So Snicks. Time for some clarity here. You describe what's been written about Federer's travails on this thread as "anti-Federer venom", which it clearly isn't.

For education purposes, lemme give you an example of what an expressed anti-player venom on this thread looks like:



Get the point?

I guess you can't recognize obvious snark. Rafael is by the far the top player, so if he loses a match the way he did, it's just a fluke. IT WAS AN OBVIOUS JOKE. OF COURSE HE'S NOT ON A DOWNWARD SPIRAL. .

But Roger is having career threatening problems, and it seems like everyone here is using this opportunity to kick him when he's down (which, let's face it, is what a lot of you have been patiently waiting to do for years).

Oh, wait ...it's "constructive criticism", right?

yes.. NOW we're told what you wrote is an "obvious joke", to go along with all the other similar "obvious jokes" you've made over the years..right?

That's what I'd expect from you - make the snide comment until your called on it, then make a lamely transparent case that it's not what it is. How..cowardly.

Hey, it's not my fault if you're dense.

Anyway ... getting back to reality, Murray is starting to grow on me. I'm glad he taught Djokovic a lesson today. Andy is clearly the #2 player in the world right now. It'll be interesting to see what he does on clay.

Quitovc resurfaces! And that guy is #3 in the world? Wow.
He lost a lot of fans today with his piss poor attitude and performance. I liked that Mary C talked about Murray's commitment to fitness. It shows.

Well...at least I'm not in the middle of some kind of back and forth this time. I honestly believe snicks was just making a joke. Because Rafa has been a thorn in Federer's side its only natural he would say something snarky like that. Does it really have to be that serious? Simmer down boys.

ANYWHO...umm...yeah...Djokovic and the heat issue is really bad. Some people are just not able to handle the heat no matter how conditioned their body is. I think Djokovic is conditioned, but perhaps he needs to change his hydration routine in those kind of hot tournament climates. I don't know....ice bags constantly...something. Miami can be very uncomfortably humid. I will take 95 degrees of dry heat when I visit Arizona over what was 80 degrees in Miami this past weekend, but over 80% humidity. Someone I know who (like me) can't stand heat and humidity mixed was at the weekend matches and he said it was so uncomfortable. I mean it was best of 3 matches and he seemed to be really struggling with his breathing. I know that he had a respiratory issue earlier in his career. Was it fixed or improved? Sometimes it looks like he needs someone to bring him an oxygen tank.

Murray is growing on me. His movement is so good, but he has these lapses that make him winning matches more frustrating than they need to be. I fear that is a reason he hasn't been as successful at the slams. In best of 5 sets with a game as good as his, get the crap over with. I agree that he seems to be the #2 right now. Rafa has set himself so far apart from everyone else being such a complete player. Clay season is coming up so everyone else can forget it. Murray is going to have his most pressure filled Wimbledon EVER this year because of the way he's been playing. But its almost getting to be Rafa, Murray, Djokovic, and then Federer. Throw the computer rankings out. Who is getting it done NOW??!!

That was good, I needed that on a Monday morning! snicks calling someone else dense...and voicemale of all people. Great comedy!

It was interesting listening to Mary Carillo biting her tongue as best she could when Djokey called for the trainer in the second set. She was saying how he's retired at 3 of the 4 slams already, and is "getting" a reputation as a quitter. MJ pointed out the obvious, and said it was almost always when he was losing, and the way he was just saying "I'm tired, I don't know if I can go on" to the trainer, it certainly looked like he was going to quit again.

If I didn't know any better, I'd swear Murray tanked the games after that, just to prove a point...the point being that when Quitovic is leading, he all of a sudden "feels much better." I'm sure that's not the case, because we're all well aware of Mopey's ability to check-out completely from a match during its course, but even the commentators were saying how "interesting" it was that the Djoke all of a sudden didn't look so exhausted when running up the lead in the second set.

Nadal and Murray seem to be "the pack" right now as the Fed and the Djoke both have ongoing issues. And Roddick, of all people, seems to be doing his best (better than the rest, right now, it seems, with the exception of Del Potro, who squeeked past him to #5 in the rankings) to be getting back into that conversation. It's really hard to guage how Murray will do on clay, but not having a lot to defend, it would appear that it won't be long before he's #3 with the Djoke holding a mere 140 pt lead over him for that position.

The issue of clay is interesting regarding Murray. His brand of counter-punching works best when he's able to absorb the pace of shots and then inject his own pace into his replies when he's ready. That kind of strategy requires, among a number of things, a truer, more consistent height on the bounce off of the court. That's why hard courts are Murray's greatest friend. Clay will definitely not give him that. The bounces will be too inconsistent and many times way too high for him to do his best stuff, forcing him to play further behind the base line than he normally plays on a hard court. Murray has a similar problem in reverse on grass, with the bounces there being even more inconsistent and the ball will stay much lower than optimal for his game. He'll spend too much time being defensive, either trying to lower the height of the ball on clay or having to dig it up off of the court on grass. Lest we forget, Murray has had his struggles at Wimbledon, down Match Point last year to Gasquet in the 4th Round before Nadal destroyed him in the Quarters. And on clay he has yet to reach the Quarters at the French, or the Semis at any of the clay court Masters Series Events. It's worth noting that during Murray's ascent he was asked about whether he valued winning Wimbledon over everything else, and his response was that he'd much rather win the US Open. Which is understandable, given what his game has become. He's got a better chance in New York.

