"Official" Wimbledon Thread

You loss me at "And that is laudable"

 

Boy, you are thick.

My single point, and one that I'd love to see you refute (preferably without talking about McNabb and Rush Limbaugh):

Unless you make a statistical correction that makes winning golf majors and tennis Slams identical feats, there is no way you can compare the two straight-up, as you attempted to do.

To head off the inevitable counterpoint: I did not make that statistical correction. I merely looked up information that made it clear such a correction is needed.

 

Dear Lord Baby Jesus ... in your little manger ... reading your Baby Einstein books,

Please make this stop.

 

My head hurts.

 

- - -

Here's a reinforcement of my point on the 'Tigerphiles' killing Federer:

I'm listening to the morning show on Fox Sports radio, they're doing a segment called "I'm so done with..." So a guy calls in and says "I'm so done with Tiger Woods being compared to tennis players." Dude was angry, and after saying his first line he launched into an extended tirade. This prompted the host (Scott Lynn, filling in for Steve Czaban) and co-hosts (Al Gauldi (sp?), can't remember the other guy's name) to go into a significantly-lengthed discussion of, and I quote, "What's with all the Roger Federer hating?"

That's what I'm talking about. Guess who many of the "Roger Haters" are? The Tigerphiles know that Federer's dominance is hurting their "guy's" 'most dominant' rep, and they're looking to either suppress talking about Federer (like the Fox Sports Radio host I mentioned yesterday (John Fricke) who did this after Federer won Wimbledon), looking to diss the comparisons between him and Tiger, or else just looking to take pot shots at Federer without explicitly mentioning their affinity for Tiger.

As I mentioned previously, it reminds me of Kobephiles like Bucher writing articles on how LeBron James 'came up short' last year in game 7 against the Pistons, and looking to use that supposed 'opportunity' to make Kobe's Game 7 2006 NBA playoff series' "quit job" against the Suns look more palatable, by tearing down a 'threat' to Kobe's supposed 'best player in the game' status. BZZZZTTTTTTTT!! These methods and tactics are not an accident or a coincidence, but a time-honored rhetorical tradition: look to bring your guy 'up' while putting his chief competition down.

There's an obvious agenda both with what Bucher was trying to do and with what the Tigerphiles are trying to do now with Federer. And that's why I'm bringing it up, in an attempt to help balance-out the discourse on the subject and not let the Tigerphiles off the hook.

If one - just one - sports media personage reads what I wrote/write on the subject and takes it into consideration before writing another Cadillac-would-approve, Tiger-fawning article about Eldrick's 'singular' dominance, I'm satisfied.

Tiger deserves his props. But it's important to keep his accomplishments in proper perspective, particularly when his fellow individual-sport athletes are accomplishing feats at least as good, IMO, if not in excess, of Tiger's own.

Like the reaction to Limbaugh/McNabb, many don't like that, for various reasons. So they're burying that lead. That's crap. As Nafelson said, it should be brought up that it is match play vs open play, but to refuse to bring up, or to just irrationally 'hate on,' Federer when discussing Tiger and his "'singular' dominance" is both a joke and irresponsible journalism/broadcasting, IMO.

 

Hmmm, ya think Ian O'Connor's been reading SJ the past few days?:

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3ODMmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTcxNjYwNDUmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2

Surprisingly familiar arguments and counterarguments, stats and trivia.

Don't ever underestimate the power of SJ, or any other site, for that matter.

 

Ummm yeah, really it was a very good tennis match on Sunday.

But the Rafter-Agassi matches in 2000 and 2001 were better. That is it.

 

Well, my thoughts on the best rivalries are a little different:

1) Becker and Edberg showdowns at Wimbledon
2) Rafter/Agassi
3) Nadal/Federer

 

The argument about unknowns winning makes no sense, unless golf championships were match play.

In a golf major, a guy can have a so-so day out of four, remain alive to play another day, and still win.

In a tennis major, a guy has a so-so day, the other guy beats him and he's OUT. It ain't cumulative.
Apples and oranges.

That may have been brought up in some of the novels posted above. But I just didn't have the energy to read them.

 

It wasn't, so thanks, ballscribe.

You might want to drop that info to Ian O'Connor. Or, actually, he'll read it for himself here.

 

To take it a step further . . . a journeyman tennis player can have the greatest match of his life, only to have it mean absolutely nothing.

Robert Kendrick played about 5 levels over his head last year at Wimbledon (the equivalent of a journeyman shooting a 63 in golf, which pretty much guarantees you making the cut and cashing a nice check).

But his opponent that day happened to be Rafael Nadal, who withstood Kendrick's lights-out play and eked out a five-set win.

Kendrick played a match to die for, played every bit as good as a top-10 player . . . and his result was no better than someone who got waxed 6-0, 6-0, 6-0.