Wimbledon Day 4

First topic message reminder :

Surely today's play deserves a thread of it's own!

Nadal v Rosol. Many praying for a repeat of 2012. You are going to need a roof for that! Nadal looking for some revenge no doubt. Shoulder barge to strike again like a Suarez bite?

Federer v Muller. Potential tricky opponent for Roger. Again could Federer make another 2nd round exit?

Our Hev is in action against Kerber. Fingers crossed on that one.

Wawrinka, Gasquet, Raonic, Williams, Bouchard and Sharapova all in action.

Tsonga and Querrey to commence their 5 set epic!

ChequeredJersey wrote:

Mad for Chelsea wrote:Also, are English commentators as biased as Spanish ones? Whenever Nadal won a point it was all "vamos!" this and "bravo!" that. Rosol barely got any praise at all for his winners.

Now days several are Rafa fanboys, yes

actually my question was more whether English British commentators were as biased towards Murray as Spanish commies are towards Nadal...

this could be another Isner-Mahut...

Mad for Chelsea wrote:

ChequeredJersey wrote:

Mad for Chelsea wrote:Also, are English commentators as biased as Spanish ones? Whenever Nadal won a point it was all "vamos!" this and "bravo!" that. Rosol barely got any praise at all for his winners.

Now days several are Rafa fanboys, yes

actually my question was more whether English British commentators were as biased towards Murray as Spanish commies are towards Nadal...

Oh. Well I have never had the Spanish commentary but the British commentators are sickeningly biased, yes

I understand direct. It got a bit heated and I apologise for that we had a lot of instances of people trying to smear other players and you appeared to be overegging the point. He does take a long time sometimes this is true it's a tactical ploy that noone really stops him doing. A lot if people do it though including top players however competitors do just that. Notice rosol was jumping up and down constantly to try and put nadal off his serve Rafa however does a lot of good things. Not just his game but crediting opponents for the most part. A balance is the key direct competitive sportsmen push boundaries and sometimes lose their temper. Even roger federe

Most time violations in 2013:

1) Nadal - 30
2) Isner - 14
3) JMDP - 13
4) Fognini - 11
5) Djokovic - 10

Rafa had twice as many as anyone else and didn't even play a full season.

The "he's not the only one" argument may be technically true but Rafa takes it to a different level to anyone else.

It's for the umpires the enforce the rule. I do, however think that Rafa should try and speed up between points. It's not like he is oblivious to the rule.

Henman and petch are pretty good for the most part. Nick Mullins and castle I can't personally stand

HM Murdoch wrote:Most time violations in 2013:

1) Nadal - 30
2) Isner - 14
3) JMDP - 13
4) Fognini - 11
5) Djokovic - 10

Rafa had twice as many as anyone else and didn't even play a full season.

The "he's not the only one" argument may be technically true but Rafa takes it to a different level to anyone else.

Problem is, you point this stuff out and you get rounded on as a 'hater'.

Rafa didn't have a full season but played a lot if matches including a lot more gs matches with shorter times. It's a rhythm a habit he's a very habitual guy and he won't break it if there's no real punishment. I've never seen the issue. It makes it all the more tense in my eyes he bends It a bit of course but that doesn't mean he doesn't respect the game but he's a competitor

30??

That is taking the urine a bit!

Haddie-nuff wrote:Direct View
You have a very blinkered view of this sport if you believe that Rafa is the only one who, as you quaintly put it abuses it.  There are several players on Tour who abuse more than the sport  Foginini has just been fined 25,000 pounds for threatening an umpire, Djokovic violates the time rules, as does Del Potro... wake up and smell the coffee and stop allowing your hatred of one player to spoil the game you say you want to watch or else stop watching Nadal and spoiling it for the rest of us

I am not spoiling for rest of you, I am pretty sure there are lot more people than me who gets the same feeling watching what Rafa does, why I am more upset on Rafa? compared to other names you mentioned coz he is a role model a trend setter, and unfortunately he is setting the wrong trend.

On the other note, I do appreciate Rafa off court he has done a lot for charity and he deserves respect from every one including his critic, but this doesn't mean he is above the laws of the game and people should tolerate everything he does on court.  

