Rafael Nadal, Big Brown, Memes and Us

By: D.K. Wilson

Phillippe Chartrier. The name must make all male players not named Rafael Nadal break out in hives, at least when their names are matched up against him. As he dispatched of first Novak Djokovic (and from watching the match it was obvious that Nadal thought Novak was “going away at 6-2, 6-4, 3-0) and then Roger Federer, 6-1, 6-3, 6-0, as he committed only 11 unforced errors against the best player perhaps in the history of tennis, a few facts became apparent to me.

And to get to these facts, there is a story of tennis – and us - that must be told.

The Tennis Channel aired a program that was an overview of the history of the grounds on which the French Open is played, so named Roland Garros for an arcane even to the French, WWI pilot. As the French Open’s past and present was shown largely through the great male and female players who graced its courts, something became apparent to me which was then fully articulated through a shared sentiment of many past players: there came a point in tennis where sheer athleticism replaced talent for the game.

Then, Saturday evening I watched a “TED talk” with Susan Blackmore, who studies the scientific nature of consciousness. She spoke of memes, or information which replicates itself. She then introduced the idea that now there are “temes” which is self-replicating technology. Without going too deeply into the premises behind her talk, she wondered whether humans would become interfaced with technology - becoming “cyber” humans that technology piggy backs off to replicate - or will the technology begin reproducing itself, and with these two options, what will happen to us? It seemed that an unspoken third option is for humans to somehow remain separate by coming to grips with the reality of us and fulfilling our own potential.

Through the Roland Garros history, the meme and teme talk, and the clay court tennis, it became painfully obvious to me that we, as a species, are inherently lazy. And most of those who do not appear inherently lazy are perhaps the laziest as these people work their behinds off to ensure that they get in a position where others do their bidding, or they create some object, acquire some “thing” for which other people pay them so that they no longer must work as does the “average” person; they can forever indulge themselves in whatever whim comes through them or whatever situation presents itself. Or do nothing at all.

Then there are humans who are “serial creators.” These are people who live to create, whether that is art, music, paintings, writing, etc. The best of those people entertain the masses who feel this talent is “beyond” them or who would rather act as voyeurs peering into someone else’s world. