Wimbledon
Jul 6, 2008 at 8:18 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 23

argentum

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Great game Rafi
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. I hope he wins US Open as well. Would be great year for Nadal.
 
Jul 6, 2008 at 8:50 PM Post #4 of 23
Amazing game, amazing comeback from federer after being two sets down. It could have gone either way up until the last ball. I can't believe Nadal is only 22, there is a lot of great years in front of him.
 
Jul 6, 2008 at 9:09 PM Post #6 of 23
It lacked only one thing from being one of the greatest matches ever........Federer lost.
 
Jul 6, 2008 at 9:28 PM Post #7 of 23
This was at least one of, if not the best final that I have seen, and that includes all the Borg / Connors / McEnroe etc. era finals. I was pulling for Federer to win, but it was so close and both played so well that there really wasn't a loser.
 
Jul 6, 2008 at 10:05 PM Post #8 of 23
Epic match. Absolutely deserved, given the talent of both players coming into the match. One of the best tennis matches I've ever seen, truly epic.

I'd absolutely love to see Federer take the French next year, but if I'm being pragmatic, I'd say that this is a changing of the guard. Nadal is going to be the man to beat from now onwards.
 
Jul 6, 2008 at 10:40 PM Post #9 of 23
Quote:

Originally Posted by stewtheking /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Epic match. Absolutely deserved, given the talent of both players coming into the match. One of the best tennis matches I've ever seen, truly epic.


x2

It was such a close match in the end. Either could've won it to be honest...
 
Jul 6, 2008 at 10:48 PM Post #10 of 23
Im so glad Federer didn't win. He is a fantastic player, but half the time he not a very fun player to watch. That and after 5 years in a row, it gets a little old. At least there is some decent competition out there from him. One of the best games i've ever seen, and im betting there will be many more to come.

Federer beat Nadal on clay? Hmmm, im not so sure!
 
Jul 6, 2008 at 11:07 PM Post #11 of 23
I have to say, that as someone who finds televised tennis to be on the middle rungs for sportign entertainment, partly because of the manner in which the game in played in the current day that I found myself sucked into this final far more than I had expected.

I favoured Federer from the off, I thought that his greater experience and his utter raw talent, which I think, still, perhaps, to be more rounded than Nadals, would see him through to match Bjorn or Sampras in the Wimbledon legend stakes, he was however, ultimately outplayed in a match which I found highly intellectually stimulating if not emotionally involving over the four venue in which I saw it played in various stages.

I saw some of the opening game at home, and saw a large chunk up until rain stopped play at the Kennoway retirement home where my grandfather and his brother are resident. Our visit utterly overshadoed by the growing communal engrossing that we shared in the possibilyt of a Nadal PWN victory, to be haulted by the stoppage of rain. Upon which we went back home.

My parents 30th wedding anniversary is today, and as such we after sorting out back at the house went down to the Railway Inn in Largo for a few rounds prior to pub dinner at the Crusoe Hotel. During the time there we saw Federer pull back to level pegging with the potent Spaniard in some astonishing and sometimes flabbergastingly 0o0o0o0o ahHahHAAAHhHAahhhhhhhhhhhhhh gameplay.

The match was sealed however during the end of our main course at the crusoe and I jumped through to the main bar to see Federer holding trophy shield and raise my hands in exhaultation and the sight of his victory onto to be immediately brought back down to earth by the reveltion that he was in fact letting the title pass to his rival Nadal. Upon the news of which I promptly thumped my skull agsint the wooden door frame, my hopes for Federer and his legend status somewhat dissolved.

Still, nobody can argue that the match today ranks, not amoung the very very greats of sporting history (I am thinking Ali vs Foreman Rumble in the Jungle, Roger Bannisters 4 minute mile, or the 5th Gold medal for Sir Steve Redgrave in the olympic rowing, or Maradonas hand of god goal) however the match, for its utter gritty play, its gripping even-matchedness and its sportmanship and tension to be at the very least ranked up there with the 1985 Snooker Crucible final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor, or to keep the sport to to tennis, the victory for Boris Becker at Wimbledon aged 17.

Either way, either or, and or but. A fabulous bit of sport between two gentlemen at top prowess and form and the very best in nailbiting nerves in many occassions.

Congratulations to Nadal, he may not have been my choice, but by the Gods below, he earned it.
 
Jul 7, 2008 at 4:14 AM Post #12 of 23
So here is now something that must be addressed:

Will Nadal be the greater champion in the end? Nadal has five slams: four French, one Wimbeldon. That's almost half of Fed's total. But Nadal is much, much younger. I think Nadal could get eight or nine French titles, easily. Seriously, who can touch him there? Nobody. Throw in a few more Wimbeldons, and he's there. What still remains is whether he can win on the other two surfaces. Will he go down as the more spectacular player? No, because Fed dominated on more surfaces, and his game is more elegant. But in terms of Grand Slams, it is possible.
 
Jul 7, 2008 at 8:13 AM Post #14 of 23
Quote:

Originally Posted by aaron313 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
So here is now something that must be addressed:

Will Nadal be the greater champion in the end? Nadal has five slams: four French, one Wimbeldon. That's almost half of Fed's total. But Nadal is much, much younger. I think Nadal could get eight or nine French titles, easily. Seriously, who can touch him there? Nobody. Throw in a few more Wimbeldons, and he's there. What still remains is whether he can win on the other two surfaces. Will he go down as the more spectacular player? No, because Fed dominated on more surfaces, and his game is more elegant. But in terms of Grand Slams, it is possible.




If his knees hold up...which, hopefully they will.


And kudos to Laura Robson. Wins the youth champs & asks Safin for a date.
Cool young lady.
 
Jul 7, 2008 at 11:51 AM Post #15 of 23
''In 2001, Wimbledon tore out all its courts and planted a new variety of groundcover. The new grass was 100% perennial rye; the old courts had been a mix of 70% rye and 30% creeping red fescue. The new lawn was more durable, and allowed Wimbledon's groundsmen to keep the soil underneath drier and firmer. A firmer surface causes the ball to bounce higher. A high bounce is anathema to the serve-and-volley player, who relies on approach shots skidding low through the court. What's more, rye, unlike fescue, grows in tufts that stand straight up; these tufts slow a tennis ball down as it lands.''
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"There was a time when clay-court [specialists] wouldn't even make the trip [to England]," Bjorkman said after losing to Nadal at the Artois Championships, a warm-up event for Wimbledon. "Now they hardly even need to adjust their game."
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''So while its appeal hasn't changed, so much else about grass-court tennis has. By tradition, almost everything on Centre Court is painted green during Wimbledon — including the grass, which groundsmen sprinkle with iron to enhance its look. The exceptions are the players' uniforms, which must be white. The scenery, which evokes pristine figures at play in a paradise, is misleading. For as the new type of grass shows, tennis players are more beholden to the earth than that timeless image suggests.''


From: At Wimbledon, It's the Grass Stupid - TIME

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The slower grass decision...hum....Even Becker would have gotten a few blood transfusions (for injuries to his knees) after that kind of encounter...
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So close but so far at the same time. At least Roger went a few strategic times at the net but obviously he was so tense he missed even the rare easy ones he had.

Yep I feared that Nadal's backhand would do that kind of damage....
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His crosscourt angles were beyond impressives. If only for that he deserves his victory.

Another positive note: Borg can still sleep peacefully with his 5 times record.

Amicalement


PS
I'm glad I stopped teaching tennis long ago...I assume that many of my one handed backhand students would have asked for a refund....
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