It is next week right? Rafa is playing it ? Is Madrid the week after?

From last year has Rafa changed China to Stockholm and Federer Thailand to Japan?

If Madrid is straight after Stockholm odds on he will go deep into both and if matches up against Federer will be tired?

Draw



Also McEnroe/Bjorkman v. the Johanssons in doubles :D

Joachim Johnasson is back :clap:

Jonny Marray has won two matches in qualifying at this event, I think he has one more to go. James Auckland won one round but I think lost the second. Alan Mackin has played one and won it. Josh Goodall lost in the first round.

That looks like a strong draw! I think the next tournament for Tim is the masters series event coming up.

That begins on the 30th October. Hes taking a long break

Nadal playing Sluiter at the moment - and already a break up. (2-0)

Thats the paris masters you're talking bout, next masters is madrid which is next week i think...

BTW Johnny Marray lost to Marc Gicquel 64 76. Looks a fairly close match which is quite promising considering gicquel is ranked way above marray (63rd in the entry) and is on a good run of form which so him reach the 4th round at flushing (beating gaudio and ferrero along the way) and recently reaching the semis at Metz (beating Ferrer along the way also).

I saw that Marray result. It does seem encouraging. Gicquel does seem to be in good form lately, as you say.

Meanwhile, Sluiter is hanging with Nadal. Rafa still has the break, up 3-2, but he hasn't exactly been holding serve easily and has had to save a couple break points, himself.

And nadal wins 6-4 6-2

Bjorkman looks to be about to lose to Soderling after losing the 1st set 6-0!!! That'll be a short-lived blog then....

James Blake is playing now and is 3-0 against Johanssen

Nice win for Blake, 6-3 6-2 over T. Johansson. :ok:

Blake v. Berdych in the semis should be good, if both manage to make it there.

Stockholm Update:

J. Johansson takes the first set over Nadal 6-4!

And Joachim breaks Nadal again, in the first game of set 2. :unsure:

Is the Nadal / Blake final I was looking forward to going to be spoiled here??

Hi Nick...Well good question...Difficult to answer but might be a lot of people was expecting too much from Nadal :P .

I mean he is back from a quite long period without Tennis and he is back on a surface thathe is not his best..In any case I guess he should be able to recover and pass his current opponent... B)

We'll see. Johansson will now serve to force a tie-break in the second set.

Tie-break it is.

I'm torn. I really want to see that Nadal/Blake rematch, but Joachim was pretty exciting when he burst onto the scene, but hasn't been heard from much lately. I'd like to see him get back in form, as well.

Go Rafa? Go JJ? :unsure:

3-0 JJ with an early mini-break.

4-2 Still just the one mini-break.

4-3 Back on serve.

JJ to serve two points with a 5-4 lead . . .

6-4 Two match points.

And Joachim takes it 6-4 7-6 (4).

Well that was a bit of a shock, Nadal out already :yikes:

:ok: for Johansson.

:( for Nadal.

Nadal is out...My forcast was a little bit Wrong :wacko: ...Go to sleep now..well see you tomorrow.
Ciao
PS: How Wise_Analysis will explain this?????
I just can wait

roflmao

Probably something about a chilling warning sent by Mr. Johansson. :whistle:

oh rafa!!!!!!!!!!! :o :o :rolleyes: :o :yikes:

he really hasnt played well sice wimby :unsure: :(

All quiet on the chairman, chetanpv front. How surprising :D

Rafa! :o :(

Rafa!!!

where are the trolls? My bet is they are going to come back and say how weak this era is when the number two player can be so easily beaten by a player out of top 100. :P

Musing

Actually you cannot blame Nadal, poor chap. In the past champions like Sampras used to regularly lose 10-20 matches per year even while in their peak. It is just that Federer has set such an exceedingly high standard of playing that everyone now expects Nadal to win every single match.

Compared to Sampras, Nadal is still doing fine. But Federer lives in a higher plane still.

Musing.

I am surprised by this one! :o

but then again, Johanssen is another of those big flat hitters that can cause Rafa problems.. I remember a match that he had with Agassi a few years ago when Johanssen was hitting stunning winners from all around teh court and Andre just had to weather the storm and hope that joahnssen went off the boil (which he did, and Andre eventually won) not sure if it was the French open??

Could be just a blip for Rafa. Of course he'll bounce back.. he's too good a player not to, and he's made of stern stuff.. Maybe he's a little jaded, who knows.. and as I said, Johansson has some similarity to Berdych, maybe Blake too in how he takes the ball early and hits flat.

Rafa isn't in his best form; yet at the same time he hasn't proved himself invincivle outside of the clay anyway. People just expected him to inevitably after his run to the Wimbs final. He will win more tournaments. but he isn't going to be a be a dominating hard court figure yet, despite the fact he will always be number one or two seed.

Wow - just got up this morning and seen the result!!! What do we think this means for him defending Madrid - does he just need some practice, or is he just not in as good overall form as he was last year?

Did anyone actually see the match - would they be able to tell us how rafa played? or if johanssen is now a force to be reckoned with?

It just underlines just what a difficult thing it is to keep winning tennis matches week in, week out! Far from being a weak era, there are so many dangerous players even outside the top 50 who can take out just about anyone on their day.

I do feel that Nadal has lost his aura of invincibility on hard courts. This doesn't mean he has become a less than superb player over night. But I think there are now many more players who will step on court with him, believing they can win. Something similar happened to Hewitt where his one style of play worked a dream until players either adapted or evolved to dealing with it. Then he had no effective response. And I think Nadal is entering a similar phase in his career.

This doesn't mean that he won't find a solution or adapt himself. But it will be interesting watching how he progresses in the coming months, whether it will affect his confidence. My hunch is that it will but we'll see. Last year, he won 11 titles (1 GS and 4 masters) and it was always going to be a tall order to repeat this. In science, there is a saying that a true genius is someone who has two great ideas (Einstein and Newton for example). And a tennis genius is someone who has two great seasons. From this, we have to conclude that Nadal is still a superb tennis player but not yet a proven genius.

On the other hand, it is still flabberghasting that a certain Swiss gentleman has followed up a 74-6 season (and I remember many people saying he would never repeat it) with an 81-4 and then to add insult to injury, is on 75-5 (with 3 GSs and GS final!!) this year. That is surely sporting genius.

I didn't see the match, but Rafa played pretty well, and it was a really tight match.

It's just that if you win 17 of your 56 points with service aces (including a 129mph second serve) as Pim-pim did, that does give you a hefty advantage.

It was nip and tuck all the way with JJ winning 72 points to Rafa's 71. And both sets were very tight with JJ nicking a break at the end of teh first, nearly losing the second whilst serving at 5-6 down.

Rafa himself said that he didn't play a bad game, just that JJ did. and also JJ is an aggressive flat hitter who takes the ball early. Just like Berdych and Blake then. A bit of a pattern.

I think that the besst summation for Rafa is that he needs to rethink his tactics on hardcourts. My guess is that he is standing back way too far, and adopting a claycourt approach, and makes him far too vulnerable to the power-hitter. I thought that he had figured this out at SW19 where he stood clsooer to the baseline and took the ball earlier. But he is world numebr 2 by some way and a bright boy, and let's not forget still very young. It's just that he has achieved so much already at such a young age that expectations can be quite high for him. He just needs to figure a few things out, and take steps to ensure that his hard court game does evolve. It does however look that playesr can apply a blueprint to beat him.. It is now up to him to counter this..

A fine post nick!! :ok:

And yes, Roger's record is mind blowingly good.. :bow: I mean, JP Mac did something like that in 1984, but for one year only.. 3 years in a row is outrageous!! :D