TENNIS FRENCH OPEN – The matchup everyone was waiting for is finally on the schedule. Tennis pundits and fans alike are literally salivating as Rafael Nadal will take on Novak Djokovic for the 2014 French Open title this Sunday. Nadal would be vying for a fifth consecutive and ninth overall French title. Djokovic is vying for his first which would give him the career slam. Cordell Hackshaw
Interviews, Results, OOP, Draws from the Roland Garros
The matchup everyone was waiting for is finally on the schedule. Tennis pundits and fans alike are literally salivating as Rafael Nadal (1) will take on Novak Djokovic (2) for the 2014 French Open title this Sunday. Nadal would be vying for a fifth consecutive and ninth overall French title. Djokovic is vying for his first which would give him the career slam. The two men had very different roads to the final but they both arrived unscathed and this match will surely be labelled as “epic” no matter the quality and/or conditions of the play and players respectively on the day. Djokovic took on the surprise “hot player” of the tournament, Ernests Gulbis (18) whereas Nadal played Andy Murray (7) who is on a comeback trail to his former tennis prowess. Both Gulbis and Murray fought valiantly but in the end, neither player could deny what must have been foretold by the tennis gods: Nadal and Djokovic will for the 2014 French Open title. Gulbis went out in four sets 6-3 6-3 3-6 6-3 and Murray was simply dismantled 6-3 6-2 6-1.
In the first semifinal, Djokovic verses Gulbis, Gulbis came out strong as he won the first six points to hold serve and gain a 0-30 lead on the Djokovic’s serve. However, he would not be able to maintain this as Djokovic came roaring back. Gulbis would see two early break point opportunities quickly disappear in the 4th game and soon had to fight to hold his own serve in the 5th game. He was able to save three break points but on the fourth, he succumbed to the Djokovic pressure and put his forehand long. Djokovic consolidated the break and then broke Gulbis yet again in the 9th game for good measure and the set 6-3. In the 2nd set, Djokovic again raised his level at the opportune time, the 8th game and served out the set 6-3.
The ‘Giant Gulbis Game’ that saw him taking out Roger Federer (4) and Tomas Berdych (6) in the two previous rounds with relative ease, was being contained in the semifinal. Gulbis was leaking errors on his forehand and was unable to dictate play from the baseline. He would have 44 errors in the match compared to 25 from his opponent. Gulbis was also not getting that pop on the serve as he did earlier in the tournament. He was only able to get 57% of his first serves in to win 70% of those points. Djokovic on the other hand put 67% of his first serves in and won 80% of the points. However, in the 3rd set, the tides changed as Djokovic inexplicably became restless and frustrated on the court. “First two sets went well. I thought I played well, very solid, putting a lot of returns back in the court, serving at the high percentage. Then suddenly midway through the third set started to feel physically fatigued a little bit,” Djokovic later explained. This proved to be costly as Gulbis was able to break in the 8th game and served out the set 6-3 punctuating his small victory with an ace.
In the 4th set, it looked as though Djokovic was back on track as he took an early 2-0 lead but again, he showed signs of discomfort on the court and again Gulbis was to capitalize by drawing even 2-2. They remained on serve again until the 8th game when suddenly Djokovic’s level went way up to break Gulbis and serve out the set at love for a 6-3 6-3 3-6 6-3 victory in about two and a half hours. Gulbis spoke of match, “I’m not used to play these kind of big matches. It’s just normal I felt extra nervous and extra tense. I can take one positive side out of the match: that I could still win a third set feeling that nervous and that extra tired.” He is ready to be back in these situations in future and feels that those occasions would be handled much better now that he has the experience.
In the other men’s semifinal, Nadal verses Murray, there is really no other word to say that it was a “beatdown.” Nadal just crushed his opponent in about 100 minutes. It was mainly a one-sided conversation. Whatever, game plan Murray had in mind, it quickly became useless as the match went on and nothing he tried worked. From the scoreline, 6-3 6-2 6-1, it is clear that either he was getting worse at playing Nadal or Nadal was getting better at playing him. In the first set, Nadal quickly jumped out to 3-0 lead whereas Murray was having trouble winning points. He finally got on the scoreboard in the 4th game and all he could to avert the double break. He lost the set 3-6 in about half an hour.
The 2nd and 3rd got progressively worst for Murray. He was being outclassed, outhit and simply overpowered by Nadal. Murray took a set off Nadal several weeks ago in Rome but today in Paris he could barely get a game off Nadal. “I knew it was going to be a difficult afternoon obviously before I went on the court. I was expecting a lot of long rallies. I was expecting to have to do a lot of running. And, yeah, I just yeah, I mean, it was a tough day for me. It was a bad, bad day.” It was bad indeed as Murray would win only 3 more games in the match. He lost the last 6 games in a row. The numbers for this match are staggering. Nadal dropped 10 points on serve the entire match. The Spaniard was getting in 76% of his first serves and winning 91% of the points and 57% on second serve with 24 winners and 15 errors. Murray on the other hand was only getting 52% of his first serves in, won 63% of them and 34% of his second serves. He had 11 winners and 26 errors. Murray saw no break points in the match and only once was he able to get to deuce on the Nadal serve. He was nowhere near the level that Nadal was playing on.
Nadal analyzed the match: “Today I played better than Andy. Andy made a few mistakes, especially on his return; whereas I made very few mistakes. I played quite well. So these are facts. I succeeded in developing my strategy. As for Andy’s strategy, he didn’t manage to implement it.” So Nadal will meet Djokovic for the 42nd time with Nadal leading the head-to-head 22-19. Nadal had this to say of the upcoming match, “I have prepared quite a lot. I need to improve my return a bit more. Today I managed to have my backhand that was a bit better than before. I need to be a bit more patient. I need to be able and manage pressure, because when it puts a lot of pressure on me I would rush on my return and I position myself to play on my forehand. As for my forehand, everything is fine. It’s very fast, very powerful, and I’m very happy. [I]t’s true that he defeated me four times in a row. This will have an impact, but I hope it will not be too big of an impact.…At the moment he is in a good momentum, and I hope I can put an end to that. I’m working on this.”
Djokovic offered up this on his assessment of the final, “I’m going to try to be aggressive, because that is the only way I can win against him. I know that of course this is the court he’s most dominant on. This is where he plays his best…[W]e played some really close and good matches, good quality matches the last two years here…And knowing that I was that close to win against him the past two years gives me that reason to believe that I can make it this time. Of course I’m going to go out on the court trying to win, trying to do my best…It’s easier said than done, of course, because we all know how good he is on this court. But he’s not unbeatable.” Even Gulbis thinks that Djokovic has a chance to do the near impossible, “I think he has a big chance to win the tournament…I guess he has a big chance. Doesn’t matter how bad he plays in the quarters, semis, or first, second. Doesn’t matter. A final is a final…He’s gonna compete and he’s not gonna be really, really down…It’s going to be some good tennis.”
