You misunderstand my point. I don’t think that Federer tries less hard with Nadal, but I think he is less focused when he plays him. Perhaps it’s because Nadal was the first person to consistently beat him, causing Federer to cast some sort of aural light on him, but something about Nadal definitely throws off the normally unflappable Federer.
Nadal, on the other hand, doesn’t seem less focused when he plays Djokovic. Rather, he just seems utterly, completely perplexed. Try as he might, he just can’t beat him. Those drop shots, delivered so perfectly disguised, takes him right out of his game.
Djokovic’s biggest nemesis, IMO, remains Federer. They play very similar games. And, of course, Federer was the only man who could stop him from completing his Grand Slam. Plus, he has a career winning record against him.
It should be a great week of tennis. Sadly, I’m traveling on Saturday so will probably miss seeing the final live. I hope it will end up being awesome.
I am in the Eastern Timezone(USA). When does the Nadal - Federer semifinal come on TV? I expect it is on ESPN2, but when? I want to tape it and put it on the next day.
Yes, tonight. The women’s semifinals will be on earlier in the evening. The other men’s semifinal (Djokovic vs. Murray) will be tomorrow night. Seven of the top eight seeds made the semis- I wonder if that has ever happened before.
Yeah, it’s been pretty common since these four guys rose to the top. I think ESPN said it’s happened at three of the last five majors. The last time it happened for the woman was just a year ago: in 2010, the Aussie semifinals had the top three seeds plus Li Na (9).
Jim Courier was on Golf Channel’s Morning Drive this morning.
He referenced a disagreement between Federer and Nadal about the Tennis Rankings.
Apparently Nadal wants a rankings that is similar to golf’s rankings, a 2 yr system.
Federer wants to keep it the same.
As someone who follows the golf rankings pretty closely, I would hate to see Tennis goto a 2 yr system.
It is nearly impossible for a 1st year professional golfer to get ranked high enough to be exempt into majors and other big tournaments. They simply have not had time to populate their resume.
They’ve also had some disagrements over what to do about the schedule. Nadal seems to be particularly upset about the length of the season and thinks it needs to be shorter. He was also one of the guys who was most irritated by the state of affairs at the U.S. Open last year- some of the players felt the tournament directors wanted to get them on the court in bad conditions and didn’t care about their safety. There’s a feeling that the tournament sponsors get more say than the players.
The problem with the scheduling issue is that the top players want the season to be shorter and the lower-ranked players don’t want to lose matches (and money). The high ranked guys can make millions, but the other players are not exactly making a fortune out there. Federer and Nadal are the president and VP of the players council, so they’re supposed to represent everybody.
Wow, I did not realize they were in those positions. Oddly enough, Federer is not for reducing the schedule. Nadal is. Federer is kind of the odd man out in this one. I think most players want a reduced schedule, or at least some kind of season. Tennis is a bit unusual in that they play the entire year round. Only lucky players like Federer can avoid injuries year after year after year.
They’re elected by the players, so that was their choice. It’s true that in the past the biggest stars haven’t gotten this involved, but here’s the Wikipedia explanation:
So it’s true that for the last few years, the biggest stars have been the president and VP of the players’ council, but it’s deliberately set up so that players with different statuses and experienced are represented. Allegro is a close friend of Federer’s (in that fact that’s his entire bio on the ATP site: “Close friend of World No. 1 Roger Federer.”) and he’s currently ranked #247 in doubles. Fisher has never played a tour-level singles match and is #95 in doubles.
Not true. Federer has said he favors a shorter schedule, but I think you could say he hasn’t been as vehement about it as Nadal. And no, not all of the players want a shorter schedule. The stars do because they start the year in Australia, play major events all around the world into the fall, and the best of them end up playing the year-end tournament in late November and then get two weeks off before Australia. If you’re a top player, you might make a million dollars in a year and you’d rather have the time to rest. Example: Mardy Fish was ranked around #8 for most of 2011 and he made $1.9 million, which by the way is about 1/3 of his career prize money and he’s 30.
If you’re ranked #200, you want to play more matches because you need want to get more points to move up in the world and you need to make ends meet. As of the start of the Australian Open, the #200 player in singles was a Czech guy named Dusan Lojda. He is 23 and made $48,434 in 2011. His best results seem to have been losing in the second round of qualifying for the Aussie and U.S. Opens. Maybe you can see where balancing those interests is difficult, and we’re not even talking about all the companies who are sponsoring tournaments and the groups that run the events.
I can’t wait for Novak to dominate everyone again this year. I’m tired and bored by Federer and Nadal is cool and all but it’s Novak’s turn and I wish for him to stretch out “his time” for as long as he can.
There has been a change in 2012 - the Year end tournament is two weeks earlier than in 2011, so all the top players other than those in the Davis Cup final will get a break of about 7 weeks.
Random question I keep forgetting to ask until now: How does prize money work in grand slams? Is there an entry fee for lower ranked players? High profile players receive an “appearance fee” do they not? Is that only the seeded players? How much per player? If you’re not seeded do you have to pay to play? Again, how much?
It often confuses me how little mention prize money actually gets during the slams. If you watch the full two weeks worth of American coverage, the 1st place prize money will probably get less than five mentions. I know it’s supposed to be for the love of the sport and the desire for good competition and all such things, but the monetary aspect isn’t anything to be sniffed at either.
The prize money for the Australian Open is here. In singles, the winner gets $2.3m and the first round losers get $20,000. Given that even the losers win prize money, there would seem to be little point having an entry fee, but I do not know for sure.
There are no appearance fees for the Grand Slam events - the players are going to turn up no matter what. Smaller events often use appearance money to get one or two marquee players to commit to playing in order to enhance ticket sales. Such players are not always totally committed to the event. I remember Agassi coming to a small tournament in Atlanta, collecting his fee, and losing to Joe Nobody in the first round.
Here’s the prize money for the Australian Open. If you make it to the first round, you get $20,000. The winners get $2.3 million, which is the most money of the four slams. I don’t think there are appearance fees at the slams or any of the mandatory events. The players want to be there anyway. At smaller events, it’s another story. The whole thing is only sort of allowed, and I think the payments are pretty much what the market will bear or for the players the organizers are most interested in.
Really? I hear about it a lot - especially when the U.S. Open is coming up, because they have that whole U.S. Open Series thing. (The player who gets the most points during the couple of events before the tournament gets double the prize money and the second-and third place finishers also get more prize money.)
It certainly isn’t. Djokovic got something like $12.6 million last year, which was also a record.
Thanks for the links guys. I have no idea why I thought high profile players would get an appearance fee for a grand slam, sure does sound dumb in hindsight.
Marley: I completely forgot about the U.S. Open series. Yes, during that time money gets mentioned quite often.
Going through a dumb streak right now apparently, maybe I’ll just call it a day.
