ATP - Rafael Nadal

[Niki]

upravo tako... kada imas hronicnu povredu sam planiras u nekoj mjeri trenutak sebi pogodan za saniranje iste. slijepo crijevo je bilo na kraju godine ali mu je remetilo planirani rezim povratka. taman se vratio nakon propustenog USO a nakon pauze poslije loseg vimbldona! i tu je manje vise morao na operaciju. cak je prvobitno zelio i da to odlozi (veoma opasno) do kraja sezone i igrao pod saniranom upalom (nekim antibioticima) neki kraci period ali se dozvao pameti. sam fed je prokomentarisao da je za njega odluka rafe da igra pod upalom ne shvatljiva (sto i jeste bila).

To je bila nevidjena glupost, kako je uopste sebi dozvolio, a i tim oko njega da igra sa upalom slepog creva. Da, to si u pravu da je operacija kompletno poremetila njegov rezim treninga i povratka. Verovatno i to delumno utice na ovo sto vidimo danas.

[jacques9]

Naravno da je hronicna povreda u pitanju, i to je povreda koju vuce celu karijeru, povreda koljena. Na Wimbledonu je izgubio, a povukao se tek na americku turneju, jer svakako on nista ne igra u tom periodu. To je slucaj 2012 godine, kada je propustio i OI, i nije se znalo do zadnjeg trenutka dali ce preskociti ili ne, 2009 iz istog razloga, odnosno istu povredu se povukao i sa Wimbledona.
Prosle godine se povukao pre sam pocetak masters serije zbog povrede zgloba, a ne zbog koljena i ta je povreda cini mi se nastala na treningu. Slepo crevo je sledilo na kraju godine.

Ako barem nađemo nešto pozitivno v toj Nadalovoj 2015 je činjenica, da za sad nema ozljeda.

[Niki]

Ako barem nađemo nešto pozitivno v toj Nadalovoj 2015 je činjenica, da za sad nema ozljeda.

Apsolutno. A, to je ipak osnova za sve ostalo u sportu.

[NI]

Ja ne mislim da Nadal radi ista pogresno sto zbog hronicne povrede koljena preskace pojedine djelove sezone.

[jacques9]

Francis Roig: “I think Nadal at 33 will fight for all the titles as Federer is doing [now]”
Francis Roig is one of the few Rafael Nadal’s trusted men. Together with Toni, uncle and tennis coach, Roig has collaborated in the development and progression of Rafa over the last ten years, the most glorious in the career of the Balearic player. One day before Nadal makes his debut in the Conde Godo 2015, Roig talked with Point Break in the Real Club de Tenis Barcelona.
When and how did the opportunity to train Nadal come up?
In Australia in 2005, I coached Albert Costa and Toni suggested the possibility of combining several weeks with Rafa. I said yes, and then started the South American swing… and till today.
How do you and Toni Nadal distribute the tournaments you are traveling to?
I travel to about 12 tournaments a year: Abu Dhabi, Doha, Indian Wells… in the past I was also going to Miami, but now Toni is going, that’s the change we’ve made. Here we are the two of us, but this is not traveling. Then I’ll go one week before Wimbledon, to Canada and Cincinnati, and then to the Asian tour. I do not travel to the Grand Slams.
When you are traveling with Rafa and Toni stays in Spain, does he give you instructions on what to do? Do you have autonomy?
Toni always gives me all the autonomy I want. At the same time, there are things we talked about. Sometimes, if there is something that is being done wrong, we discuss it and that’s it.
Is your view on tennis and Rafa the same as Toni’s, or are there differences?
In the end, the goal is always the same: trying that Rafa, within reason, plays a little more aggressive. That is always our intention, the way he has been evolving. Rafa is aware of this, but it must be done with enough time and without breaking the basis of the player. We know we have to play more aggressive, but without going crazy.
In Montecarlo Rafa said that he was seeking for more effect [on the ball] with the new racket, but that is something he has never lacked…
Well, it’s a racket that for having a wider space between strings provides more effect [spin, movement to the ball], but the ball goes off [the racquet] faster with less effort. I do not think it will give much more effect than before, though.
Was this change needed to do more damage to the rivals in view of the latest results?
I do not think it was just a matter of having to change the racquet because things have not gone well. His [Rafa’s] tennis was not that bad. In Indian Wells he played quite well. In Miami he was a little more wonky, had a difficult day and was more nervous than usual. The lack of confidence has made him play more nervous and not be as fast with his legs. In life you always have to try to improve, evolve. He wanted to do it now, it was tested, and [he decided to] go ahead.
Why is this racquet better than the previous one?
I’m not saying it is better or worse. What happens is that the ball goes off the racquet faster. It has the same strings, but with a wider separation, especially on the sides. Then, when you do not hit well and in the middle, the ball just keeps running all the same. I think 80 percent of the change of racket is so that the ball goes off with more power with less effort. If you change your racquet and the ball does not go off faster, you’d better stick to the old one. At first it is always a little bit difficult, and if you fail [to impact the ball well] it is a good thing that the ball goes off with more power.
Will he keep the new racket until the clay season is over or indefinitely?
It is the racket with which he is going to play and he has not thought of anything else.
Has the ‘connected racket’ provided any data that has surprised you and has made you change anything?
No, the truth is that I have not been paying attention to this. I know that the data are there and being monitored, but as of today I have not got to use this information.
In recent weeks, Rafa has acknowledged that he was anxious and lacked confidence. Have you and Toni worked on the psychological aspect? Have you had any talk with him to improve in this area?
To be honest, it is true that he has had anxiety and has played more nervous, but gradually he is going to overcome it and we should not give it too much importance. Now, on clay courts, he has more time and leeway, and that will help him to gain control during those times when he feels overwhelmed. He can grow in confidence that will serve him well from here to Roland Garros.
If he did not improve in this aspect, have you considered the possibility of receiving help from a sports psychologist?
No, it’s an issue that has not been discussed. We believe he is going to overcome it by himself.
In recent months, it appears that Rafa is having many problems when the weather is humid…
Yes, but it is not a recent thing, it has always been so. I remember when he won at the Olympic Games in Beijing, the first day we trained, after five minutes he said, ‘I just cannot play here.’ There was tremendous humidity. He had to change his racket every three minutes because the grip was soaked, and he accelerates so much that if you’re not holding the racket firmly and you move, you lose a lot of precision and sensitivity, you think that it will slip away each time. In humid places he suffers a little more than the others.
Do you worry a bit when there is a very humid day?
No, we have to accept it (smiles).
It has always been speculated that Nadal would have a short career because of the injuries he usually suffers. What do you think about his longevity?
It is a subject there have been talks about from the third year that Rafa was at the top. Eleven years have gone by and he is still at the very top. I think we cannot speak of a short career, because being ten years in the Top-3 or Top-4… I do not know, but I bet that there have not been more than five players in history to have done so. We are now going through a tad more complicated moment, but I think he will succeed and will return to fight for the Grand Slams.
Will Nadal at 33 be able to fight for all the titles as Federer is doing [now]?
Yes, I think so.
Following the discussion Rafa had with Carlos Bernardes in Rio de Janeiro, did he really ask not to be umpired by him ever again or was it just a timely anger?
I have not spoken to him about this issue because I was not in Rio, but in Buenos Aires. Perhaps at that moment he was upset for having received the warning, but surely there are no hard feelings.

[jacques9]

Na MARCI danas piše ""Djokovic's absence in MADRID will make Federer, who is in action in Istanbul this week, the top seed in Madrid, with Murray second. Nadal will be seeded third and will be a potential semi-final opponent for either the Swiss or the Brit. Before that, however, the Spaniard, who has spent the last few days regrouping in Barcelona after his third-round exit at the hands of Fabio Fognini, will be competing in Munich.

