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Roger Federer Expected Rafael Nadal To Dominate On Clay

Roger Federer wasn’t swayed by all the tennis writers out there who were claiming that Rafael Nadal was not a serious contender for Slams anymore.

Commenting on the Spaniard’s game and the criticism Rafa received after his return from injury last summer Federer stated: “I was more surprised that everybody thought Rafa wasn’t playing so well any more…He should have clearly won Doha in the first week of the year when he was playing incredible tennis, he was toying with (Nikolay) Davydenko in the final before Davydenko got a little lucky, saved a match point and ended up playing an incredible third set.”

“Surely you would have to assume that once the clay-court season came around, he was going to be back to his A-game.”

The criticism of Nadal’s game ran a lot deeper than Doha however.

Despite Fed’s respect and despite the fact that Nadal has shown that he is the man on clay with his result in Monte Carlo, you have to wonder if top-level success on tour will be restricted to that surface.  On hard court, Nadal has done virtually nothing that is head-turning except for earning a finals appearance at the Shanghai Masters (l. to Davydenko – it wasn’t luck).  Davydenko also whipped Nadal in straight sets at the 2009 ATP World Tour finals, something that makes Federer’s characterization of the Russian’s win in Doha as “a little lucky” slightly disrespectful (Davydenko has a winning record vs. Nadal heads up).

Also, in both of the hard court Slams, Nadal went fairly deep into the draw but then lost in straight sets in his final match (US Open 2009, l. to Juan Martin Del Potro; Australian Open 2010, l. to Andy Murray).  While technically Nadal lost via retirement at the Aussie it looked more like a “I’m down 2 sets to love, I’m down 3 games to love in the third set” type retirement than anything else and that kind of loss should rigthfully provoke criticism.

However on clay Nadal is the best and currently he is -225 (4/9) to win the Rome Masters while Federer is priced at +600 (6/1; both Sportingbet).  We’re recommending Nadal, but truthfully his price has been shortening and it is getting tougher and tougher to tip as valuable.  If Federer lengthens to +700, you might have to go with that instead.

Ian goes back to the very early days of CrunchSports, having been tirelessly covering soccer for us for over 10 years.

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