CAMELOT FANTASIES

Quote from: Clay Death on March 19, 2015, 11:39:45 am

Rafa can get it done.

He just has to return well and then take over the rallies.

Twenty-three minutes to go. I so hope Rafa is ready.

Wow, Federer slaughtered Berdych! 6-4,6-0. WTH?I didn't watch it because my stupid DVR didn't tape it since IW comes on ESPN on the weekends. I forgot about that. They showed Fed's match on regular ESPN, but Rafa will come on TTW, which I checked and that will record.

So, I'm going to eat a bite and settle in to watch the match. I hope Rafa wins.

watch Federer slaughter milos too.



rafa had his chances. he just wont practice hard enough.

there was no need for a vacation in costa rica before this tournament.


I just cant stand it. he has to sit on the damn sidelines watch old man Federer and Nole take home all the hardware.


I can understand the setbacks related to injuries but I cant understand the endless need for poker, golf, fishing, vacations, and all that work on his academy and his foundation. and there are near endless awards ceremonies he has to attend which eat up a lot of his time.

all the other players are working as hard as they possibly can on their game and their fitness.



he still stands in his backhand side of the court trying to hit as many forehands as possible in practice. he does not want to practice his backhand.  and he does not like practicing his return of serve.

he is hungry for wins but he is not hungry enough to put in the very long yards needed to dominate the sport.

time is running out. we cant let these other guys get too far out in front. it will be hard to catch them.



he broke milos in the first set and was able to grab the set. he managed to hang on in the 2nd set to force the breaker. before that he was not able to break milos.

he missed his opportunities in the breaker and then again was not able to break milos in the 3rd set.

milos is not that good. he has that big serve but his movement is suspect and accordingly his ground came is suspect. rafa had never lost to him before.


now he will go to Miami which he should skip. he needs to go back home and get on clay.

rafa's ground game is now even more suspect than ever. he was not this bad as a teenager.


he won just 10% of the points in rallies against berdych in a best of 5 sets match in Australia. that should have been a good enough hint that he needed to woek on his ground game on clay more and also spend more time on fitness.

rafa is the greatest baseliner in the history of the sport. he has to decide to get his ground game back.

he needs 3 things for that:

1. his drive and his hunger
2. play and practice more on clay
3. do more work on fitness


there is just no point in not going for a couple or 3 more slams. history is within reach.

That's a great post General.  It's a shame that we had to see Rafa losing like that to Raonic.  I mean, with Raonic's youth, maybe it had to happen one day, but I did not think it would be today.  Nadal was all over Raonic in the first set and a half, and Raonic was overhitting almost everything, but then you could see Rafa visibly tiring mid to late 2nd set. His forehands had less sting and were flying wild on him.  I saw him even run around a forehand to hit a backhaand, which is how bad his forehand broke down.  Rafa won almost twice as many baseline points in the first two sets, but Raonic won more in the decider, which says everything.

I think it is about 80% lack of sufficient fitness, and 20% confidence.  Well, we can juggle the numbers how we like, but he is fading against players he should not.   He faded against Fognini, and now Raonic.  As you say, it looks like he needs to do the hard yards on the practice court.  He is going to have to make some time to do it, there are no short cuts.  He used to be deadly in 5 sets, especially at Roland Garros.  Now he fades after a set and a half?

I didn't see Uncle Toni there.  Roig is coaching.  I think I read that Toni said Rafa needed more work and court time to get back to form and shape.  Well, why isn't it happening?  Maybe Uncle Toni needs to crack the whip a bit... eh, maybe too strong, but you get my drift.

I was looking forward to a great semifinal battle between Rafa and Roger, but based on what I saw today, I think at the moment, Roger is much fitter and playing better, so maybe it wouldn't have been so good a battle anyway.   Oh well, clay season starts in less than a month... things change fast in tennis.   

Anyway, congrats to Roger and Milos for getting through. Condolences to Rafa and Tomas.

Respectfully,
masterclass

he was tired after just 40 minutes of play in one of his matches in Melbourne.

and he said it was too hot in rio.


I saw this coming ages ago general:

1. he is a kind hearted man. he is caving in to all the demands on his time by the world. we knew he would become a mega global superstar athlete after 14 majors.

and that would bring the world to his door. they all want him and he cant walk away from them.


2. his style of play is very demanding but his supreme fitness allowed him to rule the sport anyway. he was armed with his relentless will and his supreme fitness. that allowed him to compensate for any weakness.


3. now he does not have that same relentless will and he most assuredly does not have his once supreme fitness. just look at him. gone is quite a bit of his lean muscle mass. he is not fat but his is not as physically imposing as he once was.

there is no mustard on his shots and they can get to his shots with ease.


he is going to have to decide what he wants  to do. nole and Federer would be sufficient motivation but he is not following their lead.


even tony sad that he goes away right in the middle of his matches. what tony is really saying is that rafa gets tired.


there is one card left to play: he has to get on clay ASAP and try to get his consistency back off the ground at least.


maybe somebody can upset nole at RG or at least extend him in 2 back to back matches.


basically rafa has to win monte carlo now and he has to win rome masters. and he has to do it with considerably diminished fitness and physicality.


rafa is rafa. he has surprised us before. perhaps RG will work out for him.


but never has he ever been in such diminished state of fitness and physicality.



