Tennis

[The Hitch]

Saying Federer is clean or cleaner because "omg his style looks good, and I hate Nadal" is the same first impression nonesence that gets posters to conclude theyve undercovered a match fixing ring when they see a player serve poorly, or causes them to say Nadal has little talent.

This is the guy who has the joint record for most consecutive grand slams played in. Despite the fact that he made semi final for 90% of those grand slams, Final in almost 50 % of them and quarter final in 95%. Everyone else on that list has been losing first round matches, saving energy, and yet there Federer is 58 straight grand slams when he plays an average of 6 matches a grand slam.

Federer has also always played with a heavier racket than everyone else. That means that you don't actually see on your tv al the power he puts into his shots.

Nonetheless, despite the racket weight he has consistently for a decade had one of the fastest serves in the game.

And to look at the stamina aspect again think of how many 5 set matches he played.

Nadal, who is seen by some on here as the ultimate example of doping in sport, lost his entire 2009 season because of 2 -5 set matches at the Australian - the match against Verdasco followed by Federer. Cracked.

On the other hand in that same season, Federer went into that year having been in the final of 13 of the last 14 grand slams.

He played 2 five setters of his own - Berdych Nadal, but brushed that off, played another 2 five setters at the French, - Haas, Del Potro, won that tournament, took it into Wimbledon, won the longest final in history against Roddick, a match which ended Roddick's career (remember Roddick couldn't move for the last hour and gave up even trying to touch Federer's serve, while Federer just kept on going like a machine), then Federer went into the US open, another final another 5 setter, to Del Potro, lost after choking when he had the chance to win, but who gives a ****, cos Del Potro, Nadal, Djokovic the 3 people who troubled Federer in Grand slams struggling with this thing called fatigue, Federer just keeps going and wins another grand slam

 

[the sceptic]

Federer playing 5 sets is not the same as Nadal and Djokovic playing 5 sets.

No doubt he had insane stamina at his peak and was probably doping but lol at comparing him to Nadal.

 

[Cycle Chic]

Female point of view

I missed that. he/she/it is acting like a girl in threatening to leave tho.
She is quite happy to troll the cycling related threads then throw his/her toys out the pram concerning tennis when her/its hero is called out.

My reasons for leaving the tennis thread are because too few posters actually follow tennis as avidly as myself. I backed up my claims. I suggest you all go visit TENNIS HAS A STEROID PROBLEM WEBSITE

It would be nice to think that the men would appreciate the different way of thinking that a female has on the topic of the cycling world....I will continue though, don't panic. I enjoy my posts

 

[sniper]

Federer playing 5 sets is not the same as Nadal and Djokovic playing 5 sets.

No doubt he had insane stamina at his peak and was probably doping but lol at comparing him to Nadal.

this.
10 chars.

 

[Bicycle]

Nadal, who is seen by some on here as the ultimate example of doping in sport, lost his entire 2009 season because of 2 -5 set matches at the Australian - the match against Verdasco followed by Federer. Cracked.

Cracked? That's one interpretation. After winning the AO for the only time he won Indian Wells, Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Rome. Then at Roland Garros he lost his only match there to date. That year uniquely the French were doing their own testing at the event - of the Spanish only Robredo got past the 4th round. Make up your own mind what happened here. Then he missed Wimbledon citing those knees.

 

[burning]

snip

First, thanks for detailed reply

I agree with the sceptic, It looks like he's spending less energy than everybody else on the court and he looks definitely more efficent than Nadal's "I run to every single shot to just hit the ball and I will eventually win"

I also think that he lacked competition between 2004-2007 as he has a horrible record vs Nadal. (His recent record vs Djokovic is not promising too but he's obviously over the hill and Djokovic is at his prime right now)

 

[sniper]

Saying Federer is clean or cleaner because "omg his style looks good, and I hate Nadal" is the same first impression nonesence that gets posters to conclude theyve undercovered a match fixing ring when they see a player serve poorly, or causes them to say Nadal has little talent.

really, what's nonsense about trusting your eyes? Nobody with a brain will say Federer is clean, but Nadal definitely looks the bigger doper to everyone with two eyes.