Kako znam Rafa nije išao u Munchen.
Nigdje ni prije nisam primjetio, da je Rafa razmišljao o Munchenu

Kad pogledam draw za Munchen u rubrici 2.seed je prazno mijesto. Znači da je to mijesto prazno jer je Rafa odkazao u zadnji tren?

Da li značu, da su do zadnji tren čekali na Rafu?

Ako ko zna što više o tome neka mi javi.

[bojanaBG]

2.nosilac je trebao da bude Monfils, koji se povukao, zato ti je to mesto prazno i sad je na njegovom kvalifikant.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2015/308/mds.pdf

A to je 100% greska u tekstu, Marej igra Minhen ove nedelje.

[jacques9]

Steve Flink: Examining Rafael Nadal and his plight
4/27/2015 3:00:00 PM

What are we to make of Rafael Nadal’s peculiar journey across the second half of 2014 and through the early stages of 2015? Has he reached a crucial crossroads? Is it possible that he has moved permanently past his prime to a place where he can no longer count on performing as unassailably as he once did? Is the formidable Spaniard going to walk onto the grounds of Roland Garros next month and find himself unable to engineer a tenth triumphant campaign at the world’s premier clay court event?

Nadal will answer these questions in due course. He is his own toughest critic, and the depth of his disillusionment was strikingly evident after his latest setback in the round of 16 at Barcelona, a tournament he has captured no less than eight times. Nadal was ushered out of that event last week by world No. 30 Fabio Fognini 6-4, 7-6 (6). It was the second time in a row that Nadal had lost to the gifted yet fragile Italian, with both defeats occurring on clay. Moreover, the bruising defeat came on the heels of a good week’s work in Monte Carlo, where Nadal went to the semifinals and played first rate tennis against world No. 1 Novak Djokovic despite coming out on the wrong end of a 6-3, 6-3 score-line.

Many in the tennis cognoscenti believed Nadal would claim the title in Barcelona. Surely Nadal thought he was headed almost entirely in the right direction when he returned to his nation for that tournament last week. If he had gone at least to the final round and lost a hard fought collision with the immensely talented Kei Nishikori, that would not have been the end of the world for the Spaniard. But losing to Fognini in his second match was startling; the result left Nadal on the edge of despondency. He could not understand why he had played so abysmally. He was confounded by his own ineptitude. He was infuriated with himself, or so it seemed.

The first unmistakable sign of Nadal’s vulnerability that afternoon was when he served at 4-5 in the opening set. This was the time when one expected Nadal to make his presence known. But, having rallied from 0-30 to 30-30, Nadal bungled a forehand inside in, sending that shot tamely into the net. Nadal saved a set point but played the next two points ineffectually, allowing Fognini to step in and release a pair of scorching forehand winners. The set belonged to the Italian, and the battle was on.

Nadal raised his intensity immediately. After six deuces, he broke Fognini in the first game of the second set, converting on his seventh break point. An uncommonly composed Fognini struck back for 1-1, but Nadal broke again for 2-1 and built leads of 3-1 and 4-2. He seemed to have found his range off the forehand and was starting to puncture Fognini with depth and angles. But the Spaniard became apprehensive again. At 4-3, he was broken, faltering off the forehand badly at 15-40.

And yet, Nadal broke Fognini in the ninth game with a spectacular forehand down the line winner. He was up a break for the third time in the set, serving in the tenth game to make it one set all. Here his anxiety was painfully evident. Nadal opened with an inside out forehand unforced error, and then netted a forehand inside in. He followed with a third consecutive forehand unforced mistake for 0-40. Nadal saved one break point but then was broken at 15 when he failed to put away an overhead, enabling the swashbuckling Fognini to pass him flamboyantly down the line off the forehand. The set was not over. It was 5-5. Nadal had virtually given away that critical game.

The two men proceeded to a tie-break. Fognini swiftly advanced to 4-1 and then 6-3. Nadal gamely cast aside three match points against him, two of them with winners. But Fognini swung a first serve wide in the deuce court that the Spaniard could not handle. Nadal served at 6-7, down match point for the fourth time. He opened up the court with a standard slice serve wide in the ad court and was set up for an inside out forehand, only to drive that shot long. Nadal’s forehand had let him down flagrantly in the latter stages of the encounter, much to his dismay.

