World Tour Finals (WTF!) 2015 - Day 4 (was Day2 and Day3!)

The ATP website seems to have evolved and become AI-enabled and may not show the correct day when you click on the link, so here are a variety of links

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Day 4 link - Day 4 link (may work)
Live Scores on the ATP Web Site - ATP Live Scores
Barclays Live Scores - Barclays Live Scores


MotD - Murray v Nadal.

Lets hope Stan has come in a good mood.

Court is playing like clay anyway, and he has time to crush the ball

Andy normally has the measure of Ferrer as long as the surface is not clay. The night match is intriguing but I'm taking Stan to sneak home. (Posted this on new thread which I was composing when one went up anyway! Will take mine down)

I'm going today, got tickets for both sessions. Really looking forward to Rafa v Stan.

Think Ferrer will keep it respectable against Murray, due to Murray training on the clay.

Guest82 wrote:I'm going today, got tickets for both sessions. Really looking forward to Rafa v Stan.  

Think Ferrer will keep it respectable against Murray, due to Murray training on the clay.

If you've not been before you will notice that the court seems much faster when you're actually there than it does on TV. I sometimes wish we could have a different angle for tennis than the TV one. You would then see the power, the pace and the precision of players (and anything else beginning with P!)

Placement? LOL!

On one hand, We have Greg Rusedski on comms... On the other, we have Andrew Castle

4&4. Good win. Not too much energy spent.

Looking forward to Stan- Rafa.

Andy looked in reasonably good nick although helped by poor serving from Ferrer.

He was playing some nice stuff. Putting away ferrer with more ease nowadays. Good for the dc

Ugh, WTF website this year. Ugh. Another make it better for a smart phone user, make it sh1t for everyone else hatchet job.

OK, here's one for Rafa fans. A close up action video (one point) that I can guarantee you won't have seen before.

https://vimeo.com/145892603

A prize for anyone who can guess which match this was taken from. A clue is in why I posted it today.

When I say prize I mean a nice emoticon will be sent your way.

Could that Rafa clip be on the anniversary of an O2 win over Rog by any chance ?!

No, that's not it...

Henman Bill wrote:OK, here's one for Rafa fans. A close up action video (one point) that I can guarantee you won't have seen before.

https://vimeo.com/145892603

A prize for anyone who can guess which match this was taken from. A clue is in why I posted it today.

It's the 2013 tour finals.

I'd guess the Wawrinka match.

^The point at 2:18 in this video.

Correct, it was from Rafa's tight 7-6 7-6 victory over Stan in November 2013 at the world tour finals.

Take the Henman Bill award for genius of the day.

Interesting start to Rafarinka. Stan relying heavily on his serve. Doesn't really look to have much response to Rafa's top-spin kicker to his backhand once a rally develops. If Rafa plays well, he wins. Question is will nerves hit him again.

Easy set for Rafa. Stan firing some wild errors.

What happened in those last two points? Wawrinka just walked. He's a bit of a div really.

Throwing the towel in.

Great start to this set though. 9 winners in the first game from Stan to fend off 6 break points. Nadal has played some exceptional points to hold from 15-40 in game 2 as well.

Stan imploded now though. 3 more bps for Rafa...

Saves the first with another screaming backhand winner but a DF on the second and Rafa takes break point 9 of this set for a 2-1 lead.

Second match I have seen of this event. I don't think the court is any slower than previous years. Still the slow side of medium.

Stan's dtl shots are generally going wide of the tram-lines. He's played great tennis when break point down but has been dire most of the rest of the time.

DONT GIVE UP STAN YOU MONG SALAD

The new Swiss Shanker?

This has been awful from Stan. Hopefully, he goes 0-3 in this event because his lack of fight in this match deserves nothing better.

Suddenly a point with full effort.

Lackluster effort from Wawrinka.

Hmm, might we actually get competitive group games over the next two days. Fed v Novak tomorrow and Andy v Rafa on Wednesday.

Big 4 dominance in full effect so far.

