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2012-01-30 15:12:51
There is a time and a place for humility and demureness. Moments where you quietly let a situation speak for itself and hope other people get it. This isn’t it. I am about to brag about tennis in the most boastful way possible. Unapologetically.
See, the Australian Open final, that epic nearly 6-hour, history-making encounter, is what sports is all about. Not just tennis. Not Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. ALL of sports. Forget the mechanics. Yes, I know it was Djokovic’s return alone that tipped the scales for him. That’s another blog for another day. And yes, I think that the next time they meet, Nadal is probably going to win (seems like I’m going to be doing a lot of blogging this week).
But this entry isn’t to dissect the new greatest match of all time. It’s simply a celebration of the very best tennis has to offer. And frankly? Our best is better than everyone else’s best. Period.
This match was a battle in every way. The result hinged, swinging back and forth one way than another on single points. What might have happened if Nadal hadn’t missed the easy backhand up the line up 4-2 and 30-15 in the fifth set? How much shorter (and less epic) would the match have been if Djokovic hadn’t missed long on set point in the fourth set breaker? What might have happened if Nadal had converted on break point with Djokovic serving for the match?
These two men are warriors in the way that only a one-on-one sport can allow. There were no teammates to sub in when Nole’s legs looked like they were encased in cement. There was no respite to the mental exhaustion of having to play point in and point out for nearly 6 hours. There was nobody to carry the weight of expectation of an increasingly frenzied crowd. Just them.
And yet despite the exhaustion, the missed chances, the rain delay, the hours and hours on court, they continued to hammer away at the baseline. A point here, a return winner there, a service break, a break back, all leading up to a dazzling crescendo.
Rafael Nadal once said that he felt he didn’t suffer enough in his recent losses to Djokovic. That he didn’t lay everything on the line. This time there was enough suffering to go around for both men. In the end it wasn’t their legs that kept them moving, it was their hearts. Need proof? Go back and watch them try to stand still for the trophy ceremony. They were literally falling over from exhaustion.
This was a win for Novak Djokovic. Perhaps the greatest of his entire career and it was certainly the hardest I’ve ever seen him fight. He is a credit to the sport and as worthy a world No. 1 as we’ve ever had.
But it was a win for Rafael Nadal also. For some players, this kind of loss would be the sort of crushing defeat from which they would never recover. You work so hard to give yourself a chance and you miss it? How do you move on from that? But the beauty of Rafa Nadal is that he is an optimist deep down to his core. And if history is anything to go by (Wimbledon 2007 anyone?), he’ll recognize that his willingness to fight his hardest resulted in something he hasn’t had in a while – the chance to win.
I would like to personally say thank you to both men for demonstrating the magnificence of our sport. For being fierce competitors on court and good friends off. For putting on an operatic drama with a pair of tennis rackets. For having the courage to fight past pain and exhaustion. You are both winners in my book.
Comment | 111 comments
2012-01-22 02:28:51
Bad calls happen. We all know this. It’s woven into the fabric of tennis because we use humans as lines people and chair umpires. Listen to Serena Williams talk about it if you want a REALLY interesting and...er... colorful dissertation on the topic. It’s not always the stuff of cloaks and daggers. Sometimes umpires just....get it wrong.
It isn’t very often that they get it wrong twice in about 15 seconds though. To use the common vernacular (while keeping in mind that we prefer not to use profanity on TennisTalk), David Nalbandian got hung out to dry. Taken for a ride. Cheated. Other apropos profanity.
To be fair to Kader Nouni, I doubt if he has a personal vendetta against Nalbs. I mean, I TRULY believe he thought Isner’s serve was in when he overruled the linesperson at a critical juncture of the match even though it was pretty clearly out. And he probably didn’t realize that the way he was whispering into the microphone meant that there was almost no chance that ANYONE, including Nalby, Isner, the crowd and the television viewing audience heard that he overruled over the loud cheering/gasping of the crowd.
All of that would have been forgivable (I guess) because we have the CHALLENGE SYSTEM. The very protection players have against such...misunderstandings. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out either, which is where the eyerolling stops and the outrage starts. Once Nalbandian finally realized that Nouni had overruled the lines person, he tried to challenge. A challenge that would have revealed that Nouni was completely wrong. Only he wasn’t allowed to. “Too late” Nouni chirped.
