Currently Injured Players List!

Nadal (should be on top! as he missed most over his career)
Murray
Djoko
Chung
Berdych
Edmund
Djokovic
Stan (still I believe)
Tsonga
that's a lot .....on top of my head.

and of those we have 2 semis spoiled and 2 QFs....that is a frustrating tournament! Considering the other 2 QFs with no injury were Dimi/Edmund and Chung/Sandgren.....that is a really bad end to the tournament.

If Fed were to lose Sunday.....it woudl be a smelly icing on a smelly cake!

Expect Nish and Raonic to make the list.

I think that despite injuries, had the draw been more balanced we would’ve had a better tournament.

Instead, all talent was squashed in one quarter: Tsonga, Rublev, Kyrgios, Shapovalov etc...

I was so annoyed when I saw it.

The problem I foresee is that stupid TDs will bend themselves backwards over Nadal even more now...

In fact even Tsonga got injured while having SPs...and lost from there.

noleisthebest wrote:..The problem I foresee is that stupid TDs will bend themselves backwards over Nadal even more now...

What's needed is fed to keep a healthy margin of slams between him and nadal. If so, TDs won;t bother creating history. The danger is when they want one of those stars to break records....like they did all they could to slow the USO and help Nadal holding the four slams like Fed.

I predicted this a whole ago when Nole caught up with Nadal and the rest followed.

Had WADA done their job properly, the tour would’ve looked much healthier now.

And Nadal would’ve been counting sheep before sleeping, not goats...

Nadal  age 31 > 1,000 matches
Murray age 30 > 800 matches
Djoko age 30 > 900 matches
Chung - blisters
Berdych - age 32 > 900 matches
Edmund
Stan - age 32 > 700 matches
Tsonga - age 32 > 600 matches, injury prone for some time
Nishikori - age 28 c.480 matches

(a) As Fed has said, when you are doing something as tough as tennis into your 30's, injuries start to arrive.  Add to that a huge amount of matches and a draining style and it's even more obvious.  What is so unusual is that the Tour looks a bit decimated by a handful of 30-somethings being injured when usually its the 20-somethings who are winning everything.  The question is not so much why the 30-somethings are injured, but why they continue to dominate and their absence makes what's left of the Tour look light.

(b) With Chung, and to a lesser extent Edmund, they need to look at how they manage their schedules and their bodies and whether they can adopt less attritional ways right now.

(c) Nishikori has always been under-powered, it's not surprising that he struggles in this world of power.

(d) Tsonga has always had trouble - when he burst onto the scene in 2008 he had already spent a lot of time out due to injury.

The 'solutions' to this should not be based on accommodating 30-somethings who wish to carry on grinding themselves into the dust.

Hear hear, the sport is the sport and players don’t have to destroy themselves. They are like a football manager who plays the same first XI every match twice a week, never makes substitutions, then complains about the fixture list.

If the sport wants to make a change to safeguard players it should be to speed them up a bit to reduce attritional rallies. You ok with that Rafa?

bogbrush wrote:Hear hear, the sport is the sport and players don’t have to destroy themselves. They are like a football manager who plays the same first XI every match twice a week, never makes substitutions, then complains about the fixture list.

That is an interesting problem. I do think they have no choice but to destroy themselves or be ranked in the 50 or even lower for some.

It has always been like that. Wanting to be a champion might be the same amongst people but not all are born equal in terms of having the means to get there. nadal's willpower might be greater than Federer's for instances so he will do everything to get there too. And that includes working twice as hard, bending rules, befriending TDs and now willing to bend the schedule to fit his agenda. All this is part of the game to some extend and simply add up to make a match interesting v Federer when typically without it Nadal may not even had had a chance to play on teh same court.

At the end, thanks to Nadal and team's effort, we have someone who keeps us and Federer on our toes....and more importantly, someone who made federer even better.

So yes, he is annoying and to me even a cheat, but he made tennis more interesting. And we could say the same of Djoko and others.

You can look at a Lendl and McEnroe - the former did not lack talent, but he clearly eked out every last bit of it and played a huge number of singles matches in his hardworking baseline style before paying for it physically with his hips &c.

The latter did not waste his talent exactly, but he was undoubtedly less hard on himself than Lendl and played a less shattering style on his body.  The fact that Mac was playing to a decent standard well into his 30's, arguably even beyond, tells its own story.

As Tenez says, some players have to work themselves harder to wring success out than others - they make a series of choices and, if we are lucky, their presence adds to the overall spectacle.

Not sure that is the best example.
Lendl actually had a longer career and better longevity than McEnroe.

Eh? Both turned pro same year and both retired same year.

Ten, last year a guy finished #2 within a close range of #1 and he didn’t play any of the clay season.

further down the rankings don’t forget that they don’t even play full tournaments. You can sustain a decent ranking and play no more than three matches in a Masters. I doubt it’s murderous to be #14; overhauling roadrunner #1s is a different thing.

luvsports! wrote:Not sure that is the best example.
Lendl actually had a longer career and better longevity than McEnroe.

That's right, I pointed out that Lendl played a huge number of singles matches on tour (more than McEnroe but not more overall matches if you count singles and doubles combined).