JHM you should know much better than that by now. Acknowledging a fault and trying to put across a hateful view are different things its a balance

If they penalised him for time violations at more key points in matches, I'm sure it would sink in

Anyway lets close the book. Directs made it clear that's not the agenda he intended to put across and I respect his view on rafas time between points even if I don't come to the same conclusions about ut

Well finished in the end by Tsonga

Tsongas through 14-12 final set btw

Some day strong voices have to be raised and I don't mind me being one in the club even if its the only one.

Either change the rules to say 1 minute between every serve allowed, so it could be fair to every body, change the rules that MTO's can be allowed any time between the point so the big names alone won't get the benefit, change the rules so that on field coaching is allowed, and very soon we will see more noise from the crowd everybody coaching everybody.

falzy21 wrote:Anyway lets close the book. Directs made it clear that's not the agenda he intended to put across and I respect his view on rafas time between points even if I don't come to the same conclusions about ut

Thanks  

As my name stands I am just a direct view of the game and I am just standing by it.

nadal is a good sportsman. after 12 years in the circuit he has always kept a nice behaviour on court, when winning and losing.

after 12 years, tell me how many rivals say he is not a good sportsman, and remember he has played almost 900 matches

naxroy wrote:nadal is a good sportsman. after 12 years in the circuit he has always kept a nice behaviour on court, when winning and losing.

after 12 years, tell me how many rivals say he is not a good sportsman, and remember he has played almost 900 matches

The problem is you being a fan seeing only the positive side of his, me being neutral see both sides of his, I see a good heart in him [as you can see I have already complemented for what great person he is off court] as well as a guy who will bend the rules beyond limits to win at all cost even if that comes under the expense of sportsmanship.

I can see there is a lot of gnashing of teeth after that match. I'm glad some people are pointing out that there are other players who take too long on a regular basis as well i.e. if Nadal is a cheat then so is Djokovic and Del Potro, even if you want to maintain Nadal is a worse cheat.

You knew Rosol was losing the plot when he complained about Nadal taking too long when he was changing racquets

Its funny that in Golf there is a similar issue with people taking too long and there is a lot of moaning that things need to be sped up. It can still be seen as being off putting to your opponent, to make him wait longer to take his shot, Keegan Bradley does this a lot for example. However, no one ever calls them cheats, they are slow and expected to speed up and people moan about it but that word isn't thrown around. They are seen as slow players and criticized but not that harshly.

Anyway, that's my two cents on the time debate, I'd rather focus on the tennis since we are only in the second round. It was a good, tense match and Rosol showed guts but is clearly a streaky player who is a bad match up for Nadal.

I thought the turning point was Nadal's return stance, when he started to step up to the baseline and hit some fantastic returns to the point that you wonder why he doesn't do it more often since he has great reflexes. Rosol, of course, couldn't keep a first serve percentage of 80+ but that was some amazing serving for a short while.

@DJB14,

The game changed massively after Rosol let Rafa comeback in the 2nd set, from where he lost his confidence and Rafa gained it, and there are not many capable of beating Rafa when he gained his confidence, there is a reason why he is called the bull.

On time and game, they are not different, Time is part of tennis and is a rule on Tennis, if you safely remove all rules from the game then there is no point in following a game.

How about we remove the rule of baseline, so a player can hit a shot anywhere he likes?

falzy21 wrote:JHM you should know much better than that by now. Acknowledging a fault and trying to put across a hateful view are different things its a balance

No falzy, I've seen it happen to people who have a good balance - they get labelled as Fed fans or Rafa haters. So I do know better than that, thank you very much.

Heather blazing UEs at the moment

And you well know the reverse is also true. We've both been here long enough to see both sides if the story need I mention He

The thing that frustrates me with the time violations is that he has made no effort to address it. The attitude is "this is how I play, to hell with the rules".

It's the same with Toni coaching from the stands. He thinks the no-coaching rule is a silly rule so he just ignores it. He's quite open about this and has admitted it in interviews. Rafa even talks in his book about being told by Toni during a match where to serve!

He sees other people doing it as well as him soo what impetus actually is there to follow it. It's not a rule it's a guideline because they don't enforce it like a rule. The second point is a black mark against Toni who is have no problem with bring sent off the court for that.

DirectView2 wrote:@DJB14,

The game changed massively after Rosol let Rafa comeback in the 2nd set, from where he lost his confidence and Rafa gained it, and there are not many capable of beating Rafa when he gained his confidence, there is a reason why he is called the bull.

On time and game, they are not different, Time is part of tennis and is a rule on Tennis, if you safely remove all rules from the game then there is no point in following a game.

