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#Post#: 32778--------------------------------------------------
Tennis Tweets: Get Your Tennis Info As It Is Happening
By: Clay Death Date: November 2, 2015, 2:17 pm
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HTML http://www.tennisexplorer.com/tennis-tweets/
#Post#: 34903--------------------------------------------------
Re: Tennis Tweets: Get Your Tennis Info As It Is Happening
By: thetruth Date: February 1, 2016, 11:29 am
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Interesting article on Rafa by Mouratogolou. Everytime I see or
read something about Mouratogolou, he's talking about Rafa, not
in a bad way, but more like he's trying to figure him out. I
like what he says here though. It makes sense.
Mouratoglou believes a slower Nadal has tough challenge ahead
HTML http://www.si.com/tennis/2016/01/20/rafael-nadal-patrick-mouratoglou-australian-open
by Carole Bouchard
Posted: Wed Jan. 20, 2016
MELBOURNE – It’s early 2016 but for Rafael Nadal, it feels as
though 2015 is happening all over again. The Spaniard’s 7–6,
4–6, 3–6, 7–6, 6–2 loss to Fernando Verdasco in the first round
of the Australian Open on Tuesday was the second first-round
defeat of his career, the first coming at the hands of Steve
Darcis at Wimbledon in 2013. After losing in the first week at
the previous three majors, Nadal once again finds himself
searching for answers.
“The match is a tough [loss] for me obviously…especially because
is not like last year that I arrived here playing bad and
feeling myself not ready for it,” he said after the loss to
Verdasco. “This year was a completely different story. I have
been playing and practicing great and working so much.”
Nadal earned a two sets to one lead over Verdasco but was
unable to close, even up 2–0 in the fifth set. Verdasco played
superb tennis in the final set, winning the last six games of
the match and finishing with 90 winners and 91 unforced errors,
and his performance revealed one flaw of Nadal’s game that has
let him down over the past year: the forehand.
“In terms of being competitive, I was competitive. In terms of
creating damage to the opponent with my forehand, I didn't. So I
was hitting forehands, and he was able to keep hitting winners,”
Nadal said. “Cannot happen when I am hitting my forehand. The
opponent, if he wants to hit a winner is because he take too
much risk. In my opinion was not the case of today. I was
hitting winners. I was hitting forehands. He was able to keep
going for big shots in a not very bad position.
“That was the biggest issue for me today. I don't know 100% the
reason, to be honest. I was doing that good on the practices and
the previous tournaments.”
Patrick Mouratoglou has some ideas about the reason behind
Nadal’s declining form. The Frenchman and current coach of
Serena Williams has followed Nadal’s career over the last decade
and knows first hand about the mindset of a champion. According
to Mouratoglou, Nadal’s forehand issues are nothing new. The
Spaniard’s biggest obstacle lies somewhere else.
“Rafael Nadal has always been a very anxious player who needs to
win matches to be reassured. As long as he doesn’t win enough
matches in a row, he doesn’t have the needed confidence for his
shots to do their usual damage,” Mouratoglou said in an
interview on Wednesday in Melbourne. “This forehand issue? We’ve
seen it 50 times already. But we weren’t worried…. I feel like
I’ve been talking for 10 years about how short he plays when
he’s tight. And he was still beating top players this way
because the guys were so scared and wouldn’t step up inside the
court, and above all because of his extraordinary footwork.”
Mouratoglou believes Nadal has lost his ability to cover the
court because of his footwork skills, and as a result, his
confidence during matches has been affected.
“[A few years ago] when he wasn’t playing his best tennis, he
would keep the ball in play aiming to the middle of the court
and run. He’d put so much intensity and be impossible to hit
through,” he said. “Today he can’t do that anymore because his
footwork is so far from what it was before. He’s much slower.
And he knows it.”
Mouratoglou says that’s why Nadal decided to change his game to
a more aggressive style, a completely different method than he
has used for the past 20 years. And while he has found success
with this approach, Mouratoglou says, it is not natural for him
to play far inside the court and when he’s not at his best, he
stops moving forward.
Jon Wertheim
“In the past he has only been aggressive when he was full of
confidence,” Mouratoglou said. “Facing a Verdasco playing that
well, he was getting stressed and so he stepped back. But we’ve
seen it so many times when he’s not confident.”
After speaking openly about his struggles with confidence in
2015, Nadal reassessed his game with his coaches and seemed to
find his form again late in the season and in his first
tournament of 2016. But now, questions about his confidence
still linger.
“How will he get his confidence back, knowing that he can’t
count anymore on that court coverage?” Mouratoglou said. “That’s
the only reason why one can wonder if he’s going to ever be back
on top. He might be slower now because he can’t train as he used
to do anymore, because he’s not getting younger and his body has
already done a lot. Also it’s tough to think he’ll ever get his
speed back. And the more stressed he is, the slower he’s going
to be.”
Even his coach Toni Nadal is searching for explanations after
his loss in Melbourne on Tuesday.
“To lose so early in Australia is one of the biggest
disappointments we have had because, in the last four months, we
had been playing well,” he said to Spanish radio. “I hope it’s
only a blip and we move forward…It’s not easy to change of style
after 15 years.”
Toni now even seems open to the idea of a team change. “I
understand results come first and if you have to make a change,
you have to do it,” he said.
But Mouratoglou isn’t convinced. “It’s tough to see what the way
for him is here, but it’s not even an option for him to stop
working with Toni at this moment of his career. But if Toni
wants to bring someone into their team, why not.”
Mouratoglou believes that if Nadal can win another Grand Slam
title, it will be at Roland Garros. But he’s still unsure of the
road to get there.
“Even if somehow he finds a way back to full confidence, I’m not
sure he’d still beat [Novak] Djokovic. And getting back to this
state of mind while you keep losing against Djokovic, it’s not
easy,” Mouratoglou said. “If [Nadal] starts to think that he
won’t ever be back then he’s going to stop playing tennis. If at
some point he stops believing, he’ll stop. That’s not someone
who’s going to hang in there between the fifth and 10th spot in
the rankings. But he still believes he can. For how long, I
don’t know. But the results will have to arrive quickly.”
#Post#: 34921--------------------------------------------------
Re: Tennis Tweets: Get Your Tennis Info As It Is Happening
By: Clay Death Date: February 2, 2016, 2:59 am
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thanks for sharing the article lady TT.
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