With less than a day before the men’s final, the odds-on favorite to win Wimbledon is Rafael Nadal.
Looking at Nadal’s Recent Losses
But, it may be instructive to look back at Rafael’s losses for the last year and see if there’s anything interesting.
Queen’s Club
Rafael Nadal lost to Feliciano Lopez in the quarterfinals of Queen’s. This is one of those rare Nadal losses that one seems to have to chalk up to Nadal not trying his hardest to win. Rafa hadn’t lost to Lopez since Rafa first joined the tour. It’s hard to say Rafa deliberately lost, but it’s possible to say that he didn’t push himself that hard either.
Miami
Andy Roddick beat Rafa in the semifinals in three sets. The first set hinged on an early break which Rafa rode to the set. Roddick hadn’t played Rafa for a while, and so the strategy was to play Rafa like he played everyone else: steady tennis, wait for the error. With Rafa playing aggressive tennis, Roddick wasn’t able to stay even. However, Roddick did have one weapon that was working for him, which was his serve. By the second set, Roddick was starting to serve better and was holding his serve, an important key to beating Rafa. Roddick then turned up the aggression in the middle of the set, and Rafa was surprised. Roddick got a break, and then broke twice in the third set.
By this point, Rafa had not won a match in some number of months. He had gotten close, but he was starting to get nervous closing out matches. By the clay season, he was back to his winning ways, but at this point, he was still struggling.
Indian Wells
It turns out Indian Wells was the first tournament Rafa had played since he retired against Andy Murray at the Australian Open. Rafa has often come off long breaks a little rusty. Not so rusty that he loses immediately, but not so fresh that he isn’t vulnerable to good players. Rafa lost to Ivan Ljubicic in the semifinals. Ljubicic won in a similar way to Roddick. Ljubicic has a pretty big serve and one of the best kick serves in the game. He also hits big enough to make himself hard to defend against.
This match was almost a carbon copy of Rafa’s match against Roddick. Ljubicic lost the first set rather easily, but began to hold serve more often, and then he had one good game where he secured a break. In the third set, both players basically held serve until the tiebreak and Ljubicic got to a good lead in the tiebreak and won it easily.
Australian Open
Andy Murray came into the Australian Open better prepared than he had been in a while. He was moving better than ever. However, his ranking had slipped to 5, which meant there was a chance to play Rafa earlier than the semifinals. Indeed, Murray played Rafa in the quarterfinals. Using an aggressive style similar to the one he used at Wimbledon, Murray was able to keep Rafa off-balance and take control of the first two sets. By the third set, Nadal retired, and wouldn’t return to the tour until Indian Wells.
Murray’s normal style of play would have been too passive for Nadal who would have pounced on his weaker shots and started to dominate the point. Murray played a more aggressive style which he had modified since he played Rafa at the US Open about a year and a half later.
Doha
Nikolay Davydenko has a style of play that worked well against Rafa before Rafa began to change his game, primarily over the time between the end of the Australian Open and the start of the clay season. Davydenko plays very close to the baseline, and if he can help it, he steps inside the baseline. Davydenko has some of the most precise groundstrokes on tour. He can hit sharp angles off both sides and can do it in on the run. Davydenko would hit a sharply angled forehand to Nadal’s backhand who would the return it back crosscourt, and then Davydenko would hit it up the line. Normally, this doesn’t work nearly as well coming from other players because they stand further back. By standing in more, he takes away time from his opponent.
By this point, Nadal had already lost twice to Davydenko and was planning to be more aggressive against him. Nadal took the first set, 6-0, before Davydenko finally started getting balls in play, and took this to a tiebreak. In the tiebreak, Nadal had match points, but Davydenko’s aggressive play saved match points, and he took the second set in a tiebreak. Davydenko took the third set with a break of serve, and Nadal seemed a bit fragile confidence-wise.
ATP World Tour Finals
Although Nadal went in as the number 2 player in the tour finals, he surprisingly lost to everyone in his group, including Soderling, Davydenko, and Djokovic. He was trying to play a different style (apparently), but was not successful. Each player has a somewhat different style of playing Nadal. On a hard court, Nadal is more vulnerable to more players who take advantage of the speed of the court.
Other tournaments
Nadal lost to Djokovic in Paris, to Davydenko in Shanghai, to Cilic in Beijing, to del Potro at the US Open and Montreal, and to Djokovic in Cincinnati. Djokovic can move the ball around pretty well, and is also another player that generally plays his game and that’s enough to bother Nadal. del Potro has that power serve and power forehand and he’s one of the few guys that can hit a forehand so hard that Nadal has a hard time chasing it down.
Of all the players that play Nadal, several play the bashing style of tennis: del Potro, Soderling, and to some extent, Cilic. Some use their speed and accuracy of ball placement to win: Djokovic and Davydenko. While these players might make some changes to play Nadal, it’s generally within their normal style of play. Other players will try to hit harder to keep Nadal at bay. The one player that, most notably, changes his style just to play Nadal is Andy Murray. Murray would prefer not to outhit most of his opponents, but he realizes he needs to do this to play Nadal. Presumably, Andy Roddick would also do the same, though he rarely plays Roddick.
Looking at Berdych’s Recent Performances
It’s difficult to point to anything that really indicated that Berdych would reach the semifinals of the French and the finals of Wimbledon. Just before the French, Berdych played at the World Team Championship and won all three matches he played, but he dropped sets there. He lost to Petzschner in Munich in the quarters, to Wawrinka in Rome in the 2nd round, to Verdasco in Monte Carlo.
His best performances came in Miami where he reached the finals losing to Andy Roddick, but beating Federer, Verdasco, Soderling en route. He also did pretty well at Indian Wells where he lost to Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals.
Although Berdych’s final appearance at Wimbledon is not nearly as surprising as Robin Soderling reaching the finals of the French in 2009, it is almost as surprising. His run to the finals of Miami and defeating Federer for the first time in some time showed he was ready to take that next step.
What It’ll Take
If Berdych can hold serve, this will go a long way to helping him win. He needs to do well on his second serves. Berdych serves at a somewhat low first serve percentage usually averaging right about 60%. However, it is one of the better serves on tour. Berdych has a reasonably good return. One surprising result at the French was his ability to return Isner’s serve, leading to a 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 win. Berdych has had some lapses playing Federer and Djokovic, but nothing that’s hurt him so far. He’ll want to avoid too many lapses, and he has to hope that Nadal loses some focus.
If you look at the one time that Nadal really lost badly, at the US Open to Juan Martin del Potro, it was partly due to abdominal strain. And even if that weren’t a consideration (after all, Nadal handled Monfils rather easily), del Potro does have a huge forehand, perhaps the biggest in all of tennis.
Berdych would be attempting the rare double of beating Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in a Slam. Only one player has done this, namely, Juan Martin del Potro. Robin Soderling had a chance to do this at the French this year, and now Tomas Berdych has a chance to do it too.
Given Rafa’s form, it doesn’t seem likely that Berdych can play powerful enough to overwhelm Rafa. He’s gotten mentally better than he was, and so that’s positive. He does have power off the ground and a powerful serve, so he has the ingredients for trying to beat Rafa, but unless he’s figured out something new, or can step it up more than usual, I have to wonder if he can really do it. I do think he brings a few different things to the table compared to Soderling, so here’s to hoping for an interesting match.
