Federer beat Nadal at IW Semi-final

I knew it, I KNEW IT: The greatest of all time crushed the greatest #2 of all time at IW

Against all odds, I even had this victory post written BEFORE the match in advance because I had a nagging feeling Roger’s going to pull this one off. I repeatedly told someone that and commented about it here earlier today. Sorry, I gotta brag. This win is too significant.

I saw it coming since Rotterdam: What h-2-h? What bad match-up? What mental issue? What clay-like surface? What unsuitable bounce of the ball? What rain or damn condition slowing the surface? Fat chances! Roger played like a fish in the water as though he was in the London WTF indoor HC. When the GOAT’s game is on, he can beat anyone on any surface, regardless, no excuses.

This must be one of the few times Fed fans who warned me about being optimistic are actually happy to be proven wrong. WOW, the oldest of the top 4 is the one going to the final. Do I even care if he wins tomorrow? After today’s victory vs Nadal, I’m just too giddy to even think about it!

The question for me is never how will Roger beat rafa today, because he is the GOAT, I always believe he has what it takes to change history based on his current form. Change is what he did today. The real question is what happened to Nadal? Where was he?

U WROTE THAT FAST WAHOOOOO WINNER!
VICTORY PUNCH IN THE AIR!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqda2eeg_ck
0.26! imm soooo haapppyyy

Well this helps Djoko in the rankings, Novak fails to defend his title, and Rafa fails to defend his finals berth. Roger played great deserved the win.

Go John Isner!!!!

socal did ya watch da video?? isnt it awesome, and such a good vicotry salute from da best show

great win, great match, absolute masterclass from Fed.

why would you even say that????
That really pisses me off i know its a joke but why even use thattttt

Roger is great, wish I could say as much about many of his sore winner fans. I hope he never wins a match again. At this point, his fans have turned me into a one man anyone but Roger club.

Go Isner, Go Isner, anyone but Roger.

yeee damn right you take that sentence offf nottt happy!!

I have removed the post you're referring to LuvSports.

Socal you have a PM. I strongly suggest you read it.

thanks julius im sorry but that comment got me so incensed its untrue just killed my mood right there. That was an in-despicable comment and hurts alot.
SO OUT OF ORDER

Julius I think this uncivilised attack on all Fed fans by Socal is getting out of hand.

A nice firm warning wouldnt go amiss.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:Julius I think this uncivilised attack on all Fed fans by Socal is getting out of hand.

A nice firm warning wouldnt go amiss.

you didnt see that disgusting comment he used JM!

lost all respect for this guy now.

I need to spend a word in Soc's defense. The guy was already savouring a Nole - Nadal final and now he suddenly finds that not only Nole isn't in there but neither Nadal!!!!!!!!

Congrats to Roger, played Great. Both of the winners are very deserving talents. See that wasn't hard was it fed extremists. And JM, don't have a problem with all fed fans, just the sore winner excuse makers. Last night you were claiming that the game was tainted when Nadal won, now you are tooting a different tune.

Just repeat, why didn't Roger get tired after one set against the talented moonballer on blue clay today?

Last night you were claiming that the game was tainted

It is cause he keeps getting away with time voilations and on court coaching or are you saying he doesn't do that?

Tennis is tainted when that happens kid.

So Jm tell me according to your idol Roger gets worn out by the moonballer after a set of tennis, why didn't he get tired today after one set of play? Or is that line of excuse making complete cow crap like we all know it is.

He gets tired when the rallies are endless obviously but today the wind helped cause Nadal especially couldnt time his shots right. I confess that on a normal weathered day Nadal wouldve kept the rallies long and Fed wouldve gotten tired and thrown in too many errors.

There you are!

Oh so you are sticking to theory that Roger the world class athlete gets tired after an hour of tennis. Fair enough, I think that is complete bunk, but if you wish to ally yourself with excuse making that would be the perfect line of reasoning.

