Roger Federer Doesn’t Care If He Ever Beats Nadal In Paris Because He’s Already Won The French Open!

He may not care, but you know he’d love to do it!

May 24th, 2013 at 5:49 pm

Not to take anything away from Roger or his RG win in 2009,but im sure he would have been doubly delighted had he took the title by beating Rafa,IMO i think it would have been pretty fitting after Rafa had beaten Roger the year before at Wimbledon.

May 24th, 2013 at 5:54 pm

He’s right and love the respect Roger shows Rafa here.

Good luck Fed and Vamos Rafa!

May 24th, 2013 at 5:56 pm

Nicely said, Brandon.
:-)

May 24th, 2013 at 7:41 pm

Fed won the French Open, and that it is all the matters. It helped cement his legacy. Interesting how he put it. That winning the GS FO in Rafa’s era was more important than beating the man himself. I mean who else has won FO in Rafa’s era?

It further proves that despite the Rafa fan hysteria, Pro players are more concerned about winning Slams than a H2H record. After all , you don’t get a trophy for that, do YOU?

May 24th, 2013 at 11:03 pm

^^^au contraire, it’s you Fedbots who are obsessed with the H2H, that’s the reason for your animus towards him.

May 25th, 2013 at 1:54 am

It would have been nice had Roger beat Rafa to win the title. If a Soderling can do it, why can’t Roger ? He could have on his day. But that never came because he always played below par in most of the finals against Rafa. In 2006, he had umpteen break point chances, but he never converted. Again in 2011, I thought Roger had the best chance to win against Nadal. He was 5-2 up and there was a break point and all that he had to do was to make a drop shot and the set was his. But that landed long by the tiniest of margins. There is that mental block which has prevented him from playing his best. But now, it will not be possible for Roger to beat Nadal simply because he is aged.

May 25th, 2013 at 2:05 am

Although Roger says this, I think in his heart of hearts, what would please him is beating Nadal at the French.

May 25th, 2013 at 2:07 am

Of course Roger would have loved to have beaten Rafa at least once at RG. But like he said, his main goal at RG was always to win the championship which he did in 2009. And yes despite the FeDal rivalry so dominated by Rafa, Roger did beat him 10 times, just not at RG.

May 25th, 2013 at 3:40 am

Winning it without beating Nadal is not the same, and people know it.

Nadal won Wimbledon by beating Roger.

May 25th, 2013 at 3:59 am

Me thinks he owes Sodapop big time.

May 25th, 2013 at 5:04 am

Giles Rafa wasnt good enough to make the FO final in 2009,Roger and Soda both were,so Roger beating Soda rather than Rafa doesnt make this win any less legit,sorry just saying.

May 25th, 2013 at 5:24 am

“Fedbots who are obsessed with the H2H,”

LMAO that’ll be the day.

May 25th, 2013 at 9:16 am

the only way to beat nadal on clay is to attack attack attack and keep going all way through till winning it only a young player can do it against nadal in best of 5 sets. still think the style of a player like stefan edberg would attack and beat nadal on clay and think thats only way to stop him

May 25th, 2013 at 10:35 am

tennis x hippy chic Says:

“Giles Rafa wasnt good enough to make the FO final in 2009,Roger and Soda both were,so Roger beating Soda rather than Rafa doesnt make this win any less legit,sorry just saying.”

He proved he was good enough to beat Soderling by beating Soderling the following year. Federer on the other hand lost to him the following year.

The win was legit, because that’s how the rules of the game work. If you’re injured and lose, too bad. But those who saw it have a mental asterisk in their mind for that year.

It’s still not the same as beating a fully fit Rafa, which Roger will never be able to do.

May 25th, 2013 at 10:45 am

Ha ha. Of course he doesn’t care…he lost all hope of beating Nadal. He knows it ain’t gonna happen LOL

May 25th, 2013 at 10:53 am

Vamos champ! El Bufon and The Arrogant One need some reality check.

May 25th, 2013 at 10:55 am

“It’s still not the same as beating a fully fit Rafa, which Roger will never be able to do.”

Really? did they change the rules at FO that a slam win is counted only if you beat Rafa at the FO? I remember Borg and Kuerten winning a bunch of FOs without beating a fit Rafa! According to your irrational logic – their wins count for nothing.

Fed owes no more to soda-pop than nadal owes to djokovic/youzhny for having to win the USopen without beating the greatest hard court player at the USo.

I don’t understand Rafa fans’ running away from the gauntlet that Djokovic/his fans have thrown. He is their real rival not Roger who is from another generation – hewitt/A-rod and Safin. The truth is Rafa got stalled at no.2 by a 5-year older guy from his previous generation. Imagine Federer being no.2 to kuerten/kafelnikov for 4 successive years and then being no.2 to hewitt for another year and so on.

Roger fans don’t gloat over his winning H2Hs over agassi/sampras. Heck they don’t even gloat about the way Roger surpassed his own generation – he beat hewitt 15times in a row. They talk about the real records – the slams and weeks at no.1, which I mentioned Djokovic is closer to overtaking Rafa than rafa is to overtaking Roger.

End of the day, Rafa is a spectacular clay-court player who was the no.2 grass court player of the Roger era, no.4 on hardcourts [maybe no.3, but murray has a better winning percentage and titles] and no.4 on indoors.

Compare that to Federer who is the no.1 player on all surfaces except clay – not just the last decade, but arguably all time! On his worst surface he is the 2nd best of his generation on clay.

