A Plea to the ATP

Okay, I'm really starting to worry about the state of the men's game. No, I'm not talking about the top 4 and the great matches we've been getting lately, but something more.

Back many years ago, the tour started slowing down court surfaces (especially Wimbledon) to allow for more baseline rallies, which in turn, would make for more aesthetically pleasing viewing for the casual tennis fan. Come to the present, and the courts are as slow as they have EVER been, and because of that we get to see the greatest athletes in the world push their bodies to new extremes for the greatest prizes. The physicality of the Nadal/Djokovic match would never have been possible at the turn of the century, but it is made to be possible now by the slowed-down courts and the higher degree in difficulty of hitting winners past two guys who have phenomenal defense like Djokovic and Nadal. Now, we may have reached the peak of the vision the ATP had all those years ago after a nearly six-hour long match featuring the two greatest warriors of our time, and maybe of any time. But what is the price to be paid in the future from such extraordinarily physical matches?

Six years ago, after a 5-hour match between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in Rome, both men withdrew from the next week's tournament due to fatigue and to recover from the incredible physical torment they put their bodies through. This prompted the ATP to change to 3-set Masters Series finals the next year. Skip ahead six years to the present, and we just witnessed the longest and most physical tennis match ever played between Nadal and Djokovic. It was so exhausting that both men could not stand afterwards for the trophy presentation. Now let me go back a few months to the US Open final. At the time, that was the most physical match ever played, and it impacted the duo's ability to play the rest of the season. So what happens now, as the matches get longer and longer and more and more physical? Are players ever going to remain fit and healthy for a full season ever again? Needless to say, if the tour continues on this path, then their players' careers will inevitably be shortened and the game will lose all the variety that makes tennis so special to watch.

Is it in the ATP's best interest to keep the courts slow and let these superhuman athletes run their bodies into the ground? Rafael Nadal has said that he wants to be able to live a normal life after he retires, and he has every right to want that. But the length of the season is not the problem, but how physical the game has become. Shortening the length of the season will not be a benefit to anyone if the matches continue to get more and more physical, up to the point where the players cannot stand afterwards. This is a time for the ATP to tread the waters with extreme caution. They are walking on VERY thin ice. On the surface, it appears that the men's game is better than ever, but if they cannot preserve the health of the top names, then tennis will die.

Wake up and smell the roses ATP. Find a balance between the wonderful 90s era and the baseline era we see today. In other words, go back to 2002-2005 when there was a perfect balance.  When the courts were not homogenized and there was a difference in court speeds throughout the season.  In that way, players will be able to preserve their bodies and have long and healthy careers.  In the same fashion that they wanted to slow down the courts because the game was becoming too serve-dominated, they have come to the other end of the spectrum.  The game has become too physical, too demanding, and I really fear the future of the game if it comes to the point where the players cannot even play a full season healthy because they have been forced to exert their physical abilities to the point that their health becomes a serious issue.

Kyle.

Djokovic defeats Nadal in Epic

In the first Grand Slam final of the year, the top two players in the world, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, battled it out in an epic 5-set encounter that lasted just shy of six hours.  It was a match that could have gone either way, but in the end Novak Djokovic prevailed over his great rival 57 64 62 67(5) 75 to capture his 5th Grand Slam title, 3rd in a row, and 7th straight victory over Nadal.  It was a pure battle of wills, but in the end, Nadal's own defensive nature cost him the match.  One thing is for sure, both Nadal and Djokovic are going to take a LONG time to recover from this epic contest.

In the first set, Nadal got an early break lead to go up 3-2.  The Serb looked fatigued after the marathon semifinal clash with Andy Murray, and maybe this time, things would be different.  The first set was going to be crucial, one would think, in the outcome of this match.  If Nadal could get confidence and get a lead, the result may be different.  But alas, the lead did not last long, as Djokovic broke back in the 8th game to make it 4-4.  However, just two games later, Nadal broke once again (a recurring theme in these matches) to go up 6-5.  This time, he held, and won the first set 7-5.  It was a hard fought set that lasted well over an hour, and in hindsight, it was a sign of things to come. 

