Madrid Tennis

[Butterbun]

Really felt sorry for Nishikori. He was leading Nadal by a set and was a break up in the second at when his back went again. He was never the same even after some physio and Nadal took the set 6.4. At 3.0 down in the third he retired. He was playing so well too, I'm sure he would have won that final. Hope he will be ok for the French Open.

[jim360]

Yes, a shame that he got injured on the verge of victory.

Overall, 2014 has been the year that's seeing the end of the dominance of the "Big Four". Murray in particular is slipping into an also-ran this season, and Nadal's been beaten on clay far more often than ever before.

Could be an interesting year, with three majors still to play. Wonder if Murray has what it takes to bounce back, in particular at Wimbledon, where he has over half his current ranking points. Defeat somewhere around the quarter-final stage would see him slip outside the top 10...

Still, nice to see the "second tier" of players such as in particular Wawrinka starting to compete with the top guys more regularly. The next couple of month see one more Masters tournament and two Slams, and could be the most competitive we've seen for some time.

[aelmpvw]

i wouldn't be surprised if murray didn't retain his wimbledon title now that the pressure is off

[Butterbun]

I think Murray has been affected by the split from Lendl, also his back still doesn't seem loose enough. More work to be done yet, but hopefully, he'll be able to stay up in the top ten.

[jim360]

The good news is that ever the 2000+ points he has to defend on grass, he has only 500 points or so to defend in the months after that, so he might have a cycle of falling out of the top ten in July (as seems fairly likely), before recovering again over the remaining season. I think that if he still has the motivation then it's about trying to be in as good a shape as possible for the 2015 season more than anything else.

[Butterbun]

Okay, but whatever the number of rounds he wins at Wimbledon he will be getting points for that so might not lose all of the 2000. What do you think about the possibility of him being coached by McEnroe? There have been talks about it.

[aelmpvw]

regarding wimbledon nadal will be too tired having won the french, djocovic doesn't impress on grass, federer is in the twilight of his career so there could be a shock winner this summer

[jim360]

I think realistically we could see Murray making the Quarter-finals, perhaps the Semis with a kind draw. Hard to see him making the final on this kind of form, although his Wimbledon performances often turn out to have little to do with how he played earlier in the year so you never know.

An interesting statistic is that, until this year at least, Murray has never failed to match his previous year's performance at Wimbledon (excepting the year he was absent through injury). Would be some achievement to keep that stat going!

[Butterbun]

Yep, we are all watching Wawrinka, then there's Nishikori, Dimitrov and Bautista-Agut.

[jim360]

A good pair of wins for Murray in Rome to set up a possible Quarter-Final with Madal. Hard to see Murray winning that, though... but this tournament and at the French Open he does have the chance to pick up a fair few ranking points that he didn't have last year, and right now every little helps!