Perhaps I should have been more explicit that my point was not the respective lengths of their top-level singles careers, but the physical effects on them.  Lendl's efforts smashed him up and has had pain leading to hip surgery; McEnroe has carried on playing plenty of reasonably competitive seniors tennis, holding his own with much younger guys who left the tour long after him, and he even won a main tour doubles title with Bjorkman in 2006!

barrystar wrote:You can look at a Lendl and McEnroe - the former did not lack talent, but he clearly eked out every last bit of it and played a huge number of singles matches in his hardworking baseline style before paying for it physically with his hips &c.

The latter did not waste his talent exactly, but he was undoubtedly less hard on himself than Lendl and played a less shattering style on his body.  The fact that Mac was playing to a decent standard well into his 30's, arguably even beyond, tells its own story.

As Tenez says, some players have to work themselves harder to wring success out than others - they make a series of choices and, if we are lucky, their presence adds to the overall spectacle.

Yes though I would not put Lendl in that league of less talented players. He was immensely talented. He worked very hard to compensate a mental weakness...weakness due to his game which was based on painting the lines having minimum margins.

While we can say Mc's talent was his overall mouvement and timing, Lendl's talent was concentrated in his arm/wrist.

talented players use smaller margins and Lendl had very small ones. Wilander, Chang, or Nadal use much bigger margins...those bigger margins ask for more on the body. Lendl had a history of losing tight long matches cause he found himself breathless through emotion and worked very hard to maximise his chance and allow him to play that risky tennis over 5 sets.

bogbrush wrote:Ten, last year a guy finished #2 within a close range of #1 and he didn’t play any of the clay season.

further down the rankings don’t forget that they don’t even play full tournaments. You can sustain a decent ranking and play no more than three matches in a Masters. I doubt it’s murderous to be #14; overhauling roadrunner #1s is a different thing.

Yes but that's the point. Nadal has not got the luxury to win matches easily. Even a straightforward 3 setter in the FO is extremely demanding.

Totally agree, in which case the solution to injury is obviously faster courts.

@Tenez -  didn't want to digress into assessment of talent. Lendl's work ethic is legendary, and he smashed himself up physically playing his demanding baseline game; McEnroe was not a slacker, but nor was he famous for a legendary work ethic, and he suffered much less physically from his tennis career during which he played a lot of S&V.

Federer has even suggested that Nadal slowed his serve because he likes to carry a rhythm over into his returning games - he would not be comfortable transitioning from a game of cheap points won on serve and few rallies to receiving serve.  I don't know what to make of that frankly - but Nadal did not keep up with his super serve from 2010 USO though.

barrystar wrote:@Tenez -  didn't want to digress into assessment of talent. Lendl's work ethic is legendary, and he smashed himself up physically playing his demanding baseline game; McEnroe was not a slacker, but nor was he famous for a legendary work ethic, and he suffered much less physically from his tennis career during which he played a lot of S&V.

I would disagree with that. His game could be argued to be even less demanding than McEnroe who had to throw himself to the net. Lendl would score a point through the flick of a wrist. It's very similar to federer except for the virtuosity of the latter. Remember than when Fed started his FH was compared to Lendl in terms of greatness. There was a lot of 1 /2 punch with Lendl. Unfortunately he faced crocodiles like Wilander, Borg, Vilas, Chang and that is where he had to work physically cause like Federer he was running out of steam and lost his edge as the match went on, whereas those other guys could keep looping for ever.

Federer has even suggested that Nadal slowed his serve because he likes to carry a rhythm over into his returning games - he would not be comfortable transitioning from a game of cheap points won on serve and few rallies to receiving serve.  I don't know what to make of that frankly - but Nadal did not keep up with his super serve from 2010 USO though.

I have been saying that for long, though not with such nice words as federer. Nadal had no interest in keeping things short as what he (and the other RRunners) want is to take the game away from (natural) skills and bring it onto a physical battle where they have a chance to dominate and dissolve those very natural skills. At one stage you coudl even notice that Djoko's smashes were soft enough to force further running to his opponent, especially v Murray. For those guys the match is not decided by great shots but by how much ground they can force their opponent to cover.

That's what annoyed me when some were comparing talent with those RRuners. The strategy of RR is actually not to have to rely on such an inconsistent factor that is talent....hence their amazing consistency...when fit that is!

Tenez wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:..The problem I foresee is that stupid TDs will bend themselves backwards over Nadal even more now...

What's needed is fed to keep a healthy margin of slams between him and nadal. If so, TDs won;t bother creating history. The danger is when they want one of those stars to break records....like they did all they could to slow the USO and help Nadal holding the four slams like Fed.

Good point.
Fed needs to stay around as long as possible, though.

I can even imagine a botoxed Nadal  coming out of retirement to chase another slam or two.  

Tenez wrote:Nadal (should be on top! as he missed most over his career)
Murray
Djoko
Chung
Berdych
Edmund
Djokovic
Stan (still I believe)
Tsonga
that's a lot .....on top of my head.

It is a lot, but many of those players are quite old - in the past players would have often been retired by the same age.  Of that list, only Chung and Edmund are under 30.  And of those two, I do not know whether I would quite count Chung.  It was blisters.  There is part of me that thinks he succumbed more to emotions than to genuine injury issues.