Did you read Steve Tignor’s really poor reflection after the Nadal v Djokovic AO final?

The guy makes a ridiculous comparison between this 2019 AO final and those of Federer v Djokovic a few years ago.  He actually wrote this line here: “The Serb’s startlingly one-sided 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 win was reminiscent of some of his Grand Slam final wins over Roger Federer in 2014 and 2015.”

He must be referring to these GS finals where Novak naturally secured his more prime (youthful) dominance over Federer:

WB 2014 6–7^(7–9), 6–4, 7–6^(7–4), 5–7, 6–4
WB 2015 7–6^(7–1), 6–7^(10–12), 6–4, 6–3
USO 2015 6–4, 5–7, 6–4, 6–4

The 2019 AO final Tignor is comparing to those matches was, again 3 2 and 3 — and it wasn’t even that close.

So, give the old man a bit of credit: Federer fought. This 2019 AO final was an absolute embarrassment from Nadal’s side of the court. We certainly have that fork-in-the-road on how you see this match: Novak utterly dominant or Nadal way-in-over-his-head.

Of course it’s a bit of both, but you know what I’m saying.

Folks, the first game or two of the match, with Nadal dumping balls into the crowd, the net, stumbling over himself, whiffing a ball . . . this was not a five-setter, Novak and Roger on Centre Court. GTFOH.

Nadal still imposes his will on a lot of the ATP riff raff, but he’s down to the bottom-line at this point: clay court for the specialist or it’s pretty much not happening, especially now that Novak is back.

On a different riff from this latest installment of Nadalism, we heard in a few of the post AO pressers that, indeed, Nadal has been nursing an injury.

We’ve already been over this.  I explained how he and his camp went about their trip to Melbourne this year. Nadal was not in tournament shape. He hadn’t played a competitive match since the 2018 USO.

He pulled out of Brisbane.

The team in Melbourne then implemented this fantastic match strategy of playing an uber-aggressive style to shorten points, impose his will more quickly and dramatically, i.e., minimize the damage.

Given his draw, really playing no one of any real form or consequence, this “new style” worked magnificently. His match times were Federer-like. What could we make of this incredible form?

Granted, even I was a bit impressed. He looked rampant and a confident Nadal is everything.

To make a long-story short, he wasn’t playing very well: his draw was incredibly soft, a point I kept bringing-up at length. I even apologized for this “twisted” sense of humor.

But I nailed it. Even if I was mistaken some on his form, I saw the light on his draw. It was garbage. Folks, this is a steady motif of Nadalism. He’s granted such passage in many cases.

His 2017 USO draw will go-down in infamy.  That is the single softest draw of all-time.

I really don’t have to research all of these draws at this point, evidence the conspiracy. I will research perhaps if I get around to writing a more thoughtful dissertation of sorts on this study of mine — Nadalism.

He’s benefited from draws or withdraws his whole career. He often doesn’t have to face certain players or skips tournaments (see my destruction of Fedal H2H: much of his “dominance” of Federer, especially early-on is the fact that he was quite often already home sleeping in his comfy little bed while the Maestro reached every major final).

Nadal and his crafty uncle have been very careful, even manipulative. He’s a clay court specialist who incredibly transferred that dominance to the other (homogenized) surfaces.

He’s a great tennis competitor, one of the all-time greats. But one needs several footnotes if one hasn’t watched the tennis with his own eyes to truly understand Nadal.

What’s the coup de grâce of this over-arching conspiracy of Nadalism: he has never won the WTF which is, of course, a shrunken and loaded field/draw that renders such dodgy draw mischief extinct. One can’t hide from the talent in that draw. This is undoubtedly (zero WTFs) a massive commentary on the Spaniard’s CV.

Stick around — we’ll pick-up the commentary in a couple of days as the boys get back to business.

Cheerio.