The Truth about the Australian Open Final (from ruansfedererblog)

There is also the other thing... Nadal went off court. He wanted coaching on how to beat Stan.

Great article, Nadal always breaks down after losing the first set doesn't he?
That must be why he has one of the best records after being one set down compared to any other player.

I don't think metaphysical is the right word, probably psychosomatic is a better one.
I think Nadal did carry a minir injury in that match simply as his shots didn't have its usual superpower, that was obvious from the start.

Problem was, he only has a plan A, and when that falls even 5%, he is beatable, even by player who had never won a set off him before.

Funny thing was his exaggeration of that small injury and the show he put on just to wrestle himself out of fear of losing. Although, if he had what I thought he did (a pulled muscle and a trapped nerve), he did well to last and play the way he did. He must have played under a lot of painkillers, and had limited motion in the upper body, i.e. had to be cautious. But maybe it was something else, with him you never know.

He hoped Stan would choke as usual, but he didn't.

FedererKing wrote:There is also the other thing... Nadal went off court.  He wanted coaching on how to beat Stan.

Yes, and Toni gave him some invaluable tips, serve at 80mph and don't run for anything.

That really helped.

From the article:

I believe that Nadal was feeling so humiliated out there that his feelings manifested as a back spasm.

Out of all the bizarre nonsensical stuff I've read about Nadal, this has to be right up there.
You can't get back spasms from 'feeling humiliated', it's so unscientific it's beyond laughable.

He was losing, and he needed:

a. to be coached
b. to have an excuse
c. to disrupt Stan's rhythm.

He lost looking like a slapped baby's ass.

He was cheating. Yet again.  These "injuries" come when he is a set down, or a break down near the end of a set. Or both.  Every time.  That's what shows this is tactical cheating.

If he had been 2 sets up, do you honestly believe he would have halted play?  Of course not.

This article's theory about mind-body is possible, but I am going to go with the above 3 explanations. The truth is, Nadal can't accept losing. He has to have some sort of excuse at the ready to save face, and he has to do everything in his power to win, including breaking rules. Please Nadal, just go away.

a) What coaching did Toni give him? Slow down the serve
b) He was only a set and 2-0 down, Nadal has one of the best records from coming back from a set down. In French Open 2007, he went down 6-1 in the first set to Fed; and his previous record against Fed was better than against Wawrinka.
c) If this was the case, why would he still serve so slowly and not run when he was basically serving to stay in the match in the 4th set? Why would he gift that service game away?

The reality is of course he was injured, but Nadal haters are so irrational, illogical, and full of hatred; that they desperately clutch onto straws.

a. It wouldn't matter. The fact is, it is illegal. Another excuse for your cheating hero.

b. He was 1-0 and a break down when he pulled the stunt. It didn't work. He's done it plenty of times.

c. He won the 3rd set, there was nothing wrong with him.

There is something wrong with you, however.

a) After that MTO Nadal played with a serve at around 90mph... do you really think that is what Toni told him to do?
b) When has serving slowly and not running ever worked for him?
c) Really, you think Nadal had 'nothing wrong with him' in the 3rd set? Can I quote you on that?
This shows that I think Nadal haters in general don't watch Nadal play. People like you think Nadal serving at that speed is normal for him. The only conclusion one can reach is that these people simply don't watch Nadal.

It's incredible what depths Nadal haters will go to vilify Nadal, a Nadal serving at 90mph was because 'nothing was wrong with him', dear me...

Btw, do you have stats for Nadal's serving in that match, Amri, I'm not convinced he was serving at 90 mph on average (which is not as horrible as you make it out, anyway...)

noleisthebest wrote:Btw, do you have stats for Nadal's serving in that match, Amri, I'm not convinced he was serving at 90 mph on average.

Where can I find these stats?

I definitely remember Andrew Castle saying in the 3rd set, exclaiming that Nadal served one at 83mph. I was looking at the speed gun, and it seemed around 94 on average, but that is a guess, I don't have a precise figure.

Certainly his first serve was slower than his normal second serve, and he could get any spin really as he couldn't turn his back.

According to some stats guy on twitter I just asked, his serve went down to 90pmh average in the second set after the injury, but then went up to 94 in the third. Can't find the fourth yet, but guess it was similar to the third.

Julia Santamaria wrote:From the article:

I believe that Nadal was feeling so humiliated out there that his feelings manifested as a back spasm.

Out of all the bizarre nonsensical stuff I've read about Nadal, this has to be right up there.
You can't get back spasms from 'feeling humiliated', it's so unscientific it's beyond laughable.

It's long been known that stress, anxiety etc can cause chronic pain. Less research has been done on acute pain, but there are medical papers & theories that include that possibility e.g. http://www.spine-health.com/conditions/depression/how-does-stress-cause-back-pain http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-symptoms/back-pain.shtml

Warning - some posters may find these links laughable.

