(Roger Rant) This person should not be allowed to post articles on the Internet.
written: 11:47 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 23, 2009

once again, thanks for your email. please take a moment. don't react too quickly. perhaps go off into a dark room and spend a few moments and think to yourself: "do I have a single standard when it comes to roger federer. do i believe he is beyond reproach. do i believe he can't be criticized." your comparison of nadal and federer "injuries" is weak. why? because there is ample evidence that nadal indeed had a knee problem. with federer, there is nothing to substantiate it beyond his claim that he is injured. read again. no trainer on court during the australian open. no complaints about injury throughout the tournament, including the final. no indication of ANY kind of an injury. now, suddenly, after a full week off tour after the australian open, he has a back injury. perhaps he does, but any reasonable reporter would not only be understood to question such an injury, but should be required to question it. (emphasis added)

To get the preliminary point out of the way, what kind of self-respecting "writer" doesn't capitalise? Don't give me the shit about how it's just an email and therefore it's informal; any writer who respects his own craft will capitalise because it is a basic rule of the language in which he's writing, and I'm sorry if I can't find it in myself to respect, or even acknowledge, the credibility of a "writer" that doesn't bother capitalising.

Now that that's out of the way, let's move on to the arguments that he made in support of his astute and oh-so-brilliant conclusion that Roger lied about his back.

First, Roger didn't call a trainer during his Australian Open matches: Um. Has this guy ever watched Roger Federer play? Apparently he has; in his subsequent replies he claimed to have followed Roger for years. If he's really followed him for years, surely he must know better than me that Roger never calls a trainer unless he really has to, like he really had to in his Shanghai match against Murray last year. Quite clearly Roger wasn't crippled by his back - and he never claimed he was. In his press release posted on his website he said that he withdrew from Dubai and the Davis Cup to recuperate the back problem that he sustained last year. It is not a new injury; it's an existing one, and it's a mere precautionary measure, one that is entirely legitimate considering a player of his stature and the kind of goals that he's trying to achieve.

Not only that, is Roger supposed to apologise for having integrity and honour, such that, unlike his fellow top 10 players (coughNadalcoughDjokoviccough), he never abuses the medical time-out option? I mean, really. Roger is lying because he didn't call for the trainer during his matches? In the first place, like I just said, he never once said it's a new injury. In the second place, the fact that he never calls for the trainer unnecessarily, as a means with which to distract his opponent and stall for time, is one of the many, MANY reasons I respect him and love him as much as I do. I'd rather Roger lose a match with integrity and honour than to win one resorting to cheap tricks, because a Roger Federer that pulls a Nadal/Djokovic? That's just not Roger Federer. And that is precisely - PRECISELY - why he's head and shoulders above all these players, including past champions who have openly admitted to using time-delaying tactics. Roger isn't like that. He values the integrity of his sport, and now he's getting crucified for it? What the fuck.

Second, Roger didn't complain about his injury. Bricker further said that the fact that Roger said in his press conferences before the Australian Open that he felt healthy and good going into Melbourne showed that he was healthy. I think this is possibly the most, MOST stupid thing I've ever heard. Why the hell would he go around announcing to the whole world that he was still having problems with his back before he's slated to play a two-week Grand Slam tournament? Why the hell would he let his opponents know that he's injured, that he's not 100% health-wise, and thereby giving his opponents an advantage over him? Does it actually make any sense for a player to tell the press before he plays a tournament that he's not actually fit but he's playing anyway because he likes wasting everyone's time? I honestly don't get the logic here. I can't understand, for even a second, why any player would made it known before a tournament that he's injured. To me, it's just a cheap attempt to set up the perfect excuse, just in case he loses, and um, sorry, Roger never goes into a tournament thinking he'd lose. He didn't win 13 grand slams and 44 other titles with that kind of mentality.

Not only that, if this Bricker guy actually watched his matches, he'd see that the tell-tale signs of an unfit back were all there. Even I, a non-expert, kind of wondered if there was anything wrong with is back when he threw in a lot more double faults than usual before the Nadal match and during the match, and when he did that squat during the final itself. Roger's serving at Qatar even wasn't fantastic, let alone the Australian Open. Of course he had to tell the press that he was fit, that he felt good; and obviously he felt good relative to last year when he contracted mononucleosis (which this Bricker fucker even doubted - seriously, he needs a life). But even if he felt like shit, how could he have gone on record saying, "Look, I mean, I feel kind of bad but, you know, I'm just going to play this tournament anyway, you know, because I love Australia." What?

The icing on the cake is definitely this: Bricker says Nadal's injuries are believable because he calls for a trainer on court. If Bricker thinks that Roger's lying because he doesn't call for a trainer, then it means that calling for a trainer is evidence of an injury, which means Nadal was really injured in the AO final. Bricker must be blind because there is no other way to explain this abjectly stupid "observation". Nadal, as usual, called for a trainer in the Australian Open final. If he called for a trainer, it must mean he's injured - and yet he ran all over the court, as usual, and as usual, ran from his chair back to the baseline after changeovers. He chased down every ball. He played his typical Nadal baseline defensive game. He was tired from the five-setter against Verdasco, he was injured because he called for the trainer - and yet, he still ran down every ball. He still won the match. He had no problems serving, no problems with his forehand; he didn't tank the way he tanked in the Rotterdam final against Murray.

And I'm supposed to believe he really needed the trainer when he called for that medical time-out in his match against Roger. I don't doubt that his knees were giving him problems in his Rotterdam match, but I am pretty confident that his medical time-out against Roger was yet another time-delaying tactic. The difference between the Nadal that played Rottedam and the Nadal that played Melbourne was glaring, even to someone that doesn't care to watch him too frequently (i.e. me).

But then, if I'm to pull a Charles Bricker and question everything that a tennis player does or doesn't do off and on the court, then I'm also going to question if Nadal was merely acting injured in his Rotterdam final, just to have an excuse for losing yet again to Andy Murray. But because I actually have a life with which I'm not bothered to waste on analysing my favourite player's rival's on-court behaviour (beyond what obviously rankles me, e.g. when he abuses the medical time-out against Roger), I'm not even going to go there. Bricker, on the other hand, has no evidence and yet lots of conjecture which he tried to pass off as "responsible journalism".

Excuse me while I laugh my ass off. A responsible journalist will not take Roger's words out of context. He will not put words that Roger never said into his mouth. A responsible journalist will not claim that Roger cited a new injury for his withdrawal from Dubai and DC when in fact Roger never once said he sustained a new injury, and that he was taking precautionary measures to make sure that the one he sustained in 2008 has fully healed.

Argh. I shouldn't have wasted all this time writing this entry. But it just makes me so damn angry to read such drivel. For the record, no, I don't believe Roger is beyond reproach and neither do I believe he can't be criticised. I criticised him for that horrible semi-final against Murray in Qatar. I'd probably also criticise him for making a non-committal remark about Dubai and Shahar Peer had he said something about it (and I have a feeling if he'd said something, it would've been harmless and non-committal). But there's a difference between legitimately criticising someone, and thinly-veiling your bashing someone as criticising him when what you say is not grounded in fact, but in conjecture from the lack of facts. Sure, we only have Roger's word that his back is still troubling him, but given all that he's said about Davis Cup, given how he's in love with Dubai, given, especially, how he only has ranking points to gain from playing Dubai, there is really no reason to even suspect for a split second that he's lying. Bricker seems to also think that Roger doesn't care about his ranking, to which I can only laugh, which only exposes his severe lack of knowledge about the guy he's bashing. Roger has made it clear that getting back #1 is one of his goals of the 2009 season. He cares about his ranking. If he didn't care, he wouldn't have played Madrid and Paris last year. Sure he's focused on the Slams, but the Slams also get him the most ranking points out of all the tournaments. Winning the Slams means gaining on Nadal on the rankings, and so I don't see how focusing on Slams and getting back #1 are mutually exclusive.

You know, I'm usually all for free speech and a free press, but when it comes to people like Charles Bricker who obviously doesn't have a brain, free speech should be limited to people that can actually think.

Okay, I don't mean that. But ugh. I'm so annoyed.

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