That was a great, and very well-written article you linked to sic. Ivan Lendl once said that the difference between baseliners that could win on grass (Borg, Agassi, Hewitt, Connors) and those that couldn't (Lendl, Courier, Roddick) was being "light vs. heavy footed". The way that Raza describes it is a little more articulate :-). I definitely think that Nadal's footwork puts him firmly in the former camp. After seeing him perform these past two weeks, I think he can do it.
Btw, I think it's bullshit that McEnroe and others keep hyping Federer as "the greatest of all time". He may well end up being that after his career is over, and we can count up all the glories, but right now, it seems more a cynical ploy to pump interest (and drive teevee ratings) into the sport than a genuine pronouncement. After all, though he's been very successful thus far, there have only been handful of truly top class players in his age group/era (Safin on his good days, Nadal who owns him, and Roddick who now appears to be monstrously overrated and in deep decline) and a lot can happen in the next few years. He could get injured, either on or off court, or "burn out" and retire early like Borg did after he realized that he couldn't beat McEnroe anymore. I kind of wish they'd cut that kind of talk out and just let us enjoy the ride, particularly if we're about to see the blossoming of one of tennis's great rivalries.
Recently McEnroe recognized that Nadal may be on the way to number 1 in the near future. I think that as Nadal improves on other surfaces he and Federer are going to be meeting each other in final after final. With the rest of the tour relatively weak, this may become a rivalry to end all rivalries. Sunday's match is going to show us where that rivalry is at. If Federer wipes the floor with Nadal it will be a few years before Nadal really challenges him off of clay; if Nadal plays him tough but loses, we can look for him to challenge Federer in the US and Australian Opens; but, if Nadal wins, well, we have a new best player in the world as far as I'm concerned.
I just found a .wmv of the interview that Wilander gave where he talked about Federer's (lack of) balls. Some good stuff, he sounds drunk though.
he sounds drunk though Hey, he's Swedish. Swedes are always drunk when not in Sweden. It's too bloody expensive to do it home. (I kid, I kid). Really, though, kudos to Mats. I loved him as a player, and I am enjoying him even more now. This is the kind of frankness that we were led to expect from Johnny Mac (but never get), and used to get from Brad Gilbert (though rarely do anymore, because he's trying to join the tennis establishment):"(Federer's) not the best player ever, by a long shot, yet. You face him against the likes of Jimmy Connors and I don't know that he's going to beat Jimmy Connors for two reasons here (Wilander points to groin)
Unless something really stupid happens, the final will be a match for the ages. Believe it. I'm gonna put a nickel on Nadal in this one. The grass court skills were the missing piece last year, and look at what he's done in one year. He's not a headcase, he has a work ethic that just won't quit, he's healthy and he works like a mule, all the time. In short, even if you don't look at his record vs. Federer, if you looked at it in the abstract and considered what it would take for a hypothetical player to beat Federer, the answer you'd probably come up with is excellence combined with consistency -- and that's exactly what Nadal is bringing. The women's final should also be pretty goddamn good. I'm pulling for Mauresmo all the way, but I'd put money on Henin-Hardenne.
I predict that in the first set Nadal is going to be uncharacteristically nervous, because he's always said that is was dream of his to make it to the Wimbledon final. But then he'll pull it together and make a run at it. I still think Federer will be too much for him on grass in the end. For now.
Ha ha ha . After all this talk about Federer being the greatest of all time, and how Nadal still needs time to learn the game of tennis on grass, we finally, earlier than expected, come to the moment where we can separate the reality from all the hypothetical bullshit that the tennis experts and commentators have given us the past two weeks. Nadal has shown tenacity and a strong will to learn the game of tennis no matter what surface. Except for McEnroe, none of the other commentators have really been champions so how can they pretend to know the heart of a champion. Nadal will show on Sunday that he is on his way to becoming one of the greatest tennis players of all time, no matter what surface. He will destroy Federer!
I love it when new players erupt into the top 10 and suddenly start beating everybody. I live in Spain so I've been on to Nadal ever since he won his first French Open, it seems that people in the rest of the world are just starting to take him seriously. Word in the Spanish Tennis press is that Nadal and his team are all business, hyper-focused on improving Rafa's game on other surfaces and anybody who's paying attention can see that Nadal has that something special, that champion's heart, that seperates the real hall of famer's (Connors, Sampras, McEnroe, Borg, Lendl, Agassi, etc.) from other great players. They just want it more. Whatever happens tomorrow, expect big things from Nadal and from this rivalry in the next few years.
Its a shame that these two guys do nothing for me. There is no way in hell I am going to watch. A martian could land on the grass court and I would't even change the channel to look.
Thanks for dropping by to share that with us, jackass.
Here I thought this was going to be the first SpoFi thread ever without a dickhead making a stupid comment. Here's another interesting article on Federer/Nadal.
It's not ashamed that these two do nothing for you Big Dookie, it's a shame that you even took time to share your thought to us tennis enthusiasts. Well I guess each to his own, whatever yours is.
Now, now, WLC...perhaps Big Dookie is a tennis enthusiast who's just in a state of severe pout because his/her favorite player didn't make the final. Out with it, O Craptastic One: who would have got your motor running in the final?
