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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Fed's Jinx

If someone asks you what did you remember most about the Australian open 2007?
Answers will mainly concentrate on Federer winning it again, that too without losing a set. Someone might even mention Roddick mauling. But mostly it will be fed’s dominance which would make most of the answers.
But one thing which still reverberates through my head were the following words of Tennis Australia’s president (or whoever he may be):: “Roger All the Best for the French Open”.
And man he lost it. Now I didn’t watch even single point of the match, but still let’s try to analyze his defeat (we Indians are best in this stuff….courtesy our masaledaar news channel, which are master of analyzing)::
1.Starts with reality, Nadal is a good player of clay infact one of the best ever to play on clay. He returns every thing with lots of top spin, which is usually difficult to control on clay.
2.Federer has ClaNadophobia, which in simple words can be described as “Fear of Nadal on Clay”. Before the start of French open I thought that win in Hamburg probably might have erased that fear, but unfortunately he remains “ClaNadophobic” as before.
3.Having covered the psychological aspect, let’s explore a bit of tennis reasons also. Federer whenever he play against Nadal on clay has this tendency to finish of the point early , going for the winners , which more often than not results in huge amount of unforced error. This psyche is mainly the creation of Nadal’s great athleticism and slowness of clay, which makes shot making much easier than the faster surface.

So one more year gone. One more chance gone. Federer will most probably win the rest 2 grand slam rather comfortably, but at every award ceremony people will keep reminding him that one elusive thing still remains, by wishing him good luck.
That is why someone has said “Greatness of a person is not judged by the amount of success you achieved but by the limited number failures u have got”.

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7 comments:

giri said...

nice post.....i have a question.....who is the best tennis player ever??.....both men and women

saurabh said...

federer if he plays like that for 3-4 years more.he may have got advantage due to lack of good rivalry.

nitesh said...

nice phobia

Raja said...

@giri--well its difficult to comapre, but since 90 whenn i start watching tennis...it has to be either sampras or federer...on pure tennis term it is fed..he is more fun to watch...and more dominating also...but as chotu says lack of quality opposition..u dont find him being stretched for 5 sets..while sampras played in an era,,which consist of the most talented tennis players to have play the game...
on womens side steffi graf was most complete player..thr were lot of other players alo..but henin might come close to her..becoz of her extraordinary backhand...

Gravity said...

Well I hvn't seen Borg's game but has read quite a bit abt him and his style was quite different frm those in his era and with great record on both clay and grass I think he will hv an edge over FedEx.

saurabh said...

federer's record is not bad on clay.though he needs to win all important french open but reachin 2 consecutive finals there is not easy.lets see with how much grand slams he ends his career.

Ketan said...

Good post Raja!

As you said, since 1990 two players look like 'complete' players - Sampras and Federer! But Federer has something more! The control he has is just amazing. It is true that these days hardly anyone knows all the guys from Top 10, but this is also true that he has some 5K point advantage over Roddick who is by no means lesser to the top players from 90s!
Although u didn't see the match u summed it up nicely, federer lost because of his own fears more than Nadal's brilliance that day!