The Obliteration of Roger Federer
How is it possible that a player with Roger Federer's sublime talent can look like such an amateur in the French Open Final? How can Rafael Nadal beat him so badly?
There's some encouragement here for all of us club players out there. Roger is forcing it. He doesn't have a lot of chances in any given game to take control of a point. Rafa is such a quick player, such a natural retreiver, and he can go from defense to offense in a point so quickly that Roger knows that any potentially neutral ball Rafa hits to him might be the last he sees.
That extra mental pressure is what causes Roger to force shots-- just as regular players like you and I force shots when we are playing an opponent with just a slightly better baseline game.
And if you know you might only get one or two chances in a GAME to put away a point, you'll go for a little bit too much on any given shot. Some of those shots might go in, but on the margin most of those shots become unforced errors.
Then what happens? Well, you can take a little bit off your shots and play more conservatively in order to make sure they go in. But then you can't take control of any points because you're sending too many neutral balls over the net to your opponent. Naturally they come back at you in the form of winners for the other guy.
You can go back to being more aggressive and pressing. Take your chances earlier in a point, and attack shots that you'd normally not attack. You can go for more challenging shots than you typically make. This is a great strategy on a day where you're playing out of your mind. But on a normal day where you're not playing out of your mind, this is suicide--at your normal level of play you cannot make these shots a sufficiently high percentage of times.
So, your error count skyrockets and you start to second guess all of your shots, or you play too passively and can't control any points at all. That's when the wheels come off your game and you lose the final set 6-0.
I makes me feel a little bit better at least. Congrats to Rafa.
There's some encouragement here for all of us club players out there. Roger is forcing it. He doesn't have a lot of chances in any given game to take control of a point. Rafa is such a quick player, such a natural retreiver, and he can go from defense to offense in a point so quickly that Roger knows that any potentially neutral ball Rafa hits to him might be the last he sees.
That extra mental pressure is what causes Roger to force shots-- just as regular players like you and I force shots when we are playing an opponent with just a slightly better baseline game.
And if you know you might only get one or two chances in a GAME to put away a point, you'll go for a little bit too much on any given shot. Some of those shots might go in, but on the margin most of those shots become unforced errors.
Then what happens? Well, you can take a little bit off your shots and play more conservatively in order to make sure they go in. But then you can't take control of any points because you're sending too many neutral balls over the net to your opponent. Naturally they come back at you in the form of winners for the other guy.
You can go back to being more aggressive and pressing. Take your chances earlier in a point, and attack shots that you'd normally not attack. You can go for more challenging shots than you typically make. This is a great strategy on a day where you're playing out of your mind. But on a normal day where you're not playing out of your mind, this is suicide--at your normal level of play you cannot make these shots a sufficiently high percentage of times.
So, your error count skyrockets and you start to second guess all of your shots, or you play too passively and can't control any points at all. That's when the wheels come off your game and you lose the final set 6-0.
I makes me feel a little bit better at least. Congrats to Rafa.
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