How about we remove the rule of baseline, so a player can hit a shot anywhere he likes?

Firstly, I think your slippery slope argument there is a bit ridiculous. Football for example has a rule that you must take a throw in from where the ball left the pitch but this rule is not applied to the inch there is some flexibility to it. I don't see them removing goal posts anytime soon because one rule is bent. Also I've seen plenty of players, including Federer, look at his box and to see whether a shot is worth challenging or not, that is surely breaking the on court coaching rule yet I don't see it collapsing the game to the point that we don't have a net!!

Secondly, your clearly didn't read my initial post closely enough, I said two things about the time rule. 1. if you are going to say that anyone who breaks the rules is a cheat and its black and white then you must apply it to all the players who break the rules, not just one, even if you think Nadal is the worse cheat. 2. I was remarking of the different attitudes in the sports that both have a very similar problem right now of players taking too long.

falzy21 wrote:It's not a rule it's a guideline because they don't enforce it like a rule.

Well, it IS a rule (it's in the rule book) but you are right, it is treated like a guideline, and this is the problem.

I'd rather have no rule than a watered down one. If it's not worth enforcing, it's not worth having.

Aye Murdoch is it a rule indeed. It's pointless if you don't enforce it at all though

@DJB14,

I haven't called Nadal a cheat and won't call anybody a cheat unless proved officially, and even if somebody accepted cheating and ready to change I got no issues with it.

Secondly your comparison of goal post is completely irrelevant, coz there is no rule in FIFA to say the ball have to be thrown from the exact same position it went out or called a foul, and secondly its referees who make the call there and the players abide by it, if for instance a player takes the thrown in quicker than he is allowed to then referee can ask him to redo it. So your example was complete vague and wrong, sorry to say.

In ATP 20 second is a rule and not a guideline, and all offenders have to face the penalty or just change the rule so longer we have a stupid rule.

Whats more annoying is the attitude "I won't change it and you can't do nothing".

DJB14 wrote:I can see there is a lot of gnashing of teeth after that match. I'm glad some people are pointing out that there are other players who take too long on a regular basis as well i.e. if Nadal is a cheat then so is Djokovic and Del Potro, even if you want to maintain Nadal is a worse cheat.

And Rosol the biggest cheat of all, because he was TALKING while Nadal was serving, repeatedly. Even worse than 2012 when Rosol was tapping his racquet on the ground when Nadal was serving.

Then again, the player isn't cheating if the umpire doesn't deem it cheating. And the umpire did nothing.

HM Murdoch wrote:

falzy21 wrote:It's not a rule it's a guideline because they don't enforce it like a rule.

Well, it IS a rule (it's in the rule book) but you are right, it is treated like a guideline, and this is the problem.

I'd rather have no rule than a watered down one. If it's not worth enforcing, it's not worth having.

Well thats strange I was about to post more or less exact same lines and you posted it before me.  

kneel_before_nadal wrote:

DJB14 wrote:I can see there is a lot of gnashing of teeth after that match. I'm glad some people are pointing out that there are other players who take too long on a regular basis as well i.e. if Nadal is a cheat then so is Djokovic and Del Potro, even if you want to maintain Nadal is a worse cheat.

And Rosol the biggest cheat of all, because he was TALKING while Nadal was serving, repeatedly. Even worse than 2012 when Rosol was tapping his racquet on the ground when Nadal was serving.

Then again, the player isn't cheating if the umpire doesn't deem it cheating. And the umpire did nothing.

Exactly this what will happen in the future too, if one breaks the rule and the referee don't have spine to question it the other one will purposefully break the rule, Rosol just wanted to do something similar in his style of what Rafa does, he didn't start it doesn't mean he should be accused but the bigger culprit is certainly Rafa.

Taking longer than 20 seconds (BTW Nadal averaged 25 seconds, which is not long) is nothing compared to repeatedly TALKING while the opponent is serving. I've never seen anyone do what Rosol did.

Hev has the game to trouble the top gals which makes me think she can make the top 32 barring injury. She need only look at Errani, Aggie, Halep etc to see that lack of power shouldn't be an issue. The only problem is if, like today, she makes too many UEs. She can't equal that with winners.

