Tennis News

There is only one big tournament left for Nadal to win and that is the ATP World Tour Finals. This is where the eight highest ranked players of the year play a round-robin structure that leads to a semi-final and then a final. The usual problem for Nadal is that:

1: It is in the end of the season when his body is tired
2: It is played indoors (which makes for faster conditions)

This might not be such a problem in 2010 though as Nadal looks pretty fresh still and managed to win the US Open with only dropping one set on his path to the trophy. He has also managed to improve his serve a great deal and is trying to stand more inside the court and take the ball earlier. In short he is a better hard court player than he ever was before.

Does Rafael Nadal have the potential of beating Federer’s amazing record of 16 Grand Slam titles? That is the question on many tennis lovers minds after Nadal beat Novak Djokovic in the US Open final and clinched his ninth Grand Slam and his career Slam (winning all four Grand Slams, but not in the same year). He has the number one spot in the rankings by far and it is hard to see someone challenging him in that position unless he gets injured.

So how man Slams can Nadal win? In 2010 he won three, French Open, Wimbledon, and now US Open. This is of course amazing, but we should remember that Federer had a streak of winning two to three titles per year from 2004-2007. Of course Federer was more dominant then than Nadal is now, but it is not so far-fetched to picture him winning at least two titles in 2011, another two in 2012, and let’s say two more in 2013. The crazy thing is that if he does this pretty spectacular feat, he is still one short of Federer’s record. Surely, it would take something extra special to beat that.

It was a well anticipated match the Federer vs Soderling French Open quarterfinal rematch. Would Federer be able to deal with the pace of the Soderling shots this time to clinch sweet revenge? Would Soderling forget about the 12-1 record in head to head? Everybody thought it would be a tight and exciting match and for the first time in the Open the stadium was packed.

It was not too be. Federer was in fantastic form despite really bad and windy conditions and was serving Soderling off the court. The big Swede always had problems in windy conditions, especially with the serve and the high ball-toss he uses, but also with his giant windmill strokes. Not so with Federer. He took the opportunity to play an impressive match that should put the chills up Djokovic’s spine.

The favorites are still breezing through the draw, at least the top three players Djokovic, Federer and Nadal. Djokovic had far fewer problems than I thought with Fish, winning in three easy sets. Maybe Fish was tired but in that match it was pretty evident that he lacked something. Being fitter and slimmer he seems to play far more passively and against a player like Djokovic that doesn’t quite cut it. He would have needed to go for his shots a lot more to get the Djoker off balance. Djokovic is now playing Monfils in the quarter-finals who managed to dispose of his countryman Gasquet pretty handily. I like Djokovic’s chances in that match