Bit of a tank from Stan. He was playing very quickly in the second set, swinging big at everything. Disappointing.

Murray looked ok. Played well when he needed to. Murrays dropshot live, is something special. Much different (better) than anyone else's.

Murray, Djokovic, Federer all playing excellent drop shots in the last two days. Koenig reported the court being slow (close to Paris, but slower) but expected to get a bit faster by the finals.

Can't wait for Novak v. the Rog. I think Novak takes it in two close sets that are decided by one break or a tiebreak. Roger is already complaining about the surface. As predictably are his fans. Maybe I have more faith in Roger than many of his fans. I will say this Novak on current form should eventually wear Roger down on a surface and conditions that really suit him. I mean he has won this tournament a number of times now on this surface. But we are saying that about a lot of tournaments nowadays.

socal1976 wrote:Can't wait for Novak v. the Rog. I think Novak takes it in two close sets that are decided by one break or a tiebreak. Roger is already complaining about the surface. As predictably are his fans. Maybe I have more faith in Roger than many of his fans. I will say this Novak on current form should eventually wear Roger down on a surface and conditions that really suit him. I mean he has won this tournament a number of times now on this surface. But we are saying that about a lot of tournaments nowadays.

Where is roger complaining? Please provide the quote and link.  Because in his presser he sure doesn't complain, and the presser is the only statements I can find.   "Court really suits me personally". "Suits Novak very well, me too".   He says it's slow which everyone is saying, but he likes it. Wow fed is just complaining up a storm.  U fed haters crack me up.

Though I do agree with you on how it will play out....

R. FEDERER/T. Berdych

6-4, 6-2

An interview with:

ROGER FEDERER

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Was the court slippery?
ROGER FEDERER: No. Felt fine, normal.

Q. The two savers (edit: SABRs) late in the second set, the first one you were only 70 centimeters behind the service line, the second 1.2 meters behind the service line. Is it easier to do the more you half volley it?
ROGER FEDERER: I think I'm in the process to find that out exactly. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's not. The thing is what I don't know is how long they're going to serve. You have tendency to know which players serve it deeper into the box and which ones serve it shorter.

But, of course, sometimes you anyway have to adapt, right? So I prefer to be closer than too far, I guess, at the end.

Q. He got off to a good start, but you turned it round incredibly quickly. What allows you to turn a match around against a top-10 player like that?
ROGER FEDERER: Clearly was not the best start. Was a bad start. Was one of the worst starts I've had in years. No first serves, two double-faults, nothing coming from the baseline. So it was rough.

But thankfully I was able to pick it up. I mean, the surface does play slow here. If you get to see too many second serves, clearly you can crawl back into the match. You can get your chances from the baseline to find rhythm quickly.

It's hard to blast through an opponent here in London, which I think helps for me now against Berdych in this case because I can make the match athletic.

Yeah, as the match went on, I definitely started to play better, started to serve better. I think what I underestimated a little bit in some ways was that it was a first round. I think I was playing very well in practice. I had a very good idea with Severin and Stefan how I should play the match.

When I came in, I kind of forgot it was a first round. I do have to be a little bit careful as well at times. I was a bit sluggish coming in. I don't want to say too overconfident, but I thought it was going to be easier than that.

It was a good lesson for me to learn. But now I'm in the second round, so that's a good thing.

Q. Second round Djokovic, that's an easy one?
ROGER FEDERER: It's easy in the sense that I now know how the match feels. It is very different in terms of nerves than in practice. In practice you don't care if you hit a forehand inside-out that just misses the line. In the match, all of a sudden being down Love-30 at the very beginning is unsettling.

It was not the best start. I have to clean that up clearly for the next match.

Q. You had a week and a half to prepare for this tournament. Year after year, have there been any changes in the way you prepare for such a summit like this with the top players in the world?
ROGER FEDERER: Well, clearly the changes depend on how much you played through Basel and Paris. The last 10 years Basel has always been a final appearance, then Paris on the back end of it where I'm trying to do my best.

