CAMELOT FANTASIES

article from the ATP site:

Murray is the second best baseliner in the world in today’s game, but the gap between Djokovic and the rest of the field only seems to be getting wider. In the opening set, Djokovic completely controlled the back of the court, winning 69 per cent (27/39) of baseline points. Overall, the Serb won 67 per cent (47/70) of baseline points for the match, which is a massive advantage that allows the rest of his game to flow freely.

Djokovic’s real advantage came in mid-length rallies of five to nine shots where he stole the show, winning 68 per cent (28/41) of points, as both players tried to force their baseline patterns on the opponent. Murray actually won the longer rallies over nine shots (10-8), but with so few rallies getting this far, it simply wasn’t enough to make an impact on the final outcome.

The real key to Djokovic’s dominance was the backhand-to-backhand arm wrestle in the ad court. Murray made 25 backhand errors to Djokovic’s 11, shutting down the Brit’s strength, and making him bend to his own intentions. The quality of Murray’s backhand errors also speaks to the pressure Djokovic was putting him under in their baseline exchanges.

The number one backhand error by far from Murray was into the net with 13. Djokovic was often making contact standing closer to the baseline, which enabled better depth, and took time away from Murray’s preparation, hence the high number of net errors. Murray also made eight backhand errors long, three wide cross-court, and only one wide down the line. Murray did go to “Plan B” by coming forward to the net, winning 79 per cent (11/14) approaching, and two of three serving and volleying. The problem here for Murray is sheer volume, as dominating 17 points at the net does not come close to negating the 70 points Djokovic controlled from the back of the court.

Djokovic also applied pressure with his deep returns right down the middle, giving no angle for Murray to initially hurt him with. Murray won only 35 per cent (11/31) of his second serve points, as he often had to get out of the way of a deep Djokovic return hit right at him. The deep middle return is a hidden gem in Djokovic’s suffocating game plan. Leading into the Paris final, he had hit 49 per cent of his returns to the middle area of the court, 38 per cent wide in the ad court, and only 13 per cent wide in the deuce court. The middle of the court is a great way for Djokovic to begin the point, enabling him to then dictate from the middle of the court with his first shot after the return.

Djokovic’s forehand produced four winners, but more importantly only made eight groundstroke errors to Murray’s 19. A key pattern of play for Djokovic was to attack Murray’s forehand on the run in the deuce court, forcing Murray to make 15 of his 19 errors standing in the deuce, including seven running hard out wide near the deuce court alley. In the opening set, Murray hit 56 per cent of his forehands down the line, but 95 per cent (18/21) of those were down the line to Djokovic’s impenetrable backhand wing.

Djokovic hit 51 per cent of his forehands down the line in the opening set, and his seven inside-in forehands to Murray’s forehand primarily landed deep and close to the line in the deuce court. Beating an in-form Djokovic is a complex jigsaw puzzle of playing more to his forehand and getting to the net more than feels comfortable.

Simply hitting more winners clearly doesn’t work, as Murray hit 20 winners to the Serb’s 10 for the match, while Murray committed 34 unforced errors to Djokovic’s 12.

Djokovic makes everyone on the planet bend to his rules of engagement, and unless you have got several plans of attack mixed at exactly the right time, the Serb’s reign as the world’s best player is only getting stronger.

Great article, all true too.

Murray isn't going to put a dent in Djoker for the forseeable future.  Federer at his best can give Novak a run out... but I think we're in three set territory these days.  Nadal is the big question mark... we'll have to wait until the 2016 Clay season.... Other than that it takes an outlier like Wawrinka playing out of his skin and redlining for 3 or 4 hours. It's also kind of concerning that we seem to have a lost generation of mediocrity just behind.  Younger guys like Kyrgios et al are going to have to step up over the next couple of years to fill the vacuum.

great post general britbox.


nishikori has the talent but not the physical attributes to sustain quality.


also I think djokovic just keeps taking his game and his fitness higher with each passing week.

Tis' true. Kei is too small. They'd all better work hard if they want to keep up with Novak because he's serious. He's already announced that he's looking towards Roger's haul. If that's not throwing down the gauntlet, I don't know what is. 

