Federer and Nadal: The “I-told-you-so” article

I am not above writing an article saying “I told you so.” Since my last article about Federer and Nadal, Federer has won the French Open and Wimbledon. Everyone knows what the obvious implications of these wins means, so I won’t get into it here. So while the media and the “real” journalists debate over those issues, I just wanted to point out my personal favorite thoughts about this whole saga.

First, I am shockingly disappointed at the lack of interesting articles written about all of this. I diligently searched all the online news articles for a couple of weeks to read what has been written about this rare accomplishment. Most of the articles carefully question whether Federer is now the greatest tennis player of all time. They are all mildly opinionated, politically correct, and quite boring. I sense that everyone is very afraid to say that Federer is better than Sampras, or Borg, or whoever they think is the GOAT. I get the same feeling when reading articles about Kobe and Jordan. Except, in this case, the statistics are much more favorable towards Federer, and he is generally better perceived than Kobe to the public. Anyway, the articles are all boring. That leaves it up to me to actually say something interesting.

OK, on to my first “I told you so” point. If you read my previous article:
Roger Federer & Rafael Nadal in the Epic 2009 Australian Open Final
You will find this quote:

If I had to make a prediction, it is this: Roger is going to change something in his game and training and will return even stronger and smarter. Nadal’s awesome greatness is challenging him physically and definitely mentally. And I think Roger has an additional level that we have not seen yet.

I am confident in saying that Federer tweaked his game enough to not only come back to his old, dominant self, but even surpass his previous abilities. Now, I know there are a lot of ways to disagree with that, but at least it’s debatable. For one thing, he finally won the French Open. Sure, Nadal was knocked out, but a win is a win [I'll get to Nadal in a second]. And he won it rather easily; typical Federer style. He crushed a surging Soderling, who was riding a huge wave of confidence after taking out Nadal. By the way, I love this mini-story: apparently, Soderling doesn’t have a lot of friends because he’s an asshole to everyone and is ungracious in both defeat and victory. However, he was humbled and quite respectful to Federer. The truly great ones can do that to even the most stubborn competitors. One thing I always try to point out to people who haven’t played competitive sports a lot is the nature of the fierce competitor. There’s a lot of emotion and it’s not always pretty, but it’s real. It’s actually probably my favorite part about my fascination with professional sports. I care a little bit about the technical skills, the inhuman talents and all, but the best part is seeing the raw competitive spirit displayed amongst the top 0.0001% of the world’s athletes.

Back to my original point. I think Roger has found that extra level that I talked about before. The story is still incomplete. Everyone is dying to see him play Nadal again so we can really analyze this further. I also thought it was interesting to discover that a doctor mentioned that Roger’s bout with mononucleosis last year had lingering effects on him months afterward, and could possibly explain why his game was slightly off. Now, I don’t want to discredit Nadal’s accomplishments at all, but it is a valid point to consider. Federer was a little off last year and that was unusual. The two extreme explanations are that Nadal had gotten into his head, or that he was physically injured. The truth is likely to be somewhere in between. In any case, I am eagerly waiting to see how Federer’s rejuvenation plays out, and I hope there is at least one more significant battle with Nadal or Murray, or whoever the media is thinking is his current biggest threat.

So you still think that Federer merely came back to form and didn’t actually add to his game? Well then, let’s consider Wimbledon. There was a lot of talk this year about Roddick drastically tweaking and improving his game so he would stop falling embarrassingly short in the tournaments. Poor Roddick, I really like that guy. He’s one of my favorite personalities in sports. Anyway, Roddick really improved his game and it was paying off. People will say that Federer has lost a step because the Wimbledon Final went five sets plus the extraordinary extra sets when he used to beat Roddick effortlessly. I disagree and think the match was a testament to Roddick’s improvements. Federer had to bust out 50 aces to barely win the match. How’s that for showing another level? How about fending off the greatest showing of Roddick’s life? That’s showing another level to me, you can dispute it if you want.

Now, my second “I told you so” point:

On the other hand, what can you say about Nadal? He is amazing. When it’s over, he may be the greatest and most dominant player ever. So many question marks with him because he’s very young, and his physical style that doesn’t lend itself to longevity. But he keeps proving us wrong. Maybe he’s more unique than we can imagine. However, I still stand by Federer and a future comeback.

Nadal’s game is so freaking physical, it makes you wonder if it can possibly have the longevity of Federer’s career. Nadal is unbelievable at running down impossible shots. What made him unstoppable last year was not only running the shots down, but returning them back in ways where anyone not named Nadal would not be able to reach it, including Federer. But all the experts constantly comment how the way Nadal hits the ball exerts such torques and forces on his joints. It’s not natural. And all that running and chasing is very rough on the knees. His whole game is physically taxing. The catch here is that this is probably the only way to beat Federer. Knowing this, let’s ask the million dollar question: Is Nadal better than Federer? From this context, the answer is yes and no. If you consider one match, or a handful of matches in one year (say GS Finals of 2008), yes, you can say that Nadal is better than Federer. Does that mean Federer is not the GOAT because someone was better than him at some point? Not at all. No player was better than everyone all the time throughout his career, so that’s bogus. In the long run, I strongly believe that Nadal won’t even come close to Federer’s accomplishments.

You see, Federer is so much more efficient than Nadal, physically speaking. So while Nadal looks very powerful and impressive when he’s winning, it’s taking a toll on his body. Meanwhile, Federer is loading up on his precision skills and efficient technique to make sure his dominance lasts a long time. Yes, he does it on purpose, it’s no accident. It’s not just because he’s not as naturally strong as Nadal or anything like that. It is a conscious strategy, which is very intelligent on his part. The catch-22 in this is that the only way for someone to beat him is to overpower him physically like Nadal does. Unfortunately, that success will be short lived because of the nature of the physical effort required. Is that irony? I think it is. Actually, the other way to beat Federer is to actually be better than him in the actual skills of shot-making, precision, strategy, etc. But I am operating on the assumption that nobody is even close to him on that level. That is why Federer will probably go down as the GOAT and Nadal will not. Of course, I always qualify that statement by saying the story is still unfinished.

There you go. Finally, some interesting, opinionated thoughts about the Federer tale, right?

I’ll end this article with some cool pictures I found on the web: