Federer, Davis Cup

My first sighting of Roger Federer was live at the Davis Cup in Basel in February 2001. He won two singles matches and the doubles against the US. Such a joy to watch him now, almost 14 years later, winning the only tennis title missing from his laurels.

Federer's most important X

Miles likes ranking things, and recently he asked me what Roger Federer's most important match has been. I wondered whether it might have been the first Wimbledon victory, or even perhaps the loss to Nadal at Wimbledon, but then I decided that his most important tournament win was the French Open in 2009 (tying Sampras, completing career Grand Slam), which means that his most important match must have been that final, right?

But no, that final was arguably a bit of a letdown; the semifinal against Del Potro was more crucial to the tournament win than the final against Söderling.

But then arguably the most important match of the tournament was the five-setter against Tommy Haas in the fourth round, where Federer came back from two-love down to win.

And if that is the most important match in Federer's career, then it's also possible to identify the single most important point in his career: a forehand winner on a break point in the third set. And from my narcissistic perspective, the coolest thing about that winner is that I noticed how important it was (in that match at least) right after he hit it! (And even before he won the tournament!)

Federer-Haas

After Rafael Nadal lost at the French Open yesterday, I talked with several people who dismissed Tommy Haas as a potential threat to Roger Federer in their match today. In third set, though, the score was 6-7, 5-7, 3-4, 30-40 on Federer's serve, Haas had a break point to serve for the match, and I was thinking, "See, Haas is a dangerous, canny veteran!"

On that break point, Federer ran around a backhand and drilled a crosscourt forehand, a shot he'd been missing all day—but this one went in, and Federer proceeded to win the next nine games, and then the match in the fifth set: 6-7, 5-7, 6-4, 6-0, 6-2.

All I can say is, "Roger, don't do that to me again in the next three rounds!" :-)

Poem sort of in Sports Illustrated

A poem has appeared in Sports Illustrated, at least in the online version. Well, at least as a link in Jon Wertheim's online column! Page down a bit! (Thanks to my Mom for pointing this out.)

DFW

I have only ever read one piece by David Foster Wallace ("Roger Federer as Religious Experience"), but that was such a beautiful piece of writing about one of my favorite subjects (tennis) that I find myself deeply saddened by the news of his death by hanging on Friday.

My friend Ulrich Blumenbach is in the last stages of writing the German translation of Infinite Jest. How odd it must be to have the author of something you are translating die while you are doing so. (Perhaps like having the author you are writing criticism on die while you are writing the criticism, something that has also never happened to me.)

Perhaps I am struck as much by the deaths of Reginald Shepherd and DFW because they are both of my generation (DFW was 46; Reginald 44; and I am 44).

David Nalbandian

David Nalbandian is the man to watch in men's tennis in 2008. Here's what Rafael Nadal said after losing to him in Paris today, 6-4, 6-0 (!):

"Today I played against one who is playing better than me and than the rest of the players, too."

You heard it from Rafa first: Nalbandian is playing better than anybody. If he can start the year in the same zone, then watch out, Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic!

Nadal

Rafael Nadal when he's a break down:

Oh, you're a break up, are you?
Think you're rolling, do you?
Well, how about this?
And this?
And this?
And this?
Shake hands.
Good match.

I wrote that, in an email to a friend, after Nadal beat Andy Murray in Madrid two weeks ago. But he just did it again to Marcos Baghdatis in Paris, and I've seen him do it to my man Roger Federer a couple of times, as well as to the Swiss number two, Stanislas Wawrinka.

And I recited my little tennis poem to my son Miles, who thought it was so funny he made me recite it to him a whole bunch of times, and since then he sometimes says, out of the blue, "Shake hands. Good match." Giggle. :-)

Predicting Paris tennis

Tennis fans who want to have a little fun should go to British Tennis to participate in their competition predicting the results of this week's Masters Series tournament in Paris. I participated in their competitions for the US Open and the Madrid tournament, and it was lots of fun.

The deadline to enter is 10 am UK time (i.e. 10.00 GMT / 11.00 CET / 05.00 US EST) on Monday 29 October. As of this writing (at 1:30 p.m. CET on Sunday), the qualifiers have not yet been added to the draw; they should be added by this evening.

Have fun! Go Roger! :-)

(Here's hoping Federer feels fit enough after reaching finals the past two weeks to still participate!)

Federer-Isner

Two comments on the match between Roger Federer and John Isner at the U.S. Open today (6-7, 6-2, 6-4 for Federer):

Long-term: Watch out for John Isner. I'm not sure whether he'll be in the top 10, but top 30 by next summer.