And if you disagree with nadal having little talent, how much talent you think he has? I'm talking about tennis talent, not athletic ability. I know those two cannot always be separated clearly, but still, let's imagine they can.

in terms of natural athletic ability, i'd say nadal and federer are more or less equally equiped.
of course on court nadal looks much stronger and fitter, and my wild guess is that that's down to his more extreme ped-(ab)use than federer, not to natural athletic ability.
in terms of natural tennis talent (eye hand coordination, touch, intelligence, sense for the ball, those kind of variables), federer completely outclasses nadal, imo.
Even hardhitters like jim courier and andre agassi , imo, had more natural tennis talent than nadal.
they weren't better athletes, nor did they have a stronger killer's mentality, but imo they looked the more natural tennis players.

perhaps in terms of tennis talent i'd put nadal in the same category as Ivan Lendl.

 

[The Hitch]

Federer playing 5 sets is not the same as Nadal and Djokovic playing 5 sets.

No doubt he had insane stamina at his peak and was probably doping but lol at comparing him to Nadal.

Why? Nadal ok has a particular style that takes more energy but Djokovic? He similar to Federer smashes people around the court.

Its wrong to think Federer doesn't play a tiring game. Those 50 shot rallies tire him out as much as anyone else. More since he is carrying a heavier racket.

Just look at the Federer vs Nadal 5 setters or even Federer vs Djoker. He smashes the ball around just as hard as Nadal. He has clocked above 100mph for the forehand which few people have done (nadal has also).


Also btw, strange that by one of the easiest measures we have of how much power each player is able to put out - serve speed, he has a faster record serve than Nadal.

 

[Bicycle]

One of the reasons Nadal is the most suspicious is the amount of downtime he has (like Serena Williams) plus he always seems to lose form in the last few months of the year. Various explanations are put forward for this: he doesn't like hardcourts (multiple slam/masters hardcourt winner), he's tired (why just him?). Or maybe he's cycling down to build up again for next year?

Whatever the case while I believe all top sports stars use PEDs to some extent - players like Federer and Djokovic play consistently throughout the year. Cycling down is essential for optimising PED use and there is no evidence of this for them. Nadal on the other hand...

I'm still struggling to explain the loss to Darcis at Wimbledon.

 

[sniper]

Why? Nadal ok has a particular style that takes more energy but Djokovic? He similar to Federer smashes people around the court.

Its wrong to think Federer doesn't play a tiring game. Those 50 shot rallies tire him out as much as anyone else. More since he is carrying a heavier racket.

Just look at the Federer vs Nadal 5 setters or even Federer vs Djoker. He smashes the ball around just as hard as Nadal. He has clocked above 100mph for the forehand which few people have done (nadal has also).


Also btw, strange that by one of the easiest measures we have of how much power each player is able to put out - serve speed, he has a faster record serve than Nadal.

there is some truth in this post.
but two caveats:
1. federer, on average, hits a flatter service and ground stroke than nadal and thus also a bit faster on average. of course federer can hit spin serves, but nadal almost only hits spin serves.

2. hitting hard is not necessarily down only to muscle strength.
we'Ve seen a lot of skinny guys hitting the ball flat and extremely hard.
delpotro isn't skinny, but he isn't very muscular either, and e.g. less muscular than murray, yet he hits the ball harder than murray does.

here's a wild conjecture:
i always lamented the fact that Federer stopped playing serve-volley at wimbledon, quite early on in the mid 2000s I think.
A genuinely wild guess: Federe's fully abandoning serve-volley may have coincided with him starting to use oxygen peds.

 

[the sceptic]

Yeah Nadal has an insane amount of spin on his shot. He is basically a bodybuilder but at the same time has the best stamina on tour. It doesnt get more "not normal" than that.

Also imo, Federer has one of the best serves on the tour so he doesnt need to work as hard to win his own games.

 

[jonasnielsen]

Federer playing 5 sets is not the same as Nadal and Djokovic playing 5 sets.

No doubt he had insane stamina at his peak and was probably doping but lol at comparing him to Nadal.

Spot on

First of all, his play style is less physical and more importantly you have to look at time played not the amount of sets

Looking just at sets played is silly and pointless

 

[The Hitch]

Yeah Nadal has an insane amount of spin on his shot. He is basically a bodybuilder but at the same time has the best stamina on tour. It doesnt get more "not normal" than that.

Also imo, Federer has one of the best serves on the tour so he doesnt need to work as hard to win his own games.

Nadal has the most spin ever but that is because of his forehand technique.

Spot on

First of all, his play style is less physical and more importantly you have to look at time played not the amount of sets

Looking just at sets played is silly and pointless

So every player goes into every grand slam 100% fresh like in video games.

It doesn't matter if Nadal hasn't played in 7 months but Federer has played every single grand slam since 2001, they both have the same starting fitness

Anyway do we have any listings that show that Nadal spends significantly more time on court per match than Federer?

