Vamos

So, after an epic battle Rafa finally accomplished what was expected of him. While IMO thats the blatant truth, it in no way underscores the enormity of his achievement, as might seem from the statement. Yes, he was expected to win, but then people are worn down by the burden of expectation and people thought that Roger would fight a lil and then yield as he normally does against Nadal. But this was Federer who was hungry to regain his lost ground and to win against an opponent of that quality must have been a very tough act even for the toughest man to wield a tennis racket. For the uninitiated, I am referring to the victory of Rafael Nadal at the All-England club for his first grand slam title on a surface other than clay.

I am a big Roger Federer fan, so I was obviously very upset when he suffered such a hard loss on his favourite surface and was denied a unique place in the record books (it looks unlikely that he would go on to win 6 in a row from here on). But anyone who saw the match couldn't help but say Vamos for Rafa. The dude has come such a long way from his early days as a powerful clay courter. There is a marked improvement in every facet of his game (except for his athleticism...he cant do more than that). But, I have always felt that the key to his success is his phenomenal mental strength. He plays one point at a time and never ever buckles under pressure (4th set tie-breaker yesterday was an anomaly). Thats so hard to do when you are facing break points. Especially in his matches against Federer, while Federer tries to do something extra and messes up when holding break points or gives it away (mostly) meekly when facing a couple of break points, Nadal always seems calm and does well at such crucial junctures.

It also doesn't hurt if you are insanely athletic and can chase down ball after ball from seemingly unrecoverable positions and then turn them into winners. What could have Roger done against this wall of steel. Well what he was able to do was almost enough and thats a tribute to the skill of this man. If he could have cut down on his errors a little bit, its possible that he might have won (not necessarily, just a possibility). It was his chance to get back on all the people who have repeatedly taken swipes at his level of play in the recent few months. I don't think that his level of play has gone down, its just that Rafa is much better than he was some time back and currently he is probably the best player on tour. But the modest guy that he is, Rafa credits Federer with the "best player in history" title even after defeating him so many times and never ever says that he is better than him (Djokovic has got to learn somethin from Rafa). I think even Federer is not that modest. He never ever says that Nadal is better than him, even on clay and expects himself to defeat him on any surface (dude u gotta be kidding me....its almost impossible to beat Nadal on clay).

One more thing which I wanted to add about the "match of a generation" is that although the rain delays were a source of frustration for all the people, I think it was because of the delays that both the players remained physically fresh and could play their best even in the fifth set. I can't imagine them playing the way they did if it was a continuous match (especially Roger). Anyhoo, bahut ho gaya match ka pulao...bas mentos khao aur dimaag ki bati jalao..

ps: check out Jaane tu ya jaane naa...Ekdam mast movie hai...