The opposition that makes Federer great

We're going guest-post crazy on SIATVS this week, if two guest posts count as "guest-post crazy". Today's author is Mark from Sport without Spin, with a piece on that tennis chap.

"When Federer becomes the boy with the racket of fire, creating the illusion of art, he also creates an additional illusion: that his opponent is not, in fact, opposing him. That his opponent is in fact co-operating with him: conspiring with Federer to create these patterns of angle and trajectory, of curves and straight lines […] it becomes a pas de deux choreographed by Federer, dancing with a man who is partner, stooge, straight man and butt: a partner who is cherished, ravished, made much of and humiliated before our eyes."

―Simon Barnes, July 2004

For much of Federer’s ascent to the upper echelons of tennis, Barnes’ words were indeed reflective of the illusion his elegant strokes created. The Federer narrative concerned nobody beyond Federer – how else could it be otherwise for a man who had dropped but three sets in his first seven Grand Slam finals? As he has climbed the increasingly steep slope to greatness, the illusion of Federer as mere artist has been dispelled, and the story of who he defeated has come to be as important as how.

Can a player truly be great if his opponents have no great achievements of their own? This, as Federer swept from one major triumph to the next as if floating on the breeze, was the only thing which dared to blot the legacy. The sport thrives on rivalries – on the Borgs and McEnroes, the Edbergs and Beckers, the Samprases and Agassis. One defines the other. If Federer kept winning without substantial challenge, might it perversely serve to tarnish his memory?


As it happened, a man from Spain emerged who simultaneously inflated the scale of Federer’s achievements and threatened to deprive him of the number of titles he might yet win. Though Rafael Nadal is his match on any surface, it was on the clay of Roland Garros where he stood proudest, most wall-like, in the way of Federer’s most coveted title, the French Open. In four years, Rafa would not be beaten here. And every year, there was a defeat for Federer along the way, denying him the statistical greatness he craved – the semi-final of 2005, then ever-more brutally in the three ensuing finals.

Last summer, Nadal yielded just four games against him en route to a straight sets win at Roland Garros, and therein the first suspicious seeds were sown that the rivalry had turned substantially in the Spaniard’s favour. Such suspicions were confirmed when Federer was beaten by Nadal at Wimbledon a month later for the first time in 42 matches and six years. Then came Federer’s tears in Australia at the start of 2009. As Federer wept in defeat, we wondered if we were watching a man fearing that the greatness that had long been presumed and credited, pending the record books catching up with his talent, might be denied. And in the process of these record-denying defeats, something of the greatness and self-assurance of the Swiss had been stifled. He was ranked the world’s number two, and with reason.

All the while, the sport’s best finally began to look like credible challengers to Federer. Novak Djokovic, tenacious, powerful and competitive, won his first Grand Slam and started to look comfortable competing with Federer and Nadal. Andy Murray followed. Federer’s window of opportunity seemed to rescind by the minute.


And then in one furious display from Robin Soderling in May, the obstacle to greatness was removed, the window reopened. Here was a Swede whose talent and good fortune had come together for the first time, and with a force he seemed to exercise without understanding its source, he blew Rafael Nadal off the court in Paris – off Nadal’s court in Paris. Could Federer have done the same that week? He did not need to – he merely needed to win seven tennis matches, and by the time he faced Soderling in the final, he was not against the man who beat Nadal, but rather one who had given everything to his best fortnight of tennis, and did not have anything in reserve to beat the second of the world’s best players.

If Roland Garros was the confirmation of Federer’s place in tennis history, Wimbledon was his coronation, the completion of a world tour of successes lasting six years and surpassing all others. His opponent in the final was Andy Roddick, the man who had been conquered in the 2003 Wimbledon semi-final, then again in successive finals. Roddick, younger than Federer, and winner of the 2003 US Open, had once been expected to be Federer’s great rival, a role he could not yet fulfil, a burden which consumed the tip of his talent, and left Nadal to fill the breach. He had been burned by the fire of Federer’s greatness, however, and was condemned to a career on the precipice of the biggest triumphs in tennis. He came into the final with a record of 2 victories to 18 defeats against the Swiss. But Roddick’s verve has been renewed this year, his will stronger, and Federer broke him only at the 39th attempt in the final. Roddick’s career has been defined by Federer, defined by a belief that he could not be the world’s best, and in this last glorious and cruel defeat, the only difference from previous disappointment was that Roddick had performed to such standards that he was able to help define Federer’s career.


There are an infinite number of narratives being written every moment, but it is only at occasional points that we can stop, reflect on them and measure their significance. Federer could retire today with a wealth of trophies and records, enough to assure his legacy, and a rival has emerged in Nadal whose achievements are so significant in their own right that they add legitimacy to Federer’s, as well as a supporting cast of Djokovic, Murray and Roddick who have extracted and tested Federer’s obstinacy, resilience and resourcefulness. But would Roger’s Wimbledon coronation have been possible without Soderling’s day of brilliance, without the result of a match which Federer did not even contest?

The initial feeling that not beating Nadal at the French Open somehow diminishes the significance of Federer’s victory here has now subsided. Poetically, it would resonate well – if you were scripting a screenplay it would be essential – but the 23 year-old plays a game which asks such a fearsome amount of his knees that he was unable to compete effectively after the clay court season and missed Wimbledon. Perhaps in itself that is a measure of the overdrive needed to compete with Federer, whose body copes far better with the game he plays. Besides, Nadal has proven often enough that for Federer to continue recording Grand Slam victories, he has had to find more in himself, transgress simple artistry and establish character. Amongst his opponents have been some sublimely skilled men, each trying to script their own story, each taking Federer to his limits. And despite those challenges, those questions, those serves and passes, Federer has found a way to achieve more than anyone in the history of his sport.

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Numbers, screaming

You know how I effectively said, after Roger Federer won the French Open, that the stats and records he's notching up are essentially just symbols — earthly representations of something that cannot be adequately rendered as such?

Yeah, well, fuck that. Symbols matter. A fifteenth major, at Wimbledon, in front of Sampras, Borg and Laver, against an immense opponent in Andy Roddick, in a match which featured a thirty-game deciding set...How's that for a symbol?

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∞ + 1

It feels wrong, I know, to mention Rafael Nadal right now, like someone standing up at that bit of the wedding where the priest asks the congregation if anyone knows of any reason why this union should not be blessed. I mean, you can do it, but you come across as a bit of a dickhead if you do. Roger Federer's praises have been sung since Sunday by one of the biggest choruses ever assembled, and it probably shook very heaven itself, so to bring Nadal into the discussion almost seems prosaic, or vulgar. But it bears doing.

I suggested after the Australian Open that the story of men's tennis in the immediate future would be how Federer dealt with his first usurper, the first and only player who knew The Secret; and whether, in doing this, he could touch the same, or higher, heights he had done in past, thus surpassing all his previous achievements. Federer's greatness has not been in question. Not even his status as the greatest of all time has been in question, at least not seriously enough for it to matter. People who watch much more tennis than me and have done for longer than I've been alive have been saying it for a while, and I ain't gainsaying that. The issue now is one of degree, of how superfabulous Federer is, and Nadal is at its heart. It will be in the head-on, high-stakes confrontations between the two (and pretty much all their confrontations are head-on and high-stakes) that this particular truth will reveal itself.


So Nadal's absence from the final week of the French Open — the first major since that epic in Melbourne — rendered the tournament somewhat bereft. A Federer-Nadal final would have taken on monstrous dimensions: Nadal's reputation as the master of clay and of Roland Garros, and as Federer's nemesis, versus Federer's quest for his fourteenth major title and a career Slam, and a chance to halt the Nadal juggernaut — or, to put it more simply, precisely and explosively, to beat Nadal in the French Open final. No Nadal meant that much of this intrigue disappeared.

Despite the consensus on Federer's place in history, this should not be shirked. Nadal is like a mountain — there. He can't be avoided. Federer effectively admitted as much after beating Robin Söderling. "I knew that the day Rafa wasn't in the final," he said, "I would be there and I would win." Federer's achievements are now in some part conditional on and must be read in the light of Nadal and Federer's struggle to overcome him. If he had played Nadal in the final, he would have had the occasion to do this to a huge extent — perhaps definitively. As it was, with Nadal already dispatched offstage (deservedly so, it should be restated), it became merely an opportunity for Federer to reaffirm his greatness.

Hang on — merely reaffirm his greatness?


