Change The Laver Cup Format

Video, advice to Zverev. This is classic. Shows how competitive Nadal and Federer are. They are like Zverev no sulking! I want to see fist pumps every single point!!! It’s a lot more salty than that, Federer cursing and everything.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QYicuCm1SEw

Andrew, where are you getting all your nonsense about Rafa? Most of the stuff you post about him is untrue and straight out of the lowest of the low gossip rags. He’s the most popular person in Spain so he’s used to it and just ignores it.

His fiancee’s name is Maria Francisca. Rafa and her family and friends call her Mery for short. No one has ever ever called her Xisca – that is a totally made up tabloid name.

Since when did El Pais become a rag sheet? Reality: it’s not and they referred to Nadal’s girlfriend over the years as Mery, Maria Francisca, and Xisca. Not a rag sheet.

Yes, Xisca is her name and a very beautiful woman.

The best moment of the Laver Cup is Roger using curse words to fire up Zverev for the last tiebreaker. It shows that these tennis players are like regular athletes and not high falutin. That is the best feature of Laver Cup, the behind the scenes access

Kyrgios drinking a beer before answering a question on the podium to maintain his bad boy image. The ATP just loves him! Who else can get away with it?

Zverev getting pumped by Nadal and Federer kind of suggests he now gets it. They really went at the guy as he headed to the final tiebreak! If it was Raonic instead of Zverev with Nadal and Federer in his ear, Raonic would have won it too.

What a great moment. And it isn’t even a real tournament. Another reason I saw for my unscientific take on things: it’s the confidence tank. You can fill it up in a lot of ways. Today, Zverev filled that confidence tank to the brim with super motivators Nadal, Federer basically telling him No Sulking! Get it done you next genner! Fist pumps every f/in point! No mercy! Get it done!

It was so ridiculously over the top and and it worked. Nadal and Federer as a team of hall of fame coaches ragging on Zverev to man up. I’ve never seen anything like it. Kind of shows tennis isn’t like many other sports. The players already have the shots but maybe not the will. Nadal and Federer were like we aren’t going to lose this because you didn’t do your job…do your job!!!!

It was amazing how many sitters both Isner and Raonic got and when they tried to go down the line, butchered it into the middle of the net. I guess as jrs when they have big serves and big forehands that is something they do not develop.

I would guess most WTA players are better at nailing 2 HBs down the line than Isner or Raonic. Its pretty much a staple of girl’s junior development.

Scoop – re Bresnik and his opinions – he is currently coaching one Mira Antonitsch who is ranked outside the WTA top 500.

No Andrew, you’re not attacking Rafa and for the most part you’re very supportive of him but it’s stories like this that make me question where you get your information.

“On Uncle Toni I know Uncle Toni had been a task master. I read and you can look it up that Toni wouldn’t let him drive a Mercedes he won and got Kia, his sponsor, to have a Kia for him because he didn’t want it to go to Nadal’s head. Maybe he loosened the reigns over time.”

Yes, Tio Toni was a tough taskmaster but he helped develop a mental strength in Rafa that can’t be matched. Yes, Rafa won a Mercedes which Rafa promptly gave to Toni and which he’s still driving. He didn’t make Rafa get a KIA. Rafa’s been sponsored by KIA since he was a teenager and they gave him a car every year.

I think you might have mixed your stories a bit. Rafa long admired an Aston Martin but Rafa’s father was the one who discouraged the purchase because he thought it was too ostentatious for their village of Manacor. However, when Rafa won Wimbledon in 2018, he told his dad he was finally going to get one. His dad conceded that he had earned a reward for his great achievement and then went shopping with him for it.

By the way, Rafa won another Mercedes a few years ago. This one he had customized to his standards and drives it personally most days. Not sure if he still has the Ferrari – haven’t seen pictures of him driving it for awhile.

Jeff · “Yes, Xisca is her name and a very beautiful woman.”

Certainly agree that she’s a very beautiful woman, plus she’s very intelligent and educated. But her name is NOT Xisca. Even the tv broadcasters have been taught their lesson and the chyrons under her pictures on tv now identify her as Maria Francisca.

The story came from the Independent a while back – and was about Uncle Toni. The whole point was Toni didn’t want the success to get to Nadal’s head and emphasized humility.

I like Uncle Toni a lot, I think his old school approach is the reason Nadal’s an outstanding champion – I don’t believe it’s disputable. The on court discipline, fact Nadal has never broken a racquet (his Babolats must thank him), the way Nadal is essentially programmed to compete every point as if his life depends on it, while treating every point as if it’s no different than the point before or after.

Few players I’ve seen have every done that. Federer has even admitted to thinking too far ahead on championship point – not Nadal.

Would Kyrgios be stuck in his haven’t made a QF for four years soon to be five years, if he had Uncle Toni in his court years ago? Doubt it. He’d be making good on his game. Then again Kyrgios wouldn’t be the same person.

El Pais has referred to Nadal’s girlfriend by several names. I don’t think they’re making this up. They also qualify it, saying she was referred to as Xisca. Fine, Mery. Or Maria Francisca.

Like I said I’m not a Nadalista. I’ve listened to the player interviews in other languages as well, Pennetta is a lot more expressive in Italian than English. Federer’s pretty matter of fact no matter what language. I also don’t think a player always knows what’s driving them – it’s why we have commentators. It’s why TP exists, too.

Yes I think the press as much as they cover Nadal in Spain is pretty hands off. And I think Nadal is a generous and giving person. As well as a completely ruthless and psycho competitor.

“You really can’t know Rafa”, that fragment I agree with. Anytime anyone asks a player what makes you so special, they do not know the answer. They can’t – there’s too much to it. Nadal generally focuses on what he can control – and when it comes to competition, few players control and patrol the court as well as Nadal.

Often reporters ask Nadal what he thinks of other players. He was very generous in what he said about Medvedev. But when they ask do you think X player will do well? Nadal says I have no idea, for sure they are a talented player, I don’t know he’s very good, of course I really like him, you can never know for sure (…). Because Nadal can’t even explain his own phenomena: he’s a mystery to himself.

Nadal will say “I fight for every ball”. That’s true. He doesn’t also say, “oh yeah, I use the crowd better than any player in history including Connors.” He will say, “the crowd support is just amazing”. It’s an example of a player either not admitting it’s a tactic, or a player that’s just being a player – focusing on what they believe is most important and possibly not even aware of what they’re doing.

If Nadal knew what made a difference he’s not disclosing it. What I mean by that is the umpteen hours he worked on getting his serve humming again, etc. He will talk about how he fights for every ball. He will not talk about his serve placement etc. Nadal isn’t giving away the keys to championships anytime soon.

Zverev finally understood a little of this the other day and Federer and Nadal, now in coaching roles, pushed him to psych himself up and psych out Raonic at a minimum. The effect was to soak up all the crowd support for team Europe. I don’t believe for a second that Federer and Nadal didn’t know what they were doing: final tiebreak, Zverev lost set two, whole event on the line. They wanted Zverev to show some intensity to Raonic and they knew the crowd would fall behind Team Europe. They knew it. Spectacular coaching. A little salty, a little profane from Federer swearing like an Army sergeant. Did it work? Yes. Even if Zverev had lost, it still would have worked in that he would have rebounded.

Sad to see Raonic not getting this kind of pep talk. Maybe they said you got this Milos! Rather than Let the Beast Out.

Medvedev I think did something unbelievable at the US Open, the way he found crowd support that normally goes for Nadal and support smashing a Nadal opponent into oblivion. Djokovic has a nice trick of convincing himself the crowd chants for him when playing against Federer (even if there are thousands of Djokovic fans in the crowd – Djokovic is plenty popular).

In terms of coaching Raonic in that game, telling him not to make weak approach shots to the Zverev backhand would have been useful. But yes, Fed and Rafa did get Sascha stoked for that TB.

Milos did cheer a lot. And he and JMac are friends outside of tennis. They share a love of modern art, and Milos visits John, so they are quite close. I don’t think John had any problems coaching Milos during the Laver Cup. Maybe he just did not come up with the best advice. And Milos has had so little match play for months now that he did not have the instinctive shot selection that he needed.

Raonic looked like himself in a slam final. That was the problem 🙁 Nobody got him excited to take out Zverev.

I’d respond to Tignor: name some up and coming Spanish talent (we’ll wait…) or the next great Swiss player (ahem) or even who’s the rising Serb star (pretty much).

The innovation in tennis to my mind still comes from players inspired by examples of other players and nurtured. Italy for some reason has seen a surprising burst of talent, which is strange – this isn’t Gianluca Pozzi hour here!

Tignors right if we look at the probability though – there’s a greater chance no matter how well guys like Escobedo are playing that the same talent finds its mark in Europe than other places. Canada is quickly shattering this, but maybe because it’s becoming more like Europe with coaching.

Hartt, Raonic could have benefitted from being fired up like Zverev – he had just won the second set, so it’s natural there’s a let down (subtle, but normal).

Raonic at his best has been big game plus big lion roaring. Sadly Zverev was doing all the roaring. At first he was silent fist pumps but then he really let the crowd hear it and they are it up.

A super tiebreak doesn’t say much about a player at all – Raonic handled Zverev in Australia and pretty straightforwardly. But it would have been nice for him to go big yesterday – the slices didn’t work, and Raonic is a little hard on himself.

Zverev meanwhile one of the poster kids for getting down on himself and smashing racquets, was fired up by Federer and Nadal, who are the equivalent of older brothers here beating up on the guy and demanding him to leave it all on the court. It reminded me of Nadal’s phone call to Verdasco in 2008 Davis Cup, the Miracle or Massacre in Mar del Plata. Told Verdasco playing Acasuso…you have to die on the court. No mercy.

Raonic is like Grant Hill, always hurt. Or like Del Potro without a slam. Without an injury I think Raonic would always be imposing his game and doing well, always top ten. He’s too good not to be. But he’s probably scared of being injured.

Raonic can only be accused of looking a little too far into the future sometimes. At the US Open a few years ago he wrote a piece on the Players Tribune about his Wimbledon loss. How hard it was to play the big four but how he believed one day he’d have (whatever it was). We all know what happened the moment that piece was published – showed how much pressure the guy put on himself

On the one hand that’s why he’s better. But it’s a double edged sword. You need to have high standards for yourself as a player. But if it’s high standards and nothing else you overlook other stuff like crowd support. Raonic needs some fans desperately.

Maybe Raonic will be inspired by often injured Andreescu. Raonic, Bouchard are the only Canadians in history outside of Andreescu that know what a slam final, final for a big title, is all about.

Bottom line: Andreescu changed the game in Canada. Canadians will now believe it’s win a slam or go home. It will be interesting to see what players do from here on out from Canada.