A Reluctant Roger

Nadal-Federer - Aus Open 2012 Semi-Final

Today was exactly like the story that hardcore Roger Federer fans by now should be used to.

The story begins with a first round match which brings out some tentativeness in Roger. Then he paddles along with some impeccable tennis – almost reminds you of his era of invincibility. Before you realize it, he marches into the quarter final where he gets to meet his first real opponent. An opponent who is in the Top 10 or something. Roger brings out his best tennis and elevates his game to a level that makes you believe that this indeed is the grand slam that he is going to win because there is no way anyone could beat him in this form. He makes it to the semis.

It’s Rafa Nadal that he gets to meet there in the semis. And then it all ends. Dreams shattered. For Roger and for his millions of fans..

It is not that Rafa is better on the court than Roger in general but on this given day he plays into Roger’s psyche. So easily. Like a shrink working through a patient’s mind walking through the inner chambers to retune everything the patient believes about himself. Roger gets into a self-destruction mode. None of his forehand winners work. His backhand shots are as terrible as you have ever seen. His first serve % starts going down and ends up close to 50%. Meanwhile at the other side of the net, Rafa continues to play to Roger’s weaknesses consistently. Rafa doesn’t do anything extraordinary except keeping himself highly charged up and motivated to beat Roger at whatever cost. He keeps playing aggressive shots but doesn’t try anything new he hasn’t tried before. He knows exactly what works under the circumstances. Roger on the other end, starts losing it. He gets into a mode of series of unforced errors. Errors on shots he had comfortably played even in the first set. Sometimes he tries some new shots only to miss those too.

Then, it is only a matter of time for Rafa to prevail. It is only a matter of time for Roger to recoup and pack his bags to walk back to the dressing room in an elegant manner only he could do. It is only a matter of time before Roger during the post match conference starts telling everyone how he has had an incredible run getting into the tournament, winning a few minor titles here and there and how he has played spotless tennis till the semis and how he was unlucky on that day to miss out a few points, which eventually cost the game & the match for him, all the while making it sound like luck was not in his side even though he played better tennis….

A reluctant Roger, who continues to live in a state of denial marches onto the next grand slam.  And as a highly-not-so-reluctant Roger fan, I don’t think I can take this denial much longer.

Reconciling with the pigskin

13 years and counting. That’s how long I have been exposed to “American Football” and yet, I have never gotten around to enjoy the sport so much that I see myself playing it with the same passion that I do with other sports. And then there are sports that I don’t play because I can’t – but those are ones which I always have had a “Why couldn’t I play this sport?” angst associated with them. Football is not one of them. In fact for the first 7-8 years, I was a fierce advocate of calling the sport “Gladiatorial”. Not that much of my opinions have changed since then, but I have reconciled.

Here are the five reasons (not in any order) why I have decided to reconcile with the pigskin in spite of all my reservations:

1. It is not just a sport in this country but a socializing medium.
2. My son and his lack of choices in growing up with any other sport. He is limited to Football and Baseball (yes, there are others but the environment doesn’t promote them with the same passion)
3. A good family pastime – Better than watching sitcoms or movies that may deem unfit for kids, I find sports to be a perfect thing to watch together as a family on TV. Again with very limited choices on what sports we get to watch during primetime, Football and Baseball rule the charts. So.
4. My son and his knowledge of the sport – Not to be far left behind, I am catching up on some statistics (much to my own surprise) and some history, etc. In the process, I have a better understanding of the sport (not necessarily appreciation of all aspects).
5. A safe bet – With my son’s growing interest in the sport, discouraging the sport forcefully and not making him watch or follow the sport, I figured, may do more harm. Hence I decided that it is better to understand the sport and not label it “bad” blindly as it will only make him like the sport ‘blindly’. Also, I feel it is safer to encourage him to focus on some “sports” than Nickelodeon or Disney stuff while slowly letting him know the dangers of playing this particular sport in the long run.

