// After Nadal’s first grass court title in five years at the ATP 250 event in Stuttgart, there were a fair amount of people who thought we could soon witness another miraculous comeback from Nadal, myself included. Given the strange unpredictability of Nadal’s career trajectory you can never count that possibility out. But it looks like at least for the time being that possibility has come to an abrupt end after Nadal was defeated 6-3, 6-7(6), 6-4 by Dolgopolov at Queen’s today.You’d always give Dolgopolov a chance against Nadal given how talented he is, especially on a faster surface like grass. But I figured Nadal would be confident after his title in Stuttgart too. That was hardly the case at Queen’s though because he lost despite being a break up in the third set and having two break points again at 4-4 and 40-15 on the Dolgopolov serve. And still it seems to be the forehand that is letting him down. His form still very much reminds of Roger’s 2013 season.

It’s the strings they make these days, no?

Hi, folks. I hope you are all doing very well. Nadal won his 9th Barcelona title last week and in doing so equaled Vilas for the most clay court titles at 49. This after he won Monte Carlo last week.

Of course, his fans will claim that is another sign that he is back. But what does that even mean? That Nadal is going to start winning slams again? When is he back? When he wins the French Open?

He did that nine previous times as well. I don’t even think if he wins the French Open that it necessarily means he is back. One more French Open was always a possibility. For me, he would be back if he can win a slam off of clay.

I watched some of Nadal’s matches against Fognini and Nishikori. And yes he played well. I couldn’t see much difference between his current self and his old self. But for me, the real test was always going to be when Djokovic is back.

So finally after a long drought Nadal has won a big title again, defeating Monfils 7-5, 5-7, 6-0 in the final. In doing so he tied Djokovic on 28 Masters titles after Djokovic surpassed him in Miami. It was also Nadal’s 9th Monte Carlo title.

If Nadal was ever going to find form again it was going to be during the clay court season. But I wouldn’t get too excited just yet if I was a Nadal fan. Nadal didn’t have to face Djokovic after all and winning one Masters doesn’t mean he is officially back.

But at least he seems to be playing his best tennis since the 2014 clay season. You always kind of figured he’d eventually win something noteworthy again and that it would be on clay. The days of winning anything big off of clay seem to be long gone.

We will see how it goes from here. If he really wants to prove that he is back he needs to win more clay events. Madrid will be interesting when Djokovic is back. He will have something to prove as well after losing his first match in Monte Carlo.

Greetings. Today the ATP 250 events in Metz and St. Petersburg were concluded and there were two first-time winners in Lucas Pouille and Alexander Zverev. Pouille defeated Thiem 7-6(5), 6-2 while Zverev defeated the US Open champ Wawrinka 6-2, 3-6, 7-5.

These two are the most promising youngsters on the ATP currently in my view and I therefore expect them to win many more titles. Pouille is 22 years old and will climb from 18th to 16th in the rankings after his win while Zverev is only 19 years old and will climb from 27th to 24th in the rankings.

Pouille climbed from 78th at the start of 2016 to his current ranking while Zverev climbed from 83rd. For both of them, this has to be seen as a breakthrough season especially with their maiden titles this week.

Pouille has done better because he made two slam quarterfinals at Wimbledon and the US Open while Zverev made two slam third rounds at the French Open and Wimbledon. But Zverev is the younger of the two and titles among teenagers are a rarity these days.

After every post during a tournament, I will select the match for which you can make a prediction and post a link to this page. Then you must make your prediction in the comment selection below. Once the match that I selected begins predictions will close and I will accept no more. Then once the match is over I will calculate the results and adjust the rankings. The rankings will always be displayed on my blog and once the tournament is over I will announce the winner.

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As you can see Roger did decide to play Rome in the end, as he said after he lost in Madrid that he wasn’t yet sure if he would. I’m glad to see he did decide to play. It would have been strange if he did not play after planning such a full clay court schedule and then hardly playing any matches before the French Open. He didn’t exactly get the easiest draw again. Here it is:

It had its moments…

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As you can see Roger did decide to play Rome in the end, as he said after he lost in Madrid that he wasn’t yet sure if he would. I’m glad to see he did decide to play. It would have been strange if he did not play after planning such a full clay court schedule and then hardly playing any matches before the French Open. He didn’t exactly get the easiest draw again. Here it is:

It had its moments…

http://www.atpworldtour.com/share/event-draws.aspx?year=2014&eventid=5014&draw=ms

Hi folks. Long time no post. It’s been a three week break but could have been twice that long had Roger decided to skip Shanghai. I think the North-American hard court season and Davis Cup took a lot out of Roger, but as long as he doesn’t play Paris I don’t see it being a problem. I think after what happened at the US Open Roger is not satisfied and he is still pushing hard for something better. And of course we as fans are very grateful that Roger is back. It is good timing for me too as for once the tennis is in my time zone being in Thailand, and the school holiday just started here so I hope Roger can do well in Shanghai. It won’t be easy though. Roger has a pretty decent draw up until the quarters, but then he could run into Nishikori who comes off a US Open final and back-to-back tournament wins in Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo. Clearly Nishikori is on a very impressive run.

