Roger’s Cup, Toronto Masters: When Push Comes To Shove

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: August 15, 2010

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Two weeks ago, Roger Federer’s era was almost over, and even winning a slam for the champion was considered a monumental task. As of today, Federer is the favorite to win the Roger’s Cup at Toronto (you think?), and is probably a bigger favorite than Rafael Nadal at the U. S. Open.

Two weeks ago, Federer was criticized for his post-match comments after his loss against Thomas Berdych at Wimbledon, and it was said that the big hitters in Berdych, Robin Soderling, and Juan Martin del Potro have figured him out. Yesterday, Federer beat one of them when that person was playing an extremely high quality match.

People like to write off champions very quickly. I've said before too that the North American turf is where Federer feels at his absolute best, despite his better results and absolute dominance on grass. And primarily, because this is where he can hit even the backhand winners at will due to the faster pace and lower bounce.

* * * *

The two semifinals today couldn’t have been more contrasting in the way they turned out, but ultimately they had the same underlying story. Despite Andy Murray’s success against Nadal on the synthetic turf, Nadal has usually had the upper hand in the rivalry. And due to this, Murray has always come with the mindset of “all-or-nothing.” He knows that his routine counterpunching style will be murdered by the Spaniard, and the only way to come on top is to hit big and huge, make Rafa run all around the court, and hope for the best.

He displayed exactly that attitude in their meeting at the Australian Open (which was the best I had seen Murray play to date) and he had a similar mindset today. And while in that match, Nadal was still running Murray close, he has many other problems on the faster turf. First, his serve, which was so effective at Wimbledon, fails him here. As much as Nadal’s serve has improved, it still has loads of limitation...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis

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