(Maher Style :))
Yeah, this is my very own US Open Series here….
New Rule: People should quit questioning if Federer is the best tennis player to ever walk the earth. He IS!
The only thing the commentators had against Federer today was that he usually has double the winners as errors and today he didn’t. The moment they start comparing a player to himself you know it’s cos there’s no one else to compare him to.
That said, all credit to Hewitt who played a sensational match today (especially that 9-deuce game which he eventually won) to make a pretty laudable match-up against the grand slam man….
Ok, for all those Federer skeptics still remaining (no more than a very resistant 5%, I bet), Roger offered too many reasons this match to not believe he’s pure genius:
Trying to get out of a break point in the first set where he showcased a volley, a drop, a forehand winner and a backhand slice all in the span of a minute between points… Paraphrasing McEnroe --- Ok, I showed you this shot and this one. Let me now show you this :)
The 21 shot rally when Hewitt had a set point in the second set.. Predictably that ended with Lleyton missing a forehand winner and Federer went on to win that game after saving 3 set points…
He came back from 15-40 at least twice on his serve, incredibly brushing off any whiff of a chance Lleyton had to get back into the match.
An effortless 7-0 in the tiebreak!! And with Hewitt in top form, no less.. Has ANYone ever done that at that stage in a grand slam, between two top seeds?
Mute point. Roger’s done a lot no one has ever done…
Egotism ....a lifelong romance
Saturday, September 10, 2005
New Rule!
Posted by Karthika at Saturday, September 10, 2005
Labels: Keeping the Eye on the ball
6 comments:
I agree. This was a tremendous match - I actually enjoyed sitting and watching a full-length tennis match after years. Considering Federer was nowhere near his best - particularly his erroneous backhand - he played some unbelieveable points. I think McEnroe used the words "languid", "effortless" and "careless" at one point, and it summed up everything. I think two shots stood out for me. One was the whipping backhand shot hit with ferocious power kissing the side line as well as the baseline. Another was a stunning cross court dipping forehand from behind the baseline that whizzed past Hewitt. The latter seems to be one of his favorite shots (he hit a few of those I believe) and the precision with which he hit was awesome. There was also a brilliant rally where both exchanged some amazing volleys, but Federer had the last laugh when he reached for an almost impossible backhand slice volley, and finished the point in great style.
Hopefully Agassi will atleast make it a 5-setter, with some help from the crowd, as McEnroe pointed out.
isn't he the best?
yeah, he's raised the bar sooooo unbelievably high that all the other players are raising their levels in a way i have never seen before --- esp if you had seen last year's US open final where roger beat hewitt 6-0, 7-6, 6-0, you'd say hewitt was playing his best tennis. Roger was jus too good for him. ditto with his match against safin in last year's Oz and against Andy in this year's W.
yeah that rally was incredible! yeah federer almost always has an unbelievable amount of backhand winners and that was surprising. and can you believe that McEnroe almost never says a bad thing about Roger? His voice is usually dripping with awe for Federer, for good reason!
You can imagine jus how much below his level he was playing. So much below that he won 7-0 in the tiebreaker and has conceded an unbelievable two sets in the tournament so far :)
Hell, I could go on and on...
In any case, I do believe Agassi has a chance if he can take the match to five sets cos Roger is not used to long matches (as he usually disposes off his opponents in an hour and half) plus he is clearly not playing his best and he played the later match today so has less time to recuperate.
But Roger has an unbelievable record in grand slam finals, has won 6 of the last matches against Andre and ....is not human :) So, let's jus wait and see...
I watched the Agassi- Federer final and I must say, Federer fell way short of my expectations.
I cannot understand how people can compare him to Sampras. [Obviously Andre knows what he's talking about, but then Pete has whooped his ass in about 3 finals, so he needs to shut up].
Federer was VERY ordinary in his play and he was struggling against Agassi's change of pace especially in the 2nd and 3rd sets.Geez - how many times did he get his service broken? 4 times?
Sampras would have served 3 aces, and 2 service winners from 0-40 down but not Roger Federer.
Granted, he did manage to switch gears and finally beat Agassi, but it was not as convincing as his wins against opponents of lesser quality.
I still maintain that if Safin gets healthy and gets his serve to click, Federer will have a tough time playing him.
There is just no way Sampras would have allowed Agassi to get to him and cause frustration the way Federer did.
Shows that there are cracks under the surface, and it will take the sheer genius and firepower of a Safin to expose them.