 

[mikeoneill]

i thought they were gonna crack down on the screeching onetime

it's unwatchable with that racket from azarenko

 

[jonasnielsen]

Nadal has the most spin ever but that is because of his forehand technique.

So every player goes into every grand slam 100% fresh like in video games.

It doesn't matter if Nadal hasn't played in 7 months but Federer has played every single grand slam since 2001, they both have the same starting fitness

Anyway do we have any listings that show that Nadal spends significantly more time on court per match than Federer?

No, you were using 5 set matches as an indicator and i was simply saying that's pointless because 5 set matches can vary a lot in length. You have to look at the time spent on court

I said nothing about Nadal's break or anything else. Perhaps you should save your eyerolls for when they are actually relevant?

I don't have any statistics either way but wouldn't you agree time spent on courts, run distance, number of strokes hit etc. would be important when talking about stamina and fitness?

 

[sniper]

sorry to say, but serena is a total freakshow. not funny.
she seems to have grown larger/broader still, compared to last year. more voluminous, more muscular. mutant stuff.
i think this is her in the year 2000:

 

[The Hitch]

No, you were using 5 set matches as an indicator and i was simply saying that's pointless because 5 set matches can vary a lot in length. You have to look at the time spent on court

I said nothing about Nadal's break or anything else. Perhaps you should save your eyerolls for when they are actually relevant?

I don't have any statistics either way but wouldn't you agree time spent on courts, run distance, number of strokes hit etc. would be important when talking about stamina and fitness?

Well you said "spot on" to another post that was itself a dismissal/ challenge to my post so the points raised by your post go beyond what you explicitly stated.

Yes, all those would be important when measuring stamina and fitness but since we don't have those stats, sets played is the best measure we had.

 

[the sceptic]

That set was a goldmine for cycle chic

 

[mikeoneill]

hmm..

azarenka ftw now!

 

[robow7]

Hitch, hate to tell ya but the Fed doesn't have one of the fastest serves in the ATP. He depends far more on placement and spin rather than raw speed to hold serve. These are average speeds of serve during the 2008 US Open. Fed is very much in the middle. A lot of today's trees (Dr. Ivo, Isner, Birdman, Raonic, and others) serve harder than Fed and Nadal.

ATP (US Open)Roddick 126 MPH (202)
Del Potro 121 MPH (195)
Tursunov 118 MPH (190)
Monfils 117 MPH (18
Djokovic 115 MPH (185)
James Blake 115 MPH (185)
Federer 114 MPH (183)
Nalbandian 111 MPH (179)
Murray 111 MPH (179)
Ferrer 109 MPH (175)
Nadal 108 MPH (174)
Kei Nishikori 105 MPH (169)
Davydenko 104 MPH (167


And these results from the 2011 US Open

Player M 1sts 1stAvg 2nds 2ndAvg
John Isner 4 313 124.5 125 106.2
Andy Roddick 5 249 122.1 118 100.5
Tomas Berdych 3 85 120.3 71 95.0
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 5 289 119.7 206 90.6
Marin Cilic 3 125 118.7 121 86.3
Janko Tipsarevic 3 148 116.5 84 90.5
Roger Federer 6 355 115.6 186 94.6
Juan Martin Del Potro 3 180 114.5 96 88.2
Julien Benneteau 3 177 114.0 86 89.9
Tommy Haas 3 211 113.9 124 94.1
Novak Djokovic 7 421 113.7 226 91.4

 

[thrawn]

there is some truth in this post.
but two caveats:
1. federer, on average, hits a flatter service and ground stroke than nadal and thus also a bit faster on average. of course federer can hit spin serves, but nadal almost only hits spin serves.

2. hitting hard is not necessarily down only to muscle strength.
we'Ve seen a lot of skinny guys hitting the ball flat and extremely hard.
delpotro isn't skinny, but he isn't very muscular either, and e.g. less muscular than murray, yet he hits the ball harder than murray does.

here's a wild conjecture:
i always lamented the fact that Federer stopped playing serve-volley at wimbledon, quite early on in the mid 2000s I think.
A genuinely wild guess: Federe's fully abandoning serve-volley may have coincided with him starting to use oxygen peds.

Federer's service technique is also a lot better than Nadal's.

Also, Federer abandoning the serve-volley was more likely due to them slowing the surface at Wimbledon down.