'Feeling humiliated' is not the same as stress.

Nadal may be stressed for every match, but do you think he is 'feeling humiliated' every match?

So you're more concerned with the wording of the argument than the argument itself?

No they are two different things.
Feeling humiliated is not the same as stress, or anxiety.

Er, so you're more concerned with the wording of the argument than the argument itself?

No they are two different things.
Feeling humiliated is not the same as stress, or anxiety. There is a distinction between the two.

Simply the distinction is important, as the frequency of Nadal getting stressed or anxious is much much higher than the frequency of him 'feeling humiliated'.
Well so far throughout his career, anyway, maybe after this year things will be different.

Being humiliated leads directly to stress.  Losing a match in that fashion, when so much is on the line, leads directly to stress.  Nadal was stressed. Stop moving the goal posts and stop arguing with what your brain is telling you is plain logic.

Julius, I just did a quick check, and I noticed that since Jan 10th, all but 3 of your posts have been directed against me or contradictory to viewpoints I hold.
Now given most on this forum despise Nadal, and I am in the minority in being one of the people who are more positive about him; what does this say about the positions you hold?
Keep in mind, that you can't agree with all the anti-Nadal conspiracies as some of them contradict each other.
So therefore, either you like debating against me, or you really dislike my arguments compared to the ones of the Nadal haters?

FedererKing wrote:Being humiliated leads directly to stress.  Losing a match in that fashion, when so much is on the line, leads directly to stress.  Nadal was stressed.  Stop moving the goal posts and stop arguing with what your brain is telling you is plain logic.

Wait a second, weren't you arguing a while back that he wasn't injured and playing at a normal level serving at 94mph in the 3rd set? Or have you changed your mind.
There is a distinction between feeling humiliated and stress, I recognise that it may lead to one another, but Nadal is always stressed when playing tennis. And he's been through much worse sets than the one against Wawrinka, Fed 07, Djokovic many times in 2011, infact given his good record against Wawrinka you'd think he's less stressed than against Djokovic.
And what about being a break down in the French Open semi 2013, that must have been hugely stressful. Yet his back has never spasmed before.
Nadal is always 'anxious' 'stressed', but he is rarely 'feeling humiliated.'

So do you, or do you not, discount the possibility that Rafa's injury was a physical manifestation of his emotional state at being outplayed and finding himself a set and a break down in a match that would have given him a double-career slam (possibly the most significant achievement of his career)?

I took issue with the 'beyond laughable' statement, purely on a scientific basis. It now seems that you think that his 'feeling humiliated' is laughable, not the actual argument itself i.e. that the back spasm could have been brought on by Rafa's mental/emotional state. Unless, of course, you discount that as 'beyond laughable' as well. As you know , I rarely post here, but this article caught my attention owing to it's psychological nature.

I was surprised not to see Nadal in better form in that final after his display of power and fitness in that semi v Federer.

Sure Stan played well but he was dealing with an easier ball to time from the beginning of that match. Not sure why.

Having said that I do not think Nadal was poor in that first set. He was good but he needed to be his usual 110% form he gets usually in slams.

Tenez wrote:I was surprised not to see Nadal in better form in that final after his display of power and fitness in that semi v Federer.

Sure Stan played well but he was dealing with an easier ball to time from the beginning of that match. Not sure why.

Nadal said he was feeling mild discomfort from the warm-up, but then his back collapsed in the second set.
But again, most Nadal haters probably think he's faking the whole injury thing, so there we go.

Julius, I criticised a post which I quoted. It does not mean I criticise all posts which are different.
There is a clear distinction between stress and feeling humiliated, as I said.

Julia Santamaria wrote:Julius, I just did a quick check, and I noticed that since Jan 10th, all but 3 of your posts have been directed against me or contradictory to viewpoints I hold.
Now given most on this forum despise Nadal, and I am in the minority in being one of the people who are more positive about him; what does this say about the positions you hold?
Keep in mind, that you can't agree with all the anti-Nadal conspiracies as some of them contradict each other.
So therefore, either you like debating against me, or you really dislike my arguments compared to the ones of the Nadal haters?

Actually my apologies Julius, I counted again, and I missed one, so that means you have written 4 posts since after Jan 10th which are not criticising me, or my viewpoints.
30/34 were though.

And none of your other 4 were criticising viewpoints that were anti-Nadal, which is interesting.

Perhaps because the "anti Nadal" viewpoints are spot on :P

FedererKing wrote:Perhaps because the "anti Nadal" viewpoints are spot on :P

They can't all be, they're all contradicting each other.

It's incredible how Nadal haters can do this, they manage to convince themselves a multitude of theories (which all have negative implications on Nadal) are correct, even though they directly contradict each other.

