The Federer Fade

You are completely wrong. Fed will get a coach, find his way again and win 3 more slams. Even Sampras believes he will. Roger will be 28 this August and tennis is a sport where age matters-- Fed saves his best for the Slams and I know he will be more determined than ever to win one for his son, due this June.

I think he said it perfectly. Perfection is like a loan from God. We have seen Federer play tennis in ways that we could only imagine. The ideal. The way God intended it. Could that last forever? It seems not but like the author I hope we are wrong. No matter what his final tally of Grand Slams are (and even though Pete will always be my number one) Federer at his best is... was the best to ever play the game.

Reaching a Federer shot and hitting it with topspin is not perfection it is tenacity. That is the constant error in the thinking of Nadal's game.

Perfection is Federer's movement and aresenal. At his peak he could anticipate and attack his oppenents with any shot every used in tennis. He achieved it without the effort and muscle by the likes of Nadal. Roger's game is a gift. He is an artist who plays tennis, Nadal is a muscle with a racket.

Perfection can be in different ways. When Rafael Nadal hits a heaviest topspin ball that is perfection. When Nadal reaches an unreachable shot from Federer, that is perfection. When Nadal fought marathon matches spending 9 hours on court and beat a fresh and "perfect" Federer, that is also perfection.

I have a better analogy than Athens vs Sparta: Ravishing Ronald vs The Crusher...

One other comment.
I've been watching this game since I was a kid. I've witness the rise and fade of many a tennis great during this time. But I think it does pure injustice to the sport by bringing in this dose of negativism into commentary on the game. I don't recall such criticism of Connors, Lendl, the Swedes, Becker, Agassi or Sampras or McEnroe. And none has rivaled Roger, with the exception of Pete.

Let us tennis lovers and supporters of the game enjoy the game. Keep the negatives on the sidelines or in your journals. Let us all enjoy the history in the making as we again watch Federer and others dual for those majestic crowns this summer, and put on tennis lessons for the ages, as he and Nadal did last summer, by bringing to the game nothing short of the best of talent, style and comraderie that we have adored in this sport and its champions.

This is a gentlemanly sport, being dominated by two or three world class talents, who seem like good people. Stop ringing the Federer death knell and conjuring up the demise of the game's greatest talent's ever.
Go tennis!

I think the problem lies less with Federer and more with the analysis here. Federer still has all of the right tools for domination in the sport, yet the score around him has changed a bit, and he's trying to figure out how to adjust amid the changes, at such a pivotal time statistically for the game. Unfortunately, the stakes are quite high for him right now, because of his consistent and prolonged success over the past decade.I think that because he is so close to becoming the greatest player of all time, he is experiencing a stressful juncture. What is so wrong with that? It's completely natural and adds even more humanism to the man. I think if he could have breezed through it all, surpassing Sampras's record, all in a hiccup of time, we wold have heralded him as something other than human. Thank goodness he didn't because it's in watching his struggle when he is so close to the top, that makes us adore his talent even more.
But who do you go to to gain expertise on that? On climbing over the mountain? Sampras? No, he's got to figure this thing out his own way.

The one thing that I do sense from Federer is that he will make it over the top and will become the statistical best that this game has ever produced, although he and Sampras already are the best two that ever played the game.
That's the thing, though. If Tiger isn't winning a few slams each year, with breathtaking putts and physical feats unimaginable, you guys tend to think that he's lost his luster too.
I am just excited for what I think is going to be another top caliber summer of tennis with the Slams -- The French, Wimbledon and U.S. Open. And who knows, maybe our boy Federer could make this article mute by this Fall.

A lot of competitive junior players burn out by the time they reach 20. Federer's been on tour for what is it, 12 years now? He's achieved almost every honor there is, set numerous records, and stayed the longest at #1 than any other man or woman. He has to be a little sick of it all at this point. But of course, he can't just come out and say it. The good news for him is that he only needs to catch a hot streak in 2 more Slams to overtake Sampras. I'm still betting that he'll do it.

Something is definitely not right with Federer's game but I'm not ready to write him off as everyone else seems to be. There will be more Slams for Federer and he will be a top 3 player for the foreseeable future. Men's tennis is just tougher than ever and maybe the guy isn't as hungry as he used to be.

Regardless of the qualities of each player, i really like to watch federrer"s matches as i enjoy his games. But recently i felt so sorry to see him fading, he is no more self-confident and you can see defeatism on his face. I suppose he's undergoing something prevented him to give all his best. I hope he shines sOOON again. But still he's number one for me and for many i guess.

Regardless of the qualities of each player, i really like to watch federrer"s matches as i enjoy his games. But recently i felt so sorry to see him fading, he is no more self-confident and you can see defeatism on his face. I suppose he's undergoing something prevented him to give all his best. I hope he shines sOOON again. But still he's number one for me and for many i guess.

Epstein wites: "A small corps of elite athletes have rendered esthetic pleasure of this kind. In boxing, there was Sugar Ray Robinson and, later, Muhammad Ali. In baseball, there was Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays; in football, Joe Montana. In basketball, Julius Erving did so, as did, more emphatically, Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods does it for people who watch golf, Pelé used to do it for soccer fans. All these figures add a touch of poetry to the games they play, and thereby elevate their sport to something greater than itself." To which Epstein should have added: "And in hockey, the incomparable, mesmerizing Bobby Orr."
By failing to include Bobby Orr on his list "elite athletes have rendered esthetic pleasure of this kind", it is painfully obvious Joseph Epstein is simply either not a hockey fan or is unfortunately too young to have witnessed Orr play for the Boston Bruins from 1966-1976. Orr's undeniably superior skills (Flyer HOF center Bobby Clarke said "They should have created a different league for him."), accompanied by his unique ability to perform while moving at top speed, enabled Orr to have the grace of a ballet dancer with mini-rockets on his blades. Like no one before or since in any professional team sport, Orr controlled the games in which he played. Whatever the situation called for, Orr had the answer???speed things up, slow 'em down???and play keep away with the puck to the point where it reminded many an opponent (and fan) of what happens when they try to chase after their dogs when they had a tennis ball in their mouth. The incomparable #4 regularly had fans audibly laughing in arenas both at home and on the road. Ovechkin?...Mario?...Gretzky you say? No way. But don't take my admittedly biased word for it. Having witnessed the NHL from the 1930's to the present, Hall of Famers Gordie Howe and Milt Schmidt, as well as HOF writer Red Fisher of the Montreal Gazette all say Orr's the best hockey player they've ever seen. I'll take their word for it. After all, what do any of us know about hockey that those guys don't?

One gigantic untruth leaped out at me: "Nadal has a more devastating forehand." Oh no, no he does not. The forehand that belonged to the Federer who dominated the game for 237 straight weeks from 04-07 is faster and more penetrating than Nadal's very whippy topspin stroke.

I haven't seen anybody mention this, but I suspect that Federer is burned out. He doesn't derive the same joy from the game that he did a few years back. He often wears a scowl now, occasionally gripes at the umpire, and seems to just be going through the motions during non-slam tournaments. He has the talent to win 2 or 3 more majors, but in order to do so, he's going to have a serious soul-searching moment and come to grips with what's wrong. Right now, such a day seems quite a long ways away.

Can't dismiss marriage and pregnancy as non-factors, especially for a person like Roger. Tennis has a huge mental component to it, requiring full dedication, and maybe he's thinking about a family now. I think he'll steady out and will more soon.

Why dismiss marriage and pregnancy as non-factors? The mental part of tennis is huge, and it requires total dedication. I think Roger will steady out and start winning again.

Federer's fall seems more accelerated than was Sampras', althoug the elements of decline are quite similar. Federer is worthy of all the accolades, but I think you short-change Sampras by defining him as simply "a big serve'. Their games, mentalities, temperments and intangibles, are oddly similars, as are the arcs of their dominance and careers. Pete was more of a 'jock' perhaps, in the American sense. Roger more of an European-type artist. Maybe it was the American drive that kept Pete going for those 2 years between his last Galm Slam titles. We shall see if Roger can find that same drive. .

Federer's fall seems more accelerated than was Sampras', althoug the elements of decline are quite similar. Federer is worthy of all the accolades, but I think you short-change Sampras by defining him as simply "a big serve'. Their games, mentalities, temperments and intangibles, are oddly similars, as are the arcs of their dominance and careers. Pete was more of a 'jock' perhaps, in the American sense. Roger more of an European-type artist. Maybe it was the American drive that kept Pete going for those 2 years between his last Galm Slam titles. We shall see if Roger can find that same drive. .