And finally – yes, I still think this sport is not something I would want kids to play – especially the way in which the rules are framed currently. But I have learned a lot in the last 5-6 years about the sport that I no longer consider this just as a physically dominating and mentally demeaning sport.

So, with our local NFL franchise team, the Detroit Lions doing better this season than they ever had since I started following football and with so much discussion around the games that happen everyday at home, I guess it was only natural that I had to reconcile with the pigskin.

I don’t care who wins on Feb 5. Yet, one has to pick a favorite. So I will be rooting for the Giants because that’s what my son would be doing.

What if there is no grass to bite into?

There was something really honest for the uninitiated and lacking in confidence for the well-trained tennis junkie, in what he said, when Rafael Nadal repeatedly tried to highlight the fact that Novak Djokovic had gotten the better of him 5 times this year already in a championship final, during his post-match interview at the semifinal venue where Andy Murray had just run out of ideas to push this man any further. But yet, when he walked into the Arthur Ashe stadium, the yank fans who quite clearly had the softer corner in their hearts & sometimes in their mouths, for him over Novak, thought that Novak’s dream run in 2011 would have to end right there as it is impossible to imagine how a tennis player of any caliber could have such un unbeaten streak in a calendar year.

The final scores at the US Open 2011 final couldn’t be more misleading. A 4 setter, where 3 of the sets went in favor of the eventual winner Novak Djokovic 6-2, 6-2 and 6-1 is certain to make you believe that this was a tennis match where the opponent did not put up a fight at all..But..but..let me tell you, to watch the game last night for its entire duration was physically exhausting. Yes. Physically. The scoreline cannot do any justice. Period.

Shot after shot, rally after rally, game after game, both players extended the imagination of what is possible in tennis physically. If Roger Federer stayed on top mostly because of his physical fitness which in turn helped him stay alert mentally, then the secrets behind him staying physically fit for so long need a separate research or thesis. Roger was able to control his physical movement in the tennis court extraordinarily well. He isn’t a Boris Becker taking somersaults at the net in Wimbledon or a Michael Chang to accelerate like a high-speed train to get to the ball from one corner of the court to the other. He doesn’t have the kind of total body stretch that a Nadal has or the kind of athleticism that a Monfil or a Safin or a Henma or even a Sampras possesses. What makes him extraordinary is the simple fact that he is quite nimble. Anyone who is watching Federer closely will notice that his leg/feet movement within the court is so calculated. Movement that takes into account not just what is possible for that shot but more importantly what is needed for the next shot. If Federer was playing in yesterday’s final, it is hard to imagine rallies lasting this long. Or shots being hit with so much vengeful force. Or players scampering both ends of the court every 30 seconds.

To me, the 3rd set pretty much was the highlight of the match. That set alone was like an epic battle between a Spanish force and a Serbian force. Where the Spanish force was left to get through an impregnable wall of defense who would return every serve with precise accuracy and what’s worse would make you defend your own shot. If the Spanish force managed to make a small dent at the wall once, then it was almost an immediate revengeful response where the Serbian force threw the Spaniard to the corner of his courtyard to make him run here and there to save his life. In spite of that, there were a few games that lasted more than 10 minutes. Novak had almost 24 or 25 break points during the match, a fete that can only be beaten by Novak himself. That was the best set Nadal played and unfortunately for him it wasn’t enough. For a few moments right after the 3rd set, when everyone thought Novak may begin to whimper as he called for a medical timeout, no one suspected that Nadal notwithstanding coming back from a 2 set lead against him and winning the 3rd set, could actually be fighting some pain himself.

