Roger Federer

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Fed presser 2

52 Comments on Roger Federer

  1. This is fantastic! I can totally relate to this Fedfan’s fandom, mine being with respect to Rafa of course:

    http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/may/24/roger-federer-and-me-william-skidelsky-extract-tennis-memoir

    “As a consequence of taking up tennis again, I became more susceptible to the allure of Federer. I started paying closer attention to his results and I couldn’t help but notice how phenomenally successful he was being.”

    “I asked him who, of today’s top players, he particularly admired. He told me he’d recently been on some practice courts near Federer and he couldn’t believe how good he was. As he spoke, awe entered his voice and his eyes acquired a faraway look. Increasingly, I realised, this was how Federer was being viewed. He was becoming a figure of legend, almost a god.”

    The obligatory jab at Rafa, but of course, juxtaposed against Fed’s genius:

    “Wallace’s basic contention was that men’s tennis had, for the previous few decades, been moving in a linear direction. Thanks to a combination of composite rackets, related changes in technique and advances in athleticism, a single style had come to dominate the sport. This style – the “power baseline” game – was, as its name suggested, based on hitting the ball with tremendous power (and copious topspin) from the back of the court. According to Wallace, it was Lendl who had pioneered the style in the 80s, in the 90s players like Agassi and Courier had raised it to new heights and, more recently, Rafa Nadal had taken it “just as far as it goes”. The problem with the power baseline style, Wallace suggested, wasn’t that it was inherently boring but it was “somewhat static and limited” and, if it were to prove the “evolutionary end-point of tennis”, that would be a problem for the game.

    Federer, however, had shown another way forward. He had introduced – or rather, reintroduced – elements such as subtlety and variety, an “ability to read and manipulate opponents, to mix spins and speeds, to misdirect and surprise, to use tactical foresight and peripheral vision”. Yet the point about Federer – and here was Wallace’s kicker – was that he could do all those things while also being a “first-rate, kickass power-baseliner”. He had demonstrated a new way of playing tennis that was as attractive as it was effective, and had done so from within the modern game. “He is Mozart and Metallica and the combination is somehow wonderful.””

    Amen.

    • ^^Could this be the reason they line up all those cupcakes tournament draw time? Don’t answer that: #rhetorical

  2. Question for anyone except hawkeye (who knows this answer cold).

    There is a pro tennis player of the same age as Roger who currently has 20 slam victories, despite some years of injuries, and continues to go strong.

    Who?

      • yes

        Still bears repeating I think.

        Because somehow the stats for men seem to be spoken about so often as if there were no women on earth. I mean no women champions with unbelievable records, including several women whose records eclipse the men’s records.

      • Serena is a TRUE GOAT bar none. And she ain’t done yet………………..and oh, she ain’t the leader on the money leaderboard! Somehow, I have a feeling she doesn’t care about that.

    • No. It doesn’t count because women’s tennis is a joke. Interestingly, the same fans celebrating here are the ones discounting some men for a “weak era.” If there was ever a weak era, it was in women’s tennis. And I’d say pretty much every one knows that. Besides, the lack of variety in women’s tennis is even more stark than that of the men. It’s women like Navratilova, Evert, Graf and even Seles that I think of when I see GOAT discussions (though it is not a concept that I personally put much premium on). Serena is still phenomenal but faced with little to no variation.

  3. Ahhh, the federazzi…

    (I betcha even gussiebot doesn’t have a Rafa tattoo.)

    Yet even among that globe-spanning cross-section of humanity, Michele Drohan, a Massachusetts native and Manhattan resident who has never set foot in Switzerland nor spoken with Federer face-to-face, says she “automatically wins any contest in which someone tells me they’re a bigger Federer fan.” Her trump card? The “RF” logo she has tattooed on the inside of her left wrist.

    “I got it the day Fed won the French Open in 2009,” she says, while admitting that a celebratory beverage or two may have played a role in the decision. “My friends and family actually think it’s great, or so they say. Of course, there are a few people who think it’s nuts.”

    “We might also need to investigate Brazil. After visiting the country for the first time, in 2012, Federer told the Swiss paper Tages Anzeiger, “I met more fans that collapsed in tears than elsewhere. It was amazing how many were shaking. I had to practically take them in my arms and say, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’”

    “Roger, yes, he’s a god in France,” says Carole Bouchard, a freelance tennis writer who was formerly with the French sports daily L’Equipe. “His elegance speaks to classic tennis fans. We cut off our king’s head, but we’re still deeply attached to traditions.” At Roland Garros in 2012, Federer screamed at his Parisian faithful to “Shut up!” and stop distracting him. But they went right on paying tribute to their god.”

    http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2015/06/swiss-army/55285/#.VYiX8utqrXV

    • June 22, 2015 at 11:29 pm,
      —At Roland Garros in 2012, Federer screamed at his Parisian FAITHFUL to “Shut up!” and stop distracting him. —
      =======================================================
      OMG! There are media makers who are doing whatever to put Fed on a pedestal and rescue him. In 2012 at Roland Garros, Fed screamed ‘Shut up!’ after he hit the ball into the net and the spectators cheered on his opponent (Delpo). Two years later (or maybe already earlier) , Mr.Tignor made up a fake story that Fed screamed at the crowd because he was distracted “by their oohs and aahs” (i.e. because of their worship!!!). 😆 😆 😆 And he shamelessly keeps this fake story alive! OMG! OMG! OMG!

      • Pro-Fed people are ignoring the facts, constructing their “interpretations” and hoping that “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Nothing new! 😆

      • ed (at 2:15 pm),

        Mr. S. Tignor doesn’t argue that Fed screamed at the crowd to “Shut up!”, but he made up a fake story that Fed screamed BECAUSE he was distracted “by their oohs and aahs” (i.e. because of their worship!!!): “Ironically, it was Federer, distracted by their oohs and aahs in Lenglen, who screamed at the crowd to “Shut up!” two years ago [2012].

      • Ed, yes that is the case and is what Tignor said.

        Federer made it quite clear that he was yelling at the woman that prematurely called the ball out.

        What is he going to do? Stop mid-point and yell out?

        Only one person I’m aware of claims to think otherwise, a comical but delusional interpretation.

        Nothing new.

      • hawkeye, Tignor’s opinion doesn’t make it fact. Gussie has as much right to her opinion as you or Tignor. It doesn’t make her delusional or comical. From an impartial viewing of the video, all we can make out is that Fed looks nasty when yelling ” shut up”.

      • Of course Mary everyone has a right to their opinion (didn’t say otherwise), as is augustroll’s right to her opinion that Tignor and others are lying. All I said is that

        And my right to think that it is both comical and delusional.

        All I said is that only one person that I’m aware of believes that Federer yelled shut-up because spectators cheered his opponent after the point had ended. That IMO is comical and delusional.

        Please point out where I said Tignor’s opinion was fact. On the contrary Mary, I can point out where someone said it was a lie.

        No one disagrees (even Federer) that he looked nasty when yellng “shut up”. I’d be interested in knowing who thought otherwise.

      • June 23, 2015 at 3:17 pm,
        —Please point out where I said Tignor’s opinion was fact.—
        ===================================================

        I’m curious to know what you are arguing about, if Tignor’s opinion/story is not a fact!

      • June 23, 2015 at 3:17 pm,
        —All I said is that only one person that I’m aware of believes that Federer yelled shut-up because spectators cheered his opponent after the point had ended. —
        ===================================
        Fed is yelling ‘Shut up” after the point has ended and the spectators are cheering his opponent…:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd_ISSzxyZk
        .
        …not because he was distracted “by their OOHS and AAHS” (i.e. because of their worship!)

  4. Since Ricky is Tardy again with anything about Wimbly, I shall put My Wimbly Draw Eve predictions here, on Roger’s page relatively Twit I mean tweet noise free.

    With Andy “randomly” placed in Novak’s half and many players from Roger’s “era” in his quarter, I put Roger as the favourite for his 18th.

    Put two or more of Rosol, Isner, Karlovic and Kyrgios in Rafa’s first four rounds just for insurance.

    If the organizers can find a way to rig rain to close the roof, they will do that too.

    Remember, the player that draws the tags does NOT see the contents on that tag but hands it over to an illusionist I mean tournament official before it is read.

    Luck of the draw has nothing to do with it.

    Let’s see what shakes out in the AM shall we?

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