I recall reading something about Nasty (Nastase). one year he went to England and took down a couple of big names on a small grass event going into Wimbledon.

he said---but most likely jokingly---he could just toy with guys like Connors and Borg.

they say that Nasty was a party animal. he hit #1 in 1973 if I am not mistaken. we can double check that.

http://2015.ausopen.com/en_AU/news/articles/2015-02-01/rafa_the_social_king_.html?promo=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Australian-Open+%28Australian+Open%29



He has nearly three million Twitter followers more than the next closest tennis player on the planet and a handy 14 Grand Slam singles titles to his name certainly helps his popularity, so it is little wonder Rafael Nadal has topped the Australian Open’s Social Leaderboard for 2015.

The leaderboard tracks Twitter to determine the most popular players at the Open during the fortnight, and with a day of the tournament left to play, the Spaniard led the count for the tournament with 1,126,524 tweets, 76 per cent of them positive.

Two of the world No.3’s matches, in particular, drew a huge response – his scratchy five-set survival against American Tim Smyczek in the second round peaking at more than 10,000 positive tweets immediately after the win, and his quarterfinal loss to Tomas Berdych generating more than 8000 positive tweets.

Novak Djokovic came in a distant second with 562,470 tweets (keeping in mind this was before the men’s final had been played), with 90 per cent of them positive.

His five-set semifinal win over Stan Wawrinka drew the highest number of positive tweets for a match this tournament with nearly 19,000.

Maria Sharapova was the best of the girls, coming in at No.3 with 476, 493 tweets, 84 per cent of them positive. Her final showdown with Serena Williams drew nearly 8000 positive tweets, while her second round comeback from match point down extracted nearly 6000 positive tweets.

Despite losing in just the third round, Roger Federer still came in at No.4, with 343,511 tweets. His upset loss to Andreas Seppi had just 5000 positive tweets, while Seppi, who came in at No.10 overall, had nearly 9000 positive tweets after pulling off the win.

Serena Williams was the best of the rest, coming in at No.5 with 317,258 tweets, more than 16,000 of them positive.

Andy Murray came in at No.6, outgoing defending champion Wawrinka at No.7, Australian sensation Nick Kyrgios at No.8 and Nadal-slayer Berdych at No.9.

IBM developer Tony Johnson said the system only counted positive sentiment, with tweets linked via hashtags, twitter handles and the player’s name.

“It is a fun way to engage fans, they get to participate in the tournament by pushing their favourite to the top. It also give a real indication of the level of global buzz, or conversation about a player on Twitter,” he said.

“Negative, neutral and indeterminate sentiment is counted in the overall number of tweets for a particular player, but there's no classification for them.”

Nadal boasts 7.4 million followers on Twitter, ahead of Williams, with 4.56 million. Djokovic has 3.83 million, Murray 2.89 million, Federer 2.61 million, and Sharapova with 1.47 million.

djokovic is saying a lot more lady TT:

1. he said very specifically that he likes chances against anybody from the baseline.

2. he said surface does not matter. he is ready. anywhere, anytime.

3. I think he said something to the effect that "wawrinka stole his court at RG". that was a foolish thing to say in my estimation but he did say it.
wawrinka earned that victory with his game and with his heart and by his proper positive mindset.

and most importantly he earned it off the courts: he worked very hard to prepare for that deep run for the title at RG.

Wow, he's so cocky it's hard to be happy for him. That's what I don't like about Novak. He has all of these different faces and personas. He's too full of himself. He's a great player, always has been, but there's underneath the surface that colors his entire personality.

Those matches that Stan won against him, Stan won fair and square. Give credit where credit is due. After that win at RG when he came to the net he said, "I have so much respect for you." Then, months later he says, "Stan stole my RG" as if Stan had no business winning? Ridiculous. It's hard for me to imagine that Novak will prosper from this type of attitude in the end, because he lacks humility. He doesn't seem to realize that anything can happen and anyone can end up with a life threatening injury at any time. His attitude is such a turn off to me.

