Spectacular by tsonga - love it when he plays like that.
Unless I'm mistaken, rafa went out a round earlier last year ... and then went and won wimbie ;) I think he got the preparation he needed - 5 matches in 5 days might have been over-preparation, especially after RG.

i think james ward's run takes the title of the biggest surprise of the tourney... but... i was very relieved at this result. rafa's had match practie on grass and now has a couple of extra days to recover :)

You said it, Sib...................just glad Rafa was able to defend his points

VAMOS!!!!!!!!!

Clearly tanked the match. And rightly so. He's not stupid enough to play too much when he' tired. Does anyone really believe Tsonga could beat Nadal if Rafa really wanted to win? And with a 6-1 scoreline in the third set? Rafa's making sure he'll be fit and ready for Wimbledon, nothin else matters. Very Federer-like actually. That's not arrogance, that's called smart, strategic thinking.

It seem to me that Rafa was wearing his clay court shoes at Queens. It's the same blue n white shoes, and I don't think Nike will specially make a pair of grass court shoes with same color scheme for Rafa on grass. No wonder Rafa couldn't control his run and slipped and fell at the net. Rafa wasn't sprinting around in full force too as he's afraid of injuring himself if he fell. Still he was quick around the court and I really love the way he played on grass. He's amazing as he can transition so quickly from clay to grass. Notice his shots were much flatter and quicker on grass and he could create those amazing angles. He did double fault a few times but I think it was due to his mental fatigue and lost of concentration more than any technical fault. Overall I'm happy with what I saw from his match with Tsonga even though he lost.

Jrbro4,
how about "Rafa always goes for a win" or "He always gives his best no matter who's on the other side of the net"? Ah, how the talk changes when it suits some! Give Tsonga some credit. He won. Rafa lost. There is a whole week of rest for everyone after the Queens, more than enough even for an exhausted winner.

Any objective person would admit that Rafa obviously would have liked to win the match because he played a great tie-break in the first set to win it and had he not droped his serve after breaking Tsonga in the 2nd set it will have been over in his favour in 2 sets, but it went to a thrid and Tsonga was serving too well for Rafa to claw his way back easily so he eased off knowing that he'd got the practice he wanted on grass and he needed a few days off before training for Wimbledon.

No one takes a 250 event so seriously that they would risk injuring themselves on damp grass the week before the biggest even in tennis especially if they are the defending champion. There are degrees of commitment and no one should be stupid about it. At least Rafa didn't chicken out he honoured his promise to play Queens. Even the Prime Minister turned up to watch him because he is such a big draw.

During the rain delay yesterday they chatted to some journalists and Neil Harman, the tennis correspondent of the Times, said that Nadal is such an exciting player that he sends ripples around the world every time he takes to the court.

Actually both played well yesterday. Tsonga was helped by his big serve more than anything else, as once his serve percentage was down, Rafa had the upper hand. Rafa certainly moved better than Tsonga during the first two sets and his ground strokes were definitely better than Tsonga's. Rafa lost his serve late on the second set and lost the set mainly because of his serves failing him, due more to mental fatigue than anything else. In the third set, Rafa was clearly out of steam, both mentally and physically, as he wasn't even running after too many balls and was mishitting his shots all over the place, not seen during the first two sets. I won't say he tanked the match, but rather lost it because he couldn't keep up with his level of consistency of the first two sets, and Tsonga sensing the difference, raised his level to win the match in the end.

I totally agree luckystar that without Tsonga's blistering serve Rafa would have taken the match easily, because he was playing better ground strokes than Tsonga.

I think even Rafa's fans need some down time, rooting for him week in week out is very stressful. I can now watch the rest of Queens with 'colm'.

Yes now I can watch with calm too. Looking forward to the two Andy's match, didn't get to see Murray's earlier match, so didn't know how well he played this tournament. I'm happy with Rafa's play on grass, so patiently waiting for Wimbledon to come and see him defends his title.

J-W won on merit.........he was not to blame for Rafa's fatigue. Having said that, I have never been happier to see Rafa lose..........

Rafa wants THIS Wimby I feel................his body language, the noises from his camp........you get the feeling 10 slams was a psychological barrier, and now he's crossed it.........anything is possible. I remember reading an interview by Rafa's co-coach, Roig, where he and Rafa had discussed his potential and they were agreed he was good for at least 8 or 9 slams.

