[jjgold]

8:45AM (EST)
Rafael Nadal -885
Andy Murray +593

[pat venditto]

Obviously nadal going to win.

[onthewhat]

Must be on clay?

[jjgold]

Clay but Murray is no slouch

[Boner_18]

Clay but Murray is no slouch

Look at his clay record coach, less than .500. Very little chance here.

[mathdotcom]

id take Murray if the juice werent so bad

[pat venditto]

^Makes no sense.

[GatorFan]

Novak Djokovic (-300) looks solid

[flyingillini]

Good Luck Goldbloom!

[james4512]

what channel is it on?

[j0hnnyv]

nadal djkovic parlay may be in order so when i wake up i got a headstart for baskets...if anything djoker would ruin it.

[jjgold]

Its off

I say Murray gives him a decent match

[HeeeHAWWWW]

Nadal prone to a lot of error patches recently. Broken by Ljubo and Lapentti, and in the latter he served for the set and lost it to love. Against Chela he lost 11 points in a row, and vs Del Potro he blew a big final set lead.

Not sure what to make of this tbh. Murray tends to lift his game as required - eg he started lazily against Fognini, went 5-0 down, and still won the set.

Still, surely no way Murray wins, he needs so many things to happen for that: brilliant serving, Nadal brainfarts as above, and something different in his clay game. I can perhaps see him having success with the thunderbolt backhand drive then net charge, but that has to be perfectly executed or Nadal just whips it down the line.

I've been looking at Under20 games, @-125. That's a push if Nadal wins 6464 - single break each set. Possibly ghoing to skip though, something doesn't feel right.

[SBR Lou]

Nadal winning comfortably, 6-2 4-1..

[HeeeHAWWWW]

Not so comfortable :-) That was Murray with no serve at all today either. Would love to see them meet on faster clay.

Awesome second set though. That tiebreak was the best tennis I've seen all year.

[meganie]

Yeah, was a borefest earlier on with Murray being way too passive. Loved when he started to play more aggressively, seems to be the only way to succeed against Nadal on clay. Was really surprised by Murray, considering how poorly he played Fognini.

[HeeeHAWWWW]

Agreed, wasn't very good early on. Murray and Corretja had clearly come up with a gameplan that is nice in theory: slow high balls to Nadal's backhand corner, too deep for him to damage Murray, and with the right variation of spins and pace could draw some short balls Murray could hit. Then you presumably have a net charge followed by a dropshot or midcourt putaway.

Problem was Murray was serving like garbage the whole match (50%FS), so he was being broken a lot. Kinda kills any plan stone dead.


Anyway, huge improvement for Murray, massive outperforming of clay expectations, and doubly so given how slow Monte Carlo is. He's pretty much guaranteed to take the #3 spot after Rome, barring a miracle, and he'll overtake Fed for #2 maybe after Madrid, but more likely after Roland Garros.

[James007]

can't say who will win the match it is tough decision.