I leave it to you to guess which one, but it shouldn't be too hard to tell. First of all, how do you judge the greatness of a match, by the personalities of the players? I will grant that I've never been a fan of Sampras (sorry V) because I found him to be less than exciting to watch on the court. But that was more because of his style of play, not the fact that he didn't crack his racket into pieces and curse at referees.
Still, there's no denying it is fun to watch a lot of emotion on court. It's fun to watch Goran cracking a racket, or McEnroe dressing down a referee, or even Connors making smart aleck remarks. Still, still, still. To be so dismissive of Sunday's Wimbledon final as being possibly the best of all time can only be called ignorant.
Nadal and Federer have personality, they have a presence on the court. But you have to appreciate the game to see it. Here's Federer hitting forehand after forehand, running Nadal around. There's Nadal hustling for every point, like an eager, hungry younger brother. Nadal wins two points, showing real threat of breaking Federer's serve. So what does Federer do? Two aces in a row, just like that.
Or here's Nadal breaking Federer's serve in the 4th set tie break, the match in his hands for the next two serves. He double faults the first, flubs the second, and the expression on his face says it all. You can't give away two points this critical to Federer and get away with it. Or can you? Any other player would have probably been slaughtered by Federer at this point. Nadal, on the other hand, shook it off like it was nothing- big deal, I lost two points that could have made me a champion, I'll get another chance. And he did.
Sure, there was no hamming it up for the camera, no goofing around, no arguing with the referees or with Hawkeye. And yes, off the court, Federer and Nadal are the picture of two gentlemen, complimenting each other as if they had signed an agreement ahead of time to keep up a good front. So, I guess from Skippy whoever's perspective, this makes it less than the best championship in the history of Wimbledon. I don't know. For me, that's why this match was so amazing. All the drama of this game was on the court, and in the tennis. I'm paraphrasing, but one of the folks covering the game on Sunday said that these two do not just bring the best out in each other, they bring out the superhuman in each other. That's what I felt I was watching on Sunday.
In completely unrelated news, I updated my muxtape instead of starting to post songs on a weekly basis- check it if you like. For the timebeing, this seems to work better. And it's timely, because we are in the dog days of summer over here. Today, I took the thermometer out of my oven and put it in my living room, because I am convinced it is over 130 degrees in my apartment because of its magical heat-retaining properties. If it's anywhere near there, I'm going to start leaving cake batter out in my living room in the morning- that way, when I get home, I'll still melt, but I'll have a treat waiting for me.
Also, a commenter asked me about what I am interested in specializing in when this whole medical school thing goes to its next logical step-- there's probably a post necessary to answer that one. For the timebeing, I'll just say I don't know with 100% certainty, and that is kind of part of the fun at the moment.
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