TennisFrontier Mutua Madrid Draw Challenge

[Moxie]

If Rafa and Roger meet in the semis and Federer beats Nadal, then I will begin to think there is a serious kink in Nadal's psyche that could imperil his chances in Paris.

Some would actually think that Rafa would retire if that happens.

Naw, if Roger played his top drawer tennis, and beat Rafa, I think Rafa would take that easier than losing to Ferrer or Almagro on clay. But Rafa should be back to beastly form by then, so I'm not concerned about that happening. :angel:

 

[Kirijax]

If there is going to be a Federer win over Nadal, Madrid is the place. For some reason Madrid has not been kind to Nadal much.

 

[Moxie]

If there is going to be a Federer win over Nadal, Madrid is the place. For some reason Madrid has not been kind to Nadal much.

On clay, for sure. Madrid is better for Roger, generally, than Rafa. Nadal and the new clay Madrid tournament got off to a bad start. At its inaugural in 2009, Rafa would have preferred to skip, which he would have done had it been Hamburg, as it was the year before. His knees were achy and his clay dance card was very full. But Tiriac was committed to making a show piece of his new tournament, in Spain, and he wasn't going to hear of the #1, a Spaniard, missing it. You can see that playing Madrid in '09 didn't really do Nadal any favors, going forward. It's not the city, it's the organizers (Tiriac) and the push to make it an important 1000, even though it doesn't make a great tune-up to RG. Hamburg was better, on that score.

Madrid does favor bigger hitters and a faster game, which makes it interesting, during the clay season. Keeps more players in the game during the clay season, and that would be a value.

 

[Fiero425]

If there is going to be a Federer win over Nadal, Madrid is the place. For some reason Madrid has not been kind to Nadal much.

On clay, for sure. Madrid is better for Roger, generally, than Rafa. Nadal and the new clay Madrid tournament got off to a bad start. At its inaugural in 2009, Rafa would have preferred to skip, which he would have done had it been Hamburg, as it was the year before. His knees were achy and his clay dance card was very full. But Tiriac was committed to making a show piece of his new tournament, in Spain, and he wasn't going to hear of the #1, a Spaniard, missing it. You can see that playing Madrid in '09 didn't really do Nadal any favors, going forward. It's not the city, it's the organizers (Tiriac) and the push to make it an important 1000, even though it doesn't make a great tune-up to RG. Hamburg was better, on that score.

Madrid does favor bigger hitters and a faster game, which makes it interesting, during the clay season. Keeps more players in the game during the clay season, and that would be a value.

I still can't believe a tournament succumbed to pressure to dump the blue clay which helped Federer get back to #1 back in '12! Both Nadal and Djokovic were knocked off early due to how slippery it was supposedly; so :cry - "deal with it!" :nono

 

[Moxie]

If there is going to be a Federer win over Nadal, Madrid is the place. For some reason Madrid has not been kind to Nadal much.

On clay, for sure. Madrid is better for Roger, generally, than Rafa. Nadal and the new clay Madrid tournament got off to a bad start. At its inaugural in 2009, Rafa would have preferred to skip, which he would have done had it been Hamburg, as it was the year before. His knees were achy and his clay dance card was very full. But Tiriac was committed to making a show piece of his new tournament, in Spain, and he wasn't going to hear of the #1, a Spaniard, missing it. You can see that playing Madrid in '09 didn't really do Nadal any favors, going forward. It's not the city, it's the organizers (Tiriac) and the push to make it an important 1000, even though it doesn't make a great tune-up to RG. Hamburg was better, on that score.

Madrid does favor bigger hitters and a faster game, which makes it interesting, during the clay season. Keeps more players in the game during the clay season, and that would be a value.

I still can't believe a tournament succumbed to pressure to dump the blue clay which helped Federer get back to #1 back in '12! Both Nadal and Djokovic were knocked off early due to how slippery it was supposedly; so :cry - "deal with it!" :nono

I thought they dumped it because it was slippery. A lot of players complained. Personally, I liked the color.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Not to bring old stuff back again, but I thought the general consensus was that the
slipperiness was not caused by the "blue" clay and was caused due to their ad hoc
preparation of the courts in a short time. However, due to the backlash both their
preparation and the color got changed. If they had originally prepared "good"
clay courts with blue color, Tiriac would have been able to retain it.

 

[Moxie]

Not to bring old stuff back again, but I thought the general consensus was that the
slipperiness was not caused by the "blue" clay and was caused due to their ad hoc
preparation of the courts in a short time. However, due to the backlash both their
preparation and the color got changed. If they had originally prepared "good"
clay courts with blue color, Tiriac would have been able to retain it.

I'm not sure what the answer is, exactly, though I do think it had something to do with how they made it blue. I'm not against blue courts. I liked it, aesthetically. But the players didn't like playing on it. They'll have to keep working on it.

 

[Kirijax]

I keep waiting for bright green clay. Wouldn't that be a sight.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I keep waiting for bright green clay. Wouldn't that be a sight.

you have it charleston, where the girls play (not bright though).

 

[Kirijax]

I keep waiting for bright green clay. Wouldn't that be a sight.

you have it charleston, where the girls play (not bright though).

I know the green stuff but it's not.....smurf enough!

 

[isabelle]

Stan has a good oppurtinity to win that, Hope he can play as great as in MC

 

[Denis]

Ok so Im replacing the Fedster with Batista Agut and I'm going to replace either Fog or Dolg depending on who loses later in my draw.

Seems like not to many are joining this tourney? is it the quarters that have been added or the unpredictability of this tournament?

 

[Riotbeard]

Tommorrow, there are 4 second round matches (Ferrer, Wawrinka, Milos and Verdasco)
in addition to the remaining 8 first round matches. This is just an FYI. I will let the
contest organizers decide on what they want to use as deadline in view of this.

Well, I don't like to be too strict, so how about this: anyone who's been around and posting should get their picks in tonight/by start of play tomorrow, or they're waiting for an advantage. If there's no big upset tomorrow, and somebody who hasn't been around on the boards wants to play, we can let them, imo. Does that seem fair?

Seems fair to me.

 

[Moxie]

Do we replace Federer? This tournament is in a bit of a tatters…couldn't those boys have decided this before the draw came out? This is inconvenient for me. :snigger

 

[Kieran]

I didn't get around to inspecting the draw so I'm gonna sit this one out...

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

I didn't get around to inspecting the draw so I'm gonna sit this one out...

...said Nole and Roger :snigger

 

[Denis]

Do we replace Federer? This tournament is in a bit of a tatters…couldn't those boys have decided this before the draw came out? This is inconvenient for me. :snigger

Im opposed to any kind of strict enforcement at this point. It's a complete mess, also because of Mirka, so let's just encourage people to play along. If they want to replace federer, seems perfectly ok to me.

 

[Riotbeard]

Do we replace Federer? This tournament is in a bit of a tatters…couldn't those boys have decided this before the draw came out? This is inconvenient for me. :snigger

Let's say you have until the beginning of play tomorrow to fix your draw, that allows for the 1st round rule to be in tact in spirit, while making for withdraws that have nothing to do with trying to choose the right player, etc. Also in the spirit of fairness don't change picks where someone lost in the second round play that happened today, honor system though.

 

[Riotbeard]

Well my draw is shot, Rafa has really been givin a wide open draw to try and get some confidence...

 

[brokenshoelace]

Well my draw is shot, Rafa has really been givin a wide open draw to try and get some confidence...

In fairness, it's not like he's been losing due to some horrendously tough draws. So never lose hope.