Ricky- Thanks for your comments! You're right, Nadal will have to raise his level to reach the finals or to win this tournament. He's been very tentative in his last 2 matches. The most worrying sign for me is his first serve % - which has been in the late 50's or early 60's throughout this tournament (it is usually in the late 70's for Rafa's matches). So the first serve is hurting him big time here. He's getting lesser free points on serve. He's also making a lot of Unforced errors on the forehand side. (Maybe it's because he's trying to be more aggressive - so it might be understandable).

I can't imagine Nadal to beat Murray with this form. If he does, it will be a herculean effort. I also think that fitness issues would come into play. Rafa now has 3 matches on the trot starting today and through Sunday. I'm sure he will start feeling it in the SF or the final (should he get there)

I don't think Nadal actually gets tired. Ever. I think he could play a 24-hr tennis match and be fine with food and bathroom breaks.

-Arvis

Ricky: as a huge Murray fan, I want him to win everything actually...., I was pleased to read your comments, but I feel Andy is underpar at the mo., Miami might be different, and honestly straight from the A. O. I feel Rafa, with that extraordinary mindset, could walk away with this one.

We'll see. Rafa was worn out at the USO, he said so himself. He had been on the go for months winning everything in sight, and Murray was fresh having gone out of the Olympics in the 1st round.

That was after MONTHS of non-stop tennis though. And he still got to the semis of a hardcourt slam under those conditions...

-Arvis

Rafa need not have been too scared of Nalbandian because he beat him way back in 2007 and they'd only met those two times, and Rafa has improved a lot since then. It's not as if Nalbandian had beat him 7-0. I also remember that in Madrid 2007, Nalbandian also beat Federer and Djokovic on his way to winning the title. It was within two weeks of that he beat Federer in R16 in Paris, and Nadal in the final. He was obviously in form at the time.

I think Nadal losingat USO wasnt just a result of being tired.In all fairness he was outplayed by Murray-He's overall win-loss stats was 82-11.Players have had better stats than that.

i'm eagerly looking forward to nadal vs. del potro and djokovic vs. roddick. again, i'm still feasting on one of rafa's greatest comeback against the very sharp and talented nalbandian. keep it going, rafa! we are rooting for you!

Nadal was outplayed because he was worn out. When you are tired your concentration is not good and you can't move very well. That's the way tiredness manifests itself isn't it?

LivingDoll,
Murray is a handful for Rafa especially on hardcourts. The loss at the UsOpen was in part due to exhaustion, but it was also because Murray was playing well and Rafa did not have a good enough strategy. Same in the Rotterdam final, when Rafa lost the first set when he was still ok. I'm not saying that Murray will beat Rafa everytime. Murray will just have a big advantage over Rafa on faster hard courts such as those of US Open and Rotterdam. Clay and grass may be a different story. But Rafa will have to work hard and be on the top of his game to beat Murray everytime they play.

The edge to Murray is because he has the weapons to neutralize Nadal's game. He's not troubled by Nadal's most potent weapons: On Rafa's angled cross court forehand, Murray can take the ball up on his double handed backhand and place the ball deep back,. On Rafa's curling lefty serve Murray can hit both down the line or inside out to Rafa's backhand. Murray also has a very good down the line forehand to match Rafa's cross court backhand or Rafa's inside out forehand. This often catches Rafa off position, since Rafa moves slowly to his forehand side(compared to moving towards his backhand side). All these factors together with Murray's unique ability to retrieve ungettable balls and place them deep back in the court puts him in a great position against Nadal. Murray will always be a tough preposition for Nadal.

Totally agree with livingdoll and imjimmy. We can hope that Rafa will have an answer next time next time he meets Murray. Maybe he will have some confidence from his Nalby fightback and he's always trying to improve. He must up his ante from now on and reduce the UE. He likes the fight more than the win so hopefully he'll go into his Roddick match with a plan and take him out :) Vamos Rafa! Can't wait to see who makes the final.

Spot on imjimmy: It's all about matchups and between the 2 defensive grinders, Murray has the edge over Rafa on HC's imo. But first Rafa has to get through Roddick who, despite a more one-dimensional style, seems to be the only one of the top players not working through "issues" - so it will be interesting.

tenisbebe: I agree with you completely. Andy Roddick is really playing well. Other than that No top player is really playing his A game in this tournament. Federer shows shades of brilliance then seems to doze off in his matches. Murray still seems to be recovering and is not getting enough power on his shots. Novak Djokovic, we know, is completely out of sorts and that's why he lost.
Rafa is making so many unforced errors while trying to evolve into a more aggressive player and find a balance between aggression and defense. Yes Andy is playing better and Rafa may well loose to him.

But I won't complain. I feel that Rafa's game right now, is at the point of transition. He will evolve into a more attacking player who can outhit his opponents. En route, Rafa will be patchy and may loose matches. But that's the price to be paid to become a more complete player. That's the only way to be No1 for a long time.

guys, i'm just not totally feeling your belief about andy having the complete ups on nadal on hardcourt just yet. now, if you were to say nalbandian has nadal's number, i would agree wholeheartedly, but i'm just not seeing andy's game against nadal quite the same way as you. in my opinion, nalbandian plays nadal tougher than anyone on hardcourt. believe me, i'm being objective! when i reflect on rotterdam, i remember how andy destroyed mario ancic in the semis, something like 6:1 6:2 and was playing brillantly, why did he not play dominating tennis against nadal in the final. nadal gets hurt in the second set and still wins it. it doesn't make sense to me. also, andy won the exhibition in abu dhabi in three tight sets; 6:4 5:7 6:3. so, i'm not ready to buy into your presumptions just yet. maybe i'm missing something. i'll have to observe more carefully when they play each other again. however, it's certainly possible that you guys are right. if you are right, i would'nt be surprise; andy has the tools! we will see!

memi, I have to agree with you. while andy has vastly improved in terms of fitness, game, physique, I still can't see him taking out Rafa just yet. It could happen of course and I'll have to watch closely too. I would say Nalby and Murray have Rafa's number more but I feel Roddick just hasn't quite cleared certain hurdles to convince me just yet. We'll know in a couple of days. While Andy has improved, Rafa just has a knack of proving people wrong sometimes. His comeback against Nalby was astonishing. May the best man win! Go Rafa :)

I have a strange feeling that memi and remi is the same person.

I am sure Murray knows how to beat Nadal and it is evident in the last 3 matches. But you'll never know if Murray can be 100% all the time. The difference between Murray and Fed is his backhand is stronger than Fed so Nadal forehand do not bully Murray backhands like it punishes Fed. I would say Murray against Nadal is a 60:40 affair in favour of Murray.

memi & remi - just to be clear, which Andy are you both taking about in you last post? The thread began with a discussion about Murray vs Rafa but then the discussion morphed b/w imjimmy & about rafa vs roddick (tomorrow's match). So please clarify re: your comments. Thanks.

Ok I may have made a mistake. I was talking about andy roddick - thinking memi was talking about him as well but i just re-read memi's post and she(?) mentions andy won abu dahabi - isn't that andy murray??
It looks like we were talking about different andies - that's why I usually use the last name. tenisbebe and imjimmy mention roddick too so I was talking talking roddick, sorry for the confusion.

no worries remi. I was just a little confused myself so just wanted to clarify. thanks for responding. Too many Andy's!

Cheers imjimmy 4 your analysis of Andy m's game re Rafa, really good. Murray seems to me to have an obvious weakness, his second serve is rubbish so he has to work really hard to defend it. this obviously effects him physically and in the past he has been badly hit by injuries, 2007 was not a good year. Rafa is the strongest player (ever ?) so the longer the match the better for him. However, the truly exciting thing about Andy M is that he is trying to improve his game all the time and there are areas he CAN still improve.

I think RAndy and Nadal match would be a bloodbath. Roddick as I read in some interactive articles that he's the only one noticeably playing extremely well coupled with his dropping bomb serving style, Rafa may hardly survive. But Rafa is Rafa I root for him all the way. Vamos Rafa.

deuce - we need a nickname for Andy Murray (Yanks love nicknames). Do you have one? I have seen "Muzz" in some posts but don't know if that's personal or public one. Roddick as you know is "ARod". Thanks.

