RG - The Finals

First topic message reminder :

The women's final today and the men's on Sunday. Ostapenko will probably make too many UEs to win against Halep who is a great scrapper and should take the title.
   Rafa is clear favourite against Stan, who also had a long semi with Andy. But Stan has never lost a GS final and will not be overawed. He gave Djoko a set start in the RG final of 2015 and still won. But it's going to take one of Stan's special days to topple Rafa.
   A win tomorrow will put Rafa in a good position to be year-end number one. Whatever happens, it's going to be another big title won by a 30-something, with those in their fourth decade likely to chalk up a record number of tournament wins this year (I'm not sure what the 30-plus title record is).

Well done Nadal. Absolutely outstanding throughout the whole tournament.

summerblues wrote:Congrats Rafa, amazing to get to 10th RG title.  I expected it would be fairly straightforward, but not this one-sided.  Stan never had a chance.

BS, how come you mixed up the first two sets in your score prediction?

Yeah, can't always be perfect! In fairness, to Stan the first two sets were more or less as I was expecting. However, I thought it was impressive that his head didn't drop in the 3rd. He kept fighting but was just constantly on the back foot, chasing after Rafa's ridiculous forehand. Whilst the one down the line will make the highlight reels, there was one at 0-30 early in the 3rd which he hit whilst running around his backhand which he had no right to make and just stopped Stan getting a foothold back in the match. Incredible performance from Rafa. Very pleased for Andy he missed out on that whipping ;-).

So happy for Rafa! Absolutely brilliant the whole match and the whole tournament. I'm so glad I've witness this, his tenth title win here. We may not see anyone winning ten titles at a slam again for a long long time. This is surely a historic moment in Rafa's career and also at Roland Garros. They may not see a ten times champion again!

Since Roland Garros is soon to be redeveloped then you'd have to feel that somewhere there is a place to name a court after Rafa?

no words really

Huge congratulations to Rafa.

Number 10 : a truly massive achievement, probably one of the very greatest in modern sporting times.

I don't know whether he will ever again reproduce three straight sets of such high quality tennis, in a Slam Final, against one of the few players who - on his day - does actually have the weapons to mount a credible challenge. But for as long Nadal performs as he did today, then he will be unstoppable here on the clay of Roland Garros.

This was close to perfection. There is simply no criticism to be made of what we saw from him these two weeks (other than the quality of his spoken French which - by his own admission - is indeed pretty bad ....!)

Well I remember when they criticised his English and he had to have a Translator.. so he has at least improved on that score.. give him credit for trying at least

Haddie-nuff wrote:sb

Well, I can't say I am thrilled but what's done is done, no use crying over spilt milk.  Let's just hope we do not have any more of these

Rafa now has 6915 points in the race.  I checked his points in prior years (recalculating using current point system if need be) and as far as I can tell this is his second best start to the year.

2013 was the only year where he had collected a few more points through RG - exactly 7000 that year.

He did have a number of years that were not far behind.  In fact, he was very frequently in the 6000-7000 range and had a couple of years around 6800.

In any event, he is definitely now in the pole position to finish the year at #1 - though obviously a lot can happen between now and then.

I hope no-one minds me posting about the women's final first, it's a bit late, but it's mixed in with this thread. Unfortunately, I had to go out but this makes an interesting read for those that haven't been following it.

Jeļena Ostapenko won the title, defeating Simona Halep in the final, 4–6, 6–4, 6–3. This was Ostapenko's first WTA Tour-level singles title. She became the first Latvian player of either sex to win a Grand Slam singles tournament, the youngest woman to win the French Open since 1997,[3][4] and the first woman since Barbara Jordan at the aforementioned 1979 Australian Open to win a Grand Slam event as her first tour-level singles title.[4] Ostapenko was the first unseeded woman to win the French Open since 1933, as well as the lowest-ranked (47) since computer rankings began in 1975.[5][6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_French_Open_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_Singles

And from CNN:
trailed by a set and 3-0 -- she had to fend off three break points to avoid falling behind 4-0 -- before rallying for a 4-6 6-4 6-3 victory Saturday on Philippe Chatrier court. Ostapenko also trailed 3-1 in the third

Also from CNN:
Ostapenko's average forehand speed topped that of men's No. 1 Andy Murray this fortnight.
That may be because of tactics and strategy rather than that she actually possesses more raw power than Murray, but still interesting.