There were a couple of years, as well, where it was back-to-back, Paris and London. In terms of preparation, there was nothing, or very little.

Now that we have a week again, it's a lot for us tennis players. I think I was one of the first with Kei here to arrive in London. I gave myself extra time off after losing in the second round in Paris.

That was really nice to spend some quality time with my kids, my wife, walking around, just relaxing before I went to Helsinki, which was different than previous years, which I haven't done.

Then I started to practice every day from Tuesday on here in London. First at Queen's, at the Queen's Club, now here since a few days.

Q. You had a very good second half of the season, playing two Grand Slam finals. Some players at this point of the season are showing some fatigue. How do you feel physically?
ROGER FEDERER: I feel really good, you know. Carrying a slight arm problem through Basel and Paris, but nothing that was hindering me to play well. So that's gone. I hope it's not going to come back. If it does, I'll be fine. It's just part of the game to play hurt sometimes. But I'm not worried that it's going to come back. So a fast match like this always helps.

Then, you know, I went on a vacation for 10 days after the US Open and the Davis Cup tie there, which I think was great for my body to heal problems, for my mind to get away from it all. Really at the end of the season, really well.

Then losing in Shanghai actually gave me more time to practice. I used that well, I thought. Then because of the three days off I had after Paris, I think I'm really fresh.

Even though I'm looking forward to my vacation, I can tell you that, I feel very happy to be here and very happy about my state of mind and body as well.

Q. You said against Berdych that the slow conditions probably helped you. How do you see that playing out against the other two guys in your pool?
ROGER FEDERER: Hmm? Well, I think it's a really good court for me personally. I think it's a really good court for Novak, too. Kei, I've played him here in the past. I play very well against him.

So it's just gotten to be a surface, maybe it's the end of the season, maybe it's the surface, we saw the faster results here last year. Seems like whoever takes charge of the baseline, and if you cannot serve your way out of trouble often enough, which is hard to do here because of the pace of the court, the guy from the baseline wins, the better one.

That's why we see some crushing scores, like Novak against Kei today. Last year, as well, Stan against Berdych. Maybe, Cilic. There was a match with Novak, maybe, so forth.

I think it suits Novak very well. For me, too. And Kei, I guess. Tomas somewhat has to prove himself on this surface.

Q. Novak has been very dominant this year, especially the last couple of months. Do you feel like the gap is as big as it appears to be?
ROGER FEDERER: That depends on who looks at the gap.

Q. How do you see it?
ROGER FEDERER: I don't think I'm that far off. Then again, let's speak in two days. Two days is not the match that I care the most about, to be quite honest. It's an important match, very important. But it's not the match.

It's going to be interesting to see how I play that one. I'm curious to find out myself.

Q. You almost always play Novak in finals or at the least semifinals. Can you talk about the different dynamic of playing him early in the tournament.
ROGER FEDERER: I played him here first round two years ago maybe. Three sets. I think that's the year I played back-to-back London and Paris. We were both struggling with rhythm, I remember. I took an approach of, yeah, it was different. I played it more like keeping the ball in the court, not going for too much. We had longer rallies. It was an intense match. But we were both playing quite bad, I thought.

We've had that in the past, and it was quite unusual then to play each other so early in a tournament. This doesn't feel now so crazy early because we've had the week of preparation, we've both had a match now. I think we both feel like we're in the tournament.

But nevertheless, it is only sort of a second round. Maybe still some open questions in both our games, or in mine, getting rid of what happened in the beginning of the match. It's going to be important not to have that against Novak clearly in a couple of days.

http://www.asapsports.com/show_interview.php?id=114986

Big 4 cruising once again?  They won all their matches without dropping a set between them, and none of the sets even went beyond 6:4.  Pretty pathetic showing from the second tier.

Murray vs Nadal is interesting.  That one match can tell us a lot about Rafa's current form.  If Rafa wins, or keeps it very close, that is a sign he is close to where he needs to be.  If Andy wins easily, that suggests Rafa still may have a long way to go.

Are you sure that will tell you anything?

