bobvance said:
I know Roger has been in good form but I feel like at this stage of their careers Novak is the favorite. I also expect Novak to be supermotivated since he hasn't won a slam this year. That aside, I'm obviously hoping Roger can have a throwback performance.
In 2012, I said that Federers victory over Novak might be the last time he ever beats him on grass or at a major. The primary reason he won was that he completely outcrafted and outmanipulated Djokovic in grass court tennis.
It wasn't the worldbeating grass court champion from 2003-2005 who would hit a winner almost everysingle time he had a look at a fh (or even a bh) and that could dance around the court as if it were a hardcourt.
Novak's loss was correctable in multiple areas, and the fundamentals favored him (his strokes were better, his movement was better, and crucially the career arcs were going in different directions, etc)
Well, i'm not so sure I was right. If anything Novak has been less good than his 2011-2012 form, and remarkably Federer is basically still right there.
Novak's problem in a nutshell is the following. If Roger Federer comes out hot or gets hot at some point, Novak doesn't really have a way (unlike Murray and Nadal) to cool him off, unless he plays perfect D. In terms of grass court talent, at the most fundamental level Roger is a superior player. Its really only the physicality difference that has really allowed Novak to beat him at slams in the past few years. Since the latter is somewhat neutralized on this surface, its not obvious to me that he can really play the type of D necessary to act as a cooler, or rather he needs something else to keep him in it.
If Novak can serve well enough to keep this match close, I believe that a bad tiebreaker or something like that might be enough to get into Federer's head. But its hard to say for sure.
In any event, Novak needs to come out hot and blazing to have a chance here. If Federer gets ahead as he so often does, and consequently loosens up, this match will end up like 2012 or even worse.
I think Federer in 4