Must be a sensation in Latvia. It's difficult to know how to react to this. On the one hand, she battled through a weakened draw, losing sets constantly and often coming back from a set behind - 4 times! That's impressive but would tend to suggest that this was a bit of a one off, especially as she has never won a WTA title.

On the other hand, players do suddenly surge and improve, and she is young, so room for improvement.

If someone were to  predict how many slams she would win in her career, what might we suggest? It could be just this one, it could be several, it could even be quite a lot. Probably about 2-3 would be a reasonable guess (including this one).

I wouldn't expect her to do much for the rest of the year or next year (at a complete guess) but if she takes the right attitude and realizes that she's still a top 20-30 player only, and works hard to improve her game for a couple of years....

Thanks Henman. Ostapenko seems to be some sort of freak of nature with that power. Wonder whether her game translates onto the other surfaces.

I expect she'll crash out of Wimbledon early this year. If I was her, I would focus on socialising and celebrating and resting for the next several weeks. However, she might be one to watch at Wimbledon in a few years when she has more grass experience.

Thinking about this a little more, if you are a power player taking major risks, you have a wider range of possibilities. On a good day, you can beat the world no 1. On a bad day, you can lose to the world no 100. So such a player, for a given ranking, has a better chance of winning a slam. I don't know enough about the women's game to think of comparable examples so to take the example of the men's game someone like Ferrer who spent years in the top 10 and even some period in the top 5 could not win a slam, but Cilic just had a good week and blasted his way to the US Open title, even though you would say Ferrer was a better player since Cilic was more of a top 15-top 30 player for most of his career.

I didn't notice Rafa's grunting whatsoever, but that was mostly because I had the volume turned completely off for nearly the whole match so my son could sit next to me and watch his cartoons. Maybe that was a good way to do it because I thought it was an imperious performance up there with his 2008-2013 best levels. You have to factor in he wasn't even tested fully, and may even have had another gear. Stan started quite well the first few games before it all ran away from him - I'm not convinced he played that badly. His stats looked terrible but getting good stats against this Rafa on this surface is a different matter to usually.

Yes!!!

Totally awesome performance by Rafa today. 10 French Open's has to be one of the single biggest achievements in sport.

To think people call Nadal a grinder when he played explosive tennis all match long, using power, variety, serve, angles and spin. The complete player.

And THAT 99 mph forehand will go down in the annals.

Amazing stuff and made me very happy today.

Vamos

The 99mph one was it the one hit from outside the tram lines with a stretch down the line for a winner where Stan clapped it (well, with his racket). With Rafa at the far end on the TV picture? I wonder what the record forehand is.

Amazing thing is that he wasn't even pushed. I would have liked to have seen today's Rafa against the Djokovic that played last years final. He probably had more gears.

I don't think 99mph will be the record forehand. I remember Lukas Rosol hitting a winner over 100mph against Rafa at Wimbledon.

Born Slippy wrote:I've seen the last couple of Rafa-Stan matches, when Rafa was out of form. Hard to get past the way Stan gave up after a couple of games of realising he couldn't deal with Rafa's forehand. He seemed to have no idea what to do. Stan's also probably the fittest guy on tour but even he will be feeling a 4.5 hour war at age 32.

Taking all that into account, I think it's going to be very one-sided tomorrow. I'm going for Rafa 6/3 6/2 6/1. He won't quite beat Borg's record of dropping 32 games in a slam but I think he will get close.

This has to qualify as one of the best ever predictions. The actual result of course being 6/2 6/3 6/1. You even got the part about him looking tired quite right. Even in a short, straight set match after two days of rest, he did look tired.

Guest82 wrote:Amazing thing is that he wasn't even pushed. I would have liked to have seen today's Rafa against the Djokovic that played last years final. He probably had more gears.

