The All-new Weak Era

With Transitional #1 Roger Federer due to sit atop the rankings on his 31st birthday, what argument is left to be made against the irrefutable proposition that this is a pitifully weak era for Mens Tennis?

It was bad enough in the mid-noughties when Swiss Shanky, aka the Basel Bungler, sat atop the tree as a young man but for the same player to now have "World #1" stamped on his pension book is laughable. It's little wonder that Ivan Ljubicic landed his only Masters title just a couple of years ago (then promptly retired!), and that David Ferrer and Mardy Fish continue to wow them in the later stages of Slams. Even Andy Roddick, making his farewell wave to the Wimbledon crowd, is yet to be passed by any but one of the youngest generation.

With Team Nemesis membership now as healthy as a bankers fan club what next for the game? I hear that Pete Sampras has been using the Legends tour as a tuning up exercise for his long-awaited return. The incentive to seize back his #1 records makes that cast-iron certainty.

No all of Federer's slams are asterisked I'm afraid.
These are my latest official rules to win a non-asterisked slam:

1/ -Has to be all outdoors
2/ -Cannot be between 2003-2007 as this is a clear Wee Keira in tennis
3/ -You have to beat Nadal, if not it doesn't count
4/ -You have to play left handed

Thus all of Roget's slams are asterisked I'm afraid

Oh also Nadal's slams are asterisked too, as he has never fulfilled rule number 3 (he has never beaten himself).

Wait, this is a joke article right?

haha...Ljubicic is GOAT I say! Dont forget Blake too...

Yep...all hail the old guys...the sanatogenarians. The players are getting so old they're going to need Stannair lifts onto the courts, and tartan blankets for changeovers to keep their legs warm.

Its the THE GREY ERA!!!

It Must Be Love wrote:Thus all of Roget's slams are asterisked I'm afraid

However, his Thesaurus is legitimate.

JuliusHMarx wrote:

It Must Be Love wrote:Thus all of Roget's slams are asterisked I'm afraid

However, his Thesaurus is legitimate.

No I'm afraid not.

I have received a telephone call from the Three Unbiased Men from Basel and they have officially ruled that Roget's thesaurus breaks Ground Rule 5 (it does not have at-least 4 different fonts per page) and hence does not count as legitimate.

This now means you can get a refund for it from your local Woolworths.

Golly, this harks back to 606 times (before you became Bogbrush, I think) ... was it Lion who used to come out with this kind of stuff?

Turron wrote:Golly, this harks back to 606 times (before you became Bogbrush, I think) ... was it Lion who used to come out with this kind of stuff?

The esteemed poster Impartial_Lion would bestow precisely this kind of incisive wisdom to the boards back in those days, alongside fellow experts chetanpv, mediter (all of them), Wise_Analyst, Dr_Sincere and others.

Strangely I miss Simpleton (aka Simple Analyst), where has he gone?

Was dearly hoping he might return this Wimbledon but I guess Nadal's early exit kept him away....although I'm surprised he didn't show his face prior to the Djokovic vs Federer semi! Is he banned? I hope not, he gave such good entertainment....! I still remember his deciding set tie breaker article and Federer's mental weakness (apparently linked)! Gave me such a jolly good laugh, just the thought right now makes me laugh!

This is the same Federrors (galore) who needed Benneteau to get ultimately fraught by injury after being in the ascendency for the best part of 3.8 sets yet is still able to unashamedly celebrate another slam title dethroning mega-chump Novak (I can't win the French). We are clearly in an era with too many eggs and not enough omelettes!

Yep, his infamous "deciding set tie-breaks" thread very quickly became the stuff of legend. It was (at times) entertaining to see his bizarre parallel world theories comprehensively dismantled by one poster after another. I'm sure he never gave up hope - not just on that particular thread but on so much other waffle that he peddled - that if he repeated something (however nonsensical) often enough then other members would eventually say -
"oh yes, I see what you mean now, you're very knowledgeable, you're absolutely right and clearly everyone else has got it all wrong......"

However, I'm surprised anyone could miss him, given just how tiresome his school playground wummery had became towards the end of 606, and then again here on v2 under various pseudos such as Unbiased Educator, Simple Analyst, Tennis Tutor etc etc. His parting public message addressed to the site owners /founders was particularly odious and spiteful, but it was good that the post itself was allowed to stand for all to see just how immature & abusive he could be.

lags72 wrote:Yep, his infamous "deciding set tie-breaks" thread very quickly became the stuff of legend. It was (at times) entertaining to see his bizarre parallel world theories comprehensively dismantled by one poster after another. I'm sure he never gave up hope - not just on that particular thread but on so much other waffle that he peddled - that if he repeated something (however nonsensical) often enough then other members would eventually say -
"oh yes, I see what you mean now, you're very knowledgeable, you're absolutely right and clearly everyone else has got it all wrong......"

However, I'm surprised anyone could miss him, given just how tiresome his school playground wummery had became towards the end of 606, and then again here on v2 under various pseudos such as Unbiased Educator, Simple Analyst, Tennis Tutor etc etc. His parting public message addressed to the site owners /founders was particularly odious and spiteful, but it was good that the post itself was allowed to stand for all to see just how immature & abusive he could be.

Which thread may I find this on?!

He was bearable in small doses, but it was most amusing when he made a mockery of himself, it was such comedy gold! I was finding it hard to believe if someone really could be that deluded....clearly it!

This was his lost post in February:

Please amuse me Mr Founder YIman, you removed my post and said 90% of my post are attacking posters and i will get banned. Let us make it clear, i don't care about getting banned for giving my honest opinion. There are many forums and i never got banned on an even more credible BBC 606 forum which does tolerate gossiping. What did i said here that attacked a poster? So i supposed this great video link which i just watched now has enriched the knowledge of the forum and provided it with great insight? Please carry on like this and the forum will be known for gossiping rather than a serious tennis forum. May be i'm wasting time on this forum? No? ja606 here i come!

I always have to read this guys posts with a Spanish accent to make sense of any of it.

Oh that's unmistakably him! Complete with the obligatory grammatical errors you can usually expect from him! He sounds rather so bitter, sounds like he'd been told off once to many times.....

Given how attacking his posts were, I'm not sure why it took so long to get him banned really....better late than never though!

On ja606 he would be jumped on silly by the collective mob of Federer lovers over there. I surmise he wouldn't last 5 minutes there....

luciusmann wrote:Strangely I miss Simpleton (aka Simple Analyst), where has he gone?

Was dearly hoping he might return this Wimbledon but I guess Nadal's early exit kept him away....although I'm surprised he didn't show his face prior to the Djokovic vs Federer semi! Is he banned? I hope not, he gave such good entertainment....! I still remember his deciding set tie breaker article and Federer's mental weakness (apparently linked)! Gave me such a jolly good laugh, just the thought right now makes me laugh!

Ah yes! The deciding set tiebreak classic.

Almost as great was the one from 606 when I think Impartial_Lion claimed Federer's 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 loss to Kuerten was a triple bagel.

I wouldn't know where to find the thread, but IIRC it was early in the year that he either left or talked himself into a ban.

Yes he constantly made a mockery of himself and provided much comedy ; but there could be an evil streak too, and with that comes the the risk of allowing the forum to be brought into disrepute and discouraging others who are genuinely interested in discussing/debating the sport and all that surrounds it, in an adult and rational manner.

Of course he was far from alone, and the abuse can involve different players at different times. I know when I recently saw a post in which Nadal was described as "scum" that I found myself asking just how people who profess to be tennis enthusiasts can descend to such levels

edit : now you have it, as provided by JM

Impartial and his multiple ids provided great fun for us for no money, we should be so grateful for them, between have they recovered from mental trauma? coz I heard they were in several condition since Fed won the Wimbledon to tie Sampras record.

invisiblecoolers wrote:Impartial and his multiple ids provided great fun for us for no money, we should be so grateful for them, between have they recovered from mental trauma? coz I heard they were in several condition since Fed won the Wimbledon to tie Sampras record.

