A WONDERFUL article on Federer

Many times, watching Federer leaves one speechless, so that one feels indebted to authors like this that attempt to capture the feeling in words.

http://www.livemint.com/articles/2011/06/30205524/The-perfect-dancer-rules-thou.html

Nice.

Yep, I doubt we'll see his like again for a very long time.

thanks for the article tennisanorak - it's a wonderful piece and perfectly encapsulates the magic that was/is Federer.

I am not sure we will ever see his like again, so we should all sit back and enjoy the autumn of his career.

This is another famous article about him - the writer is now dead, tragically at his own hand I believe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?pagewanted=all

Thank you for the post, Tennisanorak.

Watching Roger Federer in his prime was truly like watching a balletic artisan glide across the court, while he dismantled with his opponents with ruthless efficiency.

Sadly, it seems like he is in the final act of his career, and, as Mr. Brijnath asserts in his article, he does not want to admit to it.

Unfortunately, although it is a cliche, time waits on no man, and Roger has been revealed to be human; this in spite of the sometimes celestial nature of his tennis.

Roger is a mere mortal who cannot escape the reality of a finite existence. For four glorious years, he has elevated the game of tennis to an even higher plane and has treated the tennis world to spellbinding displays of artistry and unparalled brilliance. Now, it seems as if Roger is an absorbing battle with Father Time and Father Time has just broken his serve. Whether Roger can break back remains to be seen.

There are other players who are brilliant in their own right.

But none can do it quite like Roger.

I am hoping that there is one in the wings who can take up the mantle and at least come close to replicating the amazing displays that Roger gave on the tennis court.

Interesting reads, one of the articles led me to watch replays of the Federer Agassi US open and Australian open matches. I then checked out replays of the Murray Djokovic Australian open final and to be honest the tennis couldn't really compare. The match this year had nowhere near the shotmaking and excitement in.

which matches were better in your opinion?

post edited should be clearer now

Glad you liked it, everyone! And Barrystar, the article you posted is by one of THE great writers in recent years, David Foster Wallace. With that article, the question is not whether you've read it, but how many times you have!

Sadly the development of the game has stacked the odds so severely against Federer Mk II that we won't see another unless they change the game.
The USO showed that you can come out and play these guys off the court but they can pull the game long and run the legs off you. The semi showed that, and the final was simply an exhibition of how to run the opponent into the ground (both men succeeded, one slightly more than the other).

BB, totally agree. Isn't it sad to see this unfold before our eyes? How can the tennis authorities just watch on? Do none of them watch tennis, driven as they are by commercial interests?

There is an easy way to counter the progression of string technologies which certainly has contributed to its fair share in slowing down the game and making it easy for those standing 3 meters behind the baseline: The babolat balls. They have a hard shell which means that the strings don't bite into it like the Slaz for instance. Meaning a topspin becomes pretty short. Plus, it carries pace better so if you go for your shots it pays off better. This is what we saw at the semi FO between Fed and Djoko.

It's about time Wimbledona and the other tournaments follow suit. Since AO 2010, the last 7 slams were simply won by the fittest player out there. certainly not the most skilled player.

Thanks barrystar for your post as well. Both articles are such good reads. I love sports writers like David Foster Wallace who really write with poetry about sport - there was a brilliant writer at the Guardian a few years ago and I used to be mesmerised by his cricket articles, even though I am only good for about two hours of watching a match. He had the ability to enhance the experience of a great contest.

Imagine the complaints from some of the top players if they did that though, Tenez? To do it on clay was acceptable to them but Djokovic, Nadal and Murray would kick up a storm if this happened.

Mardy Fish would become a genuine contender on a fast surface and you'd even see some first week upsets, making the first week actually worth paying attention to.

bogbrush wrote:Imagine the complaints from some of the top players if they did that though, Tenez? To do it on clay was acceptable to them but Djokovic, Nadal and Murray would kick up a storm if this happened.

Mardy Fish would become a genuine contender on a fast surface and you'd even see some first week upsets, making the first week actually worth paying attention to.

As Stich says in this BBC article, "they should not forget that it's a partnership" (between the players and tournament organisers)!

What that clearly means is that they are all there to make money. For 5 years Federer won everything outside clay and that prompted the tournaments to make things easier for Nadal and allow more balanced matches between those two, while at the same time the FO tried to speed up things. I have little doubt that should the organisers decide to give Federer a nice end to his career, or a more marketable youngster come along, they will make it easy for the more marketable player.

I think that after a few woww and whaahhh ending Nadal and Djokovics crazy long rallies, they might revert to give the technical players a better chance. It's all about cashing in on the most charismatic players.

I'd like to see Murray get players to join him on a strike whose typical season is something like 30 wins and 22 losses and maybe can hope to pick up 2-5 tournament wins in their lifetime - there's plenty of them and they need lots of tournaments to make a living. Like Stich says, the tournaments themselves are economic entities which provide jobs and opportunities to those involved and the towns they are in - you can talk about vested interests but the interests of longstanding tournaments are entirely valid vested interests. There's also plenty of players outside the top 150-200 who want to come through onto the main tour who need opportunities to face the best to improve their games - if the main tour were too limited and exclusive you would almost repeat the amateur/pro divide which saw the likes of Laver struggle against pro's when he started in large part because he was not used to the standard.

barrystar wrote:Like Stich says, the tournaments themselves are economic entities which provide jobs and opportunities to those involved and the towns they are in - you can talk about vested interests but the interests of longstanding tournaments are entirely valid vested interests.

spot on barry. I am guessing that Rafa wouldn't like to cut Barcelona or Madrid from the calendar - especially given the perilous condition of Spanish economy and the fact that 40 something percent of young Spanish people are unemployed.

