CAMELOT FANTASIES

General masterclass go fire up my Federer thread at MTF and add another title to federer's name.


I wi stand by my predictions.


0 titles for Rafa for the remainder of this season and 0-1 some small chicken **** clay title for 2016 unless he cares enough to win.

he has to go fix his fitness and his game.

Players 10 years older than him are winning titles because they are more focused and better prepared.

I don't know what Rafa was doing in Basel. It is clear they threw $1 million dollars at him so he went.

Why the hell was that doubles so bloody important. If he had just spent 10 hours working on his serve, the return, and the backhand he would not  have had to log in those long hours in his singles matches.

And he would have won this title.

Somebody stop to think here. Zero hard court titles since the U. S. Open (2013). and at the end of next year it will be over 3 years with zero titles on the hard courts while players 10 years older than him with no weapons are piling up titles.

Why would you waste away on the hard courts with such diminished game and such drastically reduced fitness.

And the risk of injury goes up significantly.


If he wants to compete and win at the highest level than he has to go fix his fitness and win titles on clay.

General masterclass go fire up my Federer thread at MTF and add another title to federer's name.


I wi stand by my predictions.


0 titles for Rafa for the remainder of this season and 0-1 some small chicken **** clay title for 2016 unless he cares enough to win.

he has to go fix his fitness and his game.

Players 10 years older than him are winning titles because they are more focused and better prepared.

I don't know what Rafa was doing in Basel. It is clear they threw $1 million dollars at him so he went.

Why the hell was that doubles so bloody important. If he had just spent 10 hours working on his serve, the return, and the backhand he would not  have had to log in those long hours in his singles matches.

And he would have won this title.

Somebody stop to think here. Zero hard court titles since the U. S. Open (2013). and at the end of next year it will be over 3 years with zero titles on the hard courts while players 10 years older than him with no weapons are piling up titles.

Why would you waste away on the hard courts with such diminished game and such drastically reduced fitness.

And the risk of injury goes up significantly.


If he wants to compete and win at the highest level than he has to go fix his fitness and win titles on clay.

Already fired up general.  Congrats to Federer and his fans.  88 titles, he just keeps on going.  6 titles this year with 2 more events to go.

Condolences to Rafa and his fans.
No matter what the commentators might say, I thought he played his best match of the year today. He did well to hang in with Federer once Federer got on a roll, and he was hitting his backhand well, and forehand with authority most of the time. Roger did mess up near the end of the second set and Rafa took full advantage. 

Sure, there were instances of Rafa mishitting forehands, and yes, right at the end it looked like he tired, but Federer also had some bad moments as well.  He looked very nervous at the beginning, but unfortunately Rafa couldn't take advantage and break him.  Anyway, considering the indoor conditions have never favored Rafa's game, and the year he has had, I thought he did very well to be competitive.  Mostly he seems to have the fire back in him to compete hard as I think Lady TT also noticed.

Also, it seems that Rafa's right knee is acting up this time.  He needed to have it taped again today.  Once he did that, it seemed like he ran better.  I hope he will get that seriously looked at.  As the draws I posted in the Bercy thread show, Rafa is entered in both singles and doubles.  It would be a disaster for him to overplay and hurt that knee, right when he is getting back into good form.  I'm not sure why he is playing Bercy, back to back with Basel.  He is not going to get any rest for the knee.  I think he is scheduled for doubles on Tuesday.

Respectfully,
masterclass

Interesting comments Lady TT.  People do see matches differently, through the prisms of their psyche.  That's why eyewitnesses are not always precisely reliable.  Talk to 10 people who witnessed an accident, and they'll all probably say something different about it.  If we're lucky, they all might agree there was an accident.   I've noticed that even when I watch a replay of the full match (not the highlights), I often can see things differently then first time or the time before.

Now it's on to Paris and the final masters 1000 of the year.  Who do you all see as the semifinalists?  The favorite is of course Djokovic, but he has taken a bit of time off to see the family after Shanghai.  Is he ready for action? Or is he longing to get back to the family after a long year?

Anyway, I created the Paris Bercy thread in the Camelot General Sports Show forum, take a look at the main draw and doubles draw...

Respectfully,
masterclass

Here you go, Lady TT.  Not bad actually, especially compared to the other matches this week.  Everything is relative. These two haven't played many matches where they have both been relatively healthy since 2012 sometime. Roger had his poor 2013, and Rafa has had problems since 2014.  They played only one match in 2014, the Australian Open, which was only really close for the first set (7-6). Rafa took it in straights with his bruised hand, and then went on to lose to Stan as he injured his back, and it started going downhill from there for him. Only RG was a brief positive.  Then it was bad after that for Rafa.

On Sunday, for a long while in the match, Rafa didn't have many winners (or errors).  Roger was much more aggressive and was going for winners, but missing quite a few cost him.  But then Rafa got more aggressive from mid to late second set and Roger showed some nervousness.



As I said previously, I believe both players had some poor patches and good patches.  I thought the 3rd set may have been the best.
But I'm generally a positive person.  As I watched the match, I thought early on that Rafa was playing better and Roger was very nervous, but as I said in the other post, Rafa didn't take advantage of that. Then when Rafa's level dropped some, Roger's went up and he went on a bit of a roll and won the set, and then continued the second in the same way. 

I thought Roger was going to win the second as Rafa looked a little demoralized. Roger had more break opportunities, but couldn't capitalize. But then Roger for some reason, (maybe nervousness?) got sloppy near the end of the set, and Rafa was quick to seize on that and elevated his play for awhile and took the set and the momentum into the 3rd.  I thought Roger looked discouraged from not taking the second set when it was in his grasp, even thought a loss was coming, but he hung in there and eventually righted the ship (his mentality), and then I thought they both fought hard to near the end, but I sensed a little tiredness or something in Nadal right at the end.   

