something like this, I have a great deal of hope.  If he can't or won't do that, then I sadly don't have a lot of hope.

I don't know if he was crying as the video title below says, but I have to say I was very sad to see the mighty Clay Warrior walking to the locker room with his head down after the match.  I even hesitate to add this video, but I feel it's wrong to hide his pain in losing when we have celebrated his glories in winning. He simply can't go out like this!  He must leave on his own terms.  A RG title and then off into the sunset would be my dream.
 


Nadal wins French Open (Roland Garros)



Respectfully,
masterclass

General, Lady TT, great posts.

Aside from fitness, which is obviously important for him, here is what I think of the state of his game and what he should do.  That's if he still has the desire to do it.

Some people mention his serve as a problem, but I never thought that was a big key to Rafa's success, except for maybe the 2010 US Open.  On most surfaces played these days, clay and slower hard courts, all he needs is a good percentage in on first serve and some depth on his second serve so that players can't tee off on it,  all just to start the point.

The bigger problem now is his return of serve and consistency of his ground strokes. Many times his return doesn't even bounce past the service box. The opponent gets on the front foot right away and dominates the point, while Rafa has to work extremely hard defending and to try to transition from defense to offense.

His timing has also been very inconsistent, at times almost non-existent. I think this is happening because he is trying his best to adapt to faster hard courts. He's practicing on them too much, and he's playing in too many tournaments. He's changed his style to trying to play more aggressive, closer to the baseline. He can't sit back a couple of meters behind the baseline and prepare his mighty topspin, as he can on clay. But at times, on hard court, he really wants to do it, and needs that topspin, but his timing is way off and his game is just confused, and then it affects his mind and confidence.

At this point in his career, he should do like Roger has done. Focus on his best surface and tournaments, and play his best style of tennis. As general hercules has said many times CLAY is the wellspring from which he flows. There is no better clay court player in the world when he is focused and on song on clay. I seriously believe he needs to get back on clay, practice on it, play on it, and stay on it, only playing hard courts when he is required to do so, with no expectations, and NO change in style to adapt.

I also believe that him trying to adapt and do well on hard courts in the last few years has adversely affected his normal clay court game. Playing the Australian Open is the worst thing for him. Look how well he did the rest of the year when he skipped it in 2013. How many times has injury resulted at the AO, or Rotterdam faster hc indoors, and affected him the rest of the year?

Yes, as he ages, I'm totally convinced he should rededicate himself to being the clay court specialist of the world.

It's clearly what he does best. Hard work and practice on clay, and match play on clay will bring back his natural timing for clay with the big topspin swings and cyclones of death. It seems he has slowed down a notch, as is natural at this age, so he needs to stop relying on the run around forehand from his backhand side. Practice the backhand so he can rely on it, and not put himself out of position on the court, where he would need his tremendous youthful speed to get back to his forehand side.  He just doesn't have that anymore.  So he needs to play a more honest game and stop trying to camp in his backhand corner to hit the forehand instead of a backhand.

If he does these things, the serve is not a high priority. It never has been on clay. He only needs to get his first serve in 70+% of the time or more and the rest will take care of itself.

I think he has at least 1 or 2 Roland Garros titles still in him if he takes this approach.  Of course he needs to seriously build his fitness as well.  Players don't win best of five on clay without fitness. Borg knew it, Muster knew it, Nadal knows it.  He can't spend his off season playing meaningless though lucrative exhibitions.  Vacations need to be few, not long, and far between.  He needs as I said earlier, to rededicate himself to the sport.  If he does something like this, I have a great deal of hope.  If he can't or won't do that, then I sadly don't have a lot of hope.

I don't know if he was crying as the video title below says, but I have to say I was very sad to see the mighty Clay Warrior walking to the locker room with his head down after the match.  I even hesitate to add this video, but I feel it's wrong to hide his pain in losing when we have celebrated his glories in winning. He simply can't go out like this!  He must leave on his own terms.  A RG title and then off into the sunset would be my dream.
 


Nadal wins French Open (Roland Garros)



Respectfully,
masterclass

Fantastic post.


But I do think it is over.


he is worth a fortune and will pick up a cool $ 1 billion for his 9 RG crowns.


He has already said this but nobody is listening: he said he does not care to win any more RG crowns.


Meaning he does not care to win titles and more slams.


And it shows. he is doing absolutley zero work on his fitness and even less work on his game.


It is his career and his life. and it his terms.

More on this later.

congrats to the big south African tennis ace.



tough loss for Andy.


the coast does look clear for Djokovic. he is just a tennis machine now after having taken his fitness higher than anybody else on the planet.


I cant see anybody slowing him down.




it will be hard for Federer unless he can gun him down in straights.


rafa doesn't care to compete and battle. I know his fans think different and that he is getting better.

that premise is horribly false. he is getting worse by the day because he just doesn't care to compete, battle, and win battles anymore.



he may be #8 for now but he is really playing barely top 200 level tennis.



the guy that ran circles around him at Wimbledon was ranked like #105.


fog spotted him 2 sets and still took him out.


but of course rafa helped him by being in a pathetic physical condition and by also bailing out of there.


rafa did not want to go deal with djokovic.


which is fine with me: why go to battle with such horrible preparation.


and I am glad that he is out of there. I was afraid of an injury.

Sad for Murray, but very happy for Kevin, (such a nice guy). Murray has been pretty iffy all year to me. He's not playing with conviction, just getting by. I've been very disappointed in his lack of competitive edge.


Shocked that Gasquet beat Berdych. Tomas is another one that's been lagging lately. Maybe it's the marriage, but he's lost his competitive edge too.

Djokovic isn't look as great to me as people are saying. He still should beat those in his path, but I'm not sure he'll get past Federer, if Federer makes it. Great match between Fed and Isner.

Stan isn't looking so hot either.

Rafa's grandfather passed.