Last year showing @ Roland Garros and the grass courts: Points to defend.

Player	Roland Garros	Halle	Queens	Wimbledon
Nadal	Winner	DNP	Winner	Winner
Federer	Final	Winner	DNP	Final
Murray	Rd 3	DNP	Quarters	Quarters
Djokovic	Semis	DNP	Final	Rd 2

Photos.

What the Big Four are thinking going into Roland Garros. From Phil. Thanks.

PHIL

What the Big Four are thinking going into Roland Garros

Nadal: “Please please please please let me sneak this one through. I’ll be good, I promise!”

Nadal has several things counting against him going into his favourite event. Since the start of the clay season his game has been in steady decline, and while he could maybe shrug off the two o-my-god-that-was-close wins against Djokovic, dismissing his defeat against Federer won’t be as easy as he has been pretending. The “I was tired” and “the courts were fast” excuses are total BS. In Australia he came back after a FIVE HOUR marathon against Verdasco to beat Federer, and those courts were pretty damn fast too. Plus he had to do so in five sets on his least favourite surface. Not being able to reproduce that result in three sets on his beloved clay has got to hurt. Nadal seems to be paying for his stupid scheduling decisions. He should have skipped Rotterdam, Barcelona and probably Madrid to make sure that he is as fresh as he could possibly be before the two biggest tournaments of the year. Even if he can somehow snatch RG again, will an exhausted Nadal have any chance at all in Wimbledon?

Yet despite all of these factors he is still the overwhelming favourite. With Djokovic licking his wounds and Murray reduced to non-contender, Nadal could only face any kind of threat from Federer. He just has to hope that the Swiss is either knocked out before the final or chokes big-time if they actually do meet in the championship match.

Federer: “Bring it on”

While the Madrid win did arguably come under favourable circumstances, there is little doubt that it will give Federer a HUGE boost of confidence going into the FO.
His losing streak against top four players has been resoundingly broken, and the Swiss will be champing at the bit to unleash some serious fury on whoever crosses his path in the semis, be it Murray or Djokovic – he has scores to settle against both. Federer will certainly not be hedging all his bets on a FO win. He knows he is still the underdog by a huge margin. But he knows if he can just reach the finals here and take a set, maybe two, it will be huge. With Nadal running out of steam fast, Federer might already be setting his sights on a prize that is his for the taking: Wimbledon.

Djokovic: “Kill me now”

Without a doubt he took the biggest knock in Madrid. Nadal made 51 unforced errors in their match (FIFTY FREAKING ONE! That’s about 120 for any other player) and Djokovic still couldn’t close it out. Couple that with the fact that Nadal played BETTER the next day against Federer and lost in straight sets makes this possibly the worst loss of Djokovic’s career. Any draw will be a nightmare for the Serbian: Draw Nadal and he will surely be destroyed, draw Federer and he faces a huge grudge match against the resurgent Swiss, who will be looking to utterly mangle Djokovic in revenge for the Rome loss. Look for a fake-out retirement in or before a big match.

Murray: “Bah!”

The Brit’s big talk about being number one by year’s end is looking increasingly ridiculous. He has failed to make any kind of impact in the clay season with no sign of change going into the French Open. The loss against Monaco could perhaps be written off as a once-off bad match, but the Del Potro defeat has got to sting. The Argentine moves like an elephant on clay, and Murray showed how far he still has to come on the surface by completely failing to take advantage of that fact. From here on in Murray has to do seriously well in tournaments to pick up any points at all, and after Wimbledon he is defending a TON of them. After Monte Carlo many pegged him as being the major threat to Nadal on clay this year, but he’ll do well to better last year’s 3rd round result.