The Indian Wells Masters 1000 Thread

[temporary21]

First topic message reminder :

Well its both. Murrays physical style came from getting beaten by Nadal, who got his style partly to try and counter Roger. The end of the day theyre still brilliant tennis players, hence their style worked well against other people too. Rogers style was also the prevailing style of the time in 06, he was just the master at it, any counter would be effective against a lot of the tour.

[It Must Be Love]

Whilst I appreciate federes back trouble I think we're being disrespectful to seppi, who fully deserved his scalp. It's as though we feel he didn't deserve it which I don't think is trud

https://www.606v2.com/t55560-politically-correct-nonsense-while-talking-about-injuries

[It Must Be Love]

If you disagree with my judgement that Federer was injured, that's understandable; however if you agree with my judgement then the idea we shouldn't feel obliged to say it on some quasi-moral 'oh don't take credit away' grounds is a bit silly.

[temporary21]

Its just a matter of respect really. Once a guy goes out there, then they go out with the notion theyre fit enough to win, you throw the excuse away. You couldn't go to work, and then demand to your boss to et you off because youre sick, once you go, you go.
I know I wouldnt particularly like it if my favourite players win was fobbed off because the guy gave excuses, it not to me a quasi-moral thing, its a matter of etiquette, politeness if you will.

[bogbrush]

There is one thing I noticed tactically that people do wrong against federer.
When rogers on the bh defence he employs a lobbed-ish slice into the bh corner to get back in it. Peoples response to this is always to run round and hit a weak forehand which fed counters on in the fh. Novak, Andy, Tomas all do this and its the wrong tactic, that play is Rogers main defensive out.
What they need to do is come in on good shots to his bh and punch that slice away on the volley. Doing so takes away Rogers slice defense a bit and forces him to drive it more, which isnt as good.

Its little tactical decisions like that, which are part of what keep roger competitive.

Great post I agree, Fed does chip a lot when pushed into the backhand corner and a great play is to come in an cut that off. The problem is that sometimes his chip backhand if it is biting will get below the net and once it does becomes harder and harder to do anything with and you are left volleying the ball up softly completely exposed. But I do agree and have wondered that myself in that knowing Fed is going to chip I wonder why people don't anticipate it and get in behind it.

True, is slice isnt the easiest to come in on, in that case Novak and co need to get to work on their drop volleys off of slice. Thats a huge chink in the armour that theyre ignoring.

You really think that a bunch of amateurs on a site are spotting something the Worlds best players who actually go on Court with him haven't?

Its tennis discussion BB, and we are wondering about a tactical issue. You know if you don't like a thread or a conversation within the thread you aren't obligated to tell those who are they are silly to talk about it.

Er...... the point was made specifically that all these players were missing this "fact". Get it?

[It Must Be Love]

Its just a matter of respect really. Once a guy goes out there, then they go out with the notion theyre fit enough to win, you throw the excuse away. You couldn't go to work, and then demand to your boss to et you off because youre sick, once you go, you go.

Why should Seppi get credit for beating a fully fit Federer when he hasn't done so.
The truth is the most important thing.
https://www.606v2.com/t55560-politically-correct-nonsense-while-talking-about-injuries

[temporary21]

We differ, clearly, to me Seppi beat a Federer who went out there and was thus fit to play, he declared himself fit to play by doing so. If he was injured he should have pulled out, thats no black mark on Seppi.

[Calder106]

Its just a matter of respect really. Once a guy goes out there, then they go out with the notion theyre fit enough to win, you throw the excuse away. You couldn't go to work, and then demand to your boss to et you off because youre sick, once you go, you go.

Why should Seppi get credit for beating a fully fit Federer when he hasn't done so.
The truth is the most important thing.
https://www.606v2.com/t55560-politically-correct-nonsense-while-talking-about-injuries

In your opinion. You have nothing to back this up other than a few comments from Hewitt regarding practice at Brisbane (A tournament Federer won). Federer's own candid comments after the Seppi match do not indicate any injury issue to me. More the feeling that he was just wasn't really in the zone that day. So Seppi played at his best and Federer was well below his. I'll credit Seppi for the win.

[bogbrush]

So are we referring this match to the asterisk committee or not?

[Jahu]

So Fed is still the GOAT, after all these marathonic posts

[It Must Be Love]

In your opinion.

If you followed the conversation between myself and Temp closely, I did say that it depends on the judgement you made.
I made the judgement that he was injured, as the evidence I saw made it overwhelmingly likely in my eyes. However people can disagree, that's fine.
My point was if you do take the view he was injured, then there's nothing wrong with saying it, injuries are a part of sport.

[bogbrush]

I know what Amrit means; on the one hand there's the argument that if injuries are introduced it makes a chaos of discussing meaning, on the other to handle that by pretending facts don't exist is just perverse; a bit like dropping your money on the side of the street where's there's no lights and crossing the road to search under a streetlamp because you can see there.

In the end despite how difficult it might be, I tend to favour searching where the truth is.

[Born Slippy]

If Fed was injured, I doubt he would have come up with that "bad feeling" comment. That doesn't really make sense.

[It Must Be Love]

If Fed was injured, I doubt he would have come up with that "bad feeling" comment. That doesn't really make sense.

'I felt for some reason yesterday and this morning it was not going to be very simple today. Even in practice I still felt the same way.'

Surely the reverse is true B_S, and the reverse makes sense ?
He wakes up in the morning with his back very stiff, he feels it during practice, and knows he's in a bit of trouble.
Why else would he randomly think he's going to struggle against Seppi, a player who he had a perfect record against previously with no trouble ?
Obviously long winning runs against a player can be broken, but when you dominate a player, randomly waking up and thinking 'ah this one isn't going to be simple today' seems bizarre unless something unusual was happening.

