Amazing, record-breaking match between Nadal and Verdasco this morning, with Nadal holding on to win 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 6-7, 6-4. Longest singles match in Australian Open history at about 5 hours and 15 minutes, even longer than the epic between Roddick and El Aynaoui in 2003. And THAT match went to 21-19 in the fifth set!
Nadal and Verdasco were both on top of their games the whole time. Verdasco hit almost 100 winners and both had 20 or 30 more winners than errors. Some of the points appeared to last about a week and a half. The only negative I saw is that Nadal won the match on a double fault. I was rooting against him as always, but it should be a great final as Nadal tries to win his first hard court major and Federer tries to tie Sampras.
Not to be overlooked, the Williams sisters won the doubles title. They only lost one set the whole tournament. It rarely gets talked about, but they have eight doubles slam wins together. Serena goes for her 10th singles slam title tomorrow.
How come in individual sports there are few assholes. When asked by Jim Courier about his final with Federer Nadal says that he already thinks that Federer is the best player in history.
And all golfers seem to hate Phil Mickelson but no-one else.
And no-one in an individual sport seems to get in fights or be charged with any crime.
However team sports are mostly populated by dickheads.
Federer is/was an asshole too. He’s mostly been able to control himself, but his petulance comes out when people use Hawkeye. Nothing extreme though.
Maybe the assholes just go into team sports or boxing for some reason because there are more of them there. Kinda like gay people in the theatre I guess?
I don’t think people in individual sports are inherently nicer. In team sports, athletes who act like dicks and get arrested get the most attention and the quiet guys usually get overlooked. To be honest, as much as I love tennis, a lot of the players are brats on-court. It’s the nature of the sport: you play on your own and have a team of people backing you up, sponsors buy your equipment and so on. Some players - Andy Murray was one, and some women do it to - actually psych themselves up by turning to their box and yelling at their own coaches during a match. The coaches know it isn’t personal, but it shows a level of entitlement and spoiled-ness. Most of the time, so does throwing your racquet around the court and bitching at the referee and the line judges. All the pressure is on the player, there’s no team, and some of them get very tense and melt down or vent that way. It can be entertaining, because some of the most volatile players have been very popular, but it doesn’t qualify as nice.
John McEnroe’s bad temper endeared people to him for a while, for example, but I think there was a long fallow period in between the time people got tired of it and the time it turned into a joke and “you cannot be serious” became a catchphrase.
I’ve never actually seen what you’re talking about here, but how would that make him an asshole? He doesn’t like the replay system and he’s been consistent about that. The worst thing I’ve ever seen from him is some subtle criticism of Djokovic, who I think he does genuinely dislike. Beyond that, he has a nice word for everybody in public. He gets annoyed by Nadal on court, too, it seems, but a lot of players get annoyed by Nadal’s slow pace. And how well Nadal plays against him.
Since these guys meet each other at the same tournaments around the world and share locker rooms and such, there are probably good social reasons not to be the unpopular guy.
He gets visibly irritated whenever someone challenges (even when it’s completely right), and challenges things when he knows the call was right. It’s just…childish. I guess not really assholish. He should GTFO the challenge system, since it isn’t going anywhere.
In general, yes he is much better nowadays. I’m mostly referring to before his first Open win, he was a bit flaky mentally and could be a dick. He was kinda like Murray, who is/was also an asshole. Around when he started winning he improved mentally a fair bit. Probably not unrelated to the winning.
I don’t think Federer is a jerk at all, really. He had a temper as a kid, but controls himself quite well now. I agree that he sometimes appears to be irked by Djokovic, but that’s normal(he can be annoying sometimes).
Federer is actually a really good example of a pretty humble sports “great.” He doesn’t parade around demanding everyone know he’s the best(I’m looking at you, Ali).
:Sits waiting for someone to find one quote of Federer bragging:
What’s interesting is that Federer’s actually quite bad at challenging calls, aside from nailing all his attempts against Roddick the other night. I don’t think I’ve seen him challenge a call spitefully, but a lot of players will take a shot in the dark that way if they have nothing else to lose. Dementieva challenged the last shot on match point against Safina even though it was clearly in.
Hm, I just assumed it was spiteful, as you say his challenges are almost all awful. Not just wrong, but really wrong. I guess he might just be terrible at it. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t like the system
Actually I do understand his objection: he thinks players should be able to just play the match and shouldn’t have to watch the lines on top of that. But you know, the rest of us human beings have to do both, and most of us don’t even have the luxury of umpires. I don’t play like Roger Federer, but the fact that I make my own line calls isn’t the reason!
He doesn’t have to watch the lines though, he can rely on the linespeople or umpire who haven’t gone anywhere. His objection makes as much sense as the objections to technology in cricket (none whatsoever).
Much as I admire him as a player, he’s also a traditionalist, aka a luddite. Bet if he played when they introduced non-wood rackets he would’ve been opposed to those too.
The challenge system is for when those people screw up, so the player do have to be aware of the lines and decide whether to challenge. Sometimes in the middle of a point. I don’t think this is a bad thing, since the linespeople are usually right and it’s more important to get the calls correct. And if there were no challenge system, players would still complain and they’d have no recourse.
You’re right, Federer is a traditionalist, but there is a certain degree of tradeoff. If you’re thinking about something other than hitting the ball it’s a distraction. I don’t know why exactly it’s such a big deal to him, though, because it’s not like you have to look down to see if a shot was in or not. Most of the time you just feel it.
Nadal was questioned about coaching? I thought the Verdasco ‘team’ was coaching during he match. I have to say it’s sad to double faulting on MATCH POINT. I felt for Verdasco he fought hard against Nadal.
About being a jerk at matches, I saw Federer, Nadal, Roddick and Murrey in Doha ( not braggin’ mind you)the worse was Murrey about questioning calls, the best was Roddick, he apologize if he was wrong. I thought a class act.
He doesn’t have to challenge though. Indeed, he’s so bad at it he may as well not. He can play as if the system didn’t exist if he wants. Not that I care about his opinion on it*, I was just mentioning his childishness in seemingly not just accepting it’s here and isn’t going anywhere.
*Sportspeople are effectively entertainers paid by the viewing public; they should shut up and entertain us, I don’t care if they don’t like things that get added, only the viewer’s opinion counts. If Roger doesn’t like that he can go play tennis under whatever rules he likes, and we can not pay him for it.
Though Rod Laver wins the prize on that one. He came by to see the match, in the arena named after him, and just sat in the crowd with the rest of them.
