{"id":477,"date":"2006-11-19T21:38:17","date_gmt":"2006-11-20T05:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=477"},"modified":"2006-11-19T21:38:17","modified_gmt":"2006-11-20T05:38:17","slug":"2006-masters-cup-federer-nada-ix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/2006-masters-cup-federer-nada-ix\/","title":{"rendered":"2006 Masters Cup: Federer-Nada IX"},"content":{"rendered":"

…why has Blake dismissed Nadal in all three of their matches yet Federer can hardly beat him?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>
\nIt was time for Federer-Nadal Round Nine at the Masters Cup in Shanghai but I wasn\u2019t excited. This was the first semifinal Rafael Nadal has reached since Wimbledon while Roger Federer hadn\u2019t lost since before the U.S. Open and that was only because he didn\u2019t want to play two Masters Series tournaments in a row.<\/p>\n

After watching James Blake beat Nadal for the third straight time in round-robin play here, the obvious question is: why has Blake dismissed Nadal in all three of their matches yet Federer can hardly beat him? First of all, Federer\u2019s record against Nadal is misleading. He\u2019s 0-4 against Nadal on clay but he\u2019s 2-2 on fast courts and all of Blake\u2019s victories were on hard court.<\/p>\n

Still, I imagine Federer watched the Blake-Nadal match and asked himself the same question. In Round Nine, he seems to have answered it.<\/p>\n

Blake relies on power and athleticism. He gets to the ball early and hits it as hard as he can. As for Federer, when you have every stroke in the book, some times it can lead to over thinking. On grass court it\u2019s easy for him: attack, then attack again and it\u2019s over. He did that the entire two weeks at Wimbledon. But on hard court he seems confused about his game plan.<\/p>\n

Nadal\u2019s game has a brute force and simplicity to it. Play every point like it\u2019s the last one, run around the backhand as often as possible, hit the ball hard and high over the net. Federer characterizes it like this: \u201cHe always plays the same way, but he does that so well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federer\u2019s game is more subtle. Low skidding slices, flat backhands, topspin backhands, hard forehands when the opportunity presents itself. He\u2019s not hammering his opponent as much as probing him. But Nadal is not easy to break down. Federer has to match the force of his game.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what he did today. Less probing and more smashing. I\u2019ve never seen Federer leap into the air and smash the ball so hard shot after shot. He broke Nadal right away and got out to a 4-2 lead and here we saw the first magical point.<\/p>\n

Each player hit cross court then down the line as if they were doing drills at a tennis academy except they were hitting the ball three times harder and covering twice as much court. With every stroke, the crowd let out an \u201cOOH\u201d, each time a little louder. At one point Nadal ran all the way from one end of the baseline to the other to run around a forehand after which they resumed their X-pattern. Nadal finally hit a drop shot before Federer, on the twenty-first stroke, sent a volley long.<\/p>\n

Now I was excited.<\/p>\n

Federer is now 3-6 against Nadal and gaining and that\u2019s a bad thing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Federer had a bad game serving for the set at 5-3 and Nadal got the break to get back on serve. We\u2019ve seen this before. Federer got out to a quick start in Dubai and Roland Garros against Nadal then slowed down and lost the match. Nadal gets steelier as the game goes on and Federer gets shakier. This time Federer dealt with it by resuming his power game and it worked. In the next game, we saw the second magical point.<\/p>\n

For the first seventeen strokes, both players hit the ball as hard as they could down the middle of the court. After that, the ball went corner to corner until Federer took a ball early and crossed up Nadal by hitting to the previous spot. The Blake imitation worked. Federer had his break and the first set.<\/p>\n

Federer broke Nadal again in the second set and had two match points at 5-4 but couldn\u2019t cash them in. Nadal was in full fighting mode now and two games later with Nadal serving, the battle escalated. Every point was exceptional. Each player hit a winner down the line that got the crowd on its feet. Federer hit his from outside the court – it barely passed inside the net post.<\/p>\n

Federer got a third match point and here was the last magical point. It was short but magnificent. Nadal attacked first and sent Federer wide followed by a shot to the opposite corner then a drop shot as far from Federer as possible. Federer had so far to run he couldn\u2019t stop his momentum and ran himself outside the doubles sideline. Just before he got there, he hit a cross court forehand too hard for Nadal to return. He dropped to his knees and let out a primal scream. He won the match, 6-4, 7-5, and had his third win in nine matches against his nemesis.<\/p>\n

Federer is now 3-6 against Nadal and gaining and that\u2019s a bad thing. The better Nadal gets, the further he falls behind and we\u2019ll probably have another two or three years of Federer dominance. It could take that long to see if Marcos Baghdatis or Novak Djokovic might be able to chip away at him.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t look to Blake for help. He lost in the final, 6-0, 6-3, 6-4, for his sixth straight loss to Federer. I shouldn\u2019t be complaining, Federer and Nadal played a magnificent match and Blake jumped all the way to number four by reaching the final.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m upset because tennis is sinking in the U.S and I\u2019m sure my California home will lose an ATP tournament or two. We\u2019ve already lost the WTA tournament in San Diego after 2007. I spoke to a woman yesterday whose family runs a tennis facility for juniors near Pete Sampras\u2019 hometown of Palos Verdes. They\u2019ve removed twenty of their sixty courts and built courts for volleyball and speed soccer because there aren\u2019t enough tennis players. They should probably build a skateboard park while they’re at it.<\/p>\n

For now I\u2019ll have to be content with Federer-Nadal Round Ten and a few more incredible matches but I\u2019d forgo that for the real thing, a bonafide rivalry.<\/p>\n

<\/blockquote>\n

2006 Masters Cup: Three Sets = 24 Minutes Of Activity<\/a>
\n2006 Masters Cup: Calling Dr. Freud<\/a>
\n2006 Masters Cup: Blake Gets Hot<\/a>
\nYanks On Fire In Shanghai<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…why has Blake dismissed Nadal in all three of their matches yet Federer can hardly beat him? It was time for Federer-Nadal Round Nine at the Masters Cup in Shanghai but I wasn\u2019t excited. This was the first semifinal Rafael Nadal has reached since Wimbledon while Roger Federer hadn\u2019t lost since before the U.S. Open […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tennis-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}