Rafa only wins these days if his opponent "chokes"  "tanks" or is "not playing well"  And lest we forget of course, the court is playing like mud which is bound to favour Rafa  

socal1976 wrote:Can't wait for Novak v. the Rog. I think Novak takes it in two close sets that are decided by one break or a tiebreak. Roger is already complaining about the surface. As predictably are his fans. Maybe I have more faith in Roger than many of his fans. I will say this Novak on current form should eventually wear Roger down on a surface and conditions that really suit him. I mean he has won this tournament a number of times now on this surface. But we are saying that about a lot of tournaments nowadays.

Well I moaned about it because I thought it destroyed Berdych. It made it basically pointless Tomas turning up.

How weird that socal should say "Roger is already complaining about the surface" when he patently appears to be doing the very opposite.

The comments in the presser as quoted above verbatim by Truffin could hardly be clearer.

Hope you're not thinking of taking up sports journalism socal !

Although ........ maybe a career with one of the tabloid rags could work out ......

I thought the analysis done before the Wawrinka/Nadal match was fascinating in terms of how the power in his FH has increased since Norman and also how the spin on his BH has increased and how he plays with less slice on the BH. Just amazing how those changes have bought Stan on leaps and bounds.

The match, well Nadal much to his credit played a solid match. Still he isn't on song, but given the margins in Paris it must be of confidence for Nadal to come through in 2. The match did lack power in the shots, though it's early doors.

There's a sense of underwhelming given I expected more from the rest of the field. I am wondering if the format needs reviewing

legendkillarV2 wrote:

..........................................

There's a sense of underwhelming given I expected more from the rest of the field. I am wondering if the format needs reviewing

Not sure there's a problem with the format.

Maybe it's the performance of some players that needs reviewing .........!!?

Weaknesses are actually exposed more than in the Slams because you're never up against anyone ranked below eight.

socal1976 wrote:Can't wait for Novak v. the Rog. I think Novak takes it in two close sets that are decided by one break or a tiebreak. Roger is already complaining about the surface. As predictably are his fans. Maybe I have more faith in Roger than many of his fans. I will say this Novak on current form should eventually wear Roger down on a surface and conditions that really suit him. I mean he has won this tournament a number of times now on this surface. But we are saying that about a lot of tournaments nowadays.

Koenig is a far better analyst of the game. . He has already stated that the surface was changed and made slower than previous years at the behest of the TD.

Just changed the title of this discussion, rather than start a new one with the same links.

lags72 wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:

..........................................

There's a sense of underwhelming given I expected more from the rest of the field. I am wondering if the format needs reviewing

Not sure there's a problem with the format.

Maybe it's the performance of some players that needs reviewing .........!!?

Weaknesses are actually exposed more than in the Slams because you're never up against anyone ranked below eight.

Maybe introduce a wildcard into the mix?

legendkillarV2 wrote:

..........................................



Maybe introduce a wildcard into the mix?

Fair enough. Okay then.

But I'll need time to get myself into shape first ........

Problem with the format is that players can put in an inept performance like Wawrinka did last night and still have a reasonable chance of getting to at least the semi finals.

Don't think anyone really expected Berdych and Nishikori to run Federer or Djokovic close. Murray did what he had to to beat Ferrer, whose service game was completely off.

However there was an expectation that the Nadal/Wawrinka match would be close. Nadal played well and I reckon is in a good place now for competing at the big events next year. Wawrinka though seemed to give up when the going got tough. Maybe he was backing himself to beat Ferrer and Murray in his subsequent matches and qualify that way. He certainly didn't waste much energy last night. Any other tournament he would be on his way home by now.

lags72 wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:

..........................................



Maybe introduce a wildcard into the mix?

Fair enough. Okay then.

But I'll need time to get myself into shape first ........

I like a man who doesn't shy from a challenge

I just think injecting the tournament with 1/2 hungrier players might bring out the best in the rest of the field. The debacle last year with Raonic for me proves it needs players who might take it a bit more seriously.