The Maanga

There was an Australian Open, a French and a Wimbledon this year, all reasonably fashionable pissing cups within the grasp of who they wrongly call ‘the greatest player ever’.

But he chose New York to piss me off.

Srdjan Djokovic remains an enigma. Yesterday I saw him cheering violently for a fellow Serbian against a fellow Serbian. He of course helped me choose who to back, but I wonder what he could have against the pretty Ivanovic.

I have a couple of theories. One, Novak was rejected by Ivanovic because she knew his dick isn’t as big as he claims. Two, the girl may be lesbian because she is awestruck by Federer which is completely unacceptable to the Joker family. I agree both these reasons make no sense which is why Srdjan is an enigma.

I couldn’t care less about who’s winning the French Open, but I hope Nadal does. It’d be a fitting end to a boring tournament.

James Blake does listen to commentators.

He takes their input seriously. So he thinks the mistake yesterday was when he put them all in practice in one match, when he should have just played his game.

And what is his game? Ball-Bashing, not tennis.

Now, I don’t detest ball bashing. Far from it. It feels great to have a ball machine on the opposite end and bash balls it throws at you.

But if you want to do that in a match, where you aren’t playing a probot, you shouldn’t even be in a post match conference blaming poor PMac for being outplayed by a smarter and better player.

Ernests Gulbis, who Blake admits played like a top 20er, actually played like a top 5er. Because he will soon be there or thereabouts when Blake picks his sorry ass and his stupid cry baby book out of ATP.

Meanwhile, Murray was declared the gay tennis icon in Britian. This result has had a cascading effect on French Open odds, with reports of Nadal suffering from a bout of depression over Federer being ahead of him in the poll.

With this context, one can understand what Nadal was spitting at for a long time during his second round match yesterday. I have had friends who have puked at being shown Murray’s picture, so Nadal’s spitting does come across as a rather acceptable alternative on a tennis court.

I traveled to Melbourne Open with a couple of my Austrian Friends who are fellow French tennis fans. Except for a brief moment in a long match between Matheiu and Koubek where the clash of interest was diffused with a tasty Khima Dosa in an Indian Restaurant, it was largely an enjoyable affair throughout the first week.

Then the unthinkable happened when friends made an imaginary connection between French display and my presence on the court. The result - I was forced away from Rod Laver Arena in the hope that Tsonga wins this entire tournament.

Djokovic - the two faced prick - won yesterday and I am very sad that Federer had to lose like this, to Djokovic.

The junior Australian Open was another pain to watch. Everyone’s playing like Nadal. Even this Indian boy who made the semifinals. Shit.

There was a player - Ivan Lendl. He reached 19 grand slam finals, won 8 of them and spent more than 200 weeks as world number 1. Probably revolutionised the way the game was played then, played so much similar to Federer’s game. He was rotten on the court, like everybody else were at the time, may be whined a little more than others and won a lot of matches. But considering he played during the times of Becker, Edberg, Connors, McEnroe, Borg, Wilander, and some other greats, I would say Lendl for having done the things he did was an extraordinary player.

However, any discussion on greats doesn’t seem to bring up his name because his game was widely considered to be boring. Fast Forward to 2007, Federer playing the same style of tennis is considered god because he won more than Lendl. Same applies to Bjorn Borg too. He should be boring too.

If achievement is equated to divineness in tennis court, then its ok. But the deluded Federer fans seem to understand that everything else follows it. His forehand must be the greatest, because he won so much (which may be very close to the truth), his backhand must be the greatest, because he won so much (which is not even on current top 10), his footwork must be the most impeccable, because he won so much.

Why he wins so many Grand Slams is obviously because he works harder than others and perhaps smarter. But I think he wins also because mugs in the top 10 keep letting him win. I still remember the AO final with Baghdatis. I was a Federer fan, but started to root for Baghdatis mid way. Because only one player was trying to win the match, the other was trying to defend so much that it became disgusting. The trend continues to this day. He is a much more defensive player now than he was before 2006, may be due to the weight of expectations. But the hype about him being a perfect player hasn’t died.

Although it is silly to expect fairness from tennis writers, I can rant on it because Nilu gave me a username and password on his blog.

for tennis. 

One look at tennis history and you find several champions that displayed freakish talent of some kind on the court. Boris Becker started off with a wonderful deceptive serve (they say the best of his era), John McEnroe hustled opponents by barging in off mediocre serves and made incredible volleys, Connors irritated opponents with on-court buffoonery and ran down balls like his life depended on it, Stefan Edberg used a continental grip on his forehand and still won some Grand Slams. There were lots more that added character to the game.

Then came Pete Sampras. Nothing special about him. Except he can hit a few good serves and remain focused on winning. Big deal. But atleast he was American and the media had a field day hyping him to the sky. Freakish players - Ivanisevic, Agassi, Rios, Korda, Kuerten and all the wonderful players of this era who won the French Open were derogatorily named dirt ballers by the stupid American media.

This decade, though, started with a bang, a hope that freaks will get their due and turn tennis back into a spectator sport. Lengthy altercations with the umpire made me a Roddick fan, ability to irritate the spectators made me a Hewitt fan. In the midst of all this, a cry baby suddenly found some form and finished 2003 with a bang. I was hoping Marat Safin would kick his butt in the Oz open next year, it didn’t happen. I though Tommy Haas will show Federer his place, that didn’t happen either. Sadly the bad boys Roddick and Hewitt lost their games and their attitude just because they believed the hype machine working in full swing. The tennis officials had got it wrong. Fans weren’t waiting for the next Pete Sampras (yeah some losers were), but for players who can show them different ways to play the game and win.