If you combine that with how he looked on court, as I said previously: serve all over the place, not moving sharply, looking very uncomfortable in baseline rallies; the fact we know the back injury has been a particular problem cropping up in the past couple of years for him (and he retrospectively announces it as he did about 2013), and lastly what Hewitt said about him struggling with his back around that time period... I think it's possible but very unlikely he wasn't injured.

[It Must Be Love]

We differ, clearly, to me Seppi beat a Federer who went out there  and was thus fit to play, he declared himself fit to play by doing so. If he was injured he should have pulled out, thats no black mark on Seppi.

I've written a whole article on why this logic is totally nonsensical, I'm not going to link it a further time.

[Born Slippy]

But why would he say "for some reason..." if it was, in fact, because his back was sore? He would know what the reason was! His comment suggests there was indeed no reason for this premonition. Possibly he just felt a bit flat and un-energised?

[It Must Be Love]

But why would he say "for some reason..." if it was, in fact, because his back was sore? He would know what the reason was! His comment suggests there was indeed no reason for this premonition. Possibly he just felt a bit flat and un-energised?

As I just said, it is entirely possible he wasn't injured (as you say, bit flat and un-energised); I just think this interview in combination with the other evidence makes it very unlikely.
Also Federer is more likely to say 'some reason' than 'injuries' at the time; if you remember in 2013 he didn't keep stressing he was injured, but in 2014 he did a few interviews where he retrospectively talked honestly about his injury problems in the previous year.

[Born Slippy]

Hmm, I would certainly not regard that quote as supporting an argument that he was injured. Even if he did not want to refer to the back, he could have answered in a myriad of different ways. Essentially saying he had a bad feeling about it would not, in my view, be one of the more likely.

[bogbrush]

You can debate what Federer meant, and whether Amrit is right about the back, but I've come down solidly to the conclusion that he is right: it's just silly to block discussion of injuries on the grounds that they were out there. It's nonsense. Whether that matters is another aspect and entirely open to opinion.

[Calder106]

In your opinion.

If you followed the conversation between myself and Temp closely, I did say that it depends on the judgement you made.
I made the judgement that he was injured, as the evidence I saw made it overwhelmingly likely in my eyes. However people can disagree, that's fine.
My point was if you do take the view he was injured, then there's nothing wrong with saying it, injuries are a part of sport.

I did actually follow your conversation closely. Although you previously has said people can disagree your last comment before I posted was "Why should Seppi get credit for beating a fully fit Federer when he hasn't done so". My point was that this was your opinion, which you obviously have a right to, but that I did not agree that the facts you had presented backed this up. You may not want to give Seppi the credit but others do.

[It Must Be Love]

You may not want to give Seppi the credit but others do.

I give him credit, he played well, and it's still quite tough to beat Federer even if his game is off due to injury.

Whether that matters is another aspect and entirely open to opinion.

This is an interesting point.
I don't actually think whether he was specifically injured or not matters when you're looking at that match in isolation.
For example if you judge Federer to be playing at level 50/100 (by his standards), then surely it doesn't matter if this was due to injury or simply an atrocious day ? His opponent had to beat Federer playing at the level 50/100 (which still may be hard to beat for many).
However in terms of the bigger picture, and analysing the context of Federer's situation- it clearly makes a difference.
If he's playing at a sub-par level for a sustained period of time when healthy, that is quite worrying and perhaps a sign he's declining. If he plays at a subpar level when he's injured, for however long he's injured, this means that it is less likely his game as a whole is declining.
So it is important to consider if he was injured or not when looking at the big picture of where Federer's game is (and where things may be going wrong), but in isolation it doesn't make a big difference to his opponent whether Federer is playing at 50/100 because of injury or it's just an atrocious bad day at the office.

[TRuffin]

But why would he say "for some reason..." if it was, in fact, because his back was sore? He would know what the reason was! His comment suggests there was indeed no reason for this premonition. Possibly he just felt a bit flat and un-energised?

As I just said, it is entirely possible he wasn't injured (as you say, bit flat and un-energised); I just think this interview in combination with the other evidence makes it very unlikely.
Also Federer is more likely to say 'some reason' than 'injuries' at the time; if you remember in 2013 he didn't keep stressing he was injured, but in 2014 he did a few interviews where he retrospectively talked honestly about his injury problems in the previous year.

I believe or assume Amrit is also going by what Hewitt said on Australian Tv while doing commentary at the matches after he was knocked out.  He spilled the beans that Fed was still having back pain. He said that Federer was still dealing with "serious back niggles" when he practiced with and played Fed during Brisbane and was still experiencing pain when they played the EXO the week before Australian Open. Said it was a continuation of the WTF problems.  Hewitt went into how he has dealt with his own chronic injuries over the years, how the pain affects you,etc... said Fed was the kind of guy to just grit his teeth and keep playing with it, and that he thought Fed's talent was so great that he could still have a successful season even if it continued.   Twitter and some of the Fed forums were talking about the commentary as reported by Fed fans watching Australian TV that night.

Certainly Fed didn't use it as an excuse and since then has said he feels good, is looking forward to 3 hard weeks of training now, and was playing fantastic tennis the past month.  At the same time, if Hewitt is accurate and we do know he practiced with Fed during Brisbane and has the EXO- then Feds comments about waking up and having a feeling it could be an off day- might indeed have something to do with the back.

Personally- I thought Fed overplayed during the off season, that stupid India league and he did some charity exo's..  and prob fatigue and lingering pain did catch up to him at the AO.  That's his fault though for not taking a long break then- like he did after the AO- and we saw how well he came out of that break.   I hope he's not making the same mistake by adding in an extra clay tourney this season, but we shall see.

[Jahu]

He is doing the Istanbul between MC and Madrid, then Rome, so 4 clay ones before the FO.

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