Until then Federer can continue to marvel at his ability to just 'know' where his opponent is going to hit, and still walk around, clueless as Agassi hits the corners.
granted, federer wasn't playing his absolute best yesterday and actually in this entire Open, and yes he seemed pretty vulnerable against agassi last night and if not for his first serve percentage he may have lost the match.
another thing is he is not used to more than 3 sets and he gets a little off balance when he realizes he has lost a set.
that said, your comparison is unfair. I am as great an admirer of Pete Sampras as any, but let's remember that Sampras (like Federer) was only that invincible on grass. He has lost relatively easily to both safin and hewitt here at the hard courts of flushing and his only loss to agassi in a slam was at the other hard court --the Oz open. roger on the other hand has consistently beat Hewitt on hard courts in straight sets and his match up against safin in hard court gand slams is probably 50-50, if i remember right. and he has also consistently disposed of agassi at Melbourne and the US open
Having last seen Roger at Wimbledon, I think we kind of expect to see the same infallibility that we saw with him on grass (his win over Roddick was absolutely stunning). His backhand slice doesnt quite make it on the hard court and his serve and volley is a little weaker here. but other than that, it is still pretty amazing for a player to win 7 out of 8 points on a tiebreak, when he is clearly destabilized, dont you think?
Sampras may not have found himself in the rut roger did, but only cos it is really hard to penetrate his service games. i thought roger desserved all credit yesterday for the almost flawless service games---not quite matchable to sampras, but then sampras doesnt have his all-court coverage or his laudable baseline play. my advice to roger would be to play less serve-volley and more baseline on hard courts and stick to chip and charging on grass...
that said, i think Roger will emerge to be as invincible on a hard court as he is on grass, a feat Sampras, with his predominantly serve and volley style could never accomplish.
Interesting that you talk about Sampras having difficulty facing Hewitt & Safin.When he came up against them, he was nearing the end of his career, especially in 2000 when he lost to Safin. Safin played a near error-free game and that got him the victory.
However, Federer is still at his prime - and Sampras had his fair share of greats that he beat on his way to the 14 Grand slams.
US Open 1990 : Defeated Ival Lendl (who had previously reached the US Open Finals 8 consecutive times), Andre Agassi in the finals.
Wimbledon 93: Defeated Jim Courier in the Finals
Wimbledon 95: Defeated Boris Becker, one of the all-time grass court champions.
US Open 95: Defeated Andre Agassi at his peak.
Those were the dominant players of that era, and Sampras has consistently beaten them all.
I also noted Federer's style of play. Definitely not quite as fluid as Sampras.
The chip N charge looks rather weak to watch.
I think if he came in more, he might be able to add a little more variety to his game, especially on hard courts. He seemed so fallible against the change of pace that Agassi produced yesterday, and I'm sure several players are already taking note.
The one thing that Federer seems to be gifted with is timing, and the ability to hit different shots, spins & angles without any observable change in racket position.
That I think is what has carried him so far.
sure, but those are the only players that have played both roger and pete. and pete was certainly in top form in the 2000 US open. He'd beaten rafter in an absolutely incredible W final jus three months before --- incidentally one of the best tennis matches i have ever watched.
and the important thing is, in the matches i mention pete lost in straight sets, almost easily; Roger lost to safin this year at the OZ open, but he had a matchpoint before he lost. and his performance against nadal was admirable at least...(i am not questioning Sampras' run on grass at all; i still think he is the unbeatable god of grasscourt tennis).
you say that federer has only one thing ---timing and the variety of his shots (which in itself is a lot more than one and which defines his game), though i could add a lot more to that --- his serve and volley, while not perfected on hard courts, is incredible on grass, and his groundstrokes are absolutely powerful, making his baseline play very hard to beat. and he is an amazing returner.
Sampras, on the other hand, had one thing -- a powerful ace and a great serve-volley style. Because of that Pete might remain the best ever on grass (though Roger is fast catching up), but Roger could do that well both on grass and hard courts, in which case he will leave sampras far behind.
And it is hard to be "fluid" when you vary your style so much with every shot and every game and when you have an arsenal of shots to choose from. playing becomes that much harder bcos you have so many options. In fact you visibly saw in certain shots on sunday that Roger wasn't sure which of his amazing array to use. To Sampras the answer was pretty simple -- running forehand or slice backhand...
I worshipped Sampras but I do think now, watching Federer that he had more of a one-dimensional game...Federer does EVERY thing right given a racket and a ball...
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