I remember having a way too lengthy "debate" with SA where he was insisting that Federer was a choker and any court in the land would back him up. There is an evening I'm not getting back.............................................

bogbrush wrote:

luciusmann wrote:Strangely I miss Simpleton (aka Simple Analyst), where has he gone?

Was dearly hoping he might return this Wimbledon but I guess Nadal's early exit kept him away....although I'm surprised he didn't show his face prior to the Djokovic vs Federer semi! Is he banned? I hope not, he gave such good entertainment....! I still remember his deciding set tie breaker article and Federer's mental weakness (apparently linked)! Gave me such a jolly good laugh, just the thought right now makes me laugh!

Ah yes! The deciding set tiebreak classic.

Almost as great was the one from 606 when I think Impartial_Lion claimed Federer's 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 loss to Kuerten was a triple bagel.

I'd rather be triple bageled by Kuerten than lose to Rosol

Surely the best was the Dr_Sincere Premature Speulation, when he announced Djokovic had won the first set in the 2007 US Open final. It was 6-5, 40-0 on his serve when he called it, but then Fed won the next 5 points and the tb.

He was ragged for it forever.

Kind of like when AIR lost that bet to Duggie...and I don't think was seen on the forum again...

The now-infamous Dr Sincere Premature Speculation post pre-dates my own experience of 606 but - having read so much about it since - I'm sure it must have been the talk of the town on the day of the actual match ..... . And seemingly for many years to come .....

The 'mega fail' prediction syndrome appears to be a common characteristic linking the better known WUM's over the years. It's as if they can't help themselves : any sense of self-esteem they might have, together with the instinctive human desire within most of us to avoid becoming a laughing stock, are somehow over-ridden by an even stronger obsession - is it a clinical addiction even ? - with producing constant nonsense and trashing a particular player(s) at every opportunity. Perhaps we need a world-class psychologist to explain it all ...?

I had only heard stories of Jewell of the East (again, he was before my time on the old 606) until he suddenly re-appeared here on v2 just recently, along with sidekick (alter ego even ...??) boromir. I checked back to see the pattern of predictions / comment just ahead of Wimbledon and then during the fortnight itself and it sure makes for an entertaining read when all strung together. In fact it occurred to me that the egg-on-face video that reckoner linked to just a few days ago in tribute to JoE could perhaps be neatly matched with these posts.

Anyway here goes folks .....
(nb there are minor edits purely wrt grammatical correction/possible typos, but that apart these are all direct quotes from the teachings of Jewell over Wimbledon 2012 )



"Mind you Boromir7, i've seen people talk of him [Federer] as a potential winner at Wimbledon. I hope you don't fall over laughing by now, i just did. What is your take on such a hysterical notion?"

- - - - -

"........... against Djokovic, this weakness becomes more of a sympathy. Should they meet, Federer cannot afford to lose but if his performance against Benneteau is to judge by, he should pack his bags and take the next train out of London. No, he shouldn't risk any flight delays at Heathrow".

- - - - -

"If i was a Federer fan, i'll be more concerned about the easy victory Youzhny is about to take tomorrow".

- - - - -

"With Tsonga playing like Britain is marching on to invade France as i write, there is no excuse for Murray to win this and take an easy victory on Sunday".

- - - - -

"Fed's chances @ Wimbledon

-----------------------------------------------------------

On the scale of 0 to 10? I'll give it -5. Practically, none!"



Yep, round by round, Jewell just kept coming up with 'em............

A unique talent

If you bet against Federer, eventually you will be proved right. In the meantime you had better restrict the currency of your bets to Monopoly money because Fed is still a bit too consistent to ensure a profit.

