CAMELOT FANTASIES

General masterclass is tracking it at our legendary Roger Federer thread at MTF.

Roger will get his 100 titles.

A tremendous win for Roger as he snatched his 7th cincy title.


This is not luck or accident.

He is a warrior and he is driven to excel.

He is not running around saying that he has won enough and that it is ok to lose.

They are warriors. It is NOT ok to lose.


You don't go into battle to lose.


You lose on exo circuit if you want to.

Those are good points, CD, but when your mind isn’t in the right place you do say silly things that you might not normally say, because you don’t want to get your hopes up only to have your body betray you. No one is mentally strong all the time, especially without the luxury of health. The battle starts in the mind, the body is secondary, especially when you can’t trust that the body will comply.

All three of them are at different points in their careers, mentally, emotionally, and physically. I don’t think where they’re at should be compared because their paths are too different. I can see Novak being so motivated because for years he didn’t fulfill his potential, he was a good player, but not a great player. Once he got on track it’s normal that he would be uber-motivated.

Federer, once he won his first major he went on a subsequent tear he became almost unstoppable. Had Rafa not emerged we could possibly add five to seven French Opens to take his haul to 24-25 majors putting him out of reach forever. Now, as he is aging and is in great physical shape why not play for the love of the game? I think that makes sense.

But, Rafa from the beginning has been a semi-reluctant champion. After he won his first tournament he said, “I hope that I can win another one.” So, records, history, and legacy did not seem to be his goal. This is a position that he was thrust into which is why he can take losses so easily. The only thing that he wanted was to win Wimbledon and the two Wimbledon Finals that he lost to Federer were probably his worst losses. I think the Australian Open loss to Djokovic was devastating as well and the Australian loss to Stan too.

But psychologically the stops and starts have to wear on a person. I don’t see how they couldn’t. How can Rafa plan long-term not knowing what the state of his body will be? This is the first year he has been healthy in a long time. When you keep getting knocked down with health problems it’s not easy, because you never know you’re finally OK to try to get back on track. I feel that I understand what Rafa is going through. Many people take health for granted, but if it’s ever taken away from you, you realize what a blessing it is to even walk. Things you take for granted become monumental and psychologically you have to scale that mountain every day.

In January, I was taking chemo and it went well. I felt really good and was getting a lot of things done that had piled up. This went on for the first three cycles, but on the 4th cycle the drugs suddenly and viciously attacked my body.  When I went for the fourth cycle every week I was gaining five pounds, which means that I actually gained twenty-five pounds in a month. Every limb on my body was swollen to the point that I couldn’t even walk and had to crawl to different locations in the house. I had developed neuropathy and needed help to get around.  The irony is that I can’t do drugs, but I need them. I have been fortunate throughout this ordeal to have never been in pain, but the stop/starts are really difficult to deal with. When I feel good, I feel great, and even my doctors cannot explain why an otherwise healthy person keeps getting these freak illnesses, so you never know how these things are affecting Rafa. I don’t think you can understand unless you experience it. It takes a tremendous amount of positive thinking to keep yourself mentally and psychologically on track; because you never know just how much time you have to accomplish things. Without full health nothing is easy.