Just to get back to last week quickly, Nishikori beat Raonic in a close encounter in the Tokyo final while Djokovic destroyed Berdych 6-0, 6-2. Nishikori looks to be the most promising young player right now although Thiem is coming up fast. As for Djokovic he is in devastating form and cemented himself as the king of Asia by remaining unbeaten in Beijing in five tournaments. Against Berdych he was serving for the double bagel at 6-0 and 5-0 but then played a poor game. Did he feel sorry for Berdych? Who knows but to me it’s a shame that he missed out on a very rare opportunity to bagel a player in a final, and more so since it was Berdych. And not necessarily because Berdych is always in the zone against Roger. I just don’t like Berdych very much. Back to the Shanghai draw and Roger will play his first match on Wednesday against the winner of Mayer and wild card Wu.

The most popular male tennis player in China swamped on arrival

Hi folks. I hope you are feeling better after reading my last post and that you realize by now that Roger’s loss is not the end of the world. I received a comment a couple of days ago asking me what I thought about Roger changing his racquet and strings, because it was something Brad Gilbert said Roger should consider. That got me thinking. Ever since Roger passed his prime people have always been coming up with changes Roger should make after a disappointing loss. And then when things are going well again they have nothing to say. Well that was just silly. Losses are a natural part of tennis, and it doesn’t always call for a change. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t place for change, which is why I’m making this post. Roger just lost for the first time in 9 years before the quarter finals of a slam. If there was ever a time to make a change it is probably now.

When things weren’t really going well for Roger he hired Paul Annacone, and it has been a successful partnership. That was a pretty big change and it paid off. I’ve been thinking about this equipment change idea as well as a different fitness routine which would focus on strengthening the upper body. Lets face it. The game has become very physical and Roger is often getting overpowered. Berdych is one player who routinely overpowers Roger and in recent times Murray overpowered Roger in Melbourne. Nadal also overpowers Roger with brute strength. There are more examples I’m sure, but I just named a few off the top of my head. Roger has never been the biggest hitter in the game. But he had more than enough power in his prime to keep any big hitter at bay. What made him such a tough opponent is that he stood on the base line and took the ball on the rise.

He played very fast and his opponents were under constant pressure. It was just another level from what they were used to, which is why Roger almost never lost in his prime. It was only when Nadal showed up and used brute strength and unbelievable speed, as well as a match up advantage that Roger’s aura was infiltrated. Roger was as close to perfect as a player could come, and it took something extraordinary to make him vulnerable. Ever since then Roger became slowly but surely more vulnerable. The other players that started beating him more regularly were the power hitters like Berdych, Soderling, and Tsonga. Del Potro also beat him in the US Open final. Roger hasn’t always struggled with these guys. He does hold winning head-to-heads over all of them, and pretty convincing ones too. It’s not just these guys though.

Murray and Nadal are both strong guys and I have seen them both overpower Roger. It is just that extra upper body strength that they have. Just good old muscle. I think if Roger is going to make any changes from here on one of them would have to be strengthening his upper body. You can see strengthening his upper body was never really a priority for Roger because he is pretty skinny up there. That is not to say he is weak in the upper body. Of course he did some work there, but because he was such a natural talent and great timer of the ball he didn’t strengthen it as much as Nadal or Murray for instance. These guys can really muscle the ball. I’m not saying Roger should muscle the ball. It’s not how he plays. He plays with talent and timing. But strengthening the upper body could just give him that little extra to be able to compete better with these guys.

The other thing is the equipment. Roger plays with a Wilson BLX Pro Staff 90 racquet which you can view here. The 90 stands for the racquet head size, which is 90 square inches. That is pretty small folks. This is not a racquet I would ever recommend for a club player. I played with one of the first Head Prestige frames early on as a player and it had a 90 sq in head as well. The sweet spot is small and it is not easy to play with. Later on I switched to the 98 sq in Head Prestige, and played with it until the end. Check out this article in the New York Times about the racquets of the top 3 men. It was written back in 2011 but as far as racquets go the top 3 hasn’t changed much at all. It’s a very interesting article which you should read. What is so interesting is that Roger, Nadal, and Djokovic all have a different playing style, and therefor each uses a different racquet tailored to their specific needs.