 

[sniper]

Also, Federer abandoning the serve-volley was more likely due to them slowing the surface at Wimbledon down.

yeah, true, that very much favored the heavy returners.

but also on hardcourt he used to come in into the net much more before. there clearly was a general shift in his game (regardless of surface) from more attacking to more defensive, from favoring shorter points to favoring longer points.

i also remember bbc commentators being surprised that federer hardly went into the net anymore, not even after heavy 1st serves, and regardless of the opponent. observers were a bit surprised, i guess. or perhaps simply disappointed to see one of the last serve volleyers becoming a baseliner.

 

[Briant_Gumble]

So what percentage do most in here believe is an accurate depiction of how many are doping?

30%, 50%, 70%, 98%?

I'll be interested to hear some responses.

 

[The Hitch]

Hitch, hate to tell ya but the Fed doesn't have one of the fastest serves in the ATP. He depends far more on placement and spin rather than raw speed to hold serve. These are average speeds of serve during the 2008 US Open. Fed is very much in the middle. A lot of today's trees (Dr. Ivo, Isner, Birdman, Raonic, and others) serve harder than Fed and Nadal.

ATP (US Open)Roddick 126 MPH (202)
Del Potro 121 MPH (195)
Tursunov 118 MPH (190)
Monfils 117 MPH (18
Djokovic 115 MPH (185)
James Blake 115 MPH (185)
Federer 114 MPH (183)
Nalbandian 111 MPH (179)
Murray 111 MPH (179)
Ferrer 109 MPH (175)
Nadal 108 MPH (174)
Kei Nishikori 105 MPH (169)
Davydenko 104 MPH (167


And these results from the 2011 US Open

Player M 1sts 1stAvg 2nds 2ndAvg
John Isner 4 313 124.5 125 106.2
Andy Roddick 5 249 122.1 118 100.5
Tomas Berdych 3 85 120.3 71 95.0
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 5 289 119.7 206 90.6
Marin Cilic 3 125 118.7 121 86.3
Janko Tipsarevic 3 148 116.5 84 90.5
Roger Federer 6 355 115.6 186 94.6
Juan Martin Del Potro 3 180 114.5 96 88.2
Julien Benneteau 3 177 114.0 86 89.9
Tommy Haas 3 211 113.9 124 94.1
Novak Djokovic 7 421 113.7 226 91.4

To me that is one of the highest. He is right up there both times, out of 125 players who started.

And especially compared to his opponents. In 2011 he has a harder serve than all the current top 10 apart from Tsonga and Berdych - who is a tree.

Tipsarevic really interesting though. Dude is 180cm, how the **** does he get such a serve.

 

[Briant_Gumble]

Hitch, hate to tell ya but the Fed doesn't have one of the fastest serves in the ATP. He depends far more on placement and spinrather than raw speed to hold serve. These are average speeds of serve during the 2008 US Open. Fed is very much in the middle. A lot of today's trees (Dr. Ivo, Isner, Birdman, Raonic, and others) serve harder than Fed and Nadal.

ATP (US Open)Roddick 126 MPH (202)
Del Potro 121 MPH (195)
Tursunov 118 MPH (190)
Monfils 117 MPH (18
Djokovic 115 MPH (185)
James Blake 115 MPH (185)
Federer 114 MPH (183)
Nalbandian 111 MPH (179)
Murray 111 MPH (179)
Ferrer 109 MPH (175)
Nadal 108 MPH (174)
Kei Nishikori 105 MPH (169)
Davydenko 104 MPH (167


And these results from the 2011 US Open

Player M 1sts 1stAvg 2nds 2ndAvg
John Isner 4 313 124.5 125 106.2
Andy Roddick 5 249 122.1 118 100.5
Tomas Berdych 3 85 120.3 71 95.0
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 5 289 119.7 206 90.6
Marin Cilic 3 125 118.7 121 86.3
Janko Tipsarevic 3 148 116.5 84 90.5
Roger Federer 6 355 115.6 186 94.6
Juan Martin Del Potro 3 180 114.5 96 88.2
Julien Benneteau 3 177 114.0 86 89.9
Tommy Haas 3 211 113.9 124 94.1
Novak Djokovic 7 421 113.7 226 91.4

This is why I find it conceivable that he's natural. He moves very economically as well.

Nadal doesn't serve the fastest but he has a high percentage and hits very hard ground strokes as evidenced by how far he stands behind the baseline.

Although playing a limited game (no slice, no volleys, limited top spin) I believe Agassi was a very skilled player who took the ball early and used other players pace against them, also extremely accurate. However, I think he doped because of his association with Gil Reyes, there is no known shady doctor in Federer's camp.