Barcelona 2019

Yeah, if i was the boss of ATP, I would ban all 3 by 31st December this year.

Let 2020 be a year of new GS winners!!

Good semi line-up in Barcelona.  Zverev the only one who did not make his seeding, but he is replaced by Medvedev who is in much better form anyway.  We should see tomorrow how serious Rafa's troubles are.  He will not want to lose in Barca after MC, and if he is in good form, he will not.  On the other hand, Thiem will not give it to him for free.  

My call:  Rafa's RG goes how tomorrow goes - he wins tomorrow, he gets RG, he loses tomorrow, he fails at RG too.

Medvedev in 3.

Thiem in 2.

Another good tournament for Medvedev. But I do not see how he beats Rafa with his game, unless Rafa is seriously off form. So all eyes are on Thiem.

Jahu, hopefully your second call is as good as the first.

Disagree. Medv has the fire power from both wings. He can trouble Rafa on clay. But so could Nishi who was playing very well.

Come on Thiem, beat the shit out of him in the middle of court named Nadal, wtf!!!

2 BH winners from Nadal in the first 4 points. In the past you d have to wait 3 sets to get 2 BH winners from him.

wow 4 dfs from Rafa. Nervous?

summerblues wrote:
My call:  Rafa's RG goes how tomorrow goes - he wins tomorrow, he gets RG, he loses tomorrow, he fails at RG too.

That's brave. I think today is not such a big deal win or lose. Rafa is still finding his feet after injury and time out. I think a loss in Rome would be a biggie.

That was pretty easy

Solid set from Thiem, but Rafa is looking much better than in MC.

Emancipator wrote:That's brave.

Well, it is not going to cost me much if I am wrong

But Rafa usually does better in the slams after he has played well in tune-ups.  And it would be very unusual for him to lose both in MC and Barcelona.  Over the years, he was much more likely to lose (tank?) Madrid or Rome, but always would do well in MC and Barca.  So if he were to fail in both of these, that would certainly be a bad sign.

Still, I admit he looks much better today than last week.

summerblues wrote:

Emancipator wrote:That's brave.

Well, it is not going to cost me much if I am wrong

But Rafa usually does better in the slams after he has played well in tune-ups.  And it would be very unusual for him to lose both in MC and Barcelona.  Over the years, he was much more likely to lose (tank?) Madrid or Rome, but always would do well in MC and Barca.  So if he were to fail in both of these, that would certainly be a bad sign.

Still, I admit he looks much better today than last week.

Thiem is playing close to his best and Rafa is still far from his best. If Rafa can get close to his best I can't see Thiem staying with him in a best of 5. In other words it all depends on Rafa's form.

Unless he gets injured again we can only expect Rafa to get stronger. He's just too good on clay and eventually he'll find his natural level - which even at this age is better than Thiem, and probably better than Djokovic too.

Emancipator wrote:In other words it all depends on Rafa's form.

You don't say.

Of course it does.  I am just hopeful that if he is not playing well in MC/Barca, that gives hope for the rest of the season.

lol. Fair enough. I guess I was stating the obvious.

Cool.  Good match from Thiem.  Lots of firepower.  Impressed how well he was returning Rafa's serves on the BH side.  Also impressed he did not choke that last game.

Very nice.

God sake, what a demolition of Nadal.

Nobody hits the ball with more force than Thiem.

Emancipator wrote:Unless he gets injured again we can only expect Rafa to get stronger. He's just too good on clay and eventually he'll find his natural level - which even at this age is better than Thiem, and probably better than Djokovic too.

Don’t agree, he’s now depending on adaptations and opponents weakness.

Thiem was far the better player today abd 4 & 4 flattered Nadal.

Anyone taking 1st set from Nadal at RG, I can't see Nadal coming back.

Emancipator wrote:Unless he gets injured again we can only expect Rafa to get stronger. He's just too good on clay and eventually he'll find his natural level

That is a big question.  Is he going to just get better and better until he plays really well at RG, or will he be up-and-down, sort of like in 2015?  In 2015, he would also have an occasional decent looking match.  So far, looking at what I have seen from his first two weeks on clay - both the matches I saw and scores from the other matches - it looks to me quite similar to 2015.

Today he was playing better, but even so, he needs to improve quite a bit from here.  The match was never really close.  If anything, the score is flattering Rafa a little.  Thiem was all over him throughout the whole match, and Rafa was not threatening Thiem at all.

summerblues wrote:My call:  Rafa's RG goes how tomorrow goes - he wins tomorrow, he gets RG, he loses tomorrow, he fails at RG too.

You heard it here first.  Rafa is not winning RG this year.  

Another 320 points gone for Rafa.

Fed winning RG would make him No2 

bogbrush wrote:

Emancipator wrote:Unless he gets injured again we can only expect Rafa to get stronger. He's just too good on clay and eventually he'll find his natural level - which even at this age is better than Thiem, and probably better than Djokovic too.

Don’t agree, he’s now depending on adaptations and opponents weakness.

Thiem was far the better player today abd 4 & 4 flattered Nadal.

I think if Rafa finds his natural level - not the up and down version that SB describes from 2015 - then he is still gonna be too good for Thiem. But it remains to be seen whether he can find that. He is a confidence player and these cumulative losses could lead to the nervous version we saw in 2015.  

Just hope Djokovic continues to blow out. It would be a nightmare if he won RG again - his fans are moronic.

Rafa's natural level is gone, yeah he can still mostly run, but loads of unexpected UE's and today lets not forget Thiem should of been the one with more stress in front of Rafas crowd on a court named Rafa and he managed to trash Nadal in 2.

Djoko is dead for this season, no more GS for him this year.

Where is LS? Has he moved to Australia to be a real journalist with a proper cubical for that Aussie news portal? 

He is a real journalist now; will not waste time with us amateur pundits.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:I didn't believe Fed would get to 20. But I didn't even believe Nadal would get to 17 or Djokovic to 15. And they all have got their desired numbers.

I bet you Rafa's and Nole's desired number is 21.

It's finally the year.  Taken way too long but Nadal is on his way out the door.  Permanently.

bogbrush wrote:

Emancipator wrote:Unless he gets injured again we can only expect Rafa to get stronger.

   Injured! 

And stronger at this age?  lmao.  Keep dreaming!

Anyway the final is tomorrow. I was impressed by the way Medv kept on plugging against Nishi.

I'd be surprised if Medv does not do better than Nadal.

summerblues wrote:He is a real journalist now; will not waste time with us amateur pundits.

Glad to hear, at least we can say he is our friend when he becomes famous.

Tenez wrote:Anyway the final is tomorrow. I was impressed by the way Medv kept on plugging against Nishi.

I'd be surprised if Medv does not do better than Nadal.

Medvedev for once does not mind rallying and boy can his BH be stable 50 shots in a row.

I didn't watch Nadal-Thiem (just wasn't in the mood for Thiem...he is a lot more boring than Nadal), but didn't expect Rafa to lose.
My guess is that he is still injured and this time choosing not to talk about it because of sponsors and RG expectations. He is simply better than Thiem.

I saw a bit of Nishi-Medved, not too baaaaad...
Nishi played like in good old days and I thought he'd win. His game is nicer to look at, esp his CCBH....and there lies the problem...he doesn't have one DTL...or at least I haven't seen any.

Medved was solid, safe and pretty consistent for a "young lad", i.e. he is pretty damn good!
Unlike Nishi he really went for one super gutsy BH DTL and that's the shot that won him the match.
Also, he's got a big wingspan, so not that easy to pass.
I hope he beats Thiem tomorrow.

Nah NITB he wasn’t injured.

Actually he played okay, best match so far on clay this season. He has a few weeks to improve or winning RG is a long shot.

Jahu wrote:

summerblues wrote:He is a real journalist now; will not waste time with us amateur pundits.

Glad to hear, at least we can say he is our friend when he becomes famous.

To be clear, I have no idea where he is.  I was just hypothesizing.

For all I know he was run over by a truck last week and that was the end of LS.

noleisthebest wrote:Medved was solid, safe and pretty consistent ... Also, he's got a big wingspan, so not that easy to pass.

Yes, that describes him quite well.  I was impressed last week and again today how consistently he can play from the baseline - often he manages to keep hitting deep from defensive positions.  He does not have any really big weapons though, and that will probably hurt him in the long run.

Also, some of those rallies with Nishi were quite dull TBH - I can only enjoy so many consecutive cross-court BHs - especially if they are all just standard issue rally shots.

Ferrer retiring in Madrid next week at 37. 

A pretty good career. Made the most of his game. 1 TMS 1000 and 10 500. 

He was for a while the benchmark for the rest of the field (all but the "big 4").

Commentators saying Medv is the underdog...I am not so sure.

Shots from Medv are deadly.

Med is pretty lanky....not sure whether this is due to his size or he hasn't abused steroids (yet). He hasn't got the mouvement of Nadal or Djoko but he compensates with his shots quality.

Thiem cleverly breaking Medv timing and power with soft sliced BHs. 

Murray won a few slams like that. Thiem could too.

Med losing 4 games in a row after having won the first 3.....clearly running out of steam already...

A shoulder problem probably explains Med's 6 games in a row loss. Reminds me his loss last week where he was leading and then lost 10 or 12 games in a row.

Medv going for too much as he can't rally anymore.

Good first set from Thiem. Changed it up after going 0:3 down. He has played a lot of drop shots with good success, as he did yesterday. Overall, he looks better to me than last year. And with Rafa looking worse, and Nole also suspect, great chance for him to take RG finally.

Med is good at the net.

Medv is not in the match anymore. Sad.

Medvedev one of the most seriously improved youngsters the last 12 months. Not as much talk about him as some of the others, but he is playing more consistently well than just about any of them.

Shame it looks like he may be fading here, but a good tournament. Let's see what he can do in Madrid and Rome after a week's rest.

Come on Thiem, crush himmmmm