World Tour Finals (WTF!) 2015 - Day 6 (was Day 5!)

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MoTD : Murray v Wawrinka.

Well I mean he's the underdoge anyway. A sf place with an unbeaten rr is a great return which puts him in a good place and easily number 5 year end. A better rank than other guys tough years

True, good honest effort - Nadal could have thrown this as it's totally meaningless to him, except for the win.

I do t think rafa can beat novak regardless. Ince it's a match that counts. And it's novak. That's a bad combo and it's not there yet for him

What a display of professional tennis.. they both won that match.
Daveeeed you are a true gladiator

My rose to ferrer always. Had no reason to give that much but did anyway. One of the most competitive matxhes coming from a dead rubber again

Interesting match coming up tonight. A good player will come through whoever wins; probably that will be Murray, though he's really got to watch out if he plays a long match tonight then has to face Federer to meet Djokovic on Sunday - that's not a simple task given the Davis Cup approaching.

There is nothing quite like winning to breed confidence.

Andy has to give his all - for however long he remains in this event ; and then get the right mix of recovery & practice ahead of the DC.

(I won't charge him for this top-class advice ......)

Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer all in the SF, with Murray in the QF - it's like groundhog day.

Nadal has got nothing to lose - he is expected to lose to Djoko and his performance at this tournament has got to give him confidence anyway.  If he ends by beating Djoko in the SF, and then Federer in the final he'll be absolutely flying into 2016 - and Fed would have a pretty sore end of the year.

I thought that I'd given up caring after Fed got #17, but I don't mind admitting as a Federer fan that Nadal's resurgence here at the WTF of all places is giving me a dose of something like the the pre-2012 jitters.

Not totally sure about Nadal having 'nothing to lose' ....

Yes, it's already been a great week (as he has just said himself) within the context of the season overall.

BUT .....having done so well to get through his group unbeaten, the Champion mentality will now bring a real determination to go on to take home the trophy.

Plus, he will be reminding himself that there may not be too many opportunities left to capture the one big title that has been eluding him.

I think that Djokovic is suffering some sort of shoulder issue, he seems to have lost ten miles or more on his first serve and having great trouble holding. Something that happened early on in the Roger match. I was wondering why he seemed to have so much problem hitting out on a lot of shots. To me he looked very scruffy in his win against Berdych, who if he played well should have won that match. For now Federer has to be the favorite with his form and the fact that Novak now hasn't looked right in the last two matches and doesn't seem to be able to generate much off the first serve. It would not be unusual that after 80 or so matches he has a bit of the dead arm or shoulder.

I'm guessing Nadal has gone 3-0 at the WTF before...? But not sure when or how often?

socal - there have been any number of matches where Novak has 'not looked right' this season (not least in early round Slams) and he has invariably gone on to win the title.

It is actually possible to play below par without necessarily being injured in any way.

Really not sure what you're saying here re shoulder etc. Don't see any evidence at all myself, and no reference by pundits/commentators (?) AFAIK. Let's see what happens.  

Meanwhile, how can he NOT be the favourite .....?????

Seems this year's tourny so far has been a bit damp squiby for me.

Group winners decided half way through the group, dead rubbers, straight set matches, no surprises, no youngsters bursting through.

We haven't even had any really serious "get the calculator/rule book out" moments - just so and so needs to win a set. What about the complex game percentages?

Meh. Big semis and final needed to save the tournament.

London looking a bit tired as a venue. Wow factor long gone?

HB - totally disagree re 'tired venue' and lost 'Wow factor'

Has Wimbledon or USO suddenly become a tired venue ......??

Let's see how the attendance numbers stack up by comparison when they do eventually move it in 2018 (if indeed they do)

So Djoko is injured now?

Nice reason for when Nadal trashes him

Not an 02 fan but I don't think that's a problem. Maybe it's schedule or the dominance of 3 or 4 but at least half the field just make up the numbers. Maybe a top 6? With players having each other twice in s group of 3?