The second set was similar in the opposite way, with Djokovic getting the early break and going up 5-3.  Nadal broke back when Novak was serving out the set, but as is the case with these two warriors playing, a break is not a break until consolidated.  Novak received the benefit of a Nadal double fault to take the 2nd set 6-4. 
 In the third, it was not close, and Djokovic continued to open up his shoulders and push Rafa far behind the baseline.  He won the set 6-2 and it looked very much like the match would mirror their Wimbledon and US Open matches from 2011 (tough, hard-grinding 4-set matches).  In that crucial 4th set, Rafa was hanging on for dear life.  He held many tight service games, all the way until 4-3, 0-40.  This was it.  Djokovic was going to break and serve his 5th Grand Slam title out.  But wait!  Nadal clawed back, played some incredible tennis, and somehow, in ways I cannot fathom, he held to make it 4-4.  From that point, you could feel the momentum turning.  Nadal started playing more aggressively and Djokovic was reeling.  The set went to a tiebreak and Nadal was pumped up.  At 6-5, set point Nadal, a forehand went wide and, oh my, we were going 5!

This was the first time in 30 matches that Nadal and Djokovic were going to a deciding 5th set.  And on such an occasion to do it too!  At the start of the set, Djokovic looked exhausted.  Understandable too, with all the tennis he had played in the previous 48 hours.  The tide that had been turning since Rafa saved three break points in the 4th set seemed unchangeable.  He got the break to go up 4-2.  Certainly this match was soon to be over?  Novak was limping between points and even falling down once or twice after rallies of gargantuan length.  Then, out of the blue, the tide turned again.  Nadal, up 4-2 and 30-15, had an easy backhand passing shot at the service line.  If he makes it, he would certainly go onto win the match.  But he missed, out of absolute disbelief.  Funny I should say that, because that miss gave Djokovic all the belief in the world.  He went onto break and hold to make it 4-4.  Djokovic had come back from the brink of defeat.  The fatigue Novak showed at the start of the 5th set was starting to vanish.  A few games later at 5-5, the "Man of Steel" from Serbia broke and then held to close out the match.  Another incredible 7-5 win for Djokovic in the 5th set, something he is coming to be well-known for. 

5 hours and 53 minutes of the most physical baseline tennis you will ever see, but in the end, Novak Djokovic prevailed to win his 3rd straight Grand Slam final over Rafael Nadal.  The Spaniard becomes the first man to lose three straight Grand Slam finals, and surely now, Djokovic must be locked in Nadal's head.  Rafa came so close to winning the match, but ultimately faltered due to his own failures.  Throughout the entire match, Nadal blindly looped his forehand to the Djokovic backhand, as if not remembering that the Serb's backhand, especially his shoulder-height backhand, is the best shot in the game.  When Nadal had Djokovic on the ropes in the 5th set, when Novak was beat up and tired, Rafa let him back in the match by playing defensive and hoping Djokovic would make the error.  But he didn't, and Rafa fell back into the same pattern of play he had seen for much of the match.  In the end, Rafa went to what was most comfortable for him, the divine space 10 feet behind the baseline where he can miraculously run down would-be winner after would-be winner, and because he chose to do this, he paid the ultimate price in the end:  a third straight Grand Slam final defeat and a stinging sensation of knowing he was so close to winning the match, but ultimately falling short.

Without any doubt in my mind, this match will go down as one of the greatest ever, but not THE greatest ever for numerous reasons.  While it was incredibly impressive that these two gladiators were on court for nearly 6 hours, length alone should not classify this match the best.  If you were to do some calculations, the match would have been just over 4 hours long if both Nadal and Djokovic served at a normal pace.  Instead, they both take far too long to serve and without any doubt, the match was ONLY near six hours in length because the two men take such a long time to get the points underway.  Your opinion of the match merely comes down to the type of tennis you enjoy watching.  Do you love long, physical, corner-to-corner baseline rallies where neither man attacks the net?  This is the match for you.  But if you are like me and enjoy the all-court game that features attacking tennis, beautiful volleys, and great serving, this may not be your cup of tea.  The one thing I can say without any question is that Djokovic and Nadal are two of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen, and their endless bounds of stamina and physical strength is enough to make the viewers fatigued from just staring at their screens.