So Nalby lost the game, he lost the match and he was rightly furious. Heck, I was furious for him. Well, apparently when he went to the locker room, he was beset upon by somebody waiting to give him a drug test. After said test, Mr. Nalbandian was washing his hands and was accused of throwing water on an ATP assistant.
What? $8000 because somebody got wet? With some water???? Nalbandian says, “I strongly deny throwing water at an ATP assistant after the match against Isner. While he found me washing my hands during the anti-doping test, unbelievably the doctor in charge accused me of throwing water at him.”
Now, I wasn’t in the men’s locker room during David Nalbandian’s drug test, so I can’t say for sure, but it doesn’t sound like he took a bucket, filled it with icy water and doused anyone. Sounds to me like he was shaking his hands a little too vigorously after he washed them (he was livid after all) and got somebody wet. Okay, so not particularly nice. But $8000? Seriously? For a guy that just got cheated on the court? Marcos Baghdatis snaps 4 rackets on a changeover and gets an $800 fine and Nalbs gets this?
Outrageous and embarrassing, that’s what this is.
Comment | 6 comments
2012-01-17 02:06:55
Contrary to what seems to have been reported, Sunday January 15, 2012 was NOT tennis Armageddon. It wasn’t even cataclysmically bad like the scheduling of the US Open. It’s just that Rafael Nadal dared to criticize Roger Federer. It was a pretty slight criticism, all things considered, with Nadal stating that His Excellency prefers to let other players take the heat for saying that things need to change with the way the ATP runs the show (to keep his reputation untarnished).
This probably wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow, except that Rafael Nadal said it and he did so to the press. It’s not like the guy said, “The next time I see Roger Federer, I’m going to punch him in the face.” THAT would have been news.
But there IS something here that should be explored -- and it’s not the fact that Rafa Nadal actually got frustrated enough to say something interesting in a presser. As you all know by now, Roger is the president of the players council. He is also a traditionalist in just about every respect I can think of. He likes the status quo. He wants all white at Wimbledon. No, he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty helping to bite the hand that feeds him. And I really don’t see this as a problem.
It would be HORRIBLE to have somebody inflammatory in the role of president. Yes, his job is to advocate on behalf of the players, but it’s also to know which battles to pick. He can’t go to the ATP every time a player has a complaint about the size and thickness of the changeover chairs. And the players obviously trusted the guy to do that for them or they wouldn’t have elected him.
Here’s the rub. When is it time to muddy the water a little bit? And over what issues? If we are to view this from Rafael Nadal and Nikolay Davydenko’s angle, Roger is simply being too nice and he’s not fighting hard enough for players rights. And perhaps Federer HAS been too conservative. It’s hard to guess since I haven’t sat in on any of the meetings. More likely though, it’s that they are coming at the issue from VERY different places. And BOTH views are legitimate.
Nadal’s body takes a beating due to his playing style. ATP requirements for top players are difficult at best and the season is ridiculously long. Also, Rafa has plenty of lower-ranked buddies who barely manage to eke a living on the circuit. He’d know that the prize money isn’t good enough for the “little” guys. There is honest-to-goodness cause for complaint on these issues.
Federer, conversely, doesn’t abuse his body with his style of play and he is meticulously selective about the tournaments he commits to, often forgoing Davis Cup and other non-mandatory events so that he doesn’t push himself too hard. He is also old and wise enough to understand that the ATP would be staring down lawsuit after lawsuit (Hamburg anyone?) if they messed around with the schedule too much. It is perfectly understandable that Fed doesn’t storm into Brad Drewett’s office demanding immediate changes.
These issues have to be carefully considered. So prize money isn’t good enough. I agree! But is a player like Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who regularly sees the business end of a tournament, going to agree with a guy like James Ward about the appropriate divvying of said funds? Probably not. It’s nigh impossible to make everyone happy.
And Rafa wants a 2-year ranking system...now, I don’t normally say this about Rafa, but that idea is a tad self-serving. It certainly wouldn’t have helped Alex Dolgopolov or Milos Raonic. And I can guarantee that Bernard Tomic would NOT be supporting Nadal in that petition either. If Rafa got his way on that, it wouldn’t be helping “the players” it would be helping Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer and company only.
Too many journalists have accused Nadal of making baseless accusations. I don’t view them as accusations at all and they surely aren’t baseless. He spoke out of frustration, which he has since said he regrets. NOT because his opinion isn’t valid but because it would have been more appropriate to do it behind closed doors. But that doesn’t mean it was wrong for him to bring it up.
Comment | 65 comments
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