I believe we are going to see Rafa focus more on Slam performance, play with more freedom..........and hunger.

Witness his reaction yesterday after the rain delay.........he didn't want to get off the court! A happy loser indeed.

As Rafa says, sometimes you have to suffer to truly enjoy the results of your effort...................

Rafa flew back home yesterday by private plane; he ran Queens from Farnborough to apologise for letting them down and their response was that he certainly didn't because they could see that he had nothing left in the tank after losing the 2nd set.

Even before he took to the court to play Tsonga I wished he would pull out with all the faffing about with rain delays because he had nothing much to gain and much to lose if he didn't give himself time to recover before Wimbledon.

It seems to me that Rafa likes to suffer before enjoying the fruits of his labor, it's as if the fruits taste sweeter that way. I can't help but feel that Rafa brought it on himself for some of his injuries that he suffered; had he not insisted on making life difficult for himself and finished his matches more quickly and efficiently, his body won't breakdown that often. He certainly has the skills and abilities to beat many of his opponents more efficiently. Why must he be back against the wall then he served so well to get himself out of trouble? Why when he could come out all guns blazing like he did against Monfils in Barcelona but chose to play some matches tentatively and got himself into all sorts of troubles? During his match against Andujar at the FO, when he was 1-5 down and facing set point, he hit three consecutive incredible forehands to get back into the set. Even the commentators were asking the question why didn't Rafa hit those forehands in the first place before letting himself got into that 1-5 facing a set point situation? Steve Tignor also mentioned in his FO final match report that Rafa, as usual, dug a hole for himself at the start of the fourth set in his first service game and got to 0-40 before fighting back to hold that service game. I believe all of Rafa's fans by now would have gotten used to Rafa's style, he certainly makes himself and all his fans suffered with him during his matches! That's the price we have to pay for being his fans! He even mentioned that his easy and impressive win at the 2008 FO didn't seem like a real FO win, and was happier and more satisfied with his FO win this year, really a strange guy, this Rafa, but we love him regardless.

It's funny to see rafans always have any subjective arguments with regards to Rafa loss.. I think its because of he rarely be beaten by other players.. Believe me, Rafa will get more losses this year and I'm excited to wait what will be the comments of Rafans.. :-)

Unlike you bryan, I don't see Rafa having more losses this year. From what I saw of Rafa's warm up on grass, he has a very good chance of defending his Wimbledon title. Also, his hard court game is getting better this year. He only lost to one guy, Nole this year on the hard courts, after coming back from his injury. He was also able to force Nole to go the distance int the two hard court finals despite Rafa himself was a bit rusty after coming back from his injury. All these bode well for Rafa, now that the heavy burden of defending so many clay court ranking points is over and done with. His confidence should be back and I'm sure he'll want to defend his slam titles, so I know he'll fight hard against all his opponents. It's difficult to beat a relentless Rafa, on any surface.

bryanindo
, 6/11/11 6:12 PM

Did you mean to say "optimistic" instead of "subjective"?

As Rafa himself has said many atime, losing is part of tennis, you have to take it with the same "calm" as a win. Rafa's fans subscribe to the same philosophy.

The reason we were "happy" with his loss to J-W is that we want him to rest........he has been in the finals of the last 7 tourney's he has played since Oz, plus winning RG............he is not a robot. We want him fresh and in contention for Wimby.

Rafa only needed a few rounds at Queens but you can't enter a tournament and say I'll only play 3 rounds. I was happy that he was able to go home on Friday having made the transition from clay to grass in competition so now he can work on his grasscourt game. As luckystar pointed out, he's been in 7 finals already this year so he needs some time off to be fresh for Wimbledon.

I'm very pleased about his form on grass. If Rafa was in the finals tomorrow I would have been in two minds because it would have been nice for him to win a title but at the same time I would have been worrying about him arriving at Wimbledon tired, so I am pleased he went out in the Qtrs.

bryanindo, we were all saying it before he lost to Tsonga that he should go home and rest so we not just saying it now.
Rafa has only won Queens once but he's been in 4 Wimbledon finals and won two of those so it's not essential to win Queens to do well at Wimbledon.

Who is this bryanindo? Must be a delusional Fed fan. They are in the habit of making predictions based on wishful thinking. After Federer won WTF , they behaved like death eaters celebrating the return of Lord Voldemort.

