Wimbledon QF - Murray vs Nadal

indiana · Tennis legend

RE: Wimbledon QF - Murray vs Nadal

RJA · Hall of fame

eblunt wrote:

IMO For as long as he has a 1st serve percentage of 50% and second serve at 85 mph he is not going to win a grand slam.

Over the course of a 5 setter that 2nd serve will become such a target he won't get away with it. he only just got away with it against Dammit because he choked whilst serving for the match.

I can't think of anyone in the top 5 that he's beaten in a slam, (obviously now going to proved wrong by someone), and with an obvious weakness like that I don't see how he can.

Hardly anybody thinks that his second serve is good enough to win a slam and i am sure that he knows how weak it is at the moment. It needs improving but I am sure that he will improve it.

The Hoose · Satellite level

It wasn't a good performance by Murray but I'm reluctant to call it a very bad performance because Nadal did play extremely well. Nadal said after the match that Murray is excellent when given time to play his shots and said that he therefore approached the game trying to hit harder and play the ball earlier. Murray commented that Nadal's groundstrokes were hit with such pace, depth and flatness that he was rushed into every shot.

This time, I'm prepared to give credit to Rafa and let Andy off - particularly because after the Gasquet performance I said I'd forgive him whatever happened in the next round.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i think rafa relaised he just coudlnt let andy settle as he saw what andy could do vs gasquet, he also knew to try and kepe the pressure on and keep the crowd subduded was vital as its obvious murray thrives on that.
i was dissapoting with andy but have to give full credit to rafa who played excellenty, if he player slike that in the final roger will find it very tough imo, rafa barely put a shot wrong. how mnay UE's did he make in those sets?

eblunt · Club Coach

Rafa had 8 UEs, which is astonishing really, when you consider he had something like 45 winners. Andy's UEs at 20 wasn't too bad either. For me , the stat that really caught my eye was that Andy, a good returner could only win 10pts on Rafs serve in the whole match.

Salmon · Tennis legend

That wasn't good tennis from Andy. You can't beat the golden retriever at retrieving - the idea is to hit it as hard as you can, even if that means going into ballbasher mode. I seriously thought that after the AO match, Andy had figured out how to hurt Nadal, if not beat him.

Anyway, overall it was a great campaign and the next time he faces Nadal, he'll probably know what to do.

The best part was that he justified his claims that he deserved to get seeded higher than where he was. I thoroughly agreed with him on that and now no one can complain!

indiana · Tennis legend

Greenleaf wrote:

The best part was that he justified his claims that he deserved to get seeded higher than where he was. I thoroughly agreed with him on that and now no one can complain!

Andy was seeded absolutely correctly according to the criteria laid down, based on official rankings points plus an adjustmenrt for grass court results in previous 2 years.

He is right that missing last year's grasscourt season, particularly Wimbledon, no doubt effected him ( assuming he had won matches )

I tend to think there is a strong arguement for just going straight from the rankings ( which Andy said he'd be OK with ). The French Open doesn't have a clay adjustment !

Salmon · Tennis legend

Why should the FO have positive clay adjustments?

So many tournaments are played on clay as it is and almost all clay specialists are overranked, forget underranked.

I know that he was seeded correctly according to the criteria... It's just that I don't agree with the criteria and feel that more weight given towards grass points. It is a farce that someone like Davydenko is seeded inside the top 16, forget top 4.

And even taking the present seeding system as a given, you have to admit that the injury system is incredibly harsh. Not that it would have changed Andy's position in real terms, but there should be some adjustment for players who are injured. How about two of your last three grass seasons if you miss one?

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i think they should stick as is, cant mess it about too much or make exceptions, if your injured its tough luck unfortunately, and penalises players who werent injured, and perhaps take better care of themsleves (i know andy's was a freak injury - by like i say you cant use individual cases) for really bad long term inujries they have the proteced rankings anway.

although i agree no way should clay get any weighting. and if they managed to extend the grass season by a few weeks then maybe wimby could drop theior system, but at the moment wit hthw top players only playing 2 events per year on grass it does make a kind of sesne.

indiana · Tennis legend

I honestly don't really agree that more weighting should be given to grass court points.

Look what the current criteria did to Baghdatis's seeding. Ranked no 25, seeded no 10. Someone posted that they thought that was a ridiculous rise ( while at the same time saying Murray should have been higher smile

) Give more weighting, and Baghdatis could only have gone even higher !

The facts are Baghdatis rose to no 10 due to a combination of his grass court record in the previous 2 years and the fact that he was actually within 600 points of 10th place in the rankings.

On the other hand, the top 5 in the rankings, including Davydenko and Ferrer, were massively far ahead of the rest in ranking points, that it would have needed a huge adjustment to demote any of them. Though no doubt Ferrer would have overtaken Davydenko if his grass court title had been in time to count.

The only other way you could get Davydenko down would possibly be by some subjective judgement on seedings, and I am definitely not in favour of that !

I do think Wimbledon have got it just about right.

I can see an arguement, though, for using the 2 best of last 3 grass court seasons,. Most weight is currently given to the last one, so particularly if you miss the last Wimbledon, you can theoretically lose out a bit ( or more accurately not gain as much in points adjustment ).

With the system, though you never really drop in seeding position very much, but you can rise quite far ( eg. Baghdatis ). On balance, I'd leave it be or not adjust at all.

-- Edited by indiana at 18:22, 2008-07-04