Raindrops - (Luv that name BTW) Don't know about a bloodbath but if Rafa is committed to further testing this aggressive/defensive style in match play as opposed to reverting back to his totally defensive play, given Roddick's confidence & solid play, he has a chance (81% first serves). For Rafa, the longterm rewards outweigh a title. And he will be even in points from last year as he lost to Djoko in the semi's in '08. To me, it's a good tradeoff for Rafa - take a potential loss but reap future rewards for years to come.

deuce: thanks for your comment!
Others: I am sorry for any confusion from my posts. I was discussing Andy Murray all the way. Long term -I think that he's the greatest threat to Rafa, and for that matter to anyone else. If you watch his matches against Rafa closely, you will see that Rafa clearly seems befuddled while playing Murray. He cannot really breakdown either the forehand or backhand of Murray. Furthermore, as I mentioned before, Murray's backhand is world class and it neutralizes Rafa's natural cross court forehand fully. Murray gets it back every time and even places it deep.

The problem is that when Rafa runs out of strategies in a match he just starts to go back to his natural tendencies. That is, he starts to just run, chase everything down and defend all the time. At that point, it just becomes painful to watch Rafa almost as a punching bag. Furthermore, As Rafa gets tired, his shots loose depth and he starts moving even slower towards his forehand side. That's when Murray starts killing Rafa by hitting down the line on Rafa's forehand and slowly breaks him down.

I feel that the only way for Rafa to beat Murray is to attack all out(especially inside out on Murray's forehand). Like he did in Rotterdam 2nd set when he couldn't run. Rafa's finally encountered one player whose defense is perhaps even superior to his own. So he must change strategy to beat Murray.

imjimmy..u have sum good points there..weldun..but murray's defence is nt at all better than nadal's.....its nt only abt sending balls back into play..ifu think thats great defence then monfils shud be rite up there as well..bt when we say great defence we mean that the player has the ability to convert defence into offence quicly and effectively..like nadal and murray do..they keep sending balls back and suddenly hit a passing shot winner/a dipping passing shot rite at the feet or a fantstic lob...nadal does this best...he can generate xtraordinary power on his passing shots (especially bakhand) from way behind the baseline..muray relies on spins and angled passing shots most of the times...both ar the top 2 in terms of defence but rafa is the best in this category...he needs to b aggressive i agree wid u..roterdam 2nd set ws a good xample..he ws hitting hard and deep into muray's forehand corners and winning points... the reason rafa reverts to old tactics is that he still isnt fully confident/comfortable with his new improved/more agressive hard-court game so when he thinks its more risky than usual he stops it...just abt getting confident with these aggressive tactics is the game with rafa!!

imjimmy,with most of the points you've made I agree but I don't think Andy's defence is superior than Rafa's. I admit that Andy has more variety and has more strategies in his game but in terms of defence, noone can pass Rafa I think.

imjimmy very good insights indeed.I've been thinking about Murray's defence too.Its amazing how he can handle the heavy topspin so well.Also the backhand is just out of the world.He's one of the few players whose backhand is better than his forehand.
Most players look to finish points with their forehand because the forehand is their prime weapons.Its amazing to see the kind of vaiety Murray shows and even if he sticks to baseline play, like Roger, he dosen't go into slugfests.Thats really refreshing to watch. :) Also he makes excellent use of pace and depth.His shots go deep into the court and that gives him a lot of edge especially on hard courts.

Vamosrama: I agree in that second set at Rotterdam, Rafa wanted to keep the points short because of the injury and started to volley really well with gr8 effect. Of course Andy wasn't expecting it so it was his turn to be "befuddled" However, one of the things I like very much about him is that he is keen to adapt and improve his game all the time and of course he plays with his head. So I'm confident he could take on a new improved (God help us!) Rafa.
tenisbebe: he's called "muzza" but I don't do nicknames, so I'll just call him "goat" shall I? It's OK folks, only joking...or am I.....?

Ha, ha! He looked a goat-ish with the face plants. :-))