I don't need to keep saying this but you don't even need legs for fitness if your goal is supreme fitness. he should have never let his fitness go. you can swim. you can ride bikes.

you can do stuff in the gym.

blade runner had no legs and he became an Olympian sprinter anyway.



just look at what Muster did.


Rafa has a small window left. he has to run to go try to take it.


I am just worried that the they will get too far ahead of him and he wont be able to catch them.

I like to think that I am the voice of reason (sometimes). Maybe it's me, because I'll admit I'm not a very competitive person, that's why I've always enjoyed Rafa, because he gives it his all.

I don't think people are being fair to Rafa at all. Sure, Rafa did it in 2013, but that's more like an anomaly, not a given. Even he was surprised at how well he did. But it seems like everyone can be off the tour and come back and slowly get back into their groove without as much pressure.

I mean seriously, Andy isn't the player he was before the back surgery either. It takes time and there are many psychological, emotional, and physical elements into coming back from injury.

Everyone understands that Azarenka is not back to her top form either, but people understand that she's on the comeback trail.

Surely, no one thinks that del Potro is going to come back and be where he once was right off the bat without time, practice, and feeling the emotions of the moment. But with Rafa, everyone expects that he can just flip a switch like he's some kind of superhero. Rafa is the only one that I know where the expectations are so high.

When Federer had his back issues and was losing, everyone thought he was done, but in every broadcast they made comments about his back injury. No one expected him to continously blow people off the court while he was recovering. That's insane.

These guys are grooved. They've been playing week in and week out for the last year while Rafa was sitting at home, or in a hospital bed.

Since his return he's played very few tournaments. How can anyone expect him to be up there with the Big Four? That makes no sense to me.

And since his return he has only played in one big tournament, the AO. The other tournaments he was playing Tier 3 players. There was no Nole, Fed, and Murray. You have to give the Big Four credit for being the best and most consistent on the tour. Either the Big Four is heads above the rest of the tour, or they're not.

Just because you've been there for a decade doesn't mean you can just slip seamlessly back in the groove.

Do you guys really believe that Nole and Federer could be off the tour for seven months and slide right back into their spots? I don't. And we know that Andy didn't. For one, when you come back you are the hunted which adds psychological pressure.

I, for one did not think Rafa was going to beat Berdych at the Oz, because Berdych is Tier 2, second only to the Big Tour. That was a huge leap in level. So that didn't bother me, and neither does this loss when I consider all of the mitigating circumstances.

Anyway, I just wish that people did not heap so many expectations on Rafa, because they don't do it to anyone else to the same degree.

End of Rant.

Rusty is picking Rafa for RG.

He said he does not care how much Rafa is struggling.

He said Rafa is nearly impossible to beat at RG.

I am going to have to agree with general Masterclass:


We both have been saying this for nearly 3 years. He let some of the hard yards on fitness go.


To compound the problems, he drastically cut back on practice time on the court.

He also took his clay supremacy for granted while we saw it slipping nearly 3 years ago.

I will say this again: he has to decide how much he wants it.

Clearly he has to say the right words for his fans and his sponsors but the absolute hunger and the totally relentless will to win is missing.

I don't agree with you and (gasp) Masterclass. I think the expectations are unrealistic. When you have multiple health problems you become acutely aware of the body's limitations. You can't play as freely as you once did. Each surgery takes something more out of your body and you have to compensate.

But, no one can come back and be where they were. Nobody, as we're seeing with Andy. You have to learn how to trust your body in its new state before you can push it to its limits.

A six month layoff is not going to be corrected in one or two months. It hasn't worked for anyone else, and it's not going to work for Rafa. The last time was different, that was desire and motivation. But the more you get knocked down, the harder it is to spring back up.

It has nothing to do with style of play. I think that's a bogus argument, one that the commentators have reiterated over and over again, and like they say, if something keeps being repeated it oftentimes becomes a "truth" in the eyes of many.

It's one thing to practice, but no one can simulate match conditions. That's what you have to get used to once you come back on tour. And in Rafa's case he's had all these false starts the last few years. That's a psychological hurdle. He has to come back and get into a groove first.

For example, the commentators keep saying Rafa won his first title in nine months, which is misleading. He won his first title since he came back within the first two months. He wasn't on tour for six or seven of the last nine months. So how do you count the injury time off? There are no tournaments in Mallorca.

And, since Rafa's been back, outside of the Oz, he's been playing in smaller tournaments and not playing against the top echelon of the game. There is a reason that the Big Four have been heads and shoulders above the rest of the field. But Rafa has to get re-acclimated to the different levels as well.

TBH, even though Rafa is still rusty, he could have won that match with Raonic. He made some decisions. He should've won that match in straight sets, he did have two or three match points.

What I've noticed about Raonic is that he too makes a lot of mistakes in key moments. Yesterday, he got lucky.

Rafa will be fine, because in every tournament, even this one he makes incremental increases in his level. That's what worked for him in 2013. The only difference now is the timing and choice of venues. Had he come back during the clay season I don't think we would be having this conversation, at all.

Fascinating post lady TT.



Keep them coming.


I can hardly wait to see the next two slams unfold.


it is going to be interesting.

I saw today where Rafa was pleased with the way he played, and so am I, because now he's getting to the stage with the people who have been hot while he was going. He isn't all the way back yet, but he's getting closer and he knows it.

I think Rafa's going to do fine. Every tournament he's played he's gotten better. That's encouraging.

BNP Paribas Open: The Rafael Nadal Mini Movie