Hi all,

I did a little bit of translation ( and I took some elements as well from another discussion group ;) :P ) of some articles concerning Rafa published in the last few days in the Spanish press (mainly it is Rafa answering to some precise question about his 2007 season), i.e. I use the articles you can find here:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=es&ned=es&i...kok&btnG=Buscar

The main answers made by him are as follow:

*On Federer*

Roger has been at an unattainable level. He is still better than
everyone else.
Federer is not unreachable. It is difficult, but I am closer than ever
before.

*Reaching #1*
Who knows if within two years, of five or next year I can be at
Federer's level? One never knows, but I am at peace and will do
everything I can to improve my level.

*Overtaking Federer in 2007*
Nadal denied that it was his objective this year. I am not thinking
about it now and did not think about it earlier. I am #2 and want to
maintain my lead over Djokovic.

*Djokovic Parody*
I don't have a problem with it. It is just one more imitation, but the
occasion was poor (after reaching the QF of the US Open). Better done in
private.

*Return to Tour*
In theory, I will return in Bangkok if I am 100%. If not, the next
tournament will be Madrid. It will be hard not having played since the
US Open, but I hope to do well in Madrid which is a very special
tournament for me.

*ATP Schedule*
The stretch from Monte Carlo to Wimbledon kills me. The calendar is
getting more and more unfavorable to clay court players. Federer,
Djokovic and Ljubicic can shine once at the beginning of the year and
again in the second half of the year. Not so for us. Those three months
are of the greatest urgency and tension.

Ciao
Tennisveritas

He does not seem happy about about Djoko's imitations.

I agree so much with him about the clay season being too busy and the HC way too long.

I am going to support him from now. Clay and grass are great surfaces while HCs are killing our players. I think IW and Miami successively is really a waste of time.

I agree, although I think the clay season is also long enough. Better to have a longer grass season. :ok:

But we all know that's not going to happen ... :(

Hmm, complaining bout the schedule while playing Chennai, Barcelona and Stuttgart is a bit contradictory to me. I’m also not buying he’s not thinking about overtaking Federer. It’s more likely he’s in a hurry, that means; while he can.
But you can blame him for playing some of those meaningless tourneys; he’s free to copy the schedule of Federer but that won’t bring him to the top spot.

And in turn, I agree that the clay season is long enough. But that is mostly due to the fact that Federer doesn't play everywhere and that it is either Nadal winning it or if nadal hasn't entered it is thena 30+ ranked player (from Spain/SA essentially if not exclusively) winning it which takes a bit of spice away.

Should Miami beon clay instead of hard, it woud be much more exciting as it coudl be a small FO....instead ofhaving 2 small USO (or AO) in a row!

I can't see why we can't get more grass court. If we were to replace deVilliers with a sensible person, maybe we could gt a longer grass season. A grass TMS is long due!

Yes but Nadal and others can play on clay for ever without injuring themselves....on hard it is vey different. Just look at all the players that got injured in the USO or the run up to the USO.

Good luck with that ... :rolleyes:

Does Federer not shine on clay as well? :shrug:

Also he seems to be a bit of a moaner there when he plays endlessly on clay by choice.Its his favourie Surfcae afterall.It seems to me that he is a bit disgruntled by his own limitations and inability to be a great all surface player because he only "shines" in one part of the year.

Tenez this statement coming from you is a bit shocking and really unjustifiable.You are saying that clay is a surface that we should have more of to prevent injuries or at least thats what Im understanding.That makes no sense. If Nadal wants to be numero uno then he better stop whinging and whining,improve his game on hardcourt,maybe even sacrifice clay and start playing aggressive tennis on all surfaces instead of standing yonders behind the baseline moonballing to victory.He is injured often because of his style of play and not the surfaces.

:ok:

I'm not sure though --- I think that the long clay season also affects Nadal; it's got to be exhausting both physically and mentally. And I feel that's part of the reason his year seems to usually go as it does: he doesn't do badly in the early HC events, after all. But by the end of the year, he seems to have run out of steam a little bit.

He's clever enough to know that it's better to downplay these things until they happen. Last year he said his goal for 2007 was to stay in the top 8 ... :rolleyes:

He's being cautious, to avoid the danger of talking big and then not delivering. Remember Djokovic at the 2007 USO? Or Roddick, for that matter, who said he was getting closer to Federer? I mean, there's nothing wrong with displaying confidence and saying things as you see them, for sure. But Rafa is careful not to add extra outside pressure to himself.

And here's the opposite way to do it (from TENNIS.com):

No pressure then ...

