July 6th 2008....there were 2 big sporting events on....the Asia Cup final between India and Sri Lanka and the big Wimbledon final between the world's 2 best players, Nadal and Federer(In that order, on current form). And believe me, i enjoyed and had more nerves watching the wimbledon final, despite being an ardent cricket fan.
Its been a week since then...so just a look back on that memorable sporting evening....
India lost to Srilanka, rather to Ajantha Mendis, who will be walloped all over the park very soon, once he comes against the the better batsmen around the world.At the same time, final of "the championships" was hotting up.....
Nadal,obviously not my favorite,had snatched two sets from the Swiss genius Federer,after the latter led 4-1 in the second set. I gave up hope on Federer unless he could break Nadal's service,which he did only once all the match.But he had other ideas.To hold his serve,which was working magic for him and strike back in the tie-breaker.He won two tie breaks and it was 2-2 duece in the final set on Federer's serve,when rain interrupted again.To be frank, rain helped Roger get back on track when he was leading 5-4 in the 3rd set, with 2 sets down.With nerve wracking tennis in store, i went to sleep at 0030 hrs, simply hoping Federer's service and forehand would win him the title.But next morning, i only woke up to see the bad news on TV.Nadal had ended Federer's winning streak at Wimbledon and on grass.!!!!!
It was so heartbreaking......Kudos to nadal anyways for the victory. I was so disgusted that i asked my pro-nadal room mates to switch channels when the match was being re-telecasted on Star Sports.But i could not resist watching it too!!!! Though it would cause me despair(even on watching a finished game) i wanted to see how on earth did Nadal conquer the 12 time grand slam champion!!!!
It was nadal's power game that did the damage,no doubt.Also the biggest reason was federer's mental state after losing the French Open finals,winning only 4 games in the whole match!! He probably always had it on the back of his mind, albeit he kept telling everyone that it was a thing of the past.He lost points on key moments at the net, with simple volleys on an open court,only because he looked in a hurry to finish off the points.Never did one see federer in such hurry,that too in his own backyard at SW19.All this because he was playing NADAL.The thought that "the Spanish matador" would chase any ball down was the ultimate cause.Further Nadal played the best in the most critical points of the match(especially 30-40 down on his own serve at 3-4 in the final set), a trait that was more synonymous with federer.
So times seem completely changed now.All went on record saying federer would win about 25 grandslams,with a golden slam as well.May be it was spoken too early,may be not....it is still debatable.Nadal already has 5 now, threatening to catch up with federer very soon. Nadal is 22,Djokovic is 21- both are snapping at the heels of the world no.1 ,who shall turn 27 in August,on the opening day of the Olympics . A great time to look forward to in tennis in the coming few years.
But hold on....same was said about hewitt, roddick and safin when they arrived in the sampras era. Sampras wondered whether he can match the speed of Hewitt after losing to him in a US open final. The champion he was,he came back, beat Emerson's record of 12, with a final US open and left on a high with a world record on his name.Yes, Nadal and Djokovic look in better shape than the mentioned ones..... But do not count out Federer just yet.....
May be it was Spain's time in sports in the last months,winning also in Euro football and in golf.The honeymoon shall soon be over now....
There's no more threat than facing a wounded Champion.....The English will agree with this...(Remember Ashes 2005 and Ashes 2007)...Alonso won 2 F1 world champioships,now he has faded away..so can Nadal or Djokovic.Taking nothing away from Nadal for his spectacular wimbledon win....but i am a hard core federer fan..and will be till he retires...My friends still could not believe it when Sourav Ganguly came back the way he did in international cricket!!! I was being laughed at and ridiculed when i supported him all through....Same with federer:-)
Looking forward for the tennis action at Beijing now ......And i will go all out in support for ROGER FEDERER to win the Gold medal.....:-)
3 comments:
TRUE SIGN OF A CHAMP when he's down .. watch out ..Federer is going to be back with a bang
Hey Man,,
kudos to ur prolix lecture...
Its too much to comment on future of NADAL...I was an ardent fan of fedex before... But things change,,Champions change.. You have to swallow it..
You are talking about POWER game..If you see the stats FedEx had most ACES and Average Serve speed than Nadal,,Sadly FedEx had most errors.. That made him sink..I was watching game and i never felt any POWER in Nadal's game..He played like a champ and he won..
About another Spaniard Alonso…He is not faded away… He is at his best.. Only thing is he doesn’t hav a right car…(Probably Murali is right person to comment on it)…
Now we will come to our fav topic… Sourav ganguly.. Your support to him crossed veneration… We didn’t support him bcoz he was not playing well.. Now he is playing well and we support him...Do we have to sit in front of TV wasting our precious time to see him getting duck?.. No man.. Same theory applies to others also…
@ Jairaj
First of all, THANKS for the comments..:-)
My blog may be long...but not long enough to be called "prolix lecture"...well who knows,if the blog had been nadal centric,comments would've been different...:-)
Well,the POWER game in tennis does not necessarily mean ACES and serve speed...Does it mean that Goran Ivanisevic who used to hit ACES at will,had a POWER game?..Federer was only smitten by the powerful ground strokes and fast winners by Nadal....I have seen the match again and again to be safely commenting that the duo matched each other end to end...but nadal came out victorious due to his POWER game and also the mental aspect( which i have mentioned in my blog !! )
Nadal is improving and improving fast,with new variations to his game no doubt...but he's half of himself if you remove Power and speed out of his game!!
Coming to Sourav Ganguly and my following for him becoming veneration....its your feeling that it was godly/religious..i never treat him as god...my support was only for the reason that "People need to be backed to the hilt, when they are in the most troubled times"..and here ganguly was in trouble for not only his poor form,but also for various other reasons..i do not agree that he was out of the team only because of poor form...i also feel now that he should retire from ODI's, because its difficult that he will play 2011 WC( Who knows?? he might surprise everybody with that as well)...Lets wait and watch as events unfold....:-)
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