But Amri I thought you enjoyed debating with those you perceive as Rafa haters? Why else spend so much time doing it?
In any case, I will assume you're not prepared to discuss the idea of physical injuries as a result of emotional stress, with regards to Rafa. Perhaps you could find an example of another player, in order to discuss it.

mikeyM1000 wrote:But Amri I thought you enjoyed debating with those you perceive as Rafa haters? Why else spend so much time doing it?

Yes sure.
But this doesn't explain the 30/34 stat, combined with the fact most on this forum have contradicting theories which are all negative towards Nadal. So something is alarming when you just tend to disagree with me.

mikeyM1000 wrote:
In any case, I will assume you're not prepared to discuss the idea of physical injuries as a result of emotional stress, with regards to Rafa. Perhaps you could find an example of another player, in order to discuss it.

Of course I am, I was just emphasising the difference between stress and feeling humiliated. The link you gave talked about a chronic cycle, so we have to keep our eye out I suppose if this happens again.
The fact Nadal is always stressed during matches, and has lost more one sided sets than this final, has a good record against Stan in general, felt mildly uncomfortable even in the warm-up, managed to get beaten by Djokovic 7 times without any injury or MTO; all these factors indicate why I remain slightly sceptical before confirming this theory as definitely true.

When you have a real back injury, you don't go winning sets in a grand slam final.  It's a load of shit.  Amri won't bother conceding to those stats though, he'll/she'll just move the goal posts or ignore them. As usual.

Julia Santamaria wrote:

Tenez wrote:I was surprised not to see Nadal in better form in that final after his display of power and fitness in that semi v Federer.

Sure Stan played well but he was dealing with an easier ball to time from the beginning of that match. Not sure why.

Nadal said he was feeling mild discomfort from the warm-up, but then his back collapsed in the second set.
But again, most Nadal haters probably think he's faking the whole injury thing, so there we go.

Well he cried wolf too many times over his career, don't you agree? He has had too many MTOs and that certainly affected his credibility.

I was not impressed by the way he handled that final. When something goes wrong, sometimes you have to accept it and try not to steal it from your opponent. I have pointed many times in Fed's career when something suddenly snapped, he tries hard but extremely rarely does he use the MTO. Murray is similar to Fed in that respect though Murray wants us to see he is suffering,....or so it seems. I am not saying Nadal should not have used an mto this time.....but because he used one on 3 of his previous match in that same tournament, th ecrowd gout fed up, and rightly so. Clearly it affected Stan who would typically have finished the job in 3 sets but there he was all over the place and I am pretty sure he would have lost that match had it gone to a 5th.....not because nadal was better but because Stan would have been completely furious about it and way down his level before the MTO.

Nadal plays with an extreme physical game, he has to accept that when that fitness goes it's like the edge going out of a talented player. Talented players do not take MTOs cause suddenly they are tired and need recovery periods to retrieve their sharp game.

Stan won...Nadal lost....fine but the final was crap after that second set because of that circus going on. There was too much drama. A drug is actually what relaxed nadal....did not need to leave the court for that. he had a panic face when frankly he simply lost a match...and not against a bad opponent.

Take for instance the case when Fed played Hewitt in Halles' final (in 2010?). Fed simply won that first set convincingly before he injured himself which cost him Wimby 2010 too. A few of us noticed Fed got injured while playing, but did he take a MTO? Did he try to steel the moment for Hewitt? no...it's only seeing him lose 2 sets to Falla the following week (after having creamed that same Falla in Halle) that people started to believe he was probably injured. That's how Nadal should behave....be is a slam or an ATP250 final. It does not matter at the end of the day. You play for the crowd and the crowd does not like whinging athletes.

We can never be sure if it's definitely true. Rafa himself might not even be aware of it. Given the situation though, it remains an interesting possibility. Possibly the most important match of his career in terms of his unique legacy (achieving a feat unmatched in the Open era), the mantle of heavy favourite, which he doesn't always wear well, losing a set to a player he has not lost a set to before, then an early break down. All that can greatly affect a player mentally. Each match is a unique situation, so what happened e.g. against Djoko may not be relevant.

The second link states "This symptom can last for a few brief moments or persist indefinitely" indicating an acute effect, not just chronic.

As such it's an intriguing possibility. It would also explain why it appeared to recover somewhat during the latter stages of the match (a mental re-grouping), although again, it's not the only possibility.

When these heavy GS' matches are played, every player feels within the match a kind of body discomfort. The vast mojority can through this, but only Nadal is able to perform the most dramatic travesty show ever.

paulcz wrote:Please look at Nadal’s serve statistics from the AO final  (km/hr). I hope that this will help to open eyes and know how that travesty show went on that great Stan's day

(taken from http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/scores/stats/day19/1701ms.html)

Avg. serve   total                   the first                 the second    

1^st                174                             180                             149

2^nd               144                             150                             127

3^rd           155                             158                             131

4^th                159                             166                             136

.........
I didn’t want to put these serve stats  here, because it is as plain as day why was that circus produced.