I felt somewhat unmoved by the bare mathematics of Federer's win: the equalling of Pete Sampras' record, the completion of the full Slam set. It's as close to destiny as is possible in sport's disinterested, uninterested logic. Consider this: he has played in nineteen Grand Slam finals, of which he has won fourteen. Each of the five losses have been to Nadal. Now: imagine there's no Nadal (it's hard to do...but try). Even keeping in mind that history is an elusive bastard, it's not a stretch to believe that he would have long ago matched surpassed Sampras, that he would have long ago secured his career slam, that he would won at least one proper, full-on Grand Slam. Remembering that Nadal beat him in the semi-final of the 2005 French Open, Federer could have had — it's not such a wild supposition — twenty majors by now.

(...)

I know. Take a minute to catch your breath and recover what bits of your blown mind you can.

I realise I said above that we can't ignore Nadal. My point in presenting this counterfactual scenario is to highlight the sublimity of what Federer has done. He has been one "freak of nature from Mallorca" (to use Andre Agassi's description) away from those statistics that just made your eyeballs pop a couple of paragraphs ago. On some level, it was as if he has already achieved greatness that deserved those numbers, and that the numbers are just catching up. In a sense, Sunday didn't change anything, or reveal anything we didn't already know.

(By the way, I wish I could think of better words than "great" and "greatness" to describe the man, but though they are the most obvious, they are surely also the most apt.)

But perhaps such hypothetics and nebulous theology are best left to bloggers. The earthbound reality of Federer's triumph may have been philosophically symbolic (that is, if you follow my philosophical line on this), but symbols have significance. As the great (!) man himself said:

It's maybe my greatest victory — now and until the end of my career I can really play with my mind at peace, and no longer hear that I've never won Roland Garros.

And it's not as if, despite Federer's belief in his ability to win on seeing Nadal getting eliminated, it was easy. This was no procession; it was hard-earned. To quote (it's all the rage, dontcha know) commenter joao jorge:

...the story is not the winning of the tournament. It's the constant struggle of Federer to find his place in history. How, despite (and because) of Nadal's premature exit, every point he played carried an additional pressure. It was his shot at the title, and he did not fail.

Maybe this, achieved though it may have been with Nadal on a physio's table in Barcelona, was just as meaningful as slaying the Nadal dragon. It always impresses me how keenly aware Federer is of his own place in the history of the game. It's remarkable that he is able to step outside the weirdness that rapidly gathers around such talent and appreciate where he truly stands. It's not vanity — it's due reward.

It's still frustrating that we didn't get the final we wanted, the confluence of the two mightiest rivers. I deeply hope that the rivalry flowers like it can, like no other has. But at this stage, it's almost silly, greedy, decadent to curse whatever one curses for our apparent misfortune. We are privileged to witness this. It doesn't really matter what transpires from here because, ultimately, history has already been written. Greatness has spoken. Roger Federer is merely reaffirming it. He is merely adding to infinity.

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Just seen Bob Dylan on a motorbike

The temptation is, as temptation always will be, there. So let's get it out of the way first.

This was like the Wimbledon final in reverse, Roger Federer starting strongly before somehow going backwards late on, or perhaps standing still while Rafael Nadal kept a steady pace. Someone on the BBC likened the first four sets to Ali-Frazier. Wimbledon was more like a duel on a life-raft.

Wimbledon was washed by the confluence of all sorts of strangeness and fascination. Rafa was on the rise, looking more likely to break definitively out of clay specialism than ever. The French Open final -- in which Federer, still suffering from the effects of glandular fever, rolled out the Frightened Kitten Defence in the face of Nadal's bombardment -- was just a month past. Federer lost the first two sets, the second after having been a break up. He was on the precipice, and we know what happened next. There were also the rain breaks, the gloaming, the camera flashes and Gwen Stefani managing to look more bored than anyone has ever done before and striking a comic contrast with every other soul watching.

What that match also had was a couple of special moments: a half-smile and a knowing nod that guided it past the velvet rope inside the other velvet rope. The rally at 7-7 in the fourth set tie-break which ended with Nadal's improbable winner, and Federer's even more extraordinary backhand passing shot on the very next point (while match point down), were what turned the match from hors catégorie to hors hors catégorie. (See the two shots in question here, from about 3:15.) For all of yesterday's consistent excellence -- How consistent! How excellent! -- there wasn't a pair reality-quaking doozies like that. Yes, it's partly symbolism. It is kind of silly to pick those few minutes out of almost five hours of play, especially when there were so many turning points and barely credible plays. But they were critical in truly feeling the gravity of the match, and even the entire Federer-Nadal rivalry -- they were like the moment it hits you that you are helplessly in love, or when you realise that you've just listened to 'I Am The Walrus' for the twentieth consecutive time and that the Beatles are the greatest band ever. Regardless of how sudden or gradual the process is, there is always that moment. The Australian Open final didn't quite have that.