Ah, how could I forget JoE (Jewel of the East). Shame he's vanished, he was too amusing to be taken seriously. He seems to have vanished now Fed has won, I wonder why.....

It was funny when JoE would start his curious conversations with Boromir7, who magically only appeared when JoE was around and never any other time. Fishy business....

In future years, anthropolgists will find old 606 postings and they will ask:

Why was <insert appropriate poster's name here> created?

It's a fair question but they did provide many hours of entertainment. I seem to remember someone called Andy who seemed to delight in dismantling Lion's diatribes aided and abetted by someone called Mac who later became Bogbrush.

andy was great on 606, often skewering Lion with facts.

Great op bogbrush - aaah, makes me quite nostalgic for absent friends

Good article, good nostalgia, and I even wondered whether the Boromir thing was a deliberate in-joke, I mean why go to the trouble of creating a new account with an old name known as an old side kick, when he could have created a new name on his 2nd account if he really didn't want it known that he was multi IDing?

Let's take a trip down memory lane:

comment by Andy1073 (U1650793)


posted Jan 16, 2008

****
Quite where Doctor_Sincere has disappeared to is a mystery
****

It would be premature to speculate

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A31180024

It took me ages (15-20 minutes, in google searching for something terms, that's pretty long) but I eventually I found the original thread on which the premature spejaculation occured, although no-one actually uses those or similar words on the thread; that must have come later. Here's the thread.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/F8165504?thread=4565553&show=50

comment by Dr_Sincere (U2021784)
posted Sep 9, 2007
7-5. First set Djokovic. There's no way this kid is losing tonight. I hope Darth Federer has another spacesuit.

A few comments followed, such as:

comment by WorpleGore (U6764470)
posted Sep 9, 2007
Oh dear DR. Sincere

"Lord please help me to put my brain into gear before opening my big trap "


Later on:
comment by Dr_Sincere (U2021784)
posted Sep 9, 2007
Novak Djokovic has upset me deeply tonight. I thought he was a champion and now it looks like he's the new David Nalbandian. I am lost for words. If he doesn't bounce back in the next set he will amount to nothing. A loss like this can ruin a career.

HB... PM for you.

Awesome memories, thx all.

I had a look a while ago and I could not find an earlier use of "spejaculation" as opposed to "speculation" than this one of mine in a different context. By then it was 4 months after the good Dr's messy accident so I'm sure that there should be an earlier one

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A31515022

Those were the days barry...I started posting on BBC606 around Jan/Feb 2007 so well remember the turn of events. Hilarious!!!

I remember someone write a very funny article after AO 2008 announcing that as Andy had lost in the 1st round to Tsonga he had got virtual finalists points, and went on to elaborate in detail the implications of Andys virtual ranking.

I think the idea was attributed to Mark Petchey, and the article was inspired by one too many observations about how given Andy had lost to the finalist it wasn't a bad 1st round exit.

For all that was very wrong with 606 it could be hilarious sometimes.

bogbrush wrote:I remember someone write a very funny article after AO 2008 announcing that as Andy had lost in the 1st round to Tsonga he had got virtual finalists points, and went on to elaborate in detail the implications of Andys virtual ranking.

I think the idea was attributed to Mark Petchey, and the article was inspired by one too many observations about how given Andy had lost to the finalist it wasn't a bad 1st round exit.

For all that was very wrong with 606 it could be hilarious sometimes.

BB - that was the very link I had in my post - I'll try to make it clickable.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A31515022

There was an actual article I think that went into it in some depth - virtual ranking and everything.

bogbrush wrote:There was an actual article I think that went into it in some depth - virtual ranking and everything.

Oh, sorry - do you mean this one http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A84669998, or this one http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A31435779?

Them's the boys. Great stuff.

Hilarious reading...some might argue Murray is still in need of a virtual slam!

