World Tour Finals :: Nadalerer

by Craig Hickman



Roger Federer of Switzerland walks off the court with the trophy after defeating Rafael Nadal of Spain in their men's final match during the ATP World Tour Finals at O2 Arena on November 28, 2010 in London, England.

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It will be the first time world No. 1 Rafael Nadal and world No. 2 Roger Federer have contested a match since the Madrid final five months ago.

Both are playing well. Both are struggling with concentration lapses during matches. He who lapses last will lose.

Who you got?

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MadProfessah was a bit late, but he offered up his divinations as follows:

ATP World Tour Finals Semifinals Review and Final Preview

BY MAD PROFESSAH

World #1 Rafael Nadal will face World #2 Roger Federer in the final match of the 2010 ATP tennis season at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London today. As MadProfessah predicted on Friday, Federer was able to dismiss World #3 Novak Djokovic in straight sets while World #5 Andy Murray put up a stern challenge to prevent this 22nd meeting in the storied rivalry between the two greatest players of their generation.

Semifinals Review

The two semifinals were thrilling in their own way. Federer demolished the Serb in a 6-1 6-4 match which was not as close as the score reveals. Essentially, Federer won two 6-1 sets but went through "a bad patch" at the beginning of the second set where he lost 3 consecutive games. The Swiss quickly recovered and dispatched Djokovic to continue his preparation for next week's Davis Cup Final matchup versus France in Belgrade.

The Nadal-Murray match was one of the best matches of the year, with the Spaniard (barely) prevailing 7-6(5) 3-6 7-6(6). There were some incredible 27 and 36(!) stroke rallies in the first set, with incredibly high quality tennis on both sides of the net. Murray basically lost the first set because after enjoying a hot serving streak for the majority of the set, in the tiebreaker he couldn't buy a first serve. If you can't serve well, it makes it very difficult to win a tiebreaker where every point is effectively a breakpoint. Interestingly the second set was similar to the second set in the Federer-Djokovic match where after basically playing to a draw at 3-all suddenly Nadal went through a bad patch and lost 3 games in a row. (Murray grew more aggressive and was able to break Nadal twice in ten minutes to win the set). In the third set Nadal got the early break and served for the match at 5-4 where, inexplicably, he was broken after holding a match point. Would he be able to prevail in the inevitable tiebreak? It didn't look like it when Murray won the first three points of the tiebreak and led 4-2 on the change over. However, as usual, Nadal did not give up and won the mini-break back to hold a second match point 5-6 on Murray's serve.Murray was able to defend that point with some incredible gets and at 6-6 went for a huge cross-court winner which flew a couple inches wide giving Nadal his third match point on his serve. The World #1 was able to win the match point with his patented inside-out cross-court forehand winner into the far corner of the court to reach the Tour Final for the first time in his storied career.

Finals Preview

This is the 22nd meeting between the 24-year-old 9-time grand slam champion and the 29-year-old 16-time grand slam champion. The younger player enjoys a 14-7 career head-to-head edge; all but 4 of their meetings have been in finals (where Nadal leads 12-5) but at the season-ending championships Federer leads 2-0 (but those wins came when Nadal was usually exhausted at the end of the season). In hard court finals, Nadal leads 2-1 (2009 Australian Open final, 2006 Dubai final). Nadal is also experiencing one of history's greatest seasons ever, having won every clay court match he played this year and winning the last three consecutive grand slam titles with a better than even shot of claiming the "Nadal slam" in Melbourne in a few months.

There are four possibilities for the match result (tabulated below with associated estimated probabilities)

Match Result               Probability
Federer wins in 2 sets     33%
Nadal wins in 2 sets       17%
Federer wins in 3 sets     20%
Nadal wins in 3 sets       30%

This computes to a 53% chance for Federer to win with a 47% chance for Nadal, if there is an equally likelihood of a 2-set and 3-set match. Actually, looking at their 21 previous matches, only 8 of their matches have gone the distance. All that being said, the match should be close and exciting!

MadProfessah's prediction: Federer in 2 sets; Nadal in 3 sets with a distinct edge to whomever wins the first set.

ATP World Tour Finals: Semifinals Preview

By MAD PROFESSAH

The semifinals of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals are set: Roger Federer will play Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will play Andy Murray. Federer and Nadal are undefeated through the first three round-robin rounds with Nadal only dropping his very first set of the tournament against Andy Roddick, although Djokovic should probably have won the first set in their match. Federer was pretty lucky not to lose the first set against Robin Soderling.

That being said, Nadal has a 8-4 career edge against Murray, a 14-7 lead against Federer and a 15-7 lead against Djokovic. He is, after all, the world's No. 1 player and the current holder of 3 of the 4 major titles, having won 3 in a row in 2010. He has never won this tournament, because he's usually dead tired by this point in the season. He did not play in 2008 and lost all 3 round-robin matches last year. However, it's 2010 and I expect him to at least get to the final, where I suspect he will play Federer in a mouth-watering final. Although Nadal leads the Greatest Of All Time in their overall head-to-head and beat him once this year as well as the last time they met on a hard court (the inexplicable 2009 Australian Open final), their hard court record head-to-head is tied 3-3 with Federer beating Nadal twice in the semifinals of the year-ending championships in 2006 and 2007. However, in Finals one would have to give the edge to Nadal (12-5).

Can Novak and Andy stop another Fedal final? Possibly, since Murray sports a 2-1 lead over Nadal (4-4 career on hard courts) this year, both time winning on hard courts including the last time they played in the semifinals of Toronto (where Murray also beat Federer). His single loss to Nadal came in London earlier this year in the Wimbledon semis. For all intents and purposes that was the equivalent of a Tour final. Murray himself has been lowering expectations about his chances against Nadal (and Federer) in his press conferences this week. However, I think he probably has the best chance of the three of preventing Nadal from winning his first tour championships.

While Nadal faces the person most likely to beat him, Federer plays the person least likely to beat him. (He beat Murray this week in round-robin play but has an overall 5-8 losing record to the Scot.) Djokovic trails Federer 6-12 in their career match-up, including 1-3 for the year. Of course that one win was in the semifinals of the 2010 US Open where Federer held two match points and lost. One does feel if the match is close, Federer will likely lose it. Ever since then, Federer has beaten Novak relatively easily and I expect that will be the case tomorrow.

MadProfessah's predictions: Nadal defeats Murray in 3 sets; Federer defeats Djokovic in 2 sets.

London Round Robin Review

by Craig Hickman

The title of this post is really a misnomer for I don't actually have a review of the round-robin matches to share. Too many of the encounters were straight-set snooze fests featuring uninspired tennis and an abundance of ennui. That's why I'm happy to know that the ATP and the ITF are conspiring to shorten the season by two weeks. I think it's two weeks. I'm sure one of our readers knows better.

The best match London has had to offer prior to the semifinals was Rafael Nadal's defeat of Andy Roddick after trailing a set and a break. Fans of Rafa will likely say he started reading Roddick's serve after being a break down in the second set and wore Roddick out from the baseline. Fans of Roddick will likely say he started disbelieving he could actually defeat a reigning world No. 1 shortly after being up a break in the second set and lost his way.

Now, we'll have Roger Federer wipe up the floor with Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, presumably with lots of crowd encouragement, try to exert his hard court prowess over Rafa in the semis.

It's looking like another Nadalerer final, the first to be contested at season's end if I recall correctly.

Either you're excited or you're blasé.

World Tour Finals 2010 Day 1 Open Thread

by Craig Hickman


Reuters

Tennis players (L-R) Tomas Berdych, Roger Federer, Robin Söderling, Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick, Novak Djokovic and David Ferrer are pictured standing together with British Prime Minister David Cameron (4th L) outside 10 Downing Street in London, November 18, 2010.

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The final ATP event of yet another long and grueling year is upon us. Because I haven't seen enough tennis in the latter half of the season, I can make no predictions whatsoever.

Savannah's World has an excellent and artistic preview posted. Those interspersed head shots are lovely.

Tell us what you think about the draw and who you believe will prevail.

Enjoy tennis.