Wimbledon Wrap-up

So Wimbledon has finally concluded and so I thought that it would be good to share some post tournament thoughts. Though I will focus on the men's tournament. I will say a few brief words about the women's tournament. Venus Williams played outstandingly of course to win it all. However, the narrative that many of the commentators (the "experts") were creating became quite tiresome. While true, Williams was only seeded 23 in the tournament, but it became rather annoying when the commentators talked about her being favored to win particular matches against higher seeds and then acted as if it were among the greatest accomplishments ever when she went on to beat those higher seeds. I mean seriously, you just told us that we should expect Venus Williams to win the match, and so why should we act as if the result was a surprise? Going into the tournament Williams was already a three-time champion at the event. Commentators have frequently said that we should ignore seeds when it comes to the Williams sisters and they are healthy. Venus Williams seemed to be plenty healthy for this tournament so there did not seem to be any need to be over dramatic (and really is there ever a need to be over dramatic about something?) about her having won the title.

And now on to the men's tournament. I find it quite amazing how accurate my prediction was leading up to the men's final. As I stated then, there were very few people that believed Nadal would make the final again against Federer, and obviously even fewer who actually gave Nadal a chance to win. True enough, Federer was victorious. He showed a great will in gutting out the victory: 7-6 (7), 4-6, 7-6 (3), 2-6, 6-2. However, looking at the score of the match alone (without having watched it) should demonstrate that Federer was far from dominant against Nadal as many of these hack experts would have had you believe leading up to the tournament. I think that the most infuriating thing to me entering this tournament was how many of these hacks said that Andy Roddick was the guy most likely to beat Federer. Oh, you mean Andy Roddick is more likely to beat Federer? The same Andy Roddick who is 1-13 lifetime against Federer? And he's more likely to beat Federer and not Rafael Nadal who is 8-4 (before Wimbledon) lifetime against Federer? Oh, but Andy Roddick has that huge serve they said. Well, they may have had a point if they could have guaranteed that Roddick would serve an ace on every single serve. If that were the case, clearly Federer would never win a point on Roddick's serve and thus Roddick could just wait until the tie breaker of each set for Federer to make a mistake serving. This is sheer lunacy and indicates to me a clear bias. In America, at the very least, these commentators have long desired to have an American challenge for the top, to challenge Federer and so they create these inplausible scenarios in their minds irrespective of observable facts. This sort of craziness was to me no different than Darren Cahill suggesting that Lleyton Hewitt had a chance of beating Rafael Nadal at the French Open.

These sorts of narratives that the commentators are creating are getting old. Now to be clear, I'm perfectly fine if they like Federer as a player better. I have no problem if they root for Federer, but please don't allow this to cloud your analysis of what is happening. I will give some of these people credit. Some of them did finally say what I had said prior to Wimbledon; Nadal is closer to defeating Federer on the grass at Wimbledon than Federer is to beating Nadal on the clay at Roland Garros. Up until now, the idiotic conventional wisdom out of these people was that the surface of Wimbledon (grass) was way too fast for Nadal to have a chance against the great Federer. But now that Nadal has shown an ability to hold his own against Federer on grass, now the story goes oh, Wimbledon is no longer the fastest of the surfaces, now it's the US Open. Nadal won't have a prayer of reaching the final or defeating Federer on the hardcourts of the US Open. These idiots again conveniently neglect the fact that lifetime on hardcourts Nadal and Federer are 2-2.

I still believe that all of these analysts see Nadal as some sort of a clay court freak. They don't want to believe that he could possibly be the best tennis player in the world. This would upset the narratives that they have created in their minds about Roger Federer. In truth, Federer may still be the best player in the world, but the gap between he and Nadal is much closer than they would like to admit, and hence Nadal does not get the respect from these "experts" that he deserves.