CAMELOT FANTASIES

General, unfortunately I missed yet another match.  I don't usually say it, but I'm almost glad I did.

Bottom line, he is losing to players he should be handling in the decider.  After Nadal not losing a set in their first 5 matches, that's two losses in a row to Dolgopolov, much like Fognini. He rarely used to lose deciders with his previous fitness.

I know he won the Stuttgart tourney, but against the level of players he played,  it wasn't that much of a surprise and he got those last two matches done against Monfils and Troicki in straight sets..  Now he arrived at the more competitive Queens with fresh grass and lost.  I guess the good news is that he won his first grass tourney since 2011, and has 5 grass matches under his belt without getting hurt.  So who knows what will happen?

I know some people would laugh at me, but I almost think he needs to give up Wimbledon and take a full training block and then return on the summer clay in places like Kitzbuhel and Hamburg.  Some hard work on the bike wouldn't go amiss - maybe 50-100 miles/day for a good foundation.  Well, you're the bike fitness expert general.  How many miles should someone like Nadal need?  I would first go for the long miles as a foundation for a few weeks, and then start doing repetitive shorter sprints to build explosiveness. But what do I know?

I don't know General.  We keep saying it, but something needs to change if Rafa is to be competitive at the top again, or, I guess he won't.

Federer barely escaped from a very good Philipp Kohlschreiber in Halle in a tough first round battle against the former champion, so nothing comes easy.  He just outplayed Philipp at the very end of the tiebreaker in a mostly good quality match that could have gone either way.  Strangely, Philipp probably played better tennis in the two tiebreaker sets he lost, but that's the way it goes sometimes.  He won more games, more points and broke twice to Federer's once, and still lost.  But Federer still looked physically strong at the end, and was serving well to close it out at the last.

Respectfully,
masterclass