TOP 4 before USO

What did tennis physicallity bring last months for TOP 4, will they still rule on? I think yes, but their minds and bodies suffered a lot. What to predict for USO?

Roger knows that he will never win OG and can lose final also with Andy. Quite hard to accept it for him. I do not think that he can win USO to go through two of TOP4, especially through Nadal. Roger hardly can play from baseline with other TOP4 on hard surfaces at the moment. Yes, he can but he is getting slowed down in rallies. Service is not as brilliant as he had. But still he is pleasure to watch.

Nole - lost his momentum after AO due to enormous physicallity in the final. The brutal physicallity of tennis with a high pressure before RG plus a sad news of his grandpa affected his whole season. Can he get to the top again? I think yes, he has the best chance to win USO, he will not play under such a pressure and has the best head of TOP 4. Slower hard surfaces suit for him perfectly.

Nadal - this chicken player showed what he is able to do on courts. We all know that his knee is his head. Definitely he suffers from headache. Not to writting him off, he will be fully recharged and ready to play 10 hours, but it is not clay.

Andy - I am glad that he showed that he can win a big final and saw Roger off in OG. He improved his baseline game and his mental focus on the game. He is ungry for GS success and he knows that has the game to win GS. Can he hold his focus and will he has enough stamina to win it?

Nothing is for sure. Upcoming USO just looks rather unpredictable. We will learn more from preUSO hard surface tournaments in US. So come on Nole!!8)

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Nitb, I am surprised by your insights and observation :lol: . Except you and Tenez there is hardly somebody who can read the game as you do. Do or did you play on competitive level?

Re Fed vs. Andy forehands in the final, it is very rare to see that Fed´s FH is slowish than opponent´s. I gaped at it and could not believe that Andy rolls over Fed by his FH. I had a feeling that HEAD beats Wilson 8)

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Tennis has changed due to a new rocket and string technology especially since the 90s. The game became to be too fast and then Roger started to win practically everything. To hold the attractivity they needed to slow it down. Since then on the balls are bigger by 0,5 cm and surfaces are slower. It resulted in such a physical fights on courts at the present. What is more, players are pushed to defence the rankings by playing many tournaments. Except a little bit speeding up of the surfaces I would limit the amount of tournaments to be played by players. One idea would be to count only points gained from 10 best tournaments played by players in a year.

noleisthebest wrote:BTW, what's going on with Berdych , Paul?

I think Berdych is not working so hard as he could do and he rather enjoys summer with his girlfriend than to practise on courts. That seems to be his problem longer

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Good article. My take is:

paulcz wrote:Roger knows that he will never win OG and can lose final also with Andy. Quite hard to accept it for him.

Why would you say it is quite hard for him to accept it? I see quite opposite. I don't think he minds not winning the OG as much as some think. He just wanted an Olympic singles medal and it showed when he beat Delpo in that marathon semis. It totally looked like he won whatever he wanted. Given in the beginning of the grass season if was told he by the end of it would get a 1. Halle final, 2. Wimbledon title 3. Olympic silver 4. Reach #1 and retain it. he would have taken it without a second thought. Even his most demanding fans would have taken it without a fuss. I'm sure I would have taken it with a lot of pleasure. OG was just a fat bonus after Wimbledon, a bit less fat in silver medal doesn't hurt much. I didn't see it was anyway hard for him to accept a loss in the finals. He looked completely relaxed in the match as if it didn't matter whatever be it at that time. The same in his after-match interviews. It might have hurt him a bit had he lost to Falla and had returned empty handed and also losing his #1 position. But even that he might have accepted in the beginning. He had to win wimbledon which he did, rest anything was alright.

paulcz wrote:Nole - lost his momentum after AO due to enormous physicallity in the final. The brutal physicallity of tennis with a high pressure before RG plus a sad news of his grandpa affected his whole season. Can he get to the top again? I think yes, he has the best chance to win USO, he will not play under such a pressure and has the best head of TOP 4. Slower hard surfaces suit for him perfectly.