We as a collective viewing audience will have to wait and see what effect this match will have on the psyche of Rafael Nadal.  There have already been countless comparisons to the Australian Open 2009 final in which a depleted Rafael Nadal overcame the fresh and hungry Roger Federer in 5 sets.  This time, the roles are reversed, and it was a depleted Novak Djokovic who overcame his fiercest rival Rafael Nadal in the longest Grand Slam men's final ever played.  The one thing I can say for absolutely certainty about the future of Nadal is that he will need to take a long look at himself and will need to stray far outside his comfort zone if he ever wishes to beat Novak Djokovic again.  It is clear that his one play that works so well against Roger Federer is the one play that becomes his downfall against Novak Djokovic.  If Nadal can prove he is not one-dimensional, he may be able to knock his biggest rival off the top of the mountain.  But then, and only then, will he able to accomplish such a magnificent feat.  For the time being, Nadal will need to do some serious soul-searching.  If there is one thing I understand as a huge Federer fan, it is pain, and I console all the Nadal fans who are gut-busted after witnessing such a painful defeat.  To all the Djokovic fans, your man is the unquestionable #1 in men's tennis, and enjoy the great victory. 

After witnessing such a fantastic, physical match that pushed Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic to places within themselves they did not know existed, there is little question that the game of tennis won.  It is a shame that there had to be a winner and a loser because both men pushed each other to produce a match that may never be rivaled in terms of its length, physicality, and stamina.  However, there is one clear loser in the big picture, and that is Rafael Nadal.  He had the match won on his racket, and hit a costly mental roadblock for which he could not recover.  Quite simply, Nadal was stubborn and he did the one thing that could not be done against Djokovic - he let him back into the match.  You have to wonder if he will ever be the same.  I know Federer was never the same after his emotional defeat to Nadal three years ago.

Kyle.

PS, on match point Djokovic, this is a loose transcript of what I said.  At this point in the match, I was as intense as I had ever been watching a tennis match and was begging Djokovic to win.

"Alright Nole, come on, one more point and you have this match won.  Go up the middle with the slice serve, Nadal will pop it up, you will hit the winner, and you win.  Do it Novak."

Guess what Djokovic did?  He had my predicted slice serve up the middle, Nadal looped it up short in the middle of the court, and Novak put it away for the match-concluding shot.  Can I predict these things or what?

'12 AO F: Djokovic vs Nadal Preview

Here we are, the 2012 Australian Open Men's Final, between the #1 and #2 players in the world, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.  This will be the pair's third straight meeting in a major final.  Djokovic won all six of their matches last year, all in finals (two in Grand Slam finals), and this match could hold a lot of significance on the future of the game in the next few years.  A 3rd straight loss in a major final to the same man for Nadal could deplete his confidence, and for all we know, affect the way he will play the rest of the year.

Djokovic is looking for his third Australian Open title and Nadal is looking for his second.  This Slam has to be by far Djokovic's favourite tournament, due to his past history and the way the court plays that so favours his game.  Nadal can certainly beat Djokovic, and this will be their first meeting at the Australian Open, but I just cannot see Rafa winning.  Though he may be the fresher of the two, the mental block he suffered against Novak last year could very well be the difference.  Physical fitness should not really be an issue for Novak, I don't think.  At the US Open last year he clearly had the tougher match against Federer, while Nadal pretty much skated by Andy Murray.  In that match, Djokovic came out on fire and suffered no ill effects from the epic match he had against Federer.  Novak believes in himself so much now, and going into a final against Nadal, whom he knows he has beaten six successive times last year, he will be confident.