Much of the blame for this pathetic show should be borne by Marat Safin, for his preference to davis cup, Nicolas Kiefer and Tommy Haas for their untimely injuries, Roddick and Hewitt for believing in the media hype and not get in Federer’s face, Nalbandian for not even trying to improve his serve all this while. It’s utterly disgusting to watch Federer win slams after slams making tennis seem like child’s play. Even more so reading nonsense articles by devotees and listening to a match commentary.

Ofcourse, its easy to avoid watching Federer play as I have done for the past one year, but devotees on the commentary box seem to have a way of bringing him up during Gasquet’s matches comparing his backhand to Federer’s. Here’s a guy so full of himself and declaring himself as a legend of the sport (admirable if the attitude is shown on the court) and his fans are keen on defending him as the humblest champion ever. (I heard my professor say that Stefan Edberg is the classiest of them all, followed closely by Bjorn Borg, and that Federer doesn’t even come close. Considering that he is a brilliant man I would take his word.)

My best memories of Federer fans are when they list all the qualities of the great man and wait for me to acknowledge them. Much like how mormons show their happy family and pretend to have unlocked the key to happiness (in a south park episode). Well, fuck you.

And jumping off to the original point about this decade being the most disgraceful, you only have to look at the variety of players in top 10 in the world right now. Only Nadal and Gasquet stand out as the real freaks there, for different reasons obviously. Everybody else are boring SOBs. They’ve almost made reverence to Federer a global cultural phenomena.

There comes a time in a young man’s life when he has to choose. If he wants to become an intellectual or just make a lot of money, both of which are equally deplorable and unavoidable choices.

He digs into his past and finds a pattern in his choices, but isn’t sure if his tendency to go against popular trends would be helpful because he finds equal number of lunatics on both sides.

So this is where the cute 2 dollar Australian coin helps him decide that he should want to make a lot of money.

Ofcourse, this doesn’t change his core philosophy that Federer is the most boring player ever.

I watch tennis for 10 years and wonder what makes some players more successful than others. Now, tennis is a simple game. So there’s no way that one player can be miles ahead of the competition in terms of ability. 

Here’s when I let Jagadguru enlighten my soul with the simple truth that the playing field is not level. Federer, for instance, has been this rich kid who played Challengers and Futures level with nothing to lose. Result - The prick attitude that he is somehow better than everybody. Proof - The way he cried after he lost to Henman because his next door millionaire aunt, who told him that he would rule the world was watching him when he lost to a veteran who forgot how to volley.

Roddick strengthens this theory even more. I mean, how else can anyone explain this player’s constant presence in the top 5. Sampras has been more forthright about it when he said he wasn’t trying to be the top junior, but a top pro.  

While all this happens, a player from Argentina works hard through his Challengers and Futures and Juniors, making Federer his bitch in the process and saving up money to travel to the next tournament because his government hardly had enough money to keep the currency printer running. And when he finally makes it at pro level, receives so much money that he can’t help avoiding an exponential increase in consumption of  burgers and let Federer win those pointless Grand Slams. The player is David Nalbandian, ofcourse.

The entire system supports rich kids like Federer and Sampras or the govt sponsored kids like Gasquet and Murray. Thank you Jagadguru for opening my eyes to the truth that Tennis is like life. Record holders are like billionaires whose only role is to sustain popular interest in the game. Now I can concentrate my energy on solving the Federer-Davis Cup puzzle. 

Although many recall his twin defeats of Sampras and Agassi on an ultra fast carpet to finish the millenium as world no.1, I always remember Gustavo Kuerten fondly by replaying the match where he fought the odds and injury to overwhelm Federer in 2004 RG.

On the eve of the match, there was this injury cloud hanging over and Kuerten, who missed a good part of the last two years nursing his hip injury, was almost ready to give up on the hopeless prospect of trying to beat a man who was almost unbeatable in 2004. As a hardcore Kuerten fan, and a touchy Federer fan I was only too happy to see both of them stroll into the court after much speculation.

What followed was perhaps the best exhibition of clay court tennis since Albert Costa won the French Open in 2002. Federer had no idea how to play Kuerten as the backhand drives kicked up on this throat time and again and he was caught in no man’s land trying move forward and back. Kuerten went for broke to avoid playing longer and aggravating injury and it worked with Federer getting increasingly defensive as the match went on. The match ended 6/4 6/4 6/4 in Kuerten’s favour and raised hopes of a decent finish for 2004 only to squashed by Nalbandian in the next round. French Open has never been the same since.

The closest a Gasquet match came to match this high was when he defeated James Blake at Paris Indoor masters 2 months ago.

It is quite obvious that since the affable brazilian semi-retired in 2004 (shortly after thumping the ego-king in Roland Garros) there hasn’t been a worthy champion in tennis. Federer has managed to make most of this conspicuous absence of a champion to add meaningless grand slam titles to his name - most notably, the overrated Wimbledon. Since scores of paper and bandwidth have been wasted in comparing Federer with another equally presumptuous prick - Sampras, whose definition of a great forehand is pushing it in faster than most pushers in tennis and considering the consensus is already reached on Sampras’ inadequacy in handling top spin off the backhand, I shall just list my top four reasons to hate Federer:

p.s. affable brazilian - Gustavo Kuerten and Ego-King - Mr. Federer.