But here's the thing: it doesn't matter. At least, in this context, in this great big scheme of things with Raf 'n' Rog silhouettes on it, it doesn't matter. It's not fair to compare this match with Wimbledon, not least because the blue sky and the birdsong and the sound of children's laughter are all meagre next to Wimbledon. For one thing, the Aussie final was great for its own sake, on any halfway sensible terms. For another, this has, by now -- since those two shots -- gone beyond each mere atomic match. Nadal-Federer has been elevated to a point where it's taken on its own identity. It's an entity of its own that is more than just a series of individual encounters. The two players bring out the best in each other and push each other further than anyone else can go. And because they occupy the top two places in the world rankings, their meetings are invariably in finals, which lifts it higher still. This is a story which is unfolding in all its intricacy as we watch.

With no disrespect to Nadal, Federer not having it all his own way anymore is the main part of the story. I think it's wonderful -- not, understand, that I begrudge Federer a single jot of his success (and if you do, reader, then perhaps we should start seeing other people). Nor have I ever been bored by the way in which Federer has amassed his success. It's just that the arrival of Nadal -- this alien invader, not just occasionally engaging in minor skirmishes on the outskirts of Federer's greatness but sending missiles into its heart -- added dimensions to the top of the men's game. The lack of competition for Federer was adequately compensated for by his style, but to see someone storming the barricades was still most welcome. Suddenly, there was some delicious tension. Instead of it just being a question of exactly how fabulously Federer was going to win, we now wondered whether he would win at all, and exactly what the new chaos would wreak.


There's something else, maybe more important and more glorious, which could be read into all this. Yesterday was a hinge. Federer could well have seen his best days recede into history (though remember that his next-to-best days are pretty fantastic). But he now has a chance to take his greatness to a level above even where it is now, that is more than just (!) a Samprassian record. Nadal is Federer's key to whatever the closest thing is to immortality in sport.** He has never had so persistent a foe, and if he can rise up and fight him, he will have surpassed even what we imagined him to be a couple of years ago. I don't think I'm even talking about winning, necessarily. As far as Fed-Nad goes, who wins is now only a part of the matter; it almost seems a shame to reduce it to a simple zero-or-one question. Not that it's unimportant; the beauty may be in the struggle but the struggle is for victory, after all. But I don't think that the identity of the victor is going to bring us any great revelation -- not in this rivalry, not anymore. The journey is where the truth lives now.

I'm damn sure that Federer isn't thinking about it these terms; it would take a strange athlete to do so. Honestly, I'm not even sure I totally believe what I've written. Hey, if you read this looking for cold hard certainty, I'm sorry. If you can hew some from out of the dust this rivalry is throwing up, then you're better at that type of thing than I am. All I know is that this is where my head is at right now. This is the best that sport has to offer today. Savour it and pray for more.

**It could also be argued that Federer is Nadal's key to whatever the closest thing is to immortality in sport. Certainly, Federer is the planet whose gravity Nadal has used to slingshot himself into greatness, at least as perceived by the spectator. As I said above, "The two players bring out the best in each other and push each other further than anyone else can go". But I've written more than enough already so I'll leave that thought with you...

UPDATE: The BBC on a similar wavelength, albeit in less hysterical fashion.

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Our song

As I convalesce after having my brain surgically repaired following repeated sweet assaults over a seven-hour period on Sunday (this is looking like becoming a series: Over-Emotional Reactions To Major Sporting Events), perhaps it's time for some sober reflection on Sunday's events - though there may still be traces sloshing around my bloodstream (way to kinda mix metaphors, F.!).

Maybe the old-timers are right and things ain't what they used to be. I'm not about to make any grand proclamations about where the Nadal-Federer rivalry fits in among the greats of yore (besides, I already somewhat slyly did so on Sunday night). It's all too easy believe you're in love with the last pretty thing you saw, as we know from painful experience.