How could his momentum be lost when he won AO beating the challenge of highest order that Nadal had been able to put against him? For me it would just have added to his confidence. It was a physically exhausting match, but it wasn't like he started to the next tournament the very next week. He next played in Dubai after a month. Do you want to say that AO final could still be affecting him physically? He won Miami after that, didn't he? So how can you say that the AO match's physicality was still affecting him? Last year he played with a bandage on his knees almost the entire year and still got so much success.

I don't attribute his losses to Nadal due to the news about his grandfather's death. I saw 2 things:
1. Nadal changed his tactics somewhat against Djo. He played a lot DTL off his forehand wing . Though he often keeps going cross court to most right handers but Djo's backhand was too strong to keep that play. I think he worked it out with Toni and his team.

2. It takes a supreme might of mental strength to keep playing and winning against all challenges point and point again. Only Fed is the one who has the mental strength to have kept on doing it for years together. I expected Djo to lose to Delpo in the bronze medal match, and thats how it went. Djo didn't have mental strength to put up a match to win Olympics bronze. He was totally spent by the semis loss. And we already read some of his interviews after his semis loss in wimbledon where he looked quite contend with what he already has got.

How you do say he will not play under any pressure when he is the defending champion at USopen? Any reasons to think that? In my opinion he is already under huge pressure to keep his points. Why else would you think he would go to play Toronto immediately after Olympics. Next week is Cincinnati so that would make more than 3 weeks of continuous tennis. And the US open starts only 1 week after Cincy and he is defending 2000 points there. So under the circumstances if a top-seed player is still choosing to play all the tournaments when other are withdrawing due to their own reasons of fatigue,injury etc, what does it tell about his mindset? Does he look absolutely confident about himself with no pressure? Not really. Did you see his reaction when he beat Haas in the 3rd set in the close and highly entertaining qtr. finals. He is so much under pressure and unsure and its showing.


Best head of the TOP4? He has the best head of the top-4 and he couldn't keep his #1 even for a year. fabulous.

Has Nole done enough to get his no. 1 ranking back? Murray/Fed stands to lose loads of points because of the withdrawals.

If Nole keeps winning like this, he will surely end as no. 1 player. Even last year there were loads of withdrawals towards the American hard court season. The tennis players are playing too much and travelling a lot. It is going to take toll somewhere. Nadal is paying the price for Aus open and his physical tennis. He ruined the tennis but in the process won 11 slams.

wow3 wrote:Murray/Fed stands to lose loads of points because of the withdrawals.

Fed is defending only 90 points from Canada( Montreal) last year. So losing 90 won't hurt him anything to lose his #1. Cincy he is defending a qtr. finals 180 points and he is playing cincy. So his withdrawal from Toronto doesn't hurt him much. Djo can only get what he is defending.

wow3 wrote:If Nole keeps winning like this, he will surely end as no. 1 player.

Playing like what? Do you want to say the current level of play which couldn't create a BP against Murray and losing straight sets to Delpo will get him to #1? If he was so confident about his play he wouldn't have been burning himself playing 3 consecutive weeks with US open just about 2 weeks away.

He is not doing bad on the hard courts. Apparently he is the only one playing at the moment. Rest all are out or taking rest So he stands a good chance to stay at no. 1. I somehow thought that Fed won one of these hardcourt masters, good to know that he didn't.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:Good article. My take is:

paulcz wrote:Roger knows that he will never win OG and can lose final also with Andy. Quite hard to accept it for him.

Why would you say it is quite hard for him to accept it? I see quite opposite. I don't think he minds not winning the OG as much as some think. He just wanted an Olympic singles medal and it showed when he beat Delpo in that marathon semis. It totally looked like he won whatever he wanted. Given in the beginning of the grass season if was told he by the end of it would get a 1. Halle final, 2. Wimbledon title 3. Olympic silver 4. Reach #1 and retain it. he would have taken it without a second thought. Even his most demanding fans would have taken it without a fuss. I'm sure I would have taken it with a lot of pleasure. OG was just a fat bonus after Wimbledon, a bit less fat in silver medal doesn't hurt much. I didn't see it was anyway hard for him to accept a loss in the finals. He looked completely relaxed in the match as if it didn't matter whatever be it at that time. The same in his after-match interviews. It might have hurt him a bit had he lost to Falla and had returned empty handed and also losing his #1 position. But even that he might have accepted in the beginning. He had to win wimbledon which he did, rest anything was alright.

Hi Rotla, very good reply from you.

Roger, he has had a really good year and shows us how good he is, that is clear. He did not win GS longer before Wimbledon so he did put quite a lot to win it, because he knew that this can be his last chance. He looked really relaxed after the final and happy. I also wished him to win the final. Therefore I think that his loss in OG final did not make him too sad and then also Andy in the second final in British land. Roger can of course overcome the loss now when he reached no. 1. But now he plays to be known as a legend and win OG is missing. He is compared with Nadal and his achievements and Nadal has already won it. When Roger faces with Nadal he knows that he will never win it what he already has. Now I wish to see them in USO semi 8)

Fed is not Chinese who will cry on missing gold. He was very much like Tom Daley who was ecstatic on winning a bronze. A medal is a medal after all. You don't get too many chances at Olympics and participation/fair play are the keys.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:

paulcz wrote:Nole - lost his momentum after AO due to enormous physicallity in the final. The brutal physicallity of tennis with a high pressure before RG plus a sad news of his grandpa affected his whole season. Can he get to the top again? I think yes, he has the best chance to win USO, he will not play under such a pressure and has the best head of TOP 4. Slower hard surfaces suit for him perfectly.

How could his momentum be lost when he won AO beating the challenge of highest order that Nadal had been able to put against him? For me it would just have added to his confidence. It was a physically exhausting match, but it wasn't like he started to the next tournament the very next week. He next played in Dubai after a month. Do you want to say that AO final could still be affecting him physically? He won Miami after that, didn't he? So how can you say that the AO match's physicality was still affecting him? Last year he played with a bandage on his knees almost the entire year and still got so much success.

I don't attribute his losses to Nadal due to the news about his grandfather's death. I saw 2 things:
1. Nadal changed his tactics somewhat against Djo. He played a lot DTL off his forehand wing . Though he often keeps going cross court to most right handers but Djo's backhand was too strong to keep that play. I think he worked it out with Toni and his team.

2. It takes a supreme might of mental strength to keep playing and winning against all challenges point and point again. Only Fed is the one who has the mental strength to have kept on doing it for years together. I expected Djo to lose to Delpo in the bronze medal match, and thats how it went. Djo didn't have mental strength to put up a match to win Olympics bronze. He was totally spent by the semis loss. And we already read some of his interviews after his semis loss in wimbledon where he looked quite contend with what he already has got.

How you do say he will not play under any pressure when he is the defending champion at USopen? Any reasons to think that? In my opinion he is already under huge pressure to keep his points. Why else would you think he would go to play Toronto immediately after Olympics. Next week is Cincinnati so that would make more than 3 weeks of continuous tennis. And the US open starts only 1 week after Cincy and he is defending 2000 points there. So under the circumstances if a top-seed player is still choosing to play all the tournaments when other are withdrawing due to their own reasons of fatigue,injury etc, what does it tell about his mindset? Does he look absolutely confident about himself with no pressure? Not really. Did you see his reaction when he beat Haas in the 3rd set in the close and highly entertaining qtr. finals. He is so much under pressure and unsure and its showing.


Best head of the TOP4? He has the best head of the top-4 and he couldn't keep his #1 even for a year. fabulous.