@bryanindo,

I agree... I don't find Rafa game convincing after seeing Andy trashing another Andy... That is game for Wimby.... Problem is that Andy potential never was in question, but consistency is. That kid needs so badly home slam :)

Last year Querrey was one of the favourites going into Wimbledon as the Queens' champion, he reached the 4th round.

great Tsonga.

I hope Nadal loses to Djokovic, again. Novak is true No1 player. Go home Nadal. always annoying player.

fake champion

Winning from beyond the grave: Gambler who died after betting Roger Federer would win seven Wimbledon titles could scoop £100,000 for charity

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 9:11 PM on 11th June 2011

Comments (0)
Add to My Stories
Share


A gambler who bet that tennis star Roger Federer would win the Wimbledon title seven times could receive more than £100,000 from beyond the grave.

Nick Newlife staked a bet of £1,520 on the Swiss ace to clinch seven Wimbledon singles' titles at odds of 66/1 back in 2003.

The punter, from Oxford, died in February 2009 at the age of 59, denying him the chance of seeing his long-range wager come to fruition.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2002438/Wimbledon-Man-died-bet ting-Roger-Federer-win-seven-times-receive-100-000.html#ixzz1P0KCpLn6

Oh my, tennisnba is back. Better warn cheryl, her hands will be full, busy moderating tennisnba's repeated postings thread after thread!

Tennisnba- rafa a fake champion...jealous much! 10 grand slams and the record number of masters titles!
As for djokovic being the real number 1, really, hmm so I take it he won Roland garros did he? The only reason djokovic is close to nadal in points is because rafa even if he defends everything can't gain any points only lose them considering he is defending 3 clay masters
titles, the french open and Wimbledon, oh and the US open!

As queens this tournament has no baring on Wimbledon, I mean querry won it last year and did he come close to winning Wimbledon...nope!!!

Murray doesn't need the home slam, he can't perform under pressure in front of his own people. His best chance now is at the USO. Murray can play well on grass all along, strange that some people only knows it now. There's nothing new to it, he won Queens in 2009, also in convincing fashion, still he was beaten in the semifinal that year at Wimbledon. As somebody mentioned, winning Queens is different from winning Wimbledon. The problem with Murray is that he always has problems getting past the earlier rounds, remember how he struggled against Kendrick and Stan at Wimbledon? Seems to me that Murray is a bit conceited, thinking that he can save his best for the likes of Fedal, and he started slow against lower ranked opponents and ended up having hard times beating them. He always make such mistakes, against Verdasco at AO 2009; against Roddick at Wimbledon 2009; against Stan at USO 2010. Can't compare Roddick to Rafa on grass, a tired Rafa still moved so quickly whilst Roddick looked so sluggish out there. Roddick really had no idea how and when to approach the net, no wonder he was passed time and again by Murray there. I believe Tsonga is better than Roddick at the net, so I hope the final is not so one sided, still I think Murray will win this one, as he looks fresh. Unless Tsonga plays like he did against Rafa, anything less Murray will eat him up.

Well said Isabeau on the No1 position.

We could have the situation where the winner of five out of the six grand slams ends up being ranked no2. This yet again highlights the flaw in the ranking system.

Although it benefits Rafa to exit at this point for the extra time of rest, the Tsonga match did highlight the threat on grass of a big server hitting hard flat forehands and double handed backhands.

I don't find Rafa game convincing after seeing Andy trashing another Andy
atg
, 6/11/11 9:27 PM


I bet you were unconvinced by his RG 2011 game as well............and he ended up with the trophy! So Rafans...................start worrying when atg finds Rafa's game convincing..........

The thing is Tsonga wasn't firing as many aces yesterday against James Ward and I had never seen him serve so many aces ever until he played Nadal on Friday. He is very inconsistent in that regard, nevertheless, he can be a problem.

To be fair to Murray, he said in his on court interview that everything he touched with his racquet yesterday went well but he is sure that if he had to play Roddick at Wimbledon it would be more competitive.

Feli beat Rafa last year at Queens, he went out in the 3rd round at Wimbledon and Rafa won the title.

Amazing from Tsonga.
He trashed world no:1, He taught - 'Winners' are required in grass courts.