But I for one am not all that bothered about the issue. It's not that I don't have a sense of history - I quite like to think the contrary is true - but I wasn't around when Borg and McEnroe, or Nicklaus and Watson, or Ali and Frazier were duking it out. One can read all the books and watch all the sentimental retrospective documentaries, but to run with a theme expressed several posts ago, the vital charge that gave these contests their essence faded with their passing. Sure, as long as those who witnessed them are around, their presence will linger, and their remains won't fossilise. But practically, they're gone.

Nadal-Federer, on the other hand, is alive - living, breathing, rampaging (flexing, grunting, adjusting the precise position of the bottles in front of the chair, sprinting to the baseline, bouncing the ball...bouncing...bouncing...bouncing..., etc.). We were there at its birth and we're proudly watching it grow into the leader of the pride.

To re-iterate: this is not a cover version of 'history is bunk'. The past is not something to be dismissed, nor to patronisingly pat on the head and say "I love hearing your war stories, Grandad, now here's your mashed bananas with your sleeping pills mixed in, there's a good soldier". But you have to step away from it and see the present in its own light. It's perhaps easier said by a relative novice such as myself than done ; no doubt as I get older I'll accumulate such memories as to be unable to resist pitting them against one another for my affections. As it is, I'm enjoying this here and now, on its own terms, for what it is rather than what it isn't.

At the risk of contradicting myself, on some level it is about its relation to times past. The oldies had their great occasions to savour, and they've told us about them often enough since that we at once feel due awe at their enormity and an anxiety that maybe these things really do belong in memories and other more mechanical data retrieval systems. Now that something comes along that our minds and hearts tell us bear some correlation to these tales, we instinctively put it in the same volume and decorate it with the most florid language we can find. But this is ours, something that has taken root in our hearts and is blossoming as we live and breathe. This is the verse we'll come back to and linger over. This is the song that was playing when we our eyes first met, and luckily it wasn't Coldplay or Maroon 5 or some such.

It needn't be oppositional, of course. Those who've been around the block more often can still revel in it. Indeed, their experience will probably allow them to take it in more fulfillingly should they wish it to be so. In the case of Nadal-Federer a consensus seems to be forming that this is indeed the acme of tennis history.

The caveat in this is that we're all still a bit dazed after Sunday and even the wise are not necessarily exempt. We need to see how it plays out over the next few years and then let it ferment for a while before we call it. It certainly feels like we're seeing something seismic: Federer appears to be on the wane, and he is certainly faced with a novel (for him) predicament, whereas Nadal improves and has proved that he can pass muster on unfamiliar territory. But Nadal might remain allergic to the plains of Flushing Meadows and Melbourne Park, or his knees might give way; Federer could show that he really is the greatest champion of them all by staring the monster down. All I know is that it's happening now, and we're watching.


Some points I'm still too woozy to develop properly:

• Tiger Woods is extraordinary, and watching him in full flow is a privilege, but I wish there was another human being who could properly and consistently challenge him. It must be a bit embarrassing for the other golfers that Tiger's toughest opponent is his own cruciate ligament.
  



• Margaret Court apparently hated every opponent she faced. Mike Tyson wanted to eat his adversaries' babies (or was that Drederick Tatum? I literally can't remember which). The latest issue of World Soccer contains a feature on the greatest derbies in football, reminding us how much football is driven by bitterness, whether stemming from sporting-political slights or profound social faults. By all accounts, Rafa and Roger get on very well. Their rivalry is based on their encounters on the court and a deep mutual respect. Lest I come across as some kind of hippy or 19th century French aristocrat, I'm not saying that football should shed its feuds; they are intrinsic to the game, for good and bad. It's just nice to know, especially when the meeja are ever keen to play up any perceived animosity in certain sports, that such greatness is capable of emanating purely out of sporting deeds rather than fighting talk.
  



• On a similar tack, all those 'there are no personalities in sport anymore'-types can go hang. Nadal and Federer may be uncontroversial, respectful of their opponents and no doubt tend to sickly stray animals they find on the road. They may not swear at umpires or smash their racquets over line judges' heads. But seriously, watch that match again and tell me that all that matters. Sure, it would be a shame if all athletes really were match-winning automatons (which they of course are not, despite what some say). But take John McEnroe, someone I admire greatly: did it not get a bit boring the 932nd time he threw a hissy-fit? 'Personality' is not the be-all and end-all. Again, watch that match.
  