Short-term: If Federer keeps playing this well (0 unforced errors in the second and third sets), then the only player left in the draw who has any chance of beating him now is Djokovic.

Youth 6

"He has not played cricket since he left school, when he decided to renounce it on the grounds that team sports were incompatible with the life of a poet and an intellectual."

Near the end of Youth, Coetzee's "youth" makes this discovery: cricket (his sport of choice as a child) is too much fun to renounce on the grounds that it lacks intellectual seriousness.

Me, I've never been good enough at any sport to have to renounce it on intellectual grounds, but I have always been a sports fan, and being a fan has always given me aesthetic pleasures that both resemble and differ from those provided by art ("It is not beautiful, yet it speaks like beauty, imperiously"). Resemble: the beauties of drama and narrative (and sometimes of comedy) are what make sports work. You have to follow them for a while to really experience this. (One reason I only tangentially follow baseball in Basel is that I have nobody to share the drama with.) Differ from: the beauties of sport are always subject to one significant determining factor that is lacking in art: in sports, the goal is always the same. Roger Federer and J. M. Coetzee may both abide by the rule "just do it", but in Roger's case, the "it" is defined in advance; in Coetzee's, it is not.

Recently I have had two striking experiences playing sports. Since last year, my son Miles has gone crazy for soccer (I have to write "soccer" for Americans reading this!), so I have played lots of soccer with him. But that was not striking. It was playing a bit of basketball with him earlier this year, and then in the past few days ping pong, that was striking: those are sports I grew up playing, and though I make no claims to being especially good at either (my basketball skills are especially rusty), when I play them, it feels natural in a way that soccer does not (which I only played regularly for a year as a child, when my family lived in Leamington Spa in England when I was nine).

Coetzee: "Does there not also exist a poetry of ecstasy, even a poetry of lunchtime cricket as a form of ecstasy?"

Lego Roger

During the semifinal of the 2004 Australian Open, I built a Roger Federer out of Lego and put it on the television as a kind of voodoo doll to help him win. When he did (6-4, 6-1, 6-4 against Juan Carlos Ferrero), I put a #1 on his racket to symbolize that he had just taken over the top ranking. I also resolved to not take the Lego Roger apart until he was no longer number one. Even at the time, I mentioned to Andrea that, given how well he was playing, he might be #1 for a very long time, barring injury. I guessed that he had a good shot at being #1 for five years.

Well, Roger the tennis player is still #1 and is just going past Jimmy Connors for the most consecutive weeks at #1 since the rankings began in 1973. He had his one serious injury in the fall of 2005, but recovered quickly.

Roger the Lego figure has fallen apart a couple of times, but that just shows that the figure is not really a voodoo doll!

And by the way, here's proof that I am not wholly partisan: I have considered building a Lego Rafael Nadal, with his racket in his left hand and a #2 on the racket. :-)

Federer vs. Roddick

Mats Wilander said on Eurosport that the second set of the Australian Open semifinal between Federer and Roddick was the best set of tennis he had ever seen by a single player, and at the end, he said it was the best match he had ever seen anyone play: 6-4, 6-0, 6-2, with Federer winning 15 of the last 17 games after being down (on serve) at 3-4 in the first set.

Well, I once saw a set at least the equal of Federer's second-set dismantling of Roddick (24 points to 6!): the fourth and final set of the French Open final between Gustavo Kuerten and Alex Corretja in 2001. Kuerten won the first 23 points of the set to go up 5-0, 40-0. Then a funny thing happened on match point: Corretja won three straight points to get back to deuce before Kuerten then won the last two to win the match. Point total for the set: 25-3. For the sake of completeness: the score of the match in the end was 6-7(0) 7-5 6-2 6-0. (I had forgotten that Kuerten lost the first-set tiebreak at love!)

And for the sake of rubbing it in for Roddick fans: Federer 13, Roddick 1. :-)

Tennis Numerology, or Comfort for Federer fans

This week, Roger Federer has exactly as many entry-system points as Rafael Nadal and David Nalbandian combined:

Federer, Roger (SUI) 7160
Nadal, Rafael (ESP) 4335
Nalbandian, David (ARG) 2825

So he's as good as the two of them put together. Some comfort for the fact that Nadal has now beaten him three times in a row, and Nalbandian was the last player to beat him besides Nadal.

Accident and 2 Coincidences

As a first real post, let me put in this link to a poem that I wrote in November and published in December, "An Accident and Two Coincidences."

I wrote the poem because one of the editors of Primary Care asked me to write the story down for their special issue on writer's experiences with their primary-care doctors. As they weren't going to pay me, I decided to pay myself, as it were, by writing it in verse.