I think we can all see which set of the fans will have to rely on H2H to try to conceal their favorite player’s shortcomings on the entire calendar and not just a 2 or 3 month part of the year.

May 25th, 2013 at 11:32 am

“It would have been nice had Roger beat Rafa to win the title. If a Soderling can do it, why can’t Roger ?”

That’s a real amateur question. Tennis, like a lot of sports, is about match-ups. Federer has never lost to players like youzhny/ferrer/blake [well, blake beat him once] but the players at their best give nadal all sorts of trouble.

You look at Fedalovic and it is like rock, paper, scissors. nadal enjoys the match-up with Fed and djokovic definitely prefers to play nadal/fed – he dismantled rafa 7 times in a row at rafa’s prime whereas Fed was the only guy who could win atleast 2 sets off djokovic (at slams) during his prime year, 2011. He did that at FO and USO and even won the FO match.

What is remarkable is Fed doesn’t enjoy the age advantage in his rivalry with Djokovic, yet it was he who wrestled the no.1 rank from novak [albeit briefly] and not nadal – who as I mentioned belongs to the djokovic generation rather than to fed’s generation.

Player/Team A beating player/Team B and player B beating player c, doesn’t necessarily translate to A beating C in most sports.

May 25th, 2013 at 12:01 pm

Roger stated that Rafa was less dangerous on clay. Will someone who knows tennis better than I to explain thate statement? I thought that is why Rafa wins most of the clay court tourneys because that is his best surface. Would that not mean he would be dangerous? Just didn’t understand that statement.

May 25th, 2013 at 5:01 pm

nadalista Says:
^^^au contraire, it’s you Fedbots who are obsessed with the H2H, that’s the reason for your animus towards him.

May 25th, 2013 at 1:54 am

Nadalista, you sure seem to like federer an awful lot. In fact that is all you talk about. We don’t go on about the h2h. You do. And contrary to what you believe, I have no problem with rafa. I did, at one time, enjoy the rafa/roger finals for a number of reasons. Call me sentimental, but these two really do like each other, have always been respectful towards each other (apart from last year when rafa talked about Roger’s role at the ATP), but generally speaking, these two are a great pair of guys. You are either for rafa or for roger, its impossible to be both.

And once again, count on two hands (and a bit more), how many tournaments are clay related. This is rafa’s strength, whereas roger is more of an all rounder in my eyes.

The h2h is deceiving.

May 25th, 2013 at 7:03 pm

Okiegal,

I did a double take at that, then I took it to mean that he is trying to say (probably messed up translation) that Nadal is not as dangerous on clay this year as in the past.

Plausible given the return from injury, but not so much when you look at the results he’s had.

Though there was a certain Horatio Zeballos overcame him on clay not long ago. Perhaps a lapse isn’t totally impossible.

May 25th, 2013 at 8:02 pm

If 20/10 looks deceiving u fedfans must be crazy!

May 25th, 2013 at 9:25 pm

“Really? did they change the rules at FO that a slam win is counted only if you beat Rafa at the FO? I remember Borg and Kuerten winning a bunch of FOs without beating a fit Rafa! According to your irrational logic – their wins count for nothing.”

Since reading comprehension is beyond you, I’ll just repeat what I said. “His win was legit. It’s just not the same.”

As for Kuerten, different eras.

May 25th, 2013 at 11:31 pm

“Fed owes no more to soda-pop than nadal owes to djokovic/youzhny for having to win the USopen without beating the greatest hard court player at the USo.”

Unlike with Nadal losing to Soderling, Federer didn’t have injury problems to battle that year.

“I don’t understand Rafa fans’ running away from the gauntlet that Djokovic/his fans have thrown”

I don’t think they’re running away from anything.

“Roger fans don’t gloat over his winning H2Hs over agassi/sampras. Heck they don’t even gloat about the way Roger surpassed his own generation – he beat hewitt 15times in a row. They talk about the real records – the slams and weeks at no.1, which I mentioned Djokovic is closer to overtaking Rafa than rafa is to overtaking Roger.”

Each person defines greatness differently, but I’m not sure anyone here is disputing that Fed is the greatest. That’s just Fed fanatics reading too far into it.

“Compare that to Federer who is the no.1 player on all surfaces except clay – not just the last decade, but arguably all time! On his worst surface he is the 2nd best of his generation on clay.”

If you think he’s the second best because he won one FO when no one else managed to do it, OK. I personally don’t think his clay court “prowess” is second best though. More like third.

“I think we can all see which set of the fans will have to rely on H2H to try to conceal their favorite player’s shortcomings on the entire calendar and not just a 2 or 3 month part of the year.”

Probably the ones who need to get defensive because their player is over 30 and not the same as he was anymore.

“The truth is Rafa got stalled at no.2 by a 5-year older guy from his previous generation.”

Having 5 years more experience when being in your prime is an advantage not disadvantage to the guy who’s 5 years older. It’s when one guy is 27 and the other is 32 that it becomes a disadvantage.

May 25th, 2013 at 11:38 pm

Fed fans are so delusional. They know, but they never learn.

May 26th, 2013 at 12:41 am

^they know 17. Even there great Rafa has said so. The best in History.

What else is there to learn?

Answer; nothing from Rafa bots. Who’s delusional?

#doh!

May 26th, 2013 at 2:03 am