Martina has repeatedly said two things about Grass Court Tennis that are as true today as they were when she dominated there: 1) grass courts bring out the athlete, and 2) grass courts reward aggressiveness. That's why Wimbledon's winners roster is dominated by names like King, Navratilova, Graf, Williams, McEnroe, Becker, Edberg, Sampras and Federer. That's 49 Singles Championships among those names alone, and notice there are no counter-punchers on that list. All of them are fire-breathing aggressive athletes. Clay court tennis today has changed greatly from what it was in the Sampras days, and even there aggressiveness is rewarded far more now than it used to be. Clay is about mastering The Slide, and Nadal's mastery in that regard is unique: he slides equally well in both directions, forehand and backhand. That said, Nadal is plenty aggressive anymore, he'd never have won Wimbledon or the Australian Open otherwise. Federer and Djokovic have also done extremely well on clay, mostly due to their understanding of sliding without losing their aggressive games. Murray will have the challenge of creating his own aggressiveness in his game, instead of relying on redirecting and diffusing the aggressiveness of his opponents. The inconsistent nature of the bounces on both of the natural surfaces will make his customary counter-punching game harder to execute effectively.

Murray's foot speed is excellent, but the natural surfaces require you to make those last millisecond adjustments, mostly regarding your footwork. So Murray has hired on another expert to his team, Alex Corretja, to assist him during the clay court season. He's done very well and come a long way so far, so time will tell if he's ready to move his current success onto the surfaces that haven't helped him up to now.

Murray has improved significantly over the past year of so. Major strides. And clearly on an upswing (similar to Rafa and notably unlike Djoko). Of course, it's most notable on his best surface, hard. Of course, most of the tour has been on hard since the summer, so it fits.

I don't think he'll do particularly well on clay. That is, winning titles, etc. But, compared to previous years, I expect Murray to improve his results on clay significantly. As he comprehends how to make his game work on clay (good post about the pace...counterpunching....mobility). Plus, his significant improvement in fitness will bolster his confidence greatly too.

He reminds me of Rafa on hard courts over the past several years. Rafa got better each year on hard, even winning a tourney or two, but had to grow into a hard court game. Took him years to get there, but when you look back, you see real progression.

I was uncharacteristically quiet on here about Federer's loss, but really it was such a shambles I drew very little satisfaction from it. I'd rather not see him self-combust unless the other player had managed to bring it about with his tactical game (like Nadal and Murray do), and even Djoko looked like he couldn't believe he was being handed the victory - he even nearly let it slip from his grasp. It would have been better to see Roddick manage it in the QFs, since that, in contrast, was an exciting and well-fought match. It did answer some questions about whether Fed really cares about winning outside of the Slams anyway, because he so clearly does NOT want to lose to Djoko, which led to the awesome racquet-smashing incident.

Anyway, I'm pleased the final had some of the same suspense and entertaining rallies that featured in Murray's clashes with Djoko last summer. I really had little hope after the trainer came out to attend to Nanook of the North, who was already wilting in the heat. But Djoko has always done well on the clay (in fact I would say he's Rafa's only real rival on the stuff apart from Fed) and I imagine a change of surface will do him good, since he does appear determined to turn things around. Anyhow well done to Murray, who will be the new No 3 in a matter of weeks, following Rome I would imagine, more because of Djoko shedding title points than anything Andy does. I've always enjoyed his game, even in his bratty days of 2006, so it's been very cool to watch him really bring it to fruition, although as others have noted he's got a real problem keeping focus for an entire match. Really just the ranking milestones and a Slam title are left to accomplish at this point. (And Murray's beefcake shots with the trophy on the beach and victory swim were startlingly impressive. Who knew? Well, I kind of did, but I feel less sheepish about it now.)

Yeah, the mild rancor that Fed feels toward Novak (and vice versa, after Roger's comments about Novak's AO retirement) makes that rivalry more interesting. Who knows how much Fed cares about winning non-Slam matches (in light of his record outside the Slams, it's gotta be a lot less than it was a couple of years ago), but no doubt, Fed HATES losing to Novak.

"Nanook of the North" <tee hee> good one, UrbanSuede. I spent 18 summers in Boston and 3 in NYC yet never got used to the humidity (after just one summer here in Las Vegas, I was OK with the scorching 110-115 degree heat). There were nights in Boston when the temperature was barely 75, but I was miserable. There's just no way my system will ever be able to deal well with heat + high humidity. I guess Novak is the same way, so I can't really criticize the guy. But Grand Slam titles and tennis greatness aren't in my future, so it's not like I'm going to move to Singapore in an attempt to acclimate my system, somehow someway, to extreme conditions. But those things are a definite possibility in Novak's future. Is he really OK with losing every single match in extreme heat and/or humidity? He's a bright guy -- does he not realize how many potential Grand Slam losses loom in his future if he flops out every hot/humid match?

In his Key Biscayne postmatch interview, he said he did distance training in the mountains during the offseason. Uh, OK, that's great if you're a marathoner or something, and also great for all those Slams played at altitude and in the extreme cold -- which would be ZERO. Gotta question the competence of his trainer, and then Novak's common sense (after just saying he's a bright guy) for following that advice.