Friday, January 30, 2009

A breakfast treat

We woke up this morning and the Nadal - Verdasco semifinal was still going, so we took breakfast upstairs and I chomped on my Gorilla Munch while Rafa finished off the 5th set. The match was 5 hours and 14 minutes, the longest in the history of the Australian Open, and it set up the dream final of Federer - Nadal, though Federer will be much fresher with an extra day off and an easy straight set victory over Roddick in his semifinal.

Nadal beat Federer last year on his surface (Roland Garros) and on Roger's surface (Wimbledon) so it will be very interesting to see if he can recover enough to give Fed a match on this hardcourt surface. This will be Rafa's first grand slam final on hardcourts. If he wins, I'd put the probability of him winning the grand slam at maybe .3 or so.

Tensions will be high at Chez Angus 'cause Mrs. A will be rooting for Federer and I'll be rooting for Rafa!

6 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Kevin,

It was a great match. Verdasco's fourth set tie-breaker was unreal shot making.

I am rooting with Mrs. A for Federer over Nadal. But the match-up of those two is outstanding for tennis.

Pete

Anonymous said...

RFed vs. Rafa is past vs. future.

I'm NOT saying Federer is washed up.

What I'm saying is that Federer represents a bygone era through his grace and gentlemanliness on and off the court. He's not a bodybuilder. He doesn't talk smack. The dude has "aristocrat" written all over him.

Nadal seems like a nice guy. It's pretty obvious he'd be good at a lot of different sports. He's got a lot of muscles and a lot of spirit. To his credit, he differs from the archetypical modern athlete by also displaying good sportsmanship. But there's a brutality to his game. Nowadays, it sounds quaint to complain about "brutality." There is no distinction between "the savage" and "the beautiful." Such is our modern aesthetic.

Go Federer!

Anonymous said...

fallibilist,
Thanks for the ridiculous generalizations. Does McEnroe circa 1985 count as the archetypical modern athlete? That different people have different personalities and different means of expressing themselves is a fact which has transcended time. I call it diversity.

Go Roddick French Open '09!

Anonymous said...

One of a kind! I dig your eunuch perspective.

Anonymous said...

br,

I agree that I what I said is a generalization. It doesn't follow that it's ridiculous. Way to keep distinct concepts separate.

The 70s was the Golden Age of Bad Boy Tennis. The boorish Connors, the infantile McEnroe, the swine Nastasie: it triggers the gag reflex just to think about these jackasses.

And Federer has company with the high-class shtick: Sampras, as artless as his game was, wasn't not no punk. James Blake is a class act. You get the picture.

But the typical athlete of today is an overgrown freak show--think J. Gimelstob or J. Isner--and, let's be clear, these hulking oafs must be vanquished. Combine that with the clueless but ubiquitous personae of a Djokovic or a Lleyton Hewitt and you can see what I have against modern athletes.

So, yeah, I don't make too much of an apology for idolizing dudes like Tim Mayotte or Jaime Yzaga. They truly are the best that the human race has too offer.

These slings and arrows will make it that much sweeter when Rafa is put in his place (second) down in Oz.