CAMELOT FANTASIES

Quote from: thetruth on June 24, 2014, 07:43:13 pm

Quote from: Clay Death on June 23, 2014, 10:44:47 pm

I saw this on twitter. somebody posted some Rafa practice pics on their facebook page:


https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.652656751477711&type=3&l=d0a70d6458

Nice. Did you hear them say he practiced with Big John Isner to get used to the height and serve? I hope it works! Although, he's already beat Rosol, they act like that didn't happen. Ho hum.

I missed it.


well looks like he was thinking ahead. perhaps he was expecting to meet dr ivo (the 6 foot 10 inch Croatian) in the 3rd round.

dr ivo karlovic was removed from the facilities today in straights.



anyway I saw Rafa's match today. he is not playing well.


he ran around too many backhands again instead of giving his backhand a chance to develop some continuity, rhythm, and consistency.

that led to giving up the court position. he also missed way too many forehands.


lets hope for the best. he just has to keep practicing hard on the grass and try to improve with each match.


if I was asked to rank the 3 big issues today:

1. movement: he is not moving like he used to on grass

2. backhand is too inconsistent

3. court positioning. that forces him in difficult positions and hence all these errors that he makes these days.



in the old days he was pretty much a machine off both wings.

and so fast that he could outrun a runaway steep locomotive.



if he can improve his backhand and develop his confidence off that wing it will also improve his return of serve off that wing.

now he just looks to try run around his backhand to hit forehand returns. that does not work well on grass since the serves bounce low and speed away.


he does not really have to time to run around his backhand.


again its a world class backhand. I have no idea why he is so terrified of hitting it.

This guy is analyzing the matches. Thoughts? He did Federer and Stan but, Fed played Lorenzi, a clay courter, and Joao is still a newbie, but I didn't think there was much to that. Klizan was 26th in the world last year before an injury and has had a steady rise in the rankings.


BRAIN GAME ANALYSIS

Brain Game: Rafa Shelves Favorite Pattern Craig O'Shannessy
 24.06.2014

http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2014/06/26/Wimbledon-Brain-Game-Tuesday-Nadal-Federer-Wawrinka.aspx

Brain Game author Craig O’Shannessy will break down the big matches each day during The Championships.
It took only one point, indeed one shot, to know that Rafael Nadal was not going to have things all his own way at The Championships today.

On the opening point Nadal missed his first serve and his opponent, Martin Klizan of the Slovak Republic, reared back and demolished Nadal’s second serve for a forehand winner straight down the line. It’s hard to imagine Klizan hitting the shot any harder.

Nadal quickly fell behind 0-40 but escaped that game and would eventually win 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 after navigating some stormy waters early in the match.

Klizan adopted an extremely aggressive strategy built around his huge forehand, much the same as Lukas Rosol did in 2012 in defeating Nadal on Centre Court. But this time around the World No. 1 successfully adjusted by gradually removing his opponent’s weapon from the equation.

Klizan would hit 16 forehand winners for the match (Nadal 15) with 12 coming in the first two sets and only four in the last two. Nadal again and again simply refused to let him hit it. Klizan closed out set point in the opening set by hitting four big forehands in a row to force a forehand error long from Nadal. It took the Spaniard about a set to figure out that his favorite lefty forehand pattern through the Ad court was going to have to be downgraded to a secondary pattern to get through this match.

A clear example of Nadal’s adjustment was his serve direction in the Deuce court, where Klizan hit 13 forehand returns for the match but had to defend 49 backhand returns, often times stretched out wide in the alley. Nadal mixed much more in the Ad court with Klizan hitting 30 forehand returns and 27 backhand returns as Nadal was able to better match up his hard lefty slice against the dangerous forehand return.

Nadal broke for the first time leading 3-2 in the second set as Klizan started the game with a forehand drop shot that he could have easily hammered like he had done so successfully in the opening set.

The longer the match went on the clearer Nadal became with his game plan. In the third set Nadal forced 10 forehand errors from Klizan, who also donated another nine forehand errors The Nadal tactic of initially starving the weapon at the beginning of the point and then attacking it at the end was working well. Nadal didn’t win a single point in the opening set (0 for 6) that lasted longer than nine shots but won nine of 12 in the last two sets as he rolled to an emphatic opening-round victory.