2010 I assume HB.

Notice how tetchy Henman was getting with the oh-so-pleased-with-himself Andrew Castle ? Tim practically insisted Castle apologise for the silly suggestion that they should have a short deuce (as in the doubles) if it's a dead-rubber match.
Full marks to Ferrer for a typically combative display. For the sake of a good semi tomorrow, hope Rafa has not taken too much out of himself.

sfp - yep, Ferrer put in a fantastic performance, it really was a great match. Those who had tickets for that session just gone must have counted themselves fortunate to see such intensity from both players.

And Rafa looked to be in great shape. He will be fine for tomorrow.

PS - I too was VERY pleased with Henman's attitude to Castle

Castle is a charlatan. I saw him play Bates once (he got thrashed) when he wore some ridiculous protest message on a shirt.

Excellent by Henman.

lags72 wrote:socal - there have been any number of matches where Novak has 'not looked right' this season (not least in early round Slams) and he has invariably gone on to win the title.

It is actually possible to play below par without necessarily being injured in any way.

Really not sure what you're saying here re shoulder etc. Don't see any evidence at all myself, and no reference by pundits/commentators (?) AFAIK. Let's see what happens.  

Meanwhile, how can he NOT be the favourite .....?????

When you go from winning a high percentage of points on your first serve to losing a huge number of points on first serve and the radar gun has your average miles per hour on your serve go down by a large number of mph it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you may be carrying a shoulder injury. In passed matchups this year with Fed and Berdy Novak has been untouchable when he gets the first serve in, he is getting a high percentage of first serves in and they are having no impact. I mean did Fed and Berdych all of sudden both in back to back matches become better returners of serve? The key here is that his mph is down, his free points are down, aces are down, and holding has become difficult where it was easy. To me this speaks of a dead arm which is hardly a radical assumption 80 matches into the season.

I mean I am not a fed fan who chalks up every loss to either slow conditions, age, exhaustion, or a bad back for the last six years so as far as excuse making this is a rather minor misdemeanor. From what I see, I see a guy who almost overnight went from untouchable on serve to struggling to get free points and holds in the next match and the streak continues against a player he has owned in the following match, I start looking at other factors. Combine that with a noticeably lower mph on the gun and I think he has a sore shoulder.

bit harsh on my comments on the venue
I have been there myself many times and enjoyed it
I guess in the early years it was all like "ooh, players coming out of steam...countdowns...heart beats....cool lighting" and it was just a bit different and new. But the "new" factor has gone now, and all that kind of stuff just started to feel a bit routine.

Socal, where is the data? Can you post Novak's average service speed (sourced) for this tournament and his average service speed (sourced) for the year. Or is it just a general impression?

HB, just a general impression, I mean I watch a lot of tennis and this is my impression of the matches. Berdych was particularly telling in passed matchups he has owned Berdy when getting the first serve in, he wasn't doing that in the last match with Berdych. He was making first serves and losing a relatively high percentage of points and he wasn't impacting with the first serve as much.

@barrystar

I thought that I'd given up caring after Fed got #17, but I don't mind admitting as a Federer fan that Nadal's resurgence here at the WTF of all places is giving me a dose of something like the the pre-2012 jitters.


Now that is music to my ears

HM Murdock wrote:I'm not a fan of either player but I totally respect the effort they are putting into a dead rubber.

That's proper professionalism and competitive spirit right there.

I think Djokovic was probably applauding too, along with you and the rest of his fans.

I wasn't though.

Makes you feel alive doesnt it barry?

Thats what makes sports and why we could use Rafa back

He was at one point winning only a third of 1st serve points against Berdych and was lacklustre in Fed, maybe theres a little niggle... niggle Novak still the favourite to me

socal1976 wrote:HB, just a general impression, I mean I watch a lot of tennis and this is my impression of the matches. Berdych was particularly telling in passed matchups he has owned Berdy when getting the first serve in, he wasn't doing that in the last match with Berdych. He was making first serves and losing a relatively high percentage of points and he wasn't impacting with the first serve as much.

Federer has dropped his 1st serve speed avg 7mph down too though from Basel....    Annacone said it's on purpose and that on this court players have to serve more "strategically" "more spin and angles"---   could you be seeing some of that in terms of speed and maybe his placement is a bit off and players getting better returns?

There's definitely some merit in putting in some slower serves given how well pace is returned nowadays

Mirka in the crowd!?

Oops...
What does Andy do now?

Out of interest why do you think is the better match?

Fedrinka of Mederer?

Aut0Gr4ph wrote:Mirka in the crowd!?

Yes. But already warned to not use any offensive language.

And being watched closely by security

Fed always wipes the floor with Murray whereas Stan run him extremely close here last year and has beaten him in a slam recently.

Tough call, Einstein.

Recent history, Stan v Fed is a much better match. Murray has failed to deliver in the big matches all year.

This match I'm not sure what his strategy is. I think he's playing pretty poorly.

Yet Murray Federer have a rich history of good matches and big wins... mr grumpy pumpy

looks to be Stan anyway. Bit of a relief really

Just all retrieval from Murray again. No wonder he looks knackered.

Murray not playing great, but this is a purple patch from Stan. Always dangerous with confidence.

Murray doing his Napoleon Dynamite thing again.

"Worst day of my life, wadda ya think?". "Idiot!!"

Maybe some competitive semis then. We need some. Dc time for muzz which is his real fight

Murray in big matches is back to where he was pre-Lendl. Not really going out to win them most of the time. Just hanging in there and hoping the other guy implodes.

Every match v Federer has been like that this year, quite a few Novak matches too, certainly against Rafa and for sure tonight.

Danny_1982 wrote:Murray in big matches is back to where he was pre-Lendl. Not really going out to win them most of the time. Just hanging in there and hoping the other guy implodes.

Every match v Federer has been like that this year, quite a few Novak matches too, certainly against Rafa and for sure tonight.

Montreal being the massive exception, where he played as well as I can remember. Odd.

Holy swiss water, Andy trashed totally.

The No:2 in the world (and soon to be a father) behaves again like a spoiled child, screeming, smashing, swearing, with an outfit and trainers that Del boy flogged in 80's, disaster.

When Stan is in the zone, he is the King. Obviously he will be crushed by Fed, but lets hope Nadal crushes Djoko.

Go Fed, Go Nadal.

Montreal was great. He tried to take control of the point before Novak did as often as possible, and trusted himself on both wings.

Compare it with tonight... He's a multiple slam champion, number 2 in the world, in the Davis cup final next week... He should be swaggering with confidence, and yet looked too worried to try and hit a winner!

Baffling.

Even Andy's box has run away up on the top of the arena, to not be abused and shouted by Andy during the match

Don't worry guys, once Andy becomes a father, he will mature and play Lendl times.

He has another GS on him at least.

laverfan wrote:
MoTD : Murray v Wawrinka.

Wasn't if you were a Murry fan

He is closer to gasquets level than the top 5 these days.

Muzz apparently back on the practice court at 11pm. Have to say, that doesn't sound like he is in a good place mentally - it's not a logical thing to do.

He needs to take a day off then focus on the DC final (and be thankful that Goffin is also closer to Gasquet's level than the top 5!). The first half of this year was better than the second, so maybe once the DC is out of the way, he'll be less distracted. On the other hand, that means there's a lot of points to defend early on. Worse case scenario, if he loses in the DC final, next year could be very ugly!

Re HB/lags discussion, I did really try to persuade myself to go to the WTFs this year, but I just couldn't justify the cost for what could amount to very little tennis. I've never seen Federer live and would like to, but I'd have had to plan out a trip to two days and either book 2 whole days and get some dud matches in there, or wait til the last minute for tickets once the schedule was out. It does always seem pretty much full so there's plenty of people enthused about it, but even though it's the only way in the UK of guaranteeing to see Fed play, I'm not one of them. And I'm not sure that can be blamed on individual players (hey, one side matches happen!) or the RR format.

I did enjoy watching Nishikori yesterday, so going to book for Davis Cup R1 tie and hope he plays (and Murray too if poss). I'm not one for flag waving, but the 2 best of 5 sets matches in one session is much better value than the WTFs, and can be good contests even if the top players don't turn out.

I may have gotten this wrong, but it looks to me that Andy can finish YE #2 in two ways:

First (more likely, and simpler):  If Federer fails to win WTF, Andy is #2.

Second:  If Fed wins WTF, Andy will be able to overtake Fed in DC, but only if he wins both of his matches and both of them are live matches (dead rubber would not count).