CAMELOT FANTASIES

I didn't get to see the Federer/Murray qtr final match live. I was too tired from the Nadal/Dimitrov match so ended up following the score on my phone. Typically I don't do that with any of Andy's important matches but here I wasn't convinced Andy would be able to win. Just didn't believe Andy was ready for a highly competitive match in a Slam so soon without enough solid match play.

So anyway, I watched the match on Friday and was disturbed by the double bounce controversy. Now from the instant look it's very hard for a fan to tell whether the ball bounced twice or not, but after watching the point up close and in slow motion a couple of times, it was very clear to me that the ball had bounced twice. It touched the surface for the 2nd time and Federer scooped it almost at the same time, but it did touch the ground first. Federer later in his press conference said that he had no idea as his eyes were probably closed, but that doesn't take away the fact that, both him and Murray were the closest ones to the ball; therefore, they were the ones who were watching the ball with their eagle eyes. And in fact after Federer put the ball away, Andy turned around and looked at Pascal Maria hoping to see any sign from him as he was clearly convinced the ball bounced twice. But Pascal was the furthest from the ball and Federer's racquet did cover most of the ball, so I am sure it was very hard for him to decide from that distant. I do not believe Federer didn't know; he knew, but his competitive self took the best of him and he decided to take the point anyway. What confirmed more that he knew was when he went on to tell the umpire to not show the point again and again on the big screen, as it might create 'controversy'.

It became controversial in fact only after that. Had  he been fair - not only he would have not asked to stop playing the clip,  but also, he would have been equally interested in finding out the truth, but alas. He was just became too greedy to win the match against Murray on that night, because he was so convinced he was playing his best tennis and had a chance to win AO.

And terrible of those who make excuses like 'oh but Andy went on to win the 3rd set anyway so why does it matter'. Such nonsense. First of all, maybe one of these days you will realize that, that's so not the point and it does matter. Second, fair is fair and it was a very important point as Andy would have gone 30-15 up instead he went 15-30 on his game. What's more, he got distracted and ended up getting broken that gave Federer the opportunity to serve out for the match. Had Andy held serve, Federer would have been under pressure to hold his serve at 4-5 and Andy could have had a shot to take the set there. There were chances like that as well. And Andy is known for comebacks so who knows how the mental aspect of things would have shifted from that point on. Instead Andy had to work very hard to win that set and it took a lot out of him.

I understand that Federer was the better player all in all and probably would have won the match in the end anyway, but fair is fair. Federer should have given that point to Andy. Let's be fair to other guys and let's not be so competitive that you start to lose your own self.

Anyway, that's in the past now but thought I'd give my view on it. It's very important to me that players remain fair to each other given that they all work very hard for each point.