After giving up the first two games of the series to the Padres, and hence extending the pennant race to the very last day of the season, the San Francisco Giants finally got a strong start behind Jonathan Sanchez and won 3–0. That win plus the Braves’ win today not only wins the division but eliminates the Padres—definitely good for San Francisco, whose record against San Diego was 6–12 this season.
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Rafael Nadal completed his career Grand Slam yesterday, beating Novak Djokovic in four rain-delayed sets. That’s Nadal’s ninth Grand Slam title—and his third in a row. He is clearly the best player in the world right now, and dropped only a single set—in the final—on his way to the only title that had eluded him thus far.
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The biggest upset on the men’s side has been Wawrinka taking out Murray in four sets—making Nadal’s route to the final easier, as Nadal has had significant trouble against Murray on hard courts. Wawrinka’s no slouch, but I can’t see him beating Nadal, if he makes it that far. Another unexpected result was Llodra beating Berdych in the first round, also helping Nadal. As for the women, Cibulkova over Kuznetsova and Kanepi over Jankovic are probably the surprises, along with dark horse pick Azarenka retiring against Dulko.
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Aptly-named Yankees blog It’s About the Money has an excellent post up about luck and competitive balance in the baseball post-season. One of its key points concerns how likely a given team is to win a particular series, and how that translates into their odds of winning the whole thing.
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I read Agassi’s autobiography during a five-hour layover in Philadelphia airport this weekend, and have to say I was impressed—with the book, not the layover. I had expected it to be of interest mainly for its hardcore tennis content, with some celebrity stuff thrown in, but I found it gripping throughout and was very impressed with Agassi’s voice.
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Last Friday I played soccer for the first time in almost two decades. I managed not to disgrace myself, and enjoyed it a great deal. It was a variant of five-a-side, although we played first with six players per side and later with four. I was with a group of regular players at SportsCo in Ringsend, and the quality of the pitch there was pretty good. Not that I’m an expert, but it’s the best surface I’ve played on.
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Paul the octopus made the right pick again, and the Spanish ensured the Dutch stand alone as the best side never to win a World Cup.
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Tomas Berdych overcame the world number two, Roger Federer, and the world number three, Novak Djokovic. But he couldn’t get anywhere near the world number one, Rafael Nadal, who dismantled him in three sets and made it look fairly easy.
It wasn’t a great match to watch. Berdych claimed not to be nervous, but he certainly looked tight. Against Federer and Djokovic he prevailed with heavy serves and heavy power strokes, but those weren’t evident today. Many of his groundstrokes were landing inside the service line, and Nadal is simply too good not to punish that. So he did. 6–3, 7–5, 6–4.
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Of the top four seeds, three are through to the semifinals—making it all the more shocking that the only one not to make it is Roger Federer. Tomas Berdych beat him in the quarterfinals 6–4, 3–6, 6–1, 6–4. Losing at the quarterfinal stage in Paris is one thing, but at Wimbledon, where Federer had been in the finals for seven consecutive years? That’s absolutely an upset. The problem is it wasn’t a hugely surprising upset in that Berdych was clearly going to trouble Federer, playing the same kind of power game that Söderling and Del Potro (and, in a more limited way, Davydenko) have been able to hurt him with over the past year. A shocker, but one that you could almost sense coming.
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Since I last mentioned the World Cup, a mere three days ago, there have been a further two major officiating controversies, each altering significantly the matches they occurred in.
For all the drama in this tournament, most of the big names have survived into the second week. Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Roddick, and Söderling are all still in it, while on the women’s side both Williams sisters, Wozniacki, and Jankovic, the top four, are still in, as are Sharapova, Henin, and Clijsters (although those last two play each other next).
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About halfway through the 2010 World Cup, and it’s been all right so far. The refereeing has been fairly bad, and as usual is one of the worst things about watching the games. The other awful thing is closely related to the refereeing, and can be sampled in this MetaFilter post about diving.
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Those numbers are the points for John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, respectively, in their ludicrously epic first-round Wimbledon match, the longest professional tennis match in history (by some margin) either by total games or total time. Twice suspended due to darkness, the match ended today, 6–4, 3–6, 6–7 (7), 7–6 (3), 70–68 to Isner.
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Robin Söderling, after knocking out the defending champion, was again unable to put up much resistance in the final. This match had a different pattern from last year’s final; this year, Söderling had important chances early but could not break the Nadal serve, and once those early chances were gone they didn’t reappear.
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One of the most amazing streaks in sports history ended Tuesday, when Robin Söderling beat Roger Federer in the French Open quarterfinals. 23 straight appearances in semifinals or better. The last time Federer failed to make the semifinals of a Grand Slam was at the French Open in 2004. Six years ago. Near the end of George W. Bush’s first term.
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So far, it’s been an uneventful tournament on the men’s side. Roddick’s departure was shocking only because he lost to a qualifier. Steve Tignor wrote an excellent piece on that loss and the part environmental conditions played. Apart from that the biggest story was Murray’s win against Gasquet, coming back from two sets down. I recommend what Tignor wrote about that too.
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After a highly enjoyable, productive, and extended period, it’s time for me to return to the world of paid work.
I’m quite happy with the things I’ve done during my time off. Many of them are important only to me, but then, it’s been my time off.
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Thanks to the wonder of the internet, I’ve been able to catch pieces of the World Snooker Championships. The final is currently quite close, with Neil Robertson leading Graeme Dott 9–7 after the first day.
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How long should tennis matches be? At the Grand Slam level, five sets. That’s the traditional answer, and all of the best matches I’ve seen have been five sets long. That’s long enough to be challenging, but not so long as to be ridiculous.
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I know I’m something of a Federer partisan, but wow, does this commentator take it to a ridiculous level (note that the translation may not be entirely accurate). There’s some excellent tennis in there too, but the commentary really is amazing.
Slate V came up with this clever clip about what the Super Bowl might look like if famous filmmakers directed it:
Roger Federer put more space between first and second place in men’s tennis history by collecting his (record) 16th Grand Slam victory, 6–3, 6–4, 7–6 (11) over Andy Murray last night. Pete Sampras has 14 Grand Slams, and now it seems as if Federer will be looking to match the all-time greats in women’s tennis—Margaret Court has 24.
I thought it would take Federer four sets to overcome Murray, and maybe five. Instead, Federer again underscored the disparity between his game and everyone else’s.
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Absolutely one of the most amazing achievements in sports history, and terribly underappreciated. The last time Roger Federer hasn’t reached at least the semifinal stage of a Grand Slam: the 2004 French Open. Almost six years ago! In addition, the only people he’s lost to in that span were the eventual champions. This on grass, clay, different varieties of hardcourt, in quite varied conditions—it hasn’t mattered. He’s always gotten at least to the semifinals, i.e. to the sixth round.
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