Having said all that, the tour for the top players has become ridiculous demanding and I kind of understand why those who have made it that way woudl like to have a break. In short, they don't want the others to grab the restovers while they prepare to get fitter for the next tournament.

They woudl like to make us believe that they are going to rest and enjoy life a bit but we know they will simply work harder and prepare better to make life even harder for their opponents next time around.

Well so they should Tenez - name of the game and all that!

I think fairest way forward is to make some of the other Masters non compulsory, say two - then it is in the players' remit to really manage their schedule.

time please wrote:Well so they should Tenez - name of the game and all that!

I think fairest way forward is to make some of the other Masters non compulsory, say two - then it is in the players' remit to really manage their schedule.

Are you in favour of extending time between rallies then? That woudl make it easier for those players too.

Where do you stop?

Tenez I was responding (lightly) to your comment about the players wanting to go away and work even harder! I sort of presume that they would use time to work on different things.

On the subject of extending time between rallies, no I am not in favour of. However the way it is going, I think it would be better to extend to 30 seconds for all tournaments and then enforce that. Far better than the muddle of 20 secs in some, 25 in others and umpires allowing certain players to completely disregard and take upwards of 35 seconds on a regular basis.

I would extend, as I say, and then dock the next point for first transgression, a game for second and a third (which would be highly unlikely to happen in this instance) for the player to forfeit the set.

It weakens the game terribly to have rules that aren't enforced. Better not to have them at all than to allow this.

time please wrote:
On the subject of extending time between rallies, no I am not in favour of. However the way it is going, I think it would be better to extend to 30 seconds for all tournaments and then enforce that. Far better than the muddle of 20 secs in some, 25 in others and umpires allowing certain players to completely disregard and take upwards of 35 seconds on a regular basis.

I would extend, as I say, and then dock the next point for first transgression, a game for second and a third (which would be highly unlikely to happen in this instance) for the player to forfeit the set.

It weakens the game terribly to have rules that aren't enforced. Better not to have them at all than to allow this.

I agree with your final point - my solution would be to enforce the current rule very vigorously - don't imagine that extending 20s to 30s wouldn't encounter the same problem - and there's the paying public and tournament schedules to take account of. Extending to 30s would hugely increse the recovery time over a long match (50% between each point) and lead to an increase in the physicality leading to players wanting more time and so on. If you have a blaze you want to put out, use water, not additional fuel.

Of course we need to enforce the 20s rule. This very simple rule is the best solution for pushing players to go for more shots.

Agree that the 20 sec rule should be enforced.

Imagine if the time was extended to 30 secs. I'm sure that would also be flouted pretty routinely in time (no pun intended).

Matches are already too long in some cases, like the USO final. The viewing experience is greatly reduced when players take inordinate amounts of time between points. Surely commercial pressures (TV, etc) will force them to speed up the game.

emancipator wrote:The viewing experience is greatly reduced when players take inordinate amounts of time between points. Surely commercial pressures (TV, etc) will force them to speed up the game.

No doubt they all remember the relative boredom of the bash-bash tennis of much of the 1990's, so well described by the Economist and are missing the fact that attacking baseline play is going the way of attacking net play - being smothered in amazingly physical duals where advantage is eked out over long rallies of amazing gets. I'm pretty sure the money men feel that things are pretty good right now - but I suspect that they'll complacently forego taking steps to anticipate and prevent the likelihood of continued developments in the physical game leading to a lack of popularity until it's a bit too late.

Barry - 30 wins and 22 loses!! Simply not possible - how many tournaments is this guy going to enter?

Theortically yes but practically I dont think anybody ever had these stats. 30 wins and 15 loses sound about fair but then such record are for top 20 players who may still go on strike!

Fedex_the_best wrote:Barry - 30 wins and 22 loses!! Simply not possible - how many tournaments is this guy going to enter?

Theortically yes but practically I dont think anybody ever had these stats. 30 wins and 15 loses sound about fair but then such record are for top 20 players who may still go on strike!

If you play 22 tournaments and lose in the 3rd round in 15 of them and the 1st round in the rest you'll have 30 wins and 22 losses - but play tends to be less uniform than that.

Look how many players have played more than 22 tournaments in the last 12 months - on the current ranking list. One thing I'll agree with though - I chose Troicki at random and he apparently has a 34-20 record for his ranking, which is pretty close to what I am saying and indicates that those sorts of figures would tend to belong to a top 30 player. But if you tell players who are used to attending 25 or so tournaments a year to earn their crust that they need to cut down on tournaments surely they are going to say 'go to hell' aren't they? You only need a bad run of 3-4 early losses and you are completely short of competitive matchplay. In fact, this serves to emphasise my view - unless the top players can somehow persuade those close to them to give support.

Tenez wrote:Of course we need to enforce the 20s rule. This very simple rule is the best solution for pushing players to go for more shots.

Maybe, maybe not. Murray plays within the 20 sec rule pretty much all the time. However the rule does need to be enforced. Unfortunately, until a player actually does get docked a point for it, they'll continue doing it (why shouldn't they?).

Well if they succeed in getting the tour shortened perhaps the paying audience could vote to strike unless the 20/25 sec rule is enforced MFC?