As he told the media afterwards, “My forehand didn’t have enough power or enough speed, and I didn’t have enough control. My forehand has been my biggest virtue. But today my forehand was vulgar. It wasn’t a forehand worthy of my ranking and career. I need my forehand to push my opponents back.”

Nadal was, as usual, brutally candid in his self-assessment, admirably so. He pulled no punches and spoke with clarity, saying, “I played poorly. I didn’t play like I should have. I didn’t play aggressively. I missed more shots than I normally do. I didn’t manage to keep the advantage that I had. Having three breaks in the second set and ending up at 5-5 is a disaster. This is a blow to me but I accept the challenge and the negative day that I had today. There is no other way forward than to accept it or die.”

Clearly, Nadal will not surrender. In my book, he is the greatest competitor in the history of the game, better and even tougher than other standouts like Pancho Gonzales and Jimmy Connors, a singularly rugged individual. I have said it before, but it bears repeating: Nadal’s mind is the single biggest weapon in the sport. That is why he will rediscover his winning ways over time, even if it takes longer than he would like, regardless of how much pain he must endure.

It is entirely possible that he might not be ready to win Roland Garros this year, but that is not necessarily so. It will depend largely on Nadal’s capacity to win some crucial matches in both Madrid and Rome. His confidence is exceedingly low at the moment, but some good wins in the last two pre-French Open events could sharply alter the state of his mind.

It has been an awfully difficult year for Nadal since he secured his ninth Roland Garros crown in June of 2014. He went to the round of 16 at Wimbledon but was blasted off the court by an almost unconscious Nick Kyrgios. The 19-year-old served 37 aces in that stunning, four set triumph. Nadal did not compete again on the ATP World Tour until the end of September. An injury to his right wrist kept the Spaniard out of the U.S. Open and everywhere else in that period. He had already suffered from a back injury during the first half of last year.

Nadal lost to the left-hander Martin Klizan in the quarterfinals of his first tournament back last autumn in Beijing and then was beaten by southpaw Feliciano Lopez in his opening match at Shanghai. He should have pulled out of that tournament with appendicitis. Nadal then played one more tournament after taking medication and lost to 17-year-old Borna Coric. He subsequently closed the curtain on his season and had surgery in early November for the appendix.

His struggles have lingered in 2015. Nadal has played eight tournaments thus far, winning only the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires, an ATP World Tour 250 level event. Every time he has seemed on the verge of a breakthrough, Nadal has digressed. He lost to the left-handed Michael Berrer in his opening round assignment at Doha (after taking the first set 6-1) as he started his 2015 campaign. But then he advanced to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. Nadal’s 17 match head to head winning streak against Tomas Berdych came to an end in Melbourne as he fell in straight sets, but the Spaniard seemed poised to take his game to another level.

He then lost to Fognini 1-6, 6-2, 7-5 in the semifinals of Rio de Janeiro on clay but Nadal recouped to win his next tournament in Buenos Aires. Shifting to hard courts, he played an encouraging match against Milos Raonic in the quarterfinals of Indian Wells but lost 4-6, 7-6 (10), 7-5 despite having three match points. Nadal’s verve and fighting spirit in that contest were reminiscent of his salad days. He went to Miami feeling invigorated, but lost perplexingly in the round of 32 to Fernando Verdasco.

Next, of course, was Monte Carlo—back out on the clay. Nadal ousted John Isner and David Ferrer in hard fought, three set showdowns, but perhaps took too much out of himself to be at full force against Djokovic in the penultimate round. Yet he was still impressive in many ways as both men produced breathtaking rallies and displayed athleticism and shotmaking skills of the highest order. Nadal felt he was coming around comprehensively, and his biggest boosters hoped he would translate his markedly improved form and mindset into an uplifting week in Barcelona. But he was struck down by Fognini, and Nadal knew he could not justify that loss, especially on his favorite surface.