Whatever happened to The Opinion, AIR, tennis-the-menace, Impartial Lion, Maximus, etc? I know GJ is on MTL these days as are many others (biscuits, sirbenson, nameless, debsonsofa, niecie, chumba/Bourne, etc).

Wasn't socal peddling this wee Keira horlicks not so long ago? I imagine impartial et al must be rather pleased that their torch shines on...

It is a weak era and Federer's achievements must be measured in that context.

It's a nightmare now for "2004-7 wee Keira" enthusiasts.

Well truth be told I was always a tad bamboozled by this whole era thing, but just lately I've been struggling to make any sense of it.

It's way too much for me. And definitely too much for my little niece who loves watching the male tennis players. Even when she should be helping her Mum in the kitchen. Hear me out, dear fellow members ....

I mean .... life seemed straightforward enough back in the dark ages in 2004. A Swiss man named Roger Federer won 3 Slams that year and so he was duly anointed World Number One.

But then Rafa Nadal exploded onto the scene big time in 2005 winning Roland Garros aged just 19. Here was the bright exciting young star who would surely become the new Number One. Well yes - if only that Federer guy would quit winning Slams. But he didn't. And so it wasn't until 2008 that Rafa finally became Number One.

And then the man from Tandil won in New York, nicely beating both Nadal and Federer along the way. He was surely now destined to be Number One ...??

Well not quite, the big man was cruelly struck down by injury and it was Federer who won the very next Slam, AO 2010. But Rafa won all the other Slams that year, and so he became undisputed top dog again.

Things got a whole lot more complicated in 2011, just as Rafa was settling back into his number one spot. The man from Serbia swept all before him and HE was now Number One.

I was explaining all this to my primary school niece only the other day, and she said "okay, so now this Mr Djokovic is Number One.... ?"

"Er .... well no" said I hesitantly, bringing frowns & confusion to her cute little face.

"Now ..... remember that old Swiss chap I told you about from 2004, before you were even born ........ the one you saw winning Wimbledon last Sunday ..... ??"

Well clearly Federers era runs from 2003-12.

Y'know, the best thing about Fed winningWimbledon and being #1 will be the enormous fun I have next time someone is foolish enough to start another weak era thread.

There's only 2 era's....

1. Open Era
2. Pre-Open Era.

Federer likely best player of Open Era...
Laver likely best player of Pre-Open Era...

Can we go home now?

lydian wrote:There's only 2 era's....

1. Open Era
2. Pre-Open Era.

Federer likely best player of Open Era...
Laver likely best player of Pre-Open Era...

Can we go home now?

Never!!

The horrific reality is that era threads are the lifeblood of sport forums.

lydian : Yep, not worth arguing with that .... seems clear enough

In fact I suggest the Mods place your definitive summary on a sticky, for the future benefit of any poor, lost & confused souls from the old 606 'era', (eg. Unbiased, Catalan, Jewell + sundry others ....) in the event that one or more of them might one day re-appear under yet another pseudo ID.

bogbrush: Hear what you say but I suspect (wrt tennis at least) that the 'lifeblood' era has finally become infected and is no longer safe for transfusion !

Irrefutable salutations

A chilling warning to knowledgeable and impartial posters everywhere...

by reckoner on Fri Jul 13, 2012 5:52 pm

"A chilling warning to knowledgeable and impartial posters everywhere..."


Ah yes .... many members still tremble as they recall the terrible fear provoked by such chilling warnings ; not least the sort of warnings that were being issued in the first half of 2008, when Wee Keira had finally bid farewell to Federer, to make way for the new generation of "young lions" (as Cat P once labelled them).

Federer would surely never again wrap his hands around another glittering Slam trophy. I mean .... how on earth could he be expected to amidst the presence of the all-conquering new breed ?

Er .... except when he won another US Open

oh and Roland Garros ....

and er Wimbledon .....

oh and the Aussie Open ....

not forgetting yet another Wimbledon .........