CAMELOT FANTASIES

el dude is a great writer and one of the best but don't forget that he is heavily leaning towards Federer 100% of the time.

he is definitely an impressive writer.

look as far as rafa and fed go, rafa is simply better. there is no other way to slice that apple.

23-10 and especially the slam finals record against the two says it all. nobody can dance around that no matter how hard they try.

fed got rafa twice on grass while rafa was still a kid and learning.

and to fed's credit, he did play phenomenal tennis in those Wimbledon finals.

but it has been all rafa in the slam finals ever since.

even fed is on record for saying that the last man he wants to see across the net is rafa.

bottom line on that is this: fed has a better overall resume but if it is between those two, one has to have the conclusion that nadal has the upper hand. nadal is just better. fed has no answers for nadal. how else can anybody call it?

as for rosol and other upsets, it is tennis. upsets do happen in sports. top players and the all time greats usually manage to win but they are human. compraring rosol to nadal is madness. nadal wins more matches in a single year than rosol will in his entire career.

nadal is not young anymore and it takes a lot out of him to dominate the clay circuit. and he has been doing that for 10 long years.

he is mentally and physically spent now after tearing apart the clay circuit. that is the biggest reason why he has lost the last 2 times early at Wimbledon.

nadal made 5 Wimbledon finals when he was younger.

2 other reasons why he has lost at Wimbledon early in the last 2 years:

1. there is a slight drop in his fitness
2. he has not really improved his return and his serve much in the last 2 years

herc darling, it's a living nightmare for me when I try to quote one of your posts because you enter so many spaces after each sentence, that I spend much time just to clean up your mess. Thought I am quite convinced that's a deliberate attempt on your part because you are obsessed with the idea that otherwise people might miss the essential parts of your post.

I believe EI Dude has said in one of his posts that all fans - and that includes Rafa fans as well mind you - are not 100% free from bias so I am sure, if anything, he's very much aware of it. Also, I am too reluctant to believe that when a fan says something about Nadal, albeit negative, is directly connected to the fact that he's also a Federer fan so he'd say that anyway. That's a sweeping generalization since it concerns all Federer fans. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to posters like Ei Dude who comes of as a fair and objective poster, but more importantly, there are cases where a fan may genuinely dislike a player and whether he or she is a Federer or not becomes irrelevant.  By the same logic, you will find some Nadal fans who dislike Nole but not for the reason there usually is (the fact that Nole really took it to Nadal and beat him 3 Slam finals in a row) but for the fact that, they really dislike him. So let's leave some room there for those type of fans as well.

Yesterday I found out from a co-worker that his mom is Scottish and yet she hates Murray of all players. And what's more she adores Nadal. Now one can assume perhaps the fact that she loves Nadal so much that it somehow makes her hate Andy just as much. Quite incidentally she hates Nole just as much too. I didn't get a chance to inquire about Federer but I won't be much surprised if I find out she likes Federer; after all, Nadal has his numbers so it makes life easier to tolerate him, somewhat.

Anyway, I do believe this Federer/Nadal thing is mostly a match-up issue as when you look at their matches you see no variety but just the same old strategy. However, it is to Nadal's credit that he has capitalized it to his advantage and it is to Federer's discredit that he didn't change his strategy to adjust his game against Nadal and let him walk away with all the victories. The top players are supposed to face different challenges throughout their career and how they overcome those is their biggest testament and if they don't, then perhaps, it's not all that great after all. For example, if Andy had not won his first Slam - the USO - and later Wimbledon, then I would have been too reluctant to say that he's a great player never to win a Slam, because he wasn't able to overcome the adversities he was faced with. But clearly that isn't the case anymore and one can safely say that he is indeed a great player.