Rotla very good replies

Here I need to correct my original idea in "lost his momentum after AO due to enormous physicallity in the final", I used a wrong word momentum, that is not what I thought, sorry for that. Definitely nothing connected with his movement.I wanted to use "mojo", but was not sure about a proper meaning. I agree with you, he lost his mental strength and here I think it is due to a mixture of things. Still I think that there is hardly anybody who can play such finals as AO and then to move on clay and beat Nadal in all sessions. I think Nadal´s change in game had only small impact on Nole´s performace. Nole will have always difficult possition in RG. The French audience will always support anyone but Nole This loss was very hard to him. What is more he could do it. And there is nobody else who could face Nadal for sure.

I think that Nole is getting accumulate his mental strenght and he has already showed us in Toronto. No, I did not see his matches in Toronto. I am quite sure that USO audience will return him confidence. Yes, as defending champion he has a lot of to defend there, but it is not the case of reaching all succesive GS as it was in RG or to defend Wimbledon as a special GS. Therefore I am quite sure that USO should suit him and he will feel more comfortably with "light" air on court there. Let us see.

Best head,this is not easy to prove it. I really appreciate what Nole shows on courts. His possitive approach with a great heart of the fighter, just Great Djoker

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paulcz wrote: But now he plays to be known as a legend and win OG is missing. He is compared with Nadal and his achievements and Nadal has already won it.

Paulcz, What more will it take for Fed to be known as a legend, has he not already done more than what some thought was ever possible? Winning olympics is a lot matter of chance and circumstances. For a tournament that comes only once in 4 years, its very much a matter of luck that it falls in time where a player in his prime form and confidence and doesn't meet a opponent on fire. Nadal won it in 2008, yes, but that just coincided with the great run he had that summer. What if the olympics had fallen in the year 2009 summer? Do you think Nadal would have won it?

paulcz wrote: When Roger faces with Nadal he knows that he will never win it what he already has.

Does Nadal have all what Fed has? Why will Fed have to worry about Nadal having an olympics gold when Fed too has OG and now 1 silver too.

Tennis player do not prepare for olympics like the athletes and swimmers and gymnasts do. Did you see the Spanish team that went for the olympics? The defending champions Argentina didn't even qualify. Now what does this tell about how much footballers value the OG in football. This is also how it is for tennis. Though its gaining value, especially in Britain this year, its still not what it is for some other sports.

paulcz wrote:

Andy - I am glad that he showed that he can win a big final and saw Roger off in OG. He improved his baseline game and his mental focus on the game. He is ungry for GS success and he knows that has the game to win GS. Can he hold his focus and will he has enough stamina to win it?

My take on Murray:

I wanted Fed to win OG but I am not unhappy even if Murray won it. I would have been unhappy had it been the reverse with Murray winning W and Fed winning OG.

Has he improved his baseline game? I'm not sure with just one month of tennis on home soil with the kind crowd support there is for him, I can't concluded on that. He sure hit the ball with much more pace against Fed in both W and OG final. I've seen Murray play better that the OG final. And can it be denied that the grueling semis Fed played had no effect on the 31 year old's performance.

The Shaighai masters 2010 win and the 2008 USopen semis were far more impressive for me. But I still can't say he has reached it because its just too short a time to concluded anything. His first serves when clicking was always dangerous.

Completely agree on your last 2 posts rotla.

The OG brings 750pts. Between an ATP500 and a TMS...That is what the ATP thinks it's worth. PLayers however might give it much more weight and this I understand but at the end of teh day, it is no slam!

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noleisthebest wrote:Olympic gold, unlike a universally acclaimed slam has a very subjective value and perception.

Agree!!!

Gold medal to Nole means much more than it would Federer.

Not sure. They both really wanted it.

In Russia, gold medal is worth more than a slam to players, so it's all relative.

I guess it depends very much. They won tons of gold medals...they have won little slams so far so I am not sure this is so true for tennis players.

