Three days before the tournament begins, defending champion Rafael Nadal withdraws. This isn’t too much of a surprise given that he skipped Queen’s, but it’s definitely bad news.
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Or, “French Open for Federer”. He defeated Robin Soderling of Sweden 6-1, 7-6 (1), 6-4 at Roland Garros today, tying Sampras’ record for career Grand Slam wins and (in my opinion) establishing himself as the greatest male tennis player of all time.
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Since I started playing tennis again, I’ve been looking for tips to improve my game. I already knew it could do with a lot of improvement, but unfortunately there’s even more than I had realized.

I’ve been extremely impressed with the annoyingly-named site Fuzzy Yellow Balls. They have a pretty good selection of videos that take you through more or less everything a beginner could want, and plenty that beginner-intermediate players like me could want, also.
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Monika and I have been playing squash at UCSF Mission Bay for about a couple of years, but with a ruleset that was based on our past experience rather than actually looking up the rules. For the past couple of months I’ve had the responsibility of doing that looking up, but have always forgotten about it except when either at the court or on my way there. This evening I finally examined the Wikipedia entry for squash.
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I started thinking about writing this post on Friday, and also mulled it over yesterday. I certainly didn’t expect to be writing about the biggest upset of the year: Nadal losing in the fourth round of the French Open to Robin Soderling. Soderling took it in four, 6-2, 6-7 (2), 6-4, 7-6 (2). It still seems crazy.
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Despite having written at least twenty-one posts about tennis over the last two years, I haven’t really been playing any. I’ve been on court several times with Monika, which is fun, but she’s a beginner and we don’t play actual games, and seem to have reverted to playing squash instead. Several years ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long) I used to play with Lara, who was at about my level (although her technique is better than mine).

Yesterday an ex-colleague, Jeremy, got me out on court in Dolores Park to play, and I remembered how much I love the game.
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In straight sets (6-4, 6-4), no less. It’s a big win for Federer, who finally wins a Masters Series event after nearly two years without one (his last was Cincinnati 2007). This brings his career Masters Series win total to 15—catching him up to Nadal, with the pair of them trailing Agassi’s all-time record of 17.
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This Sports Illustrated article is one of the better articles I’ve read on the Federer-Nadal rivalry.

I don’t agree with everything in it—for one thing, portray Federer as being less willing to fight than I think is the case—but it covers the bases pretty well, and it’s hard to argue with this key section:

From mid-2006 through ’07 Federer took five of his seven matches with Nadal, including both Wimbledon finals, and he seemed to have mastered his young rival at last. But Nadal took a major step by pushing Federer to five sets in the ’07 Wimbledon final. As the challenger he had the psychological advantage of chasing, and unlike Federer he was determined to keep adding weapons. To beat Federer on grass and hard courts, Toni and Rafa were methodically upgrading Rafa’s game, making it less reliant on defense and more geared to dictating play and conserving energy.
—S. L. Price, “How Nadal humbled Federer”, Sports Illustrated, 14 May 2009

My friend Stephen posted this to Facebook earlier today, and it’s just too good not to share:

I don’t know much about bike trials, but there’s no way the stuff in that video is anything but amazing.

It’s not surprising that some athletes make terrible financial decisions, and one often hears about the Michael Vicks and Mike Tysons of the world ending up with nothing. But I didn’t realize that it was quite so common, and that these examples aren’t exceptions but rather the rule. According to a recent Sports Illustrated article, “[b]y the time they’ve been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce”.
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This morning I watched the Key Biscayne Master’s semifinal between Roger Federer, ranked #2, and Novak Djokovic, ranked #3. Neither of them has been playing great tennis, with Djokovic squeaking by Tsonga and Federer scraping by Roddick.
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I watched the final on Saturday night/Sunday morning, and it was quite a painful experience.
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The Onion has done some good pieces on Federer in the past, and recently came up with this picture:

I like it quite a lot, but my enjoyment of it is marred by the last item on the Strong Side.
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The Australian Open draws are out (men, women), and I think the smart money at this point is on a Federer/Murray final. Any of the top four could win—Nadal is the world number one, and Djokovic is the defending champion—but Murray is on form and Federer just has an excellent record at Slams and won the last one on hard courts. I think Federer will win it in a repeat of his US Open win over Murray, but you never know, and Murray has the weapons to beat him—last year Djokovic went through Federer in Australia in straight sets after having lost to him in New York. Hopefully, though, the lack of mono will mean a better performance from Federer this year.
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Because they are glorious:

I still can’t believe the shot at 6:55 in the first one.

Some time ago I posted one of the classic clips from Roger Federer’s return game, his unbelievable retrieval of a dunk slam by Andy Roddick. That post is on my still-yet-to-be-revived old site, so I can’t link to it, but in any case YouTube now has a clip of that entire return game by Federer, who blows Roddick off the court not just in that point but in all four. As far as I can tell, Roddick is leading 15-0 when the clip begins, and from there on it’s a ludicrous display of tennis from Federer:

I came across this clip at random today, thought it was worth sharing… it should be obvious that someone who is likely the greatest tennis player of all time has a lot of competitive drive and pride, not to mention that it should be clear never to assume it’s over until you’ve actually won.
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Roger Federer defeated Andy Murray in straight sets in today’s delayed final, 6-2 7-5 6-2, and took less than two hours to do it. The same Federer that many commentators dismissed as a contender for the title… despite his having not lost there in years. Yes, he had a bad early hardcourt season, but the only person you could really think would beat him at it would be Nadal, and even Nadal would have had tremendous difficulty doing so in New York. I don’t see why so many pundits were eager to state that he was in rapid decline, and now he’s made them look pretty bad.
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Roger Federer is no longer the world number one. Rafael Nadal took the number one ranking today after being in the number two spot for longer than anyone else in history. Nadal’s ascension was guaranteed at least two weeks ago, thanks to poor recent results from Federer, some quirks in the ranking system, and Nadal’s continued fantastic form.

Federer was the world number one for longer, consecutively, than anyone before him: 237 weeks, from 2 Feb 2004 until 17 Aug 2008. The previous men’s record was 160 (Jimmy Connors), more than a year shorter than Federer. Steffi Graf had a record of 186 consecutive weeks at number one, just under a year shorter than Federer.
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Well, it seems I was wrong about Federer recovering from his Wimbledon loss and tenaciously defending his #1 ranking—he lost in the first round of the Rogers Cup last night to Gilles Simon.
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Given the results of the Wimbledon final and the Roland Garros final, it’s hard to argue that Nadal isn’t the best tennis player in the world at the moment. However, he’s not ranked as the number one player in the world—that’s still Federer.
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I wouldn’t have put a question mark at the end of the title if Roger Federer had won, had completed his comeback from two sets to love down.
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One of the things that makes tennis such a great game is its scoring system, which can be considered apart from the rest of the rules of the game, concerned as they are with valid ways of scoring points and procedural issues.
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