Bloody hilarious!
written: 10:24 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 03, 2009

I've picked up the habit of parking my ass at RogerFederer.com every day just to see what's going on with him, but now more so than ever and for a much longer duration since he did this thing where he lost the Australian Open which, like, totally shattered me and everything. It was nice to go to a place where 138578472187638212837451 people all over the world understood your sadness and anguish and pain so that you didn't feel so alone and silly for crying over and for someone that you don't know and will never know.

But now that the dust has settled considerably, the mood is much lighter, and therefore, I just completely laughed my ass off at a couple of posts.

The context: People were marvelling how Roger's site gained 3000 (I kid you not) new members since the Australian Open final. In other words, his site gained 3000 new members in less than two days. The influx of newcomers inevitably came with an influx of new threads in his forum about topics that have been discussed to death in threads that already exist. Amongst them is the Does Roger Need a Coach? debate.

Here's the funny:

Post #1
Don't you just love the new threads popping up. Well at least this time we haven't got one called "Roger needs a new COUCH". Yet.

Reply to Post #1
I just don't understand why Roger simply refuses to get a new couch after so many people have asked him to. Apparently, it is certain to make him beat Nadal the next time he plays. What has he done with his millions? Can he not afford one? Maybe, we should start a donation drive to get Roger a new couch. Is he partial to leather? Fabric? Rattan?

Reply to Reply to Post #1 (same person that wrote Post #1)
He is sitting on the bunch of towels he stole from the Australian Open because he has mental issues. Who the hell needs a couch?!

HAHAHAHAHA OMG I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING.

On a similar note, I find it in incredibly poor taste how some prominent tennis writers have attempted to link Roger's loss at the Australian Open and his lack of a coach to his relationship with Mirka. Roger and Mirka are as public about their relationship as they are private about the details of their relationship. I know nothing about them except how they met (Sydney Olympics), Mirka's role in his career (manager-type role), and that he recently bought her a yellow ring, possibly diamond, and he called it the "I love you very much" ring. Insinuating that his girlfriend is affecting his tennis is incredibly and disgustingly disrespectful to the woman who's constantly and unfailingly by his side, who also constantly and unfailingly keeps out of the public eye as much as possible. The person most supportive of his career is undoubtedly Mirka - no one else in his life comes even close. I can't help but find it incredibly insulting and invasive, how some stupid "expert writers", even some stupid, STUPID "fans", are saying, or implying, that Mirka is a problem.

Seriously, the stupidity of sports journalism continues to astound me. This isn't related to Mirka but to the guy who's been writing about the Australian Open in the Straits Times. I had the misfortune of reading three of his articles, all of which annoyed me. One was about Jelena Jankovic and how she needed to validate her #1 with a Grand Slam (bullshit, I say; not her fault the WTA sucks); one was about Roger's semi-final against Roddick and about how he was so perfect in the past that the writer, purporting to represent tennis fans with the "we" pronoun, are immune to the beauty of his tennis and therefore "we" are no longer spell-bound; and the third was about Rafael Nadal's five-set win over Fernando Verdasco, and how Roger was fresher because he had an extra day to rest. The writer even went so far as to suggest Roger could possibly be pleased at the scenario. I guess he was sleeping when the press conference in which Roger said the one day off wouldn't make a difference to Nadal was released - and he was eventually right. Rafael Nadal simply does not get tired, period.

But what I want to say is: In the Jankovic article, he said that the most important things to a tennis player is winning in Slams and majors.

I'm sorry, I truly am, but oh my god, I can't take seriously a person writing about tennis in a national newspaper who does not seem to know that the Slams are the majors. The only majors in tennis are Grand Slams. Everything else are ATP Masters Series, some worth more points than others, and the Tennis Masters Cup, now called World Championships or some shit (I hate the new ATP logo, by the way, and I hate the name changes and the new points system, and I HATE that they got rid of the ATP race that was used to determine the eight players that qualify for the Masters Cup). So, yeah, I don't know what other "majors" there are to win besides Grand Slams. Maybe the learned writer can enlighten me.

And that shit about Roger's beautiful tennis being stale - that's just fucking bullshit. I guess if one prefers to see a player bulldoze up and down the court and hit everything back with no elegance whatsoever, then yeah, Roger's tennis wouldn't appeal to him.

But don't call it "stale" and use the "we" pronoun like some pretentious twat and purport to speak for everyone that watches tennis. For his information, Roger Federer is synonymous with tennis the way Tiger Woods is with golf. The average person may not even know that Roger isn't even #1 anymore (my aunt didn't know and only found out when she was over at my place and I was watching the Nadal/French boyfriend match). The casual viewer, too, is more likely to know Roger Federer than Rafael Nadal. The casual viewer is also more likely to like Roger Federer than Rafael Nadal. Nadal may be #1, and I concede that, by virtue of his #1 position, he's currently the best player on the tour.

But Roger Federer is arguably one of the best, if not the best, player of all-time. Of course, he denies it, and confines the possibility of him being the greatest to only that of the Open Era and doesn't want to take into account the tennis greats that contributed to the game before tournaments were open to everyone to compete (hence "Open Era"); but anyone with eyes and the capability of sight can see that his tennis is in a class of its own. No one else plays with the same grace and elegance that he does, and no one else possesses the complete, all-court game that he has. He makes tennis accessible by making it look easy, and although you soon find out when you pick up a racquet that tennis is the hardest and most counter-intuitive sport you've ever tried to play, he is a great ambassador for the sport because of the ease and fluidity of his style, as well as his humility and impeccable sportsmanship.

I won't deny that Nadal executes his game perfectly. He's a fucking amazing defender, and I am very impressed by how he's able to hit winners while on the run and retrieving his opponent's attempted winners. But to insinuate that Roger is no longer relevant to the sport or that he's suddenly no longer in contention for the title of GOAT (greatest of all-time) or that he's boring is just unbelievably disrespectful to everything he's achieved and everything he's contributed to the game. Roger sticks to the rules of the game without fail. Where other players, including the World #1, are bending the rules by taking unnecessary medical time-outs and taking more than 10 seconds between points by picking at their shorts (Nadal) and bouncing the ball ten million times before serving (Novak Djokovic), Roger does everything by the rules. He never takes medical time-outs unless he absolutely has to (Shanghai TMC 2008) and his service games go by very fast because he adheres to the ten-second rule. Whenever I watch a Djokovic match, I get damn irritated at him for taking forever to serve the next point. And with Djokovic retiring from three grand slams already, not to mention other players retiring from matches for the stupidest reasons, you have to admire, and appreciate, Roger's strict rule of never retiring from matches; otherwise he just doesn't step on the court. There's nothing wrong with retiring from a match if you've broken your leg or sprained your wrist, but when a player is constantly retiring from matches and you see that he constantly does so when he's losing a match, you have to wonder - where the hell has his sportsmanship gone to? And you remember Roger Federer finishing his 2005 Tennis Masters Cup final with David Nalbandian on a sprained ankle, and you wonder even more whether sportsmanship is dead.

Not to mention - there's a strict rule against on-court coaching, and Nadal has been warned for on-court coaching at least once in this year's Australian Open. Nadal is also infamous for taking medical time-outs when the tide is about to turn in his opponent's favour (example: in a match in which he was losing, he took a medical time-out because he had a banana stuck in his throat. In the video that I watched, two men hovered over him, he drank some water, and after that he was well enough to play. Whatever. As if he couldn't have drank the water during the changeover; you don't get medical time-outs immediately after requesting for a trainer. You have to wait until the changeover. I don't believe he needed so much time to drink water and get the banana unstuck from his throat) which is about as foul and unsportsman-like as you can possibly get.

Now, Nadal has achieved great things for someone his age. He's a legitimate World #1 for finally winning a hard court grand slam. And it may be so that he's a great person off the court, shy and quiet or whatever.

But if you ask me if he's a good ambassador for the sport, if he has sportsman-like qualities worth emulating, my answer is: Hell. Fucking. No. Maybe my objection wouldn't be so emphatic if there wasn't someone else to compare him to...but there's Roger Federer. His attitude towards his sport, his respect for the rules of his game, is unparalleled amongst most, if not all, of the professional players. Add to that the fact that watching him play a match is pretty much getting a crash course in all you need to learn about tennis, and you get someone who embodies the sport in his style, his game, and his conduct.

You want to accuse him of irrelevance? That he's past his time? That he's boring? Forgive my irreverence, but go fuck yourself. Tennis is lucky to have Roger Federer playing it. Imagine what the sport would be like if he'd chosen to play football when he was a kid; it'd be overrun with Nadals and Djokovics and potty-mouthed types like Andy Murray, and headcases and racquet smashers like John McEnroe (more famous for his temper tantrums - and that's putting it mildly - than his tennis. What an unfortunate legacy) and Marat Safin. And we're all lucky to have the privilege of watching him elevate an innately beautiful sport to a whole new level, comparable with art, and to do so with grace, humility, sportsmanship and integrity.

Honestly, the most hilarious thing any stupid, half-arsed journalist purporting to know the first thing about tennis is to suggest that Roger Federer isn't relevant. Not relevant my foot. Even after he's retired from tennis, he'd still be relevant - because he's the greatest, most respectable, most brilliant the sport has ever had.

This is why I love him so much, both because of what he is and who he is. And I haven't even got started on his determination and mental tenacity (sadly not-so-present against Nadal, but then again, the AO final was also a huge pressure cooker considering the whole making history thing) and his fighting spirit, and how he conquered his racquet-throwing days to become who he is today. I think he's the perfect role model for kids, and one of the best athletes the world has ever seen. True, I'm not well-versed with sports, but still, I'm hard-pressed to name another person who's as dominant in his sport as Roger is, and who is also as scandal-free and well-liked and well-respected as Roger is. I'd be quite glad to be enlightened on this actually, just so I don't keep thinking Roger is Utter Perfection.

Still, my point remains: He's amazing. Just amazing. Too bad he probably won't win the Laureus Sportsman of the Year award again, considering his relatively crappy 2008. But the fact that he won it four times in a row? Amazing. I love him sooo much.

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010