Alright, time to get down to some of the technical aspects of this compelling match.  So much of the Nadal/Djokovic match up has to do with what Novak can do against Rafa that Roger cannot.  Because Roger has a one-handed backhand, the heavy, spinning forehands of Nadal can neutralize his swift attacking game.  Against Djokovic however, the big looping forehands have no effect, because Djokovic is far more capable of easing them right back cross court to keep neutral in the rallies.  With his strong two-handed backhand, Novak can not only attack Rafa's backhand with a vicious down the line shot, but he can open up the court in ways Roger can only dream of by taking a high, heavy ball, and sending it back to the forehand corner, which constantly keeps Nadal on the run.  Throughout their six matches last year, Novak pushed Nadal behind the baseline with furious forehands and backhands to Nadal's backhand, and then when the time was right, he opened up the court, not giving Rafa any room, and also keeping him on the run.  He never went for a winner too early, and he just wore Rafa out and limited his ability to attack.  If Novak can control the baseline in this upcoming final, and move Nadal side to side the way he has done for the past year, he should win rather comfortably.  Another big advantage Djokovic has over Nadal that Federer does not is the return.  Novak has a powerful two-handed backhand return and he can consistently put Nadal on the defensive right away in a point.  Another big thing is that on the crucial 0-15, 15-30, and 30-40 points on Nadal's serve, which all take place on the ad side, the Spaniard cannot send a slice serve out wide to the backhand with the same efficiency as he does against Roger, because Novak has a much stronger return.  I bring this up because it was a huge part of why Djokovic dominated Nadal last year.  Unlike Roger, Novak could get those needed 0-30 and 15-40 advantages on Nadal's service games, which then allowed him to break a lot.  This was certainly the case in the US Open, where Nadal had no answer for Novak's impeccable returning on the big points.

Everything Roger tried to do in the semifinal against Nadal, Novak will be able to execute much, much better, and I think that will be the big difference in this match.  Because of his strong two-handed backhand, Novak understands that Nadal's one big weapon (heavy cross-court forehand) is not effective against him.  Rafa knows this, and yet he still never changed up his strategy in any of their meetings last year.  If he tries to employ his same predictable game, Novak will jump all over it and claim his 5th Grand Slam title, and 3rd straight.  If Nadal wants any chance of winning this match, he will need to hit his forehand down the line much more frequently and he will need to serve and return brilliantly.  He excelled at the latter two against Federer, but the big question is if Nadal can go out of his comfort zone and attack more.  It is the only way he can prevent Djokovic from pushing him behind the baseline, which will no doubt happen if Novak is able to open up the court with his furious cross-court backhands.

It should be another amazing, physical match, and I hope it can live up to the billing of a Grand Slam final.  As far as I'm concerned, this is a must-win match for Nadal.  Three straight major final losses to the same player will really rattle him and would only deplete his confidence even further in the big matches in the future.  Federer never lost seven straight matches to Nadal, and if Djokovic beats Nadal for that 7th straight time, I believe it would utterly destroy Rafa mentally.  It would force him to seriously question how he is going to recover if he loses.

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In the women's final, Victoria Azarenka put on a beautiful display of tennis to defeat Maria Sharapova 63 60 to win her first Grand Slam title, and capture the #1 ranking from Caroline Wozniacki.  It was an amazing match by Vika and she will definitely be a force in women's tennis as the #1 with her all-court attacking style.  Wozniacki could seriously learn a thing or two about how to win majors.  Unlike Caro, who plays very defensively and waits for an error, Azarenka took the match into her own hands by taking the ball early and flat and pounding it into the corners, making Sharapova run side to side.  It was really a great display of the way tennis should be played - aggressive, attacking, taking the ball early - and I hope that the more defensive women like Wozniacki take serious note and come back with a similar gameplan against the big names in the Grand Slams.  To me, it is clear that defense does not win majors in the women's game.

Hoping for a Djokovic win,

Kyle.

2012 AO SF: Federer Defeats Himself

This is going to be a tough one to swallow. 

In the first semifinal meeting at a major since the French Open in 2005 (on Nadal's 19th birthday), the Spaniard came through once again to defeat Federer 67 62 76 64 in three hours and 42 minutes.  The loss for Federer now brings his Grand Slam head-to-head to 2-8.  The loss will sting for many Federer fans for quite a long time because we all know that Roger could have played much better over the course of the 4 sets. 

Federer started the match off with brilliant tennis and got ahead to a 3-0 lead.  The mighty Nadal broke to get back to 4-1 however, and the set went to a tiebreak, which Federer took after getting back to his emphatic best.  The second set looked like it might to be much of the same when Roger broke in the opening game.  Then, as if a precursor for things to come, Rafa broke back and won 5 of the next 6 games to take the 2nd set 6-2.  In the 3rd, the match was back to even terms and both men played point-for-point tennis until 3-3 in the set.  At that time, Roger broke Nadal, and looked poised to win the crucial 3rd set.  Then, as if destiny forced its hand, Nadal broke right back once again, and then took the set 6-4.  Backbreaking stuff for Roger.  Nevertheless, the fourth set was dead even as well until 4-4, when Rafa broke.  In the final game, he held off a few Federer break points, including one spectacular defensive lob that caught the baseline (however it did I am furious with the Tennis Gods for that one) and forced Federer into error.  A couple of points later Nadal won the match when a Federer forehand sailed long (as they usually do when Fed loses a big Slam match), and the realization came that another Slam went by without Federer having the chance to win it in the final.

As a diehard Federer fan, this loss hurts.  Granted, it is nowhere near as painful as the final loss three years ago to Nadal was, but it still leaves me with questions of "what if?"  In my match preview, I outlined all the reasons why Federer had an amazing chance to beat Nadal this time around.  In the first set, as if he was reading my article himself, Fed did everything he needed to.  He was patient, controlling the rallies with peppering shots to Nadal's backhand.  Even when he hit relatively tame backhands down the line to the Spaniard's weaker side, he couldn't put much on it and it allowed Roger to control the point.  Everything was looking great in the first set, and then right out of the blue, it vanished.  Roger started reverting back to his impatient attacking style of game, and it cost him the match.  For instance, on many approach shots, he went up the line to Nadal's forehand instead of going cross to the backhand.  Why?  For what possible reason could Fed have for doing this?  The Nadal forehand on the run, especially when given time, is the most lethal shot in the game.  It wasn't that Fed was hitting to the Nadal forehand on the approach, but he was doing it in the wrong way.  He was very successful when he was decisive in attacking that side, after wearing Nadal out on the backhand side.  In that way, he could keep the Spaniard guessing.  But what Roger did was attack the forehand during times when Nadal was clearly in the court and the wiser play would have been to go back to the backhand.  This didn't just happen on approach shots either.  For some strange reason, Fed wanted to direct his forehand up the line, which created a plethora of uncharacteristic errors into the net.  The bottom line in this match was that Federer could not play against Nadal in the same way that Nadal plays against Federer.  Roger did not consistently attack the backhand and fell into the same familiar trap of Nadal forehand to Federer backhand rallies.  It is just VERY frustrating because when it was the other way around, the Federer forehand to Nadal backhand, the Swiss Master won many of those points barring Nadal did not come up with something extraordinarily special.

Although this loss stings because I know that Roger had all the tools to beat his nemesis this time around, all we have to do as fans is move on.  I know that Roger already has, and that has been his mindset for quite a while.  He is there as a contender at the end of majors, he just cannot break through.  But his time will come, and I am confident of that, as the man himself is.  Perhaps what hurts the most is to see such a well-played tournament from Federer end in such a disappointing fashion.  We saw genius displays of tennis against Tomic and Del Potro, and even at times against Nadal (the first set mainly).  One thing is for sure, and that is that Roger strays far from his comfort zone when playing Nadal because he must.  He cannot go out there and play the same tennis as he does against anyone else, even a Murray or Djokovic.  Against anybody else, Fed would not make the same kind of mental mistakes that are forced upon him by the relentless defense of the Mallorcan.  He knows Nadal can handle his very best attacking tennis and make him play those few extra shots that will bring about unforced errors.  As I have already stated, it is just extremely frustrating, because THIS TIME, Fed could have done it, and he let the match slip off his strings.  I guess we must accept that Nadal is the kryptonite to Federer's Superman.