He will never be regarded in the highest esteem like many of the other players; even in his dominance he is not universally loved. He needs to wonder why?

http://2015.ausopen.com/en_AU/news/articles/2015-02-01/rafa_the_social_king_.html?promo=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Australian-Open+%28Australian+Open%29



He has nearly three million Twitter followers more than the next closest tennis player on the planet and a handy 14 Grand Slam singles titles to his name certainly helps his popularity, so it is little wonder Rafael Nadal has topped the Australian Open’s Social Leaderboard for 2015.

The leaderboard tracks Twitter to determine the most popular players at the Open during the fortnight, and with a day of the tournament left to play, the Spaniard led the count for the tournament with 1,126,524 tweets, 76 per cent of them positive.

Two of the world No.3’s matches, in particular, drew a huge response – his scratchy five-set survival against American Tim Smyczek in the second round peaking at more than 10,000 positive tweets immediately after the win, and his quarterfinal loss to Tomas Berdych generating more than 8000 positive tweets.

Novak Djokovic came in a distant second with 562,470 tweets (keeping in mind this was before the men’s final had been played), with 90 per cent of them positive.

His five-set semifinal win over Stan Wawrinka drew the highest number of positive tweets for a match this tournament with nearly 19,000.

Maria Sharapova was the best of the girls, coming in at No.3 with 476, 493 tweets, 84 per cent of them positive. Her final showdown with Serena Williams drew nearly 8000 positive tweets, while her second round comeback from match point down extracted nearly 6000 positive tweets.

Despite losing in just the third round, Roger Federer still came in at No.4, with 343,511 tweets. His upset loss to Andreas Seppi had just 5000 positive tweets, while Seppi, who came in at No.10 overall, had nearly 9000 positive tweets after pulling off the win.

Serena Williams was the best of the rest, coming in at No.5 with 317,258 tweets, more than 16,000 of them positive.

Andy Murray came in at No.6, outgoing defending champion Wawrinka at No.7, Australian sensation Nick Kyrgios at No.8 and Nadal-slayer Berdych at No.9.

IBM developer Tony Johnson said the system only counted positive sentiment, with tweets linked via hashtags, twitter handles and the player’s name.

“It is a fun way to engage fans, they get to participate in the tournament by pushing their favourite to the top. It also give a real indication of the level of global buzz, or conversation about a player on Twitter,” he said.

“Negative, neutral and indeterminate sentiment is counted in the overall number of tweets for a particular player, but there's no classification for them.”

Nadal boasts 7.4 million followers on Twitter, ahead of Williams, with 4.56 million. Djokovic has 3.83 million, Murray 2.89 million, Federer 2.61 million, and Sharapova with 1.47 million.

This is why I believe in the numbers as opposed to what the commentators say. It's been this way for years.

Quote from: Clay Death on November 11, 2015, 09:54:46 am

djokovic is saying a lot more lady TT:

1. he said very specifically that he likes chances against anybody from the baseline.

2. he said surface does not matter. he is ready. anywhere, anytime.

3. I think he said something to the effect that "wawrinka stole his court at RG". that was a foolish thing to say in my estimation but he did say it.
wawrinka earned that victory with his game and with his heart and by his proper positive mindset.

and most importantly he earned it off the courts: he worked very hard to prepare for that deep run for the title at RG.

Wow, he's so cocky it's hard to be happy for him. That's what I don't like about Novak. He has all of these different faces and personas. He's too full of himself. He's a great player, always has been, but there's underneath the surface that colors his entire personality.

Those matches that Stan won against him, Stan won fair and square. Give credit where credit is due. After that win at RG when he came to the net he said, "I have so much respect for you." Then, months later he says, "Stan stole my RG" as if Stan had no business winning? Ridiculous. It's hard for me to imagine that Novak will prosper from this type of attitude in the end, because he lacks humility. He doesn't seem to realize that anything can happen and anyone can end up with a life threatening injury at any time. His attitude is such a turn off to me.

He will never be regarded in the highest esteem like many of the other players; even in his dominance he is not universally loved. He needs to wonder why?

rafa and Federer will go down in history as the most popular tennis players ever.


and among the most popular global athletes of all time.


Jordan, Messi, and Ronaldo are the most popular athletes on the globe.