He said afterwards, “This is a hard day for me. I felt I was playing better. I will keep working. I am convinced this situation of ups and downs I have had since returning from injuries sooner or later will come to an end.”

So what does it all mean? Is he really at a crossroads? He surely is, but Nadal has battled back with gusto many times during his career, and he will do so again. Losing can become as habitual as winning, and Nadal has captured only one of his thirteen tournaments since the 2014 French Open. That pattern of disappointment has been weighing heavily on his mind. Has Nadal moved permanently past the heart of his prime as the naysayers would suggest? Perhaps that is so, but it is all relative. He will never again be the supreme Nadal who controlled the game so persuasively in 2008, 2010 and 2013. In 2008, he won two majors and an Olympic gold medal. Two years later, he secured the last three majors of the season. And in 2013, he won ten tournaments, took two majors, and finished his third year as the sport’s preeminent player.

Nadal’s greatness has not evaporated. He will recover his knack for playing his best brand of tennis when it matters the most. I am convinced he has not won his last major; he will add at least one or two to his collection, and possibly three. But the fact remains that it would be a tall order for Nadal to mend his wounded psyche soon enough to prevail at the upcoming French Open. It will be one of the foremost challenges of his career to make it safely through seven matches across the Roland Garros fortnight in late May and early June. He could be seeded fifth or lower, and face a more daunting draw than usual. He might have to confront Djokovic as early as the quarterfinals. Accounting for some of the better clay court practitioners this year will not be as automatic as it has been for so many years.

Nevertheless, Nadal has won Roland Garros nine of the ten times he has played it. He has triumphed on that majestic stage for five consecutive years. Beating him in the best of five sets on the dirt is perhaps the tallest task in tennis. Only a madly inspired Robin Soderling (in 2009) has realized that feat. Despite all of his recent woes, Nadal has always found a way to rule at Roland Garros. One month in advance of the French Open, Djokovic is the man to beat, but only a fool would dismiss Nadal’s chances.

Even if he does not come through in Paris, this much is certain: Rafael Nadal will eventually repair the damage that has been done to his psyche. He will turn 29 during the French Open, and the Spaniard fully comprehends that time is of the essence. Sooner or later, he will make amends.

[skeptik]

Rafa uzeo titulu dr.

[Niki]

Rafa uzeo titulu dr.

Kakvi su ovi istocnjacki kostimi?
U Spaniji je veliki uticaj islama, ali ovo bas ne mogu da definiram, vise mi lici na centralno-azijski.

[shminka]

Do kraja sezone igra sa starim reketom

[Stefan-kobe]

Dakle ovo je bio samo eksperiment...

[Stefan-kobe]

Presrecan sam zbog jucerasnji nastup Nadala. Konacno da vidimo nesto konkretnije od njega, bez oscilacije i bez nervoze. Pobjeda je jos vaznija jer je Berdih odigrao odlican mec, a Rafa uspeo to da dobije pa mogu da kazem rutinski i ubedljivo.

Prva dva meca je odigrao bas solidno, protiv Johnsona i Bolelija, ali daleko od vrhunski. Protiv Dimitrova je bio uzasan, bas ovaj "novi" Nadal koji igra sa puno oscilacija. Ali protiv Berdiha je bio sasvim drugi, onaj stari Nadal, gladan za pobedu, fokusiran, odlican u bitne trenutke...

Lagacu ako kazem da ne ocekujem titulu danas, postujem Endija kao igrac, inteligentan je, vrhunski igrac, ali na sljaci u Madridu Nadal ne sme da dozvoli da izgubi od Mareja.

[NI]

Nadalovci,

Ne klonite duhom. Rafa prezivljava krizu, ali on ce da se izvuce. Vjerovatno prije nego sto mnogi ocekuju.

[MareLFC]

Finale je pokvarilo utisak,odlican je bio do danas.