I have been posting on this forum and its predecessor for a number of years and this old chestnut has been done to death... my opinion is for what it is worth ... why go on and on about it to people who are sick to the eyebrows of hearing the same gripe.. write to the APT or any of the tennis powers that be with your grievance if you feel so strongly about it.. Other than that give it a break for pity's sake Just watch the game or turn the tv off

DirectView2 wrote:@DJB14,

I haven't called Nadal a cheat and won't call anybody a cheat unless proved officially, and even if somebody accepted cheating and ready to change I got no issues with it.

Secondly your comparison of goal post is completely irrelevant, [b]coz there is no rule in FIFA to say the ball have to be thrown from the exact same position it went out or called a foul, and secondly its referees who make the call there and the players abide by it, if for instance a player takes the thrown in quicker than he is allowed to then referee can ask him to redo it. So your example was complete vague and wrong, sorry to say.[/b]

In ATP 20 second is a rule and not a guideline, and all offenders have to face the penalty or just change the rule so longer we have a stupid rule.

Whats more annoying is the attitude "I won't change it and you can't do nothing".

There is a rule in football that if you take a throw in you must take it from where the ball left the pitch, hence why you can't concede a throw in in your own half then run up the byline to your opponants half then take the throw in. According to you a player could do this. Sorry to say, but you clearly know nothing about football.

The player almost never takes the throw in exactly where he is suppossed to and almost always steals some ground, so to speak. The referee will usually not enforce it to the inch but will call the player back if he takes too much ground. As I said there is flexibility in this rule in football and you can see it in every match.

Same with a free kick. The player must take the free kick form where the foul took place hence why you can't be given a free kick on the edge of a box then take the ball inside the penaty area. Yet you will see players move the ball forward somewhat butagain the referee won't always call it back unless he takes too much.

'A direct free kick is taken from the place where the offence occurred' (quote from http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/federation/lotg_en_55753.pdf)


This is a perfect example of a rule that states you must take the throw in from where the ball crossed the line or a free kick form where the foul was conceded and yet there is flexibility shown in this rule and the referee does not always enforce it to the letter and lets the game go. Therefore, it shows that in a sport you can have flexibility in some of the rules without undemining all of them.

Now I'm not saying that Nadal is right or that it shouldn't be enforced more often or anything like that. What I am saying is that it does not follow that just becuase you allow some flexibility with some rules in a sport that it undermines the whole thing. That was my point.

Anyway as I said earlier I'd rather focus on also this topic has been done to death and will forever keep going.

One thing I think we can all agree on is that it was one of the better second round matches for one of the top seeds at a slam compared to the usual whipping boy they get to meet. Murray's match yesterday for example.

I think Dimitrov and Dolgopolov could be a cracking match tomorrow.

that's a great gutsy hold from Watson. Staves off 4 or 5 BPs with some fantastic aggressive play and eventually holds on to lead 5-4.

She's certainly added a more aggressive side to her game, and I think her power, while it will never be Williams-esque obviously, is more than good enough to take her to the top level. My biggest concern is her serve, she simply doesn't get anything out of it (Kerber has made 95% of returns today, and only a couple have been really short).

DirectView2 wrote:

naxroy wrote:nadal is a good sportsman. after 12 years in the circuit he has always kept a nice behaviour on court, when winning and losing.

after 12 years, tell me how many rivals say he is not a good sportsman, and remember he has played almost 900 matches

The problem is you being a fan seeing only the positive side of his, me being neutral see both sides of his, I see a good heart in him [as you can see I have already complemented for what great person he is off court] as well as a guy who will bend the rules beyond limits to win at all cost even if that comes under the expense of sportsmanship.

after meeting 224 diferent oponents,I dont think more than 5 or 6 have ever complained about him. for me that is sign of good behaviour over 12 years. if he were known for doing anything to win (win at all cost), there wouldnt be such a consensus among rivals about him being a nice lad in and off court

Heather levels at one set all

Isner meanwhile has won the first set against Nieminene on a TB: just 19-17 this one

Dimi and the dog tomorrow. Apparently the dogs got 52 aces in 2 matches! Even if they're long that's a lot

But if they're long .... they're not aces    

(Ok, ok, I know you mean duration of the matches ....!!)

Bouchard breadsticks Espinosa in second set. Genie for the Rosewater Dish!

Hewitt v Janowicz up next. Should be a fascinating encounter

Come on Doggy!!

Coming to a theatre near you, the sequel to Peter and the Wolf...

Grigor and the Dog.

Rosol - "I hurt my arm. Well done @RafaelNadal"

Spoiler:

Kerber must be sick to death of plucky young British players at Wimbledon.