God, this blogging lark is easy. As long as a sporting event of major significance comes along, say, every week or so, I'm sorted...

Photo by andrew.wheeler

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Notes on Everything

I'm going to try to refrain from using the 'B' word in this post, but I fear it will be like eating a doughnut without licking my lips...I wish I'd paid more attention in religion class because I bet there are some killer metaphors I could steal...Federer probably feels like shit right now, but if ever there was honour in defeat, this is it...Federer looked like a little boy lost at Roland Garros a month ago, and frankly it was a frightening, in a small way, like an old certainty beginning to crack. One could say it humanised him, but that would be patronising - just because we're incapable of such greatness doesn't mean we can put it down to some kind of otherness. Nonetheless, it was kind of endearing. Perhaps there was a possibility of him going the same way at two sets down here. Thank God he didn't...Did you know, children, there was a time when a spell of 39 consecutive games without a break of serve (not including tie-breaks) signified nothing more than the tiring, eye-aching dutifulness of the habitual sports fan, rather than a proxy journey into the inner wonders and eternal weirdness of the human soul?...In an alternative universe, this match is still going on; what's more, we're all still watching it...I thought for a moment that God must hate tennis, but he's really just a hell of a dramatist. That rain was a classy touch, no?...I hope there's a disclaimer on those tickets, otherwise the All-England club are in for a torrent of ECG bills...When you think about it, aren't humans amazing? I don't know if one can say we've invented these rituals or had them thrust upon us by our own innate beings, but either way it's inconceivable that they shouldn't exist. Perhaps there's a bunch of aliens out there, existing in a state of transcendence far beyond our imaginations, and they're laughing at us and our silly little stickball games. But you know what, Zlorbazoids? Screw you. It's ours, and we like it, and I feel sorry for you that you'll never get to know the feeling of watching a cross-court backhand winner on a television screen and involuntarily gasping as a result...It's sometimes a bit of a shock to see the global viewing figures for the biggest sporting events and to realise that only 0.001% of the earth's population was watching, and that the world is still turning...Was I the only one who felt a twinge of inadequacy while watching this?...Most of the match was predictable; you knew, or at least had a strong hunch, that as soon as it looked like one man had found the poison, the other would immediately find an antidote. 'Predictable' is often used as a euphemism for boring, apparently...Good guys wear white. Angels wear white. Tennis players following the strict attire regulations of the All-England Lawn Tennis & Crocquet Club wear white...The alternate attempts of each player to manipulate the space of the court in baseline tennis is a thing of wonder when executed by these two, and particularly so when carried out with such controlled power. Simon Barnes likens tennis to a duel. I'm proud to live in an age where we have a bloodless substitute for sword-fighting. Fencing doesn't count, from my voyeuristic armchair view. Tennis is what fencing looks like in super slo-mo...Nadal's passing shot at 7-7 in the fourth set tie-break!...Federer's backhand winner at 7-8 in the fourth set tie-break!...Federer's roar when he won the fourth set tie-break!...It's said that in the future, scientists will be able to work out how this match got better and better and better the longer it went on...Not to generalise, but I kind of turned against the crowd when they laughed at the French umpire's tripping up over the word 'challenges'...Rafael Nadal prised the sword from the stone today...Sport as substitute for nuclear Armageddon: Federer and Nadal fire every weapon in their stockpile at each other so we don't have to...Or should that be Nadal and Federer?...This is fucking ridiculous...I wasn't born when the Thriller in Manilla happened...Rafa's OCD rituals are quite sweet, aren't they?...Tit-for-tat replay challenges...Sitting on my sofa, hundreds of miles away, even I was intimidated by Roger Federer's serve...I have a pain in my neck from shaking my head so much...Are footballers just a big bunch of wusses? If they cry at losing a penalty shoot-out, how would they cope in a tie-break, or with being 7-7 in the final set of a Grand Slam final?...I haven't eaten in, like, twelve hours...It is a skill to be able to withstand the crashing waves of silence in the seconds just before a serve in a Wimbledon final...Usually in any sports tournament, you would like to see some upsets along the way. This time, even forgetting about the benefit of hindsight, who in their right minds would have wished for that?...What's a Euro 2008?...Oh, sod it - 'Beauty', and all derivatives thereof...Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, thank you. Just, thank you.

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At last, a post about a sport that isn't football!

Roger Federer wins his Wimbledon semi-final.

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