I don't think 99mph will be the record forehand. I remember Lukas Rosol hitting a winner over 100mph against Rafa at Wimbledon.

There's been a few over 120mph. I've seen both Monfils and Murray hit shots at that pace. Neither were as good as Rafa's shot today though.

This for me. a biased Rafa fan,  proves I'm not alone in marvelling just what a great player Rafa is and how incredible is his achievement.,

“I'd always thought I could win the French Open. My problem, of course, was Rafa. The guy is unbelievable on clay. Some people don't want to believe it, but unfortunately that's the truth. Rafa shattered my dreams many times on clay. He's got shots that no other one has. When you have that, you are unique and special. Plus he's got the grit. He's got the mental and physical ability to sustain a super-high level of play for years and for hours and for weeks. He's come back from many injuries, time and time again. He made it seem easy, and it's not. I think he's been tremendous for the game. I have a lot of respect for him on many levels. I think he made me a better player. For me, the ultimate challenge is always to play against him.”
- ROGER FEDERER, winner of 18 Grand Slam titles, including Roland-Garros 2009

Didn't see any of the final but from the above accounts and talking to those that did see it, this was an utterly dominant and masterly display by Rafa. I thought Stan could at least give him something of a match. May be Andy did himself a favour by losing the semi!
   Rafa is now very much on course to end 2017 as numero uno, especially if the other big titles are shared around a bit. 
   The good thing is that for a few weeks now we should have all the big four playing together unless Djoko decides to take a break.

Amazing win by Nadal, what an achievement to land 10 French opens. I just knew he would win from the start of tournament but a very disappointing performance in the final from Wawrina, to win only 6 games is pretty appalling stuff. Maybe he was just spent after the long match vs Murray. Still a very good tournament for Stan and good to see him putting some good matches in back to back vs Cilic and Murray.

It will be interesting to see how Rafa does at Wimbledon, up until about 2011 he used to back up his French wins with solid performances at Wimbledon but not in more recent years. This French open cant have taken much out of him as he won so routinely in every match. Maybe this is the year that he might start competing better on grass again.

I can see Federer and Murray being big threats at Wimbledon. As a novak fan might be best for him to skip Wimbledon this year and get his head together. Maybe return for the hard court season. His confidence is low and taking another beating at Wimbledon is not going to help. I think time away from the game could really help Novak and then gradually work his way back in again.

Anyway congrats to Rafa and all his fans, an amazing achievement!

I don't think we can blame tiredness for Wawrinka's loss.  His time on court was about par for people reaching the final and it was very early in the match when one sensed the writing on wall.  I would say by the end of the fourth game of the match it was clear that Nadal was more comfortable than Wawrinka - with Wawrinka being pushed onto the back foot.  The match just ran away from him at the moment onward - it was a mismatch on the day.  Wawrinka tried but Nadal simply had too much artillery and tactical ability and skill for Wawrinka on the day.

He took the game to Stan ftrom the start.. Stan didn't get chance to work his way into the match Rafa threw everything at him and moved him around the court. Stan couldn't handle Rafa's forehand which was on fire.. simply outplayed him and Stan's frustration was obvious.
Rafa was a man on a mission..ruthless

Pat Cash who was part of the BBC commentary team said he practised with Nadal on the clay some time ago.  He said when Nadal hits the ball it seems to accelerate when it bounces towards you and tends to change direction in subtle ways (not just high bounce).  He said Nadal makes the tennis ball appear like a rubber ball in the way it sort of accelerates off the bounce.  He said that was when he realised what all the fuss was about with regard to Nadal - he was doing something he had never seen before.  He also said Nadal has changed his racket recently to a heavier racket - to try to get more power into his shots.  The inference was that Nadal has not stayed still - he is always improving or adapting his game to suit his physical capabilities.

Well done to to Rafael Nadal and his team on his tenth French Open title, a truly remarkable feat. What is even more impessive is his amazing level of dominance at the tournament. In 2017, there was no one who could even begin to approach his level of mastery and movement on la terre batteu.

This victory simply further cements his legend.