JM stop making nonsense excuses for nadal.
The wind didnt beat him, Federer did.
I've put an article with my view

Yeah, we all know that Roger beat him. But can someone please elaborate a little why Nadal looked rather out-of-sorts the whole match? He wasn't the same "endurance warrior" of old. Or did Roger simply disrupt his momentum to grind? He seemed to have caved in too quickly under Roger's relentless attack. His apparent lack of form was already evident in his QF where Nalby took a set off him. It can't be rustiness bc he's playing doubles & getting a lot of practice there. So, what's happened to Nadal, anyone please?

CommonSense wrote:Yeah, we all know that Roger beat him. But can someone please elaborate a little why Nadal looked rather out-of-sorts the whole match? He wasn't the same "endurance warrior" of old. Or did Roger simply disrupt his momentum to grind? He seemed to have caved in too quickly under Roger's relentless attack. His apparent lack of form was already evident in his QF where Nalby took a set off him. It can't be rustiness bc he's playing doubles & getting a lot of practice there. So, what's happened to Nadal, anyone please?

I actually thought Nadal played very well v Nalby the night before but Nalby simply has teh game to trouble him...though not the mind. As explained on teh other thread, I think Nadal was simply tired from his yesterday match. To play well under the wind one needs to take the ball late but that requires to cover more ground. I think Nadal being tired tried to hold his ground and take the ball early which in turn forced him onto UEs.

Why Roger didn't have more UEs under such conds? that I cannot understand. As he puts it "he had a good day".

Tenez
Ruthlessly backtracking to try and fit yesterday's match into your debunked theory.
There were long rallies, the average game was around 5 min which is normal for a Fedal match.

Great win for Roger, and I watched it live. Feds level of play for much of the match was as good as it gets really, Nadal played ok for some spells but seemed unusually affected and bothered by the wind. When he pulled back to 3-3 in first set I thought it would be a tough match but then his level fell off. I had an almost certain feeling Roger was going to win though before the match, could just tell. Also, the court didnt play that slow in my opinion despite all the moaning on here about it. But all that aside a great win for Rog and his good form continues! I think he would have also put Nole to the sword and he's playing like the #1 in reality at this moment in time, however whether he can sustain this form at a slam is another matter. He seems, like Agassi, to be able to sustain his top form into his 30s and some of his shots seem better than ever inc. serve ....good for him, good for tennis.

Tenez wrote:

CommonSense wrote:Yeah, we all know that Roger beat him. But can someone please elaborate a little why Nadal looked rather out-of-sorts the whole match? He wasn't the same "endurance warrior" of old. Or did Roger simply disrupt his momentum to grind? He seemed to have caved in too quickly under Roger's relentless attack. His apparent lack of form was already evident in his QF where Nalby took a set off him. It can't be rustiness bc he's playing doubles & getting a lot of practice there. So, what's happened to Nadal, anyone please?

I actually thought Nadal played very well v Nalby the night before but Nalby simply has teh game to trouble him...though not the mind. As explained on teh other thread, I think Nadal was simply tired from his yesterday match. To play well under the wind one needs to take the ball late but that requires to cover more ground. I think Nadal being tired tried to hold his ground and take the ball early which in turn forced him onto UEs.

Why Roger didn't have more UEs under such conds? that I cannot understand. As he puts it "he had a good day".

OK, I guess I was not impressed with rafa's QF play bc the no. of his UFEs was uncharacteristic for a player famous for his lack of errors. He just never looked very happy. That sense of negativity carried over to the semi. You may be right about his being tired, but it can't be from the singles matches, as he didn't really have much work to do before QF. I don't think playing only ONE somewhat challenging match in the QF justifies a world #2 feeling tired alreay in the semi? (you're not being sarcastic, are you?) Perhaps the doubles matches are to be blamed? But overall, I suspect there's more to what we see on the court.

By contrast, Roger's lesser UEs seem easier to understand. If one's been following him in action since Rotterdam, one can just feel the sense of determination and motivation as hard as steel. You just know the renewed man ain't going to blow this one. What I don't know is, he's always had the game to beat rafa, what took him so long to get it done finally? Where was the confidence before?

lydian wrote:Great win for Roger, and I watched it live. Feds level of play for much of the match was as good as it gets really, Nadal played ok for some spells but seemed unusually affected and bothered by the wind. When he pulled back to 3-3 in first set I thought it would be a tough match but then his level fell off. I had an almost certain feeling Roger was going to win though before the match, could just tell. Also, the court didnt play that slow in my opinion despite all the moaning on here about it. But all that aside a great win for Rog and his good form continues! I think he would have also put Nole to the sword and he's playing like the #1 in reality at this moment in time, however whether he can sustain this form at a slam is another matter. He seems, like Agassi, to be able to sustain his top form into his 30s and some of his shots seem better than ever inc. serve ....good for him, good for tennis.

Nadal...seemed unusually affected and bothered by the wind and __________________________________.
Fill in the blank. I think there're other factors we don't know.

Could he have been thinking and affected by memory of his devastating wtf loss in London last Nov? that's how good roger was playing yesterday. And. of course, roger's harder to beat in a 3-setter in his recent GOAT mode. Rafa knows that. If it had been a 5-setter yesterday as in their last AO meeting, perhaps rafa would have been more confident bc he knows Roger's less likely to sustain his good form?? I just find it hard to understand rafa's unexpected drop of form.

CommonSense wrote:

OK, I guess I was not impressed with rafa's QF play bc the no. of his UFEs was uncharacteristic for a player famous for his lack of errors. He just never looked very happy. That sense of negativity carried over to the semi. You may be right about his being tired, but it can't be from the singles matches, as he didn't really have much work to do before QF. I don't think playing only ONE somewhat challenging match in the QF justifies a world #2 feeling tired alreay in the semi? (you're not being sarcastic, are you?) Perhaps the doubles matches are to be blamed? But overall, I suspect there's more to what we see on the court.

By contrast, Roger's lesser UEs seem easier to understand. If one's been following him in action since Rotterdam, one can just feel the sense of determination and motivation as hard as steel. You just know the renewed man ain't going to blow this one. What I don't know is, he's always had the game to beat rafa, what took him so long to get it done finally? Where was the confidence before?

Nalby plays a heavy, pacy , deep angled ball. They are the toughest balls to time for a topspiner. He is a great talent and Nadal was moved around. It's not first time it happens with in form Nadal or not.

Yes commonsense, Nadal's form dip is on the face of it puzzling but he's had a long lay off and I do believe his timing isn't yet fully grooved. Fed played really well, but then so did Nadal to peg back to 3-3...but after that the wind seemed to get to him and Fed maintained his form. I'm not sure there is much to read into the match given the conditions...I think Nadal had the capability from what I saw early on to come back but he got out of sorts, this wasn't WTF last year. I was encouraged to see Nadal near the baseline early on and he refers to being happy with that himself too,...I think he's still a work in progress too as he moves to a more aggressive style over the coming months. All the parts weren't flowing yesterday together but that's not to say Federer wasn't on sublime form. I still think the gap yesterday was actually smaller than the scoreline suggests though, a few % points of form in opposite directions could have changed the result the other way round IMO.

lydian,

I’m glad we both agree re Rafa’s drop of form. You’ve also described this unexpected change in another thread like this “I do agree he seemed a bit flat and suspect he didn’t feel comfortable before even being on court as he didn’t have the usual positivity about him”.

You took the words out of my mouth and I’d been puzzled and wondering why he looked so negative. I think I just answered my own question. I missed the beginning of the match and just learned something interesting from a poster who wrote the following in another forum:

“Everyone knows how Rafa always insists on taking the court second. He never gets up off his chair until the opponent is already on court. In Rafa's career I can't remember Rafa ever taking the court first.”

“Rafa did his usual and made Roger wait before warm-ups. Roger did, however, sit there until Rafa took the court after they were warmed up and getting ready to take the court to play. I think Rafa usually makes his opponents wait both before warm-ups and before they take the court to play.”