Since tennis is a relatively new olympic sport, medals do not have the same weight as eg. medals in athletics, and that will probably change in future, however, I don't thin they'll ever be the same as slams when measuring tennis greatness, and why should they, 6 best of 3 and one best of 5 matches in the 64 strong field as opposed to 7 best of 5 matches among 128 players....

indeedy!

Olympics for ranking points have just recently been recognized by ATP though the tennis in olympics is from 1988. The current points system for the olympic medal winners only started by the year 2004. So it shows tennis in Olympics has gained importance but still only above an ATP500.

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raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:

paulcz wrote: But now he plays to be known as a legend and win OG is missing. He is compared with Nadal and his achievements and Nadal has already won it.

Paulcz, What more will it take for Fed to be known as a legend, has he not already done more than what some thought was ever possible? Winning olympics is a lot matter of chance and circumstances. For a tournament that comes only once in 4 years, its very much a matter of luck that it falls in time where a player in his prime form and confidence and doesn't meet a opponent on fire. Nadal won it in 2008, yes, but that just coincided with the great run he had that summer. What if the olympics had fallen in the year 2009 summer? Do you think Nadal would have won it?

paulcz wrote: When Roger faces with Nadal he knows that he will never win it what he already has.

Does Nadal have all what Fed has? Why will Fed have to worry about Nadal having an olympics gold when Fed too has OG and now 1 silver too.

Tennis player do not prepare for olympics like the athletes and swimmers and gymnasts do. Did you see the Spanish team that went for the olympics? The defending champions Argentina didn't even qualify. Now what does this tell about how much footballers value the OG in football. This is also how it is for tennis. Though its gaining value, especially in Britain this year, its still not what it is for some other sports.

Rotla, you know, the more you already have the more you want. We say the longer you eat the more you are hungry.

The magic of OG is that it takes place only once for 4 years. History does not ask if someone won with luck or not, but he just won. I saw whole final match and must say that although Andy is not my favorite player, gradually I started to wish him to win it. Yes, Andy had a bit of luck on key points, but went for it.

Despite their proclaimed friendship which these two have, they are players who won the most from all present players therefore the biggest rivals. If you play against anybody you always compare achievements, this happens in all kind of sport for sure.

Fed has mentioned his effort to win OG many times. Then without Nadal he had a big chance to win it and everybody thought that Fed would be the winner. Fed can be really happy what he achieved this year but that remains in his head like a big wasted chance to win it. Fed knows that Nadal does not seem to overcome Fed´s 17, therefore is a bit jokking about his injury. I can read from Fed that he feels that Nadal will not touch his legacy. But we all know what things his wise uncle can think of.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:

paulcz wrote:

Andy - I am glad that he showed that he can win a big final and saw Roger off in OG. He improved his baseline game and his mental focus on the game. He is ungry for GS success and he knows that has the game to win GS. Can he hold his focus and will he has enough stamina to win it?

My take on Murray:

I wanted Fed to win OG but I am not unhappy even if Murray won it. I would have been unhappy had it been the reverse with Murray winning W and Fed winning OG.

Has he improved his baseline game? I'm not sure with just one month of tennis on home soil with the kind crowd support there is for him, I can't concluded on that. He sure hit the ball with much more pace against Fed in both W and OG final. I've seen Murray play better that the OG final. And can it be denied that the grueling semis Fed played had no effect on the 31 year old's performance.

The Shaighai masters 2010 win and the 2008 USopen semis were far more impressive for me. But I still can't say he has reached it because its just too short a time to concluded anything. His first serves when clicking was always dangerous.

My insight from the final was that Andy played his best match so far. He just clicked into a mode that now or never. I was surprised by his perfect timing of ground strokes, he was sooner at the ball than Fed and that does not happen often. He just got into game and Fed did not. Fed was slowish against his standard, made a lot of UE and lost concentration. Of course the audience helped Andy a lot and also had some luck, but he was not passive and went for balls. Thinking if Andy will be able to repeat that performance again.