In speaking of what Federer could have or should have done differently, let me be clear that I am not taking anything away from Nadal.  The defense he displayed was out of this world, and as I previously mentioned, HE causes Fed to second guess himself with his relentlessness.  However, it was not only his defense that was immaculate.  His forehand was punishing as usual and forced Roger into errors (both physical and mental).  He served at a VERY high percentage, although, in a positive statement about Federer, he did return many of them and gave himself many chances on Nadal's service games.  The big factor for me in the match was Nadal's return.  I spoke about the effect that the out-wide serve on the deuce side could have been the difference, and to Rafa's credit, he returned spectacularly.  He routinely covered that one serve and sent a deep looping ball to Fed's feet, allowing Rafa to dictate the points the way he wanted.  However, as I said before, when Fed got to Rafa's backhand side, he could not do anything to defend against it, which is why I stand by the belief that Roger made things easier on Nadal by setting up the looping forehand in the strike zone too frequently.  In the end, no matter how much analyzing is done, Nadal is the ultimate opponent for Roger because of the way he plays.  We just have to accept that Fed is affected by Nadal in the same way that Roddick was affected by Federer.  In both instances, Federer and Roddick know they must play their very best over the course of 5 sets to gain the upper hand, and even then, sometimes it is not enough.

Roger will go back to the drawing board after this match with Paul and discover what he could have done differently.  I'm sure many of us Federer fans will never want to watch the match again, but for Roger, he will have to if he ever wants to beat Nadal outdoors again.  The advantage Roger has this time is that he did have the right strategy versus his biggest rival.  Now, he just needs to understand how to maintain it over more than a set at a time.  If he can do that, he will beat Nadal once again.

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In the second semifinal, Djokovic defeated Andy Murray in a thrilling 5 set match 63 36 67 61 75.  I did not see the match live but did record it and, if you'd believe it, my recording ended at 3-2 in the 5th!  So I only found at the score at the end, but was not surprised to find Djokovic had won.  The mental strength of Djokovic right now is something we have never seen before, not even from the likes of Federer or Nadal.  At times throughout the match, Novak looked physically exhausted, and it certainly looked like Murray had a great shot when he won the 3rd set.  But Novak turned it up another gear and won, clawing and scratching his way back in it.  There is something about the Serb winning decisive 5th sets in Grand Slam semifinals 7-5.  He did so against Federer in 2010 and 2011 at the US Open, and did so once again against Murray.  It speaks to his mental and physical fortitude that he can outlast his big rivals in tight 5th sets when the match comes down to a few shots here and there.

Novak now plays Nadal in a 3rd straight major final.  Even with the questions dealing with Djokovic's health, I still must take him because he holds a mental vicegrip on Nadal, much like Nadal holds over Federer.  Nadal may be the fresher man, but in the end that may not matter if Djokovic can direct his strong backhand at Nadal's forehand in more consistent ways than Federer could ever dream of.  My full preview of the men's final shall come shortly.

This Federer loss will be a tough one to absorb for a long time, Fed fans, but remember that there will be better days ahead.  Three years ago, things looked much gloomier for our favourite player, and look how he responded that year, under the biggest pressure in his life.  Roger is very capable of winning a Slam this year, and I believe he will.  You should as well.  As the old saying goes, "if you count Federer out, you are a damned fool." (I just came up with that right now, but the sentiment is real.  Never count out a great champion like Roger, especially after a tough loss like this.  Remember 2009.  Remember.)

With the deepest of thoughts,

Kyle.