Ideally, I would have liked Federer to have played a little more in Shanghai, and I think his form would be more steady in Basel, and for Rafa, I would have liked to see him more physically fit and confident.  But I took the positives for both of them. I think this was a difficult surface for Rafa, and it favored his opponents, he could have been out in his first match, but he somehow hung in and fought to the end, and someone has to lose the final.  Roger won in his home tournament, and it's kind of expected, so he had to overcome that pressure, the inactivity since the US Open, and the presence of Rafa.  Things might work out well for both of them.  We'll see.

Note that  I wanted to watch the match again so that I could get another read on it, but I haven't found the full match anywhere.

Respectfully,
masterclass

Flavia once dated Carlos Moya if I am not mistaken.

she looks really good.

Don't feel too sorry about Fabio Fognini losing early to Bernie Tomic in Paris today.  He probably wants to get back to Italy or some warm beach somewhere with Flavia Pennetta. It has been a good year for both of them.



Respectfully,
masterclass

fog's claim to fame:


1. he married Flavia who has a u.s. open crown. so there is a slam in that household.

3. he beat Rafa 4 times in a single year. once in doubles.


that makes him a legend.

Here you go, Lady TT.  Not bad actually, especially compared to the other matches this week.  Everything is relative. These two haven't played many matches where they have both been relatively healthy since 2012 sometime. Roger had his poor 2013, and Rafa has had problems since 2014.  They played only one match in 2014, the Australian Open, which was only really close for the first set (7-6). Rafa took it in straights with his bruised hand, and then went on to lose to Stan as he injured his back, and it started going downhill from there for him. Only RG was a brief positive.  Then it was bad after that for Rafa.

On Sunday, for a long while in the match, Rafa didn't have many winners (or errors).  Roger was much more aggressive and was going for winners, but missing quite a few cost him.  But then Rafa got more aggressive from mid to late second set and Roger showed some nervousness.



As I said previously, I believe both players had some poor patches and good patches.  I thought the 3rd set may have been the best.
But I'm generally a positive person.  As I watched the match, I thought early on that Rafa was playing better and Roger was very nervous, but as I said in the other post, Rafa didn't take advantage of that. Then when Rafa's level dropped some, Roger's went up and he went on a bit of a roll and won the set, and then continued the second in the same way. 

I thought Roger was going to win the second as Rafa looked a little demoralized. Roger had more break opportunities, but couldn't capitalize. But then Roger for some reason, (maybe nervousness?) got sloppy near the end of the set, and Rafa was quick to seize on that and elevated his play for awhile and took the set and the momentum into the 3rd.  I thought Roger looked discouraged from not taking the second set when it was in his grasp, even thought a loss was coming, but he hung in there and eventually righted the ship (his mentality), and then I thought they both fought hard to near the end, but I sensed a little tiredness or something in Nadal right at the end.   

Ideally, I would have liked Federer to have played a little more in Shanghai, and I think his form would be more steady in Basel, and for Rafa, I would have liked to see him more physically fit and confident.  But I took the positives for both of them. I think this was a difficult surface for Rafa, and it favored his opponents, he could have been out in his first match, but he somehow hung in and fought to the end, and someone has to lose the final.  Roger won in his home tournament, and it's kind of expected, so he had to overcome that pressure, the inactivity since the US Open, and the presence of Rafa.  Things might work out well for both of them.  We'll see.

Note that  I wanted to watch the match again so that I could get another read on it, but I haven't found the full match anywhere.

Respectfully,
masterclass

Great post and thanks for the match stats. I couldn’t find them anywhere. The stats don’t look too bad. I’m surprised. I thought they would be terrible, but they’re not.

Roger was very nervous at the beginning and I was surprised about that. I know he has history with Rafa, but usually when Rafa’s in a down cycle Roger is quick to capitalize, think their last WTF encounter. That threw me. And Rafa, I don’t know what was wrong with him but his body language from the beginning looked off to me. Maybe he was concerned about his previous “dominance” over Roger, but he didn’t look right to me. I can look at Rafa’s face and know if he is going to compete well. That’s been lacking this year. That’s why I haven’t been concerned about his losses because for most of the year he’s just phoned it in and didn’t seem to care about the losses. In 2015, there’s only been three times that I  saw him disappointed in his effort; the last loss to Novak, and two of the losses to Fognini.

So from the beginning I didn’t have high hopes for a good match, because it’s only a good match if both combatants want it badly.
I wanted Federer to play well to better gauge Rafa’s level. That’s the only way I’ll see where Rafa is and how close he is to getting back to the top. So, the match was a disappointment for me because I got none of that.

Reviewing these stats, I want to see the match again, because I seriously thought it was horrible. I’m most shocked at the winners stats and the net coverage. I truly didn’t see that.

Maybe The Tennis Channel will re-run it, because I was bummed out from the beginning and may not have given it a fair chance. I didn’t expect Rafa to beat Roger, but I did expect a better effort from him.

I also agree that sometimes you have to re-watch things to get all the nuances. If I find it I'll re-watch because if I'm wrong I'll readily admit to that. Guess I'm just living in the past, for the most part when these two get together I expect sparks, electricity, and a match for the ages, but I guess I shouldn't on indoor surfaces, LOL.

Lady TT, Please post a link if you find the match on the internet.  I'll do the same.

I personally think Rafa and Roger's best matches from a competitive point of view were on the soft surfaces grass - 2007 & 2008, and a few on clay (like Rome 2006), but not many, pretty much where their peak play crossed. Their hard court matches, not so much, bleah.  They play either on slow high bouncing courts like Miami or indoor low bouncing courts like WTF, Basel, and the differences are accentuated.

Respectfully,
masterclass