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noleisthebest wrote:That's how I saw that win, too, Paul.

Hi Nitb,

good to have you here. After knowing that Nadal´s weird withdrawal from USO I am thinking about the tennis as sport of gentlemens :evil:

I can not understand people who say that they miss Nadal, what they are? It is shocking in this sport. No wonder that tennis is getting to become the modern wrestling where wrestlers got allowed everything. Do they really want to have the theatre with wrestlers? That is poor:face:

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noleisthebest wrote:I know Paul...

I am so glad Nole had the major part in stopping Nadal and saving tennis and who can forget Rosol The Great!!!!
I noticed he hasn't been playing in Toronto or Cinci, is he OK for USO?

Rosol was actually who stopped Nadal this season, that is great He is about 80 at ranking so he will surely play at USO.

He has a really good coach Dosedel, who was very hardworking and smart as tennis player. If he improves his tactics and focus then he could move around 40 or higher soon.

I think that he is ok

Don't you two agree that Nadal \ Rosol was one of the best moment of 2012?



Of course we will miss him in the USO!

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And did you enjoy Rosol Kholi?

I guess not. I hate it when he goes all the way but I love it when he doesn't.

That's why Nadal is needed. He is the blackboard others can write poems on!

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Yes I did and it was impressive to see Kholi rushing Rosl into mistakes. A talent Nadal lacks 4m behind the baseline.

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How you expect the draw will turn out to be?

I think Murray is very well in teh mix with the top 2...and that is whether we like it or not. Murray was close to beat Djoko in last AO but has now more confidence.

I am hoping Murray and Djoko will be in teh same draw....Chances are they will be but the USO might be more cautious about rigging them now that they have been caught red handed by ESPN. We may even have more interesting first rounds.

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Alright. Delpo is a dangerous player to anyone bar Ferrer. But I don't think he can recover quickly enough to pose threat in the QF if he gets that far. Thats what is the tragedy for him.

noleisthebest wrote:

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:How you expect the draw will turn out to be?

Murray in Nole's half. Delpo in Nole's quarter.
Ideally Murray and Delpo in Feds half/quarter. But that's not going to happen, is it?

Has Fed and Murray ever played any semis? I don't think it happen till now. So perhaps it won't even happen at US open.

Who all ideally should be good to have in Djo's half and qtr?

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noleisthebest wrote:

Imagine this scenario: Fed plays first semi-final and it's not Murray ( you can choose whoever you like, say Ferrer). Nole plays second semi-final and it's Murray.

Do you think Fed would swap?

Fed might, we don't know that for certain. The thing is matches always don't turn out to be what they initially look. Has it never happened that someone else other than Murray and Djo has ever posed a mighty challenge for Fed or even beaten him? During the AO 2010 Davydenko was a far tough opponent to have than Murray. Even Falla almost took him out in W 2010 and even recently in Olympics R1. Did you expect the Inser would take Fed out in his home ground on slow clay? So its not for certain that the said player will or will not pose a challenge.

Yes Murray is more likely to reach the semis, but he may play poor and Djo can have a stroll. Or Murray may just lose to Troicki or Haase.

Thats why I say, initial draw doesn't matter, its how the path turns out to be. Look at Cincy, how it was looking for Djo and you were furious looking at the draw. But how did it turn out to be? Got Davy who retired within 30 mins. Got Delpo in semis, who when injured is no danger at all. Got Cilic in Qf. who so turned out to be a good confidence boosting match for Djo finding all range of his shots. Fed in finals is all as expected. So what happened about your initial reaction looking at the draw?

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Fine then. We will see how it turns out to be. My take would be, it won't matter whose half Murray/Delpo falls in.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:
Yes Murray is more likely to reach the semis, but he may play poor and Djo can have a stroll. Or Murray may just lose to Troicki or Haase.

Or he may play well enough to beat Djoko and Federer on the trott. Hopefully not but certainly a possibility..not that far fetched.