Why Are the Federer and Nadal Fans Locked in Combat

lags72 wrote:

socal1976 wrote:

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My venom directed towards fed is actually balanced by always giving the man his due. I don't claim he is a cheat, or claim that he is a talentless lung merchant moonballer a great many fed fans I have read comments from over the years. Its quite clear that most of the vitriol is one way and pretty clear that the reasoning behind it is pathetic sore loserism.  

I think these few sentences do as good a job as any of highlighting the degree to which the vitriol and pointless animosity is two way traffic - even if your intention was to try & prove the exact opposite.

You yourself openly admit to throwing venom in Federer's direction (mind you, any denial would hardly be credible !) and you then imply that you're a perfectly reasonable guy, because your venom is "balanced by always giving the man his due".  But why not just stop the venom ....?? Methinks you really need to take off your blinkers socal, and accept that your own approach to Federer is no different from the many, many comments that we see from people slinging mud at Nadal, but who are nevertheless equally willing to acknowledge that Rafa is a big winner on the biggest stages, with countless amazing achievements to his name.

You imply that your own willingness to give Federer credit is evidence of some great virtue on your part (deserving perhaps of a bouquet....?)  But for me, it's just the most basic of basic common sense that players of the quality of Nadal & Federer should be properly recognised & respected for their very rare abilities, and it's patently obvious that anyone without sufficient  brainmatter to appreciate the huge talent of both these guys has zero understanding of - let alone interest in - tennis.

You say you don't claim Federer is a cheat. But even if you haven't actually used such language (and are you 100% sure you never ever have .....??   ) you're more than happy to take every opportunity to devalue his achievements in all manner of other ways and on numerous threads, with tiresome repetitive talk of mythical weak eras, all of it full of purely subjective opinion. In similar vein, much of the forum chatter alleging that Nadal is 'a cheat' is little more than subjective opinion -  although some might say that the allegations stem in part from time-wasting tactics used to gain unfair advantage - tactics which have, of course, resulted in official penalties being imposed on more than one occasion by match umpires, meaning that the claims are not wholly without substance.

You're keen to deride others for referring to Nadal as a "talentless lung merchant moonballer" (a description which I myself consider total nonsense) but somehow are blind to similar vitriol heaped on Federer. Barely a day would pass on the old 606 without reference to him by a number of posters as the Swiss Shanker or Basel Bungler, along with other regular abuse of his personality or game (and there is no shortage of similar childish flak to be read on various sites today).

So then .... moonballer or bungler ....? Lung merchant or Shanker ....? It's all pretty childish don't you think ...? I don't know for sure whether you joined in at the time on the original 606, but safe to say you probably wouldn't be among those rushing to Fed's defence in the face of such drip-drip caustic negativity when directed his way.

In the same way that you claim that the vitriol is one way and is down to "pathetic sore loserism", you conveniently forgot just how easy it is to find any number of examples of vitriol from others whose comments might be down to jealousy that Federer holds several unique records that others have yet to match. So .....sore loserism (as you put it) on one side, and sore jealousy on the other. Both pathetic. Is there really much difference ....?

This thread by H-n was written to show that the mood of 'combat' adopted by many Federer or Nadal (so-called) 'fans' is very much at odds with the mutual respect & friendliness shown by the two big stars themselves. And what we have seen so often is that people who have a particular liking for one player or another will seek (understandably) to paint a positive image of their favoured player. But with that perfectly understandable motive often comes a far less rational desire to prove that THEIR player also has the best, well-behaved fans who (of course !!) would never indulge in the sort of hate campaigns adopted by 'fans' of the other camp.

So my point here is to show that all this talk is not only common on both 'sides' - but is equally pointless, regardless of the intended target. Personally I've never understood why people would want to throw venom at one player or another ; but that's perhaps because my own interest is more in the sport itself than any wish to bind myself to a particular player, with all the inherent bias that this so often brings.

socal - one closing thought if I may :  you are, naturally, just as entitled to your own opinion as the next man, and the value of the forum is ultimately dependent on people expressing their views. But do at least understand that merely by using the words "quite clear" " or "pretty clear" you cannot expect others to believe that what you claim is correct, no more than people will accept personal opinion as proven fact.

JuliusHMarx wrote:Asterisk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix