I am astounded by the lack of comments about the finals. Where is everyone.
I missed it live and the internet(news sites) spoiled it for me. I have watched the highlights, but I just kind of missed it. 
It sounded amazing, though.
Sleeping it off. 
I didn’t get to see as much of the finals as I would’ve liked, and maybe one day soon I’ll block off a week to watch it. I did see most of the fifth set and I thought Djokovic did an amazing job of hanging around when Nadal seemed to be hitting the ball well and feeling good. Then he found an opportunity and took it. It’s remarkable how tough the tennis looks when these guys play each other. There is so much court coverage and defense and so many long rallies. I felt bad for them when the tournament organizers expected them to stand during those closing speeches. Good thing someone brought chairs. Djokovic deserves all the credit for actually winning, but the next question will be if Murray and Nadal got closer. They both had chances to beat him. I don’t think they choked or blew it- they just played him very evenly and it wouldn’t have taken much to turn things around. We’ll see if they can stay close to him during the season.
I have a feeling that the easy passing shot Nadal had at 30-15, 4-2 in the 5th set will haunt him for a while. He had the whole court open, was near the net, and barely missed it wide, and it would have given him a very good shot to get to 5-2 and close out the match. Djokovic also seemed to turn into a different player after that miss.
Of course, Nadal pulled off his share of miracles as well, saving 0-40 on his serve down a break in the 4th, in a stunning upset of that set. I guess they balance each other out…
In any case, both Nadal and Murray showed a side of themselves to Djokovic that was never present in 2011. This AO they were both playing to win, and came very close to doing so, which means Novak should not have as easy a time of it as he had last year. I think Nadal should still be fine mentally after this one, since he made very good progress. However, if he loses the French to Novak, I could see that absolutely devastating him.
Speaking of Nadal, another question mark is if Fed will finally snap out of his weird mental funk that he gets to whenever Nadal is around.
Late to the game because I was on St. John, sunning myself and snorkeling for a week. But managed to crawl out of bed at 3:30am Sunday morning to watch the match only to discover that the Caribbean is an hour behind EST. So I was up an hour too early. :smack:
Watched all of the first set, then fell asleep, and when i woke up Djokovic was a few games away from taking the fourth set. What I saw was fantastic. Kudos to both of them for putting on such a grand finale. We spectators certainly got our money’s worth.
The next day, Rafa put a msg out to his Facebook fans thanking them for their support. He said that from his POV, it was a fantastic match. He’s such a nice kid.
I really like Novak. I thought that there’d be no way he could carry last year’s momentum into 2012, but he’s managed to do it. Bravo!