Are you saying those stats do not show a drop of form from 1st set to the rest of the match? Cause they show just that to me. Whether that is whether nadal was injured or faking it is another matter.

FedererKing wrote:When you have a real back injury, you don't go winning sets in a grand slam final.  It's a load of shit.  Amri won't bother conceding to those stats though, he'll/she'll just move the goal posts or ignore them. As usual.

Well again Federer won Wimby 2012 with one.

It's all down to how bad that injury is...and no-one really knows bar the player really.

Paul wrote:Please look at Nadal’s serve statistics from the AO final  (km/hr). I hope that this will help to open eyes and know how that travesty show went on that great Stan's day

(taken from http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/scores/stats/day19/1701ms.html)

Avg. serve   total                   the first                 the second    

1st                174                             180                             149

2nd               144                             150                             127

3rd           155                             158                             131

4th                159                             166                             136

Nadal  increased his total avg serve from 144 to 155 to 159 km/hr from the second to the fourth set.  No double fault within the third and fourth set. People wake up!!  I saw it on TV, then this stats shows it clearly, Nadal had no back injury,

So his serve decreased 30 km/h from 1st to 2nd set, on average.

And in the 3rd set he averaged 94mph, 96 in the 4th set.
I guess that's totally normal for Nadal.

If you decrease the serve speed by 15km/hr in favor of your higher kick variation and placement, then your serve can be even more efficient, especially in case of left handers.

But he barely put any kick or topspin on his serves from the second set onwards, so we can discount this idea immediately.

When you have a real back injury then  you just produce  double faults, does not matter on your  serve speed.

Firstly that's nonsense, you could just roll in your serve below 100mph (as Nadal did).
Secondly, Federer said that after his Indian Wells QF 2013 against Nadal, that he had a back injury. I believed him, as he wasn't moving well so no reason not to believe him. However I've checked the stats, and Federer did not hit any double faults.
SO ARE YOU SAYING FEDERER IS LYING ABIUT HIS BACK INJURY?? HOW DARE YOU.

A real back injury, as in not a niggle, or an ache. Federer played through the pain but it was not a serious injury... Nor was Nadal's. Although he tried to con everyone that it was. Federer also never deliberately used his pain to call for a trainer.

mikeyM1000 wrote:

As such it's an intriguing possibility. It would also explain why it appeared to recover somewhat during the latter stages of the match (a mental re-grouping), although again, it's not the only possibility.

It's a possibility, but I don't want to go too ahead of myself and say it for certain; for the reasons I stated.

mikeyM1000 wrote:We can never be sure if it's definitely true. Rafa himself might not even be aware of it. Given the situation though, it remains an interesting possibility. Possibly the most important match of his career in terms of his unique legacy (achieving a feat unmatched in the Open era), the mantle of heavy favourite, which he doesn't always wear well, losing a set to a player he has not lost a set to before, then an early break down. All that can greatly affect a player mentally. Each match is a unique situation, so what happened e.g. against Djoko may not be relevant.

The second link states "This symptom can last for a few brief moments or persist indefinitely" indicating an acute effect, not just chronic.

As such it's an intriguing possibility. It would also explain why it appeared to recover somewhat during the latter stages of the match (a mental re-grouping), although again, it's not the only possibility.

Yes that can make sense. ...especially knowing how stressed Nadal normally is. In my view he over did his main weapon which is to whack the ball as hard as possible to break Stan's main weapon: his timing. Probably created muscular spasms.

FedererKing wrote:A real back injury, as in not a niggle, or an ache.  Federer played through the pain but it was not a serious injury... Nor was Nadal's.  Although he tried to con everyone that it was.  Federer also never deliberately used his pain to call for a trainer.  

Nadal had a back injury... may not be long term or career threatening, but that doesn't mean it can't hinder you hugely on one day.
The fact you've tried to use the fact he won a set, and Paul tried to use the fact he served at 94mph, as evidence he wasn't injured is laughable.

Julius, you agree with me on this one?

FedererKing wrote:A real back injury, as in not a niggle, or an ache.  Federer played through the pain but it was not a serious injury... Nor was Nadal's.  Although he tried to con everyone that it was.  Federer also never deliberately used his pain to call for a trainer.  

It was serious enough to lose 2 straight sets v Benetteau and would have lost v Malisse had malisse got a bit more nerves.

Sure fed behaves well in general...but that is not to say Nadal was automatically faking it. Tough to say.

Nadal had a perfect record against Wawrinka, and one of the greatest record from coming from 1 set down.

With that in mind, why on earth would he gift Stan the match by serving so slowly and not running. Even in the last game he didn't run or serve above 100mph in the second last game, what on earth would be the point of doing that just to irritate your opponent.