To be fair, he probably has a point. If a player who is good on hard courts gets injured at the beginning of the year, he's likely to be fine by the end of the year and will be able to pick up points there, and vice versa. If a pre-dominantly clay court player gets injured at the beginning of the clay court season, then he's screwed basically. And if you look at the schedule for 2009, they're making it even more HC focused :shrug:

Surely it would make more sense to have a mix of clay, HC and grass events throughout the year rather than having a HC season, a clay season and a grass "season" :shrug: or would moving from surface to surface damage a player's body even more??? :unsure:

I disagree I think a mix up of surfaces throughout the year could be more damaging than anything else and cause much more injuries.I agree with the seasonal surfaces.

Switching surfaces constantly will increase injuries.

Ok, but I still don't necessarily think that Nadal's point is completely invalid. The tour does seem to be moving further and further towards hard courts, and that seems to be fairly tough on the player's bodies.

I wonder what changes Rafa would suggest? Increasing the length of the clay season? :unsure:

We on the same page! :ok:

His point is a more invalid than not.The game is and has been predominantly played on Hardcourts.Grass was also,in the land before time a major surface but the game move onto hardcourts.Rafa is actually speaking for his fellow countrymen who all grow up on clay.Maybe they should in their early years spend different parts of their year at tennis academy's learning on different surfaces if they can afford it!Nadal need to improve on all surfaces.He is to used of the ball not coming as fast on clay therefore he knows he better than most will win almost always!

don't you find it interesting, though dark, that they're sticking a hard court masters event in the middle of the clay season in 2009?

Indian Wells - hard
Miami - hard
Monte Carlo - clay
Rome - hard (yes - HARD )
Madrid - clay
Canada - hard
Cincinnati - hard
Shanghai - hard
Paris - hard
London (Masters Cup) - hard


I agree that Nadal needs to sort himself out on hard courts though :ok:

Yes I found that quite disturbing to say the least and the sense behind it escapes me.Also they are taking away the prestige from the Foro Italico. Madness really!

That's part of the reason i was wondering about the impact of switching surfaces, 'cos of the fact that the ATP have obviously decided it's not a problem :unsure:

The game has now reached a level physically which puts all players (not only Nadal) at risk on HC. HC is from July to March...9 out of the 12 months roughly. It is simply too much. I am the first to condemn th way the game is going but HCs simply pushes players in becoming stronger and fitter to reach the breaking point while clay and grass teach them to walk on eggs and are much better on joints and muscles.

Federer and most of the top 50 players were against downgrading MC and Hamburg. So this is a general concern here, not nadal 's alone.

Tenez I see your points and I basically agree with them: I mean how many times did you have already discussed about this horrible Calendar and about the fact that does not give more place to Grass ( and this will not cahnge even in the near future :-().

Unfortunately the fact that Mickey is now managing the ATP would not help : This guy is too American biased IMO and his focus on HC (as well as the fact of keeping all the 4 HC Masters in North America) is simply the proof of this biased attitude...

Said all that, Rafa is in part responsible of his problems: He does not have a nice schedule, he is IMO playing too much given his style of playing and he has simply to reduce his schedule. I know, by so doing, might be he will never reach the No#1 of the ranking..

But he has to choose: Stay fit and fight at the top of the ranking or increase the injuries the stop and go and might be end up with a shorter career: hard to choose I agree but this is what he has to do, given his game and his opponent to the top, i.e. FED , in particular, who is playing without using so much his body: he does not have a lot of other choices..

ompletely agree TV. Rafa's problem is Rafa's problem. He should really manage his preparation better but then can probably forget about becoming number one.

What I dislike is having such a long HC season!!! and IW and Miami back to back!!! What is really the point of it? I was actually glad Fed lost in both those tournies early last year. Once he has prven he could win them both twice in a row, his mind went to European clay early last year, and rightly so.

Tenez my buddy,it was this year. And he won them 3 years in row if Im not mistaken.But yes I agree with you :ok: Rafa needs to sort out his problem and he can also forget about that number 1 when he might lose his number 2 a lot sooner than he thinks!

Yep, you right Darky "budy";)

...but he made the IW/Miami double twice only but won one of the the 2, 3 times in a row....if I am not mistaking.

Why you saying buddy in inverted comma arent we friends? :shrug:

Yeah he did!

Indeed, I hope we are buddies!!! and even more so if we hapen to disagree at times (on details only). :ok:

I put it in inv-comas cause you had used the term already. Not sure how to expain it really. :shrug: