Imaginary FO Match: Muster-Nadal

[Carey]

I woulda loved to have seen this. Nadal would win of course, but Muster would get into it big time,
and not be intimidated at all. Courier-Nadal would be fun too, but Muster... as Connors said, "that
guy's a goddamn Marine!". Quite the comment considering the source.

[jdeluise]

I was a big fan of Muster but I really think that Nadal would waste him
4,2,2 or some such.

[Carey]

Yeah, he wouldn't have enough for sure, but still wish I could see it.

[Scall5]

"Carey" wrote in message
news:e29bad82-e0b9-48a1...@googlegroups.com...

****************

I recall once where Muster and Courier were going to play the next round of
Roland Garros and Muster stated that Courier was a machine. Courier replied
with something like "He thinks *I* am the machine?!?"
-----------------------------
Scall5

[undecided]

I would have liked to see Guga vs Nadal at the FO....Guga had a very fluid clay court game.

[Shakes]

On Sunday, June 4, 2017 at 1:40:36 PM UTC-7, undecided wrote:

> I would have liked to see Guga vs Nadal at the FO....Guga had a very fluid clay court game.

Yes, me too. He had a better serve and a great BH. He was tall enough to deal with the bounce.

[bob]

On Sun, 4 Jun 2017 12:08:31 -0700 (PDT), Carey <carey...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>I woulda loved to have seen this. Nadal would win of course, but Muster would get into it big time,
>and not be intimidated at all. Courier-Nadal would be fun too, but Muster... as Connors said, "that
>guy's a goddamn Marine!". Quite the comment considering the source.

had muster not ruined his knee, would've been better. IMO had nadal
played throughout the 90s he'd still win many FOs, but struggly far
harder to do it. courier, bruguera, guga and muster.

bob

[Gracchus]

On Sunday, June 4, 2017 at 12:08:32 PM UTC-7, Carey wrote:

> I woulda loved to have seen this. Nadal would win of course, but Muster would get into it big time, and not be intimidated at all.

I wonder which one would howl the loudest. It would be like Venus vs. Sharapova an octave lower.

[John Liang]

He was 6'3 and I don't think that is tall enough to deal with the bounce Nadal was able to generate. Safin and Del Po probably were probably the only guys weren't be bother by the bounce as they both are well above 6'4, have two handed backhand.

[Shakes]

It's not just the physical height. He also had a BH that could come over the ball at or near shoulder height. He could also hit it pretty flat, kind of like Wawrinka.

[John Liang]

I just don't think that will be enough, Guga is not what I called strongly build, he is taller but much thinner, on the backhand side Wawrinka can probably flat out this shot with unmatched power, I don't think Guga can match the sort of power that Wawrinka can generate, Guga's backhand is more on par with Federer but with a lot less variety. I don't see him troubling Nadal at all with his game on clay or on any other surfaces.

[Shakes]

On Sunday, June 4, 2017 at 10:09:49 PM UTC-7, John Liang wrote:

> I just don't think that will be enough, Guga is not what I called strongly build, he is taller but much thinner, on the backhand side Wawrinka can probably flat out this shot with unmatched power, I don't think Guga can match the sort of power that Wawrinka can generate, Guga's backhand is more on par with Federer but with a lot less variety. I don't see him troubling Nadal at all with his game on clay or on any other surfaces.

His BH was more consistent than Wawrinka's and his strokes were better suited to clay than Fed's. We'll never know, but I see him troubling Nadal on clay more than Fed or Djok did.

[Whisper]

It would be fun to watch for the physical aspect alone - Muster was an
animal & just kept going, impervious to fatigue/injury. The guy was run
over by a car & soon after was back training in a wheelchair!

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[Whisper]

Perhaps if we compare the FO matches featuring Rafa v Fed & Guga v Fed?
That may give us an idea what the matches would be like?

Rafa tended to beat Fed in 4 routine sets at FO on average, except for
that 61 63 60 rout in 2008 final.

At 2004 FO Guga crushed Federer 64 64 64. In 2004 Fed won the other 3
slams, but was easily dismissed in 3rd rd of FO by an old & well past it
Guga.

[Whisper]

Yes, I can see all these guys giving Rafa much stiffer competition than
any current player.

[undecided]

Guga was thin and light thus he could move extremely well. His BH was not meant to overpower opponents like Wawrinka's is. His BH was more about long rallies, direction and top spin. We'd see some incredible long rallies with Guga vs Rafa.

[SliceAndDice]

+1. Muster/Nadal would probably put me to sleep.

[John Liang]

You of course conveniently forget that in their other clay court match in 2001 when Guga was the reigning FO champ, he was crushed by Federer with a bread stick and a bagel and the only saving grace for Guga was the middle tie break set he won.

[John Liang]

On Monday, June 5, 2017 at 7:52:45 PM UTC+10, Whisper wrote:

If we pick individual match to draw a comparison, I also remember Guga was crushed by Hewitt in 3 sets on clay in his home turf in a Davis Cup match, going by that sort of result against resilient player like Nadal or even Federer and an absolute mental midget that Guga was. Guga would not stand a chance. I say more of a routine 3 sets win for Nadal almost 9 out of 10 times on clay. Federer would probably win about 7 out 10 against Guga as well.

[John Liang]

Yes, we will but Guga would be pin to his backhand corner just like every other single handed backhand player on clay. His consistency of his ground shots was not at Nadal's level and he would come up in the losing end of most of the rallies.

[Guypers]

+111

Very knowledgeable post, as usual!

[Whisper]

That just proves my point - even an old Guga could raise his game to a
level where it could crush Federer on clay. How many players in this
era could do that, aside from Rafa?

[John Liang]

There is no point trusting your point given your great analysis like Federer winning just 1 slam and no other final, roddick was Sampras on steroid, Tomic was Roddick on steroid. With that sort of track record why should we trust your point. Yes, Guga could raise his game but as a reigning FO champ he was crushed with 1,0 sets by a very young Federer.

[John Liang]

On Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at 3:23:35 AM UTC+10, Whisper wrote:

Guga was probably weakest player mentally to win 3 grand slams in the last 30 years, he was only marginally ahead of Kafelnikov in that regard. If Guga plays Nadal it would be like hitting against a back wall both mentally and game wise, Nadal would get balls back with a lot of spin, Guga would be forced to hit a lot of balls and yet seeing them coming back, time after time Nadal's superior movement would allow him to turn defense into offense and frustrate Guga.

[kaennorsing]

Op zondag 4 juni 2017 22:40:36 UTC+2 schreef undecided:

No doubt Guga would match up better with Nadal than Muster.

[heyg...@gmail.com]

There was recently an interesting article about string technology that mentioned Guga being the first to use them, which helped him win slams and beat Sampras and others on fast HC. He had a technological advantage there for a bit.

[kaennorsing]

Op maandag 5 juni 2017 02:23:06 UTC+2 schreef Shakes:

Yes, Guga's game would match up pretty well with Rafa. His length and extreme grip on the backhand would help him control those high balls from Rafa's forehands a bit better than Fed has. I think he could have beaten Rafa may be 1 out of 3 matches at the FO... Better than pretty much anyone else, anyway.

[Carey]

On Sunday, June 4, 2017 at 12:36:01 PM UTC-7, Scall5 wrote:
> "Carey" wrote in message

> I recall once where Muster and Courier were going to play the next round of
> Roland Garros and Muster stated that Courier was a machine. Courier replied
> with something like "He thinks *I* am the machine?!?"
> -----------------------------
> Scall5

Good one! I think my favorite Muster comment was when he talked about how much he liked playing
Agassi on the dirt, which goes along with a mental image of AA pinned against a back fence somewhere. :)