Novak exhibited why he is no. 1 really in the 4th set. If the first 2 sets were proof of Novak’s sheer talent, brilliant physical astuteness combined with great game planning and superb execution which eventually gave him that unassailable  2 set lead, then the 4th set was where he proved how mentally tough he has become in the last 12 months or so. His service speed dropped by a good 20 km/h. He had visible pain around his mid-back area. None of that deterred him from continuing to smother the court with his completely unbelievable shots that were hit with so much force and some crazy angles which only he could pull off, as his court coverage efficiency didn’t drop a bit. And then, all of a sudden, Rafael Nadal, the powerhouse of stamina started to give up. He just couldn’t handle the pressure of being pushed to the corner and having to match Novak’s court coverage. He ran out of steam. Very visibly so if the last 2 games were any indication.

By electing to play a blinder of a return shot in what at that moment was his only choice to stay alive in the tournament, in one of the greatest semifinal matches of all time against Federer, he showed all of us how far he is daring to go. I think it won’t be an exaggeration if I called that moment ‘the defining moment’ of Novak becoming the US Open 2011 champion. He brought Federer’s confidence down with that single shot in the match and for the second time in a row at an US Open semifinal. To follow that win appropriately, just like that, he wore & drained Nadal down in an epic battle in the final, whose scoreline doesn’t do justice to the effort that it took Nadal to stay alive for close to 4 hours and 15 minutes. For the 6th time this year, Nadal had to hold the runners trophy standing next to the exact same player holding the championship trophy.

If he won, Nole knew he couldn’t bite into any grass at the Arthur Ashe Stadium to celebrate his victory. I don’t think that mattered. He went onto win the US Open anyways!

Waka..Waka..

FIFA World Cup 2010

I will confess. I am not an avid football..err..soccer..alright..er…football fan. At least not the kind who follows UEFA teams and lose my sleep over a point here or a point there, with time zone differences for a few months every year. But I am the kind who develops this grandiose devotion to the game every four years when FIFA world cup ‘kicks’ in. With that said, you know why and how this post came about.

It is almost a week since the world cup started and I didn’t get to see all the matches in their entirety – live or recorded. But I am caught up with most of the action. Because I follow this sport every four years, it is kind of hard to keep tab on all the players. Those that make headlines in sports pages around the globe become familiar even if they don’t make the world cup squad..I mean those star players. Of course, in the 7 world cups that I remember following, almost 80% of the players who are considered star players before the tournament starts, end up performing under par. And there is always a handful of new ‘star players’ who emerge at the end of each tournament. To a fan like me, this makes it exciting. Because I am watching almost all games with no expectations except my personal preference for one team over the other (For example I wanted New Zealand to win over Slovakia today but wanted Germany to win over Australia last week)..There is no well-thought out reasoning behind me picking favorites. Of course, when top teams play, there is certainly some method to my picking.

Be it the time period when I started following 2 games other than cricket religiously in my early childhood or the age when I started following these games, I kind of have an adulatory passion towards Becker in Tennis and Maradona in Football. There is something striking about their careers – both on and off the field. As I type this, I contemplate what was in them that drew me to them? And the flamboyancy they exhibited on field got them lot of critics and because of the way they handled (or couldn’t) their fame & popularity, they hit the bottom of their PR campaign, once they went past their respective points of prime in their careers.

I am glad Maradona has managed to find his way back to a decent position. So naturally, I am rooting for Argentina this world cup. Even though Dunga decided to drop Ronaldhino from the squad, Brazil will always be a favorite even if they were to beat Argentina. Italy & Germany have always been my favorite teams because of their consistency followed by Netherlands (thanks to some eye catchy uniforms and crazy hair players in the 80s and 90s). The likes of Linekar & Rooney don’t impress me enough to root for England much like David Gower or Ian Botham couldn’t (BTW, I loved Botham as an individual cricketer). There is something about the English which always makes me respect them but not be passionate about them.

With this post going nowhere, I am glad I have managed to compile at least one post under the world cup football  topic. With so much travel coming in the next 3 weeks, I am not sure if I am going to be able to stay on top form as far as blogging goes.

Tsamina mina eh..eh..waka..waka..eh.eh..Tsamina mina sangalewa..This time it’s for Africa!