We have attached the 2011 highlights of the 2011 Sony Ericsson tournament in Miami where you could appreciate again the performance of the 2 dominating players of last year tour to reflect on a big question mark.
The big question is if the top 2 players in the world are also the strongest ones at the moment.
Last year we witnessed an overwhelming series of Djokovic – Nadal (with Novak as the sole winner).
This year it looks (at least so far) that there is a ‘vintage player’, a guy from the past that is the strongest of the pack (at least in a best of 3 match): Federer.
Besides the 2011 Novak edition, Roger’s main problem during the previous years (you can say during his entire career) was Rafa and in particular his banana shot on his backhand.
During the last final it seems that Roger has understood (finally!!!) how to play him using much more shots (also short ones) on Rafa’s backhand.
To be fair with Rafa, apparently he could not find his terrible cross (banana) shots on Roger’s backhand because of the heavy wind (see his interview), but if the weather was not the culprit, than Rafa is now in trouble also with Roger. And on top of this, it seems that Rafa did not found (yet) the solution against a dwindling Novak.
Novak, yes, Novak. It was also obvious from the end of his 2011 season that Novak was exhausted. He started to get injured (see this article regarding his injury at the Davis Cup match) and he looked unable to recover mentally and phisically.
Novak had horrible tournaments in Basel (upset by Nishikori) , in Bercy and at the WTF finals.
The Serb then got back to a decent tennis at the Abu Dhabi exhibition (well everybody looked to be on vacation at that time…). He finally gained another remarkable (but heavy taxing) title at the Australian Open with epics victories over Murray and (guess what?) Nadal.
But, after that… well… he lost it again to suffer a bad defeat in straight (horrible) sets in the Dubai semis at the hands of Murray . He then lost also a tough match against Isner at Indian Wells (something impossible to a 2011 Novak edition). This off course does not mean at all that Novak is a player at a dead end, but it opens up new opportunities in the ATP tour.
What does it mean? Well… it looks a bit less probable (but not impossible) that the 2012 final in Miami will be played again by Rafa and Novak.
Last year it was a certainty… this year…. maybe.
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