From the above description, I think rafa was rattled because part of his “ritual” was disturbed. Yesterday, he was the one waiting for his opponent to start for the first time in his tennis career! I think this must have psychologically thrown him off balance. We all know how important these ritualistic habits are for rafa. To have his routine partially messed up, like you said, before the start of the game, MUST HAVE played a psychological trick affecting his concentration. That seems to me a very good explanation why he looked so out-of-sorts and thereafter in the entire match, he just couldn’t think and play properly anymore. A mental issue, clearly.

I don’t think he played that well. Roger was the one in command. Rafa struggled and being pushed around the court. It wasn’t his day. It shows the mental game plays an extremely important part in sports. There was never a doubt in my mind who the victor was yesterday.

I have to agree with lydian. This whole tournament i think Nadal was trying to play differently. He really has hugged the baseline for most of this IW tournament. And he did it so consistently that it has to be something they are working on. Agree with commonsense as well in that something looked off in Rafa's game. I think Rafa is a guy that typically gets grooved and into a rhthymn but somehow his timing looked off. I think the stops in the action and the cold windy conditions did unsettle him more than fed. Which is odd because usually that sort of stuff just doesn't register for Nadal.

I actually think Lydian hits the nail on the head, and I myself was very surprised this whole tournament at Nadal's court positioning. I think this is part of his master strategy to get the better of Novak and evolve his game into a more aggressive approach. We saw Wilander do a similar thing right before he went on his 3 slam run in 88. He started to stand up more in the court and get to net and it really did wonders for him.

A very rare admission by Federer...

"I have had doubts in the past against Rafa," Federer admitted. "It's just normal, I guess. If you get destroyed like in the finals of Paris [in 2008], next time you play him around, which for me unfortunately was the Wimbledon finals, that epic one we had, of course you'll be affected a little bit, even though now you are on your favorite surface potentially. But it did take maybe potentially take me a set or two to shake that off, and then it cost me the match in the end. So sometimes I've gone into matches with Rafa where I knew it was gonna probably difficult because either maybe he's coming in on an incredible hot streak or I'm coming in from an end where I know I probably shouldn't be winning this match tonight just because I'm not feeling right, my game is not up to par. I've maybe come through some other matches against other players, but against Rafa it's a different story."

http://www.tennis.com/articles/templates/news.aspx?articleid=16877&zoneid=25

lydian wrote:I still think the gap yesterday was actually smaller than the scoreline suggests though, a few % points of form in opposite directions could have changed the result the other way round IMO.

One thing I noticed was the BP conversion rate. Federer 4/6, Nadal 2/4. Usually, Federer creates more BP chances (in double digits) but Nadal fights back very well.

socal1976 wrote:I have to agree with lydian. This whole tournament i think Nadal was trying to play differently. He really has hugged the baseline for most of this IW tournament. And he did it so consistently that it has to be something they are working on. Agree with commonsense as well in that something looked off in Rafa's game. I think Rafa is a guy that typically gets grooved and into a rhthymn but somehow his timing looked off. I think the stops in the action and the cold windy conditions did unsettle him more than fed. Which is odd because usually that sort of stuff just doesn't register for Nadal.

I actually think Lydian hits the nail on the head, and I myself was very surprised this whole tournament at Nadal's court positioning. I think this is part of his master strategy to get the better of Novak and evolve his game into a more aggressive approach. We saw Wilander do a similar thing right before he went on his 3 slam run in 88. He started to stand up more in the court and get to net and it really did wonders for him.

Sounds like you feel a bit better, got it all out of your system? Just to show you we Fed fans are all very decent and thoughtful people, I have something for your https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_lp1vEs5A4

Theme song from Beauty & the Beast, like Fed and Nadal on the tennis court. We should cherish their rivalry for as long as it lasts.

Oh, about Nadal's court positioning, I dunno. He was falling and mishitting left and right. Looked wobbly to me. That's just me.