I have a confession to make. When I joined this blogsite I was somewhat turned off by the name calling and insults hurled at the Fed fans, (glad to see something finally done about it) and the lack of credit given to some players for beating other fans' faves, with those fans putting forth tons of ridiculous excuses. However, after visiting a few other blog-sites, I've gotta admit I'm so happy to have found this site where this tennis fan can actually discuss tennis. I'm a no-nonsense guy, and I find it difficult to follow discussions that are non-tennis related, where some bloggers behave as though the site is their personal message board, and discuss ridiculous unrelated tennis stuff. I blog for the pleasure of discussing tenni, but I've seen on another blog-site the women bloggers are going back and forth openly discussing their personal issues, e.g., buying tennis dresses, husband likes and dislikes, children crying issues and headlining other sports, e.g., basketball and hockey. One has to scroll down past pages upon pages of worthless chatter to find anything tennis-related comments that are worthwhile to read.

All that said, a big shout out to the women on this site, you're all great tennis bloggers (you too NNY :) ) and a big thank you for not mentioning the girlie and personal stuff, which this guy finds to be very boring, and for keeping it fun tennis blogging.

Onto the Murray match, dunno but I think AndyM was able to tear up poor Roddick due to his being more match ready than AndyR. I think that a few things could or should be taken into consideration: (1) roddick's just returned from a shoulder injury, which is obvious due to Murray out-acing Rod; (2) Roddick had to play a bunch f tough players, (Lopez is no push-over), while Murray had easier opponents, and (3) Murray was the fresher of the two getting that W/O from Cilic. I wonder how Rod-Murray match would have turned out if Murray had to go through Cilic then Roddick. Somehow, I think the results would have been different. I always feel that the amount of recovery time plays a huge part in matches, and Rod had very little recovery time due to the rain, while AndyM was sitting with his feet up in his hotel resting. What do you guys think?

I'm happy that Tsonga got an extra day off to rest, as he's the one who's logged more houirs on court having to play some very tough oppopnents, especially rafa, so I'm hoping Jo Wil has some energy left in the tank to make the match competitive and worthwhile watching. I'm not the type of fan who likes to watch any player being destroyed because they are tired. I don't care who wins, as I like both guys, but for pure tennis watching pleasure, I want to see an exciting match.

Can't believe I wrote this match as I'm not one for writing long comments. sorry, this is not the norm for me.

scoretracker, u won't be joining us behind the sofa then..;)

deuce: Not today for me behind the sofa as there's not much tension involved in the match for me. I'd love to do the sofa for the goodies you ladies cook, though. :) Gonna kick back and watch the recordin .No.1 fave is not playing. I have a lot of faves, but you know there's always that special one. I did root for Murray to get back into the top 4 and knock out Sod.guess you like that one. :)

I am actually happy that Rafa lost to Tsonga, else one would have hoped that he would not have to sustain any injury before wimby. Queens is just a warm up event carrying just 250 points so there is no big deal to it. Tsonga would not have won a fully fit rafa ona regular day. the good news is that the transition to grass from clay has been smooth and whats left is to fine tune the tactics properly. last year rafa lost to lopez and still won wimby, so winning queens doesnt guarantee a final spot at wimby as some would suggest.
Murray might just win today although if Tsonga serves very well he could trouble the scot a lot. the skills level between both players is obvious and murray is definitely the better player.
Cant wait to see the draws for Wimby

hey deuce, Be a brave woman and stop your "coward" habit of hiding behind the sofa everytime Andy play. Sit prettily like a crowned Queen and watch the match instead...hahaha, I am tired of you and Alex doing the same habit.

How's Andy doing out there, playing the match I mean?

Vamoooosss Andy !!!

2-2 in the first set and Tsonga has already delivered 4 aces ... against one of the best returners of the game Andy Murray? He must be serving well imho!

Andy got broken at love...I am outta here !!!

raindrops..cheeky boy, it's lovely behind the sofa ;) And I promise to come out permnently after Andy wins his first slam :)
Ah, scoretracker, after your post I thought u would disapprove of bhind the sofa jokes, not serious enough etc. BTW am very glad u cheered Andy to retain No4 but he belongs MUCH higher...;)

Yes, deuce, higher than Fed anyway. According to Uncle Toni, Andy is better than Djoko. So maybe the no 1 and 2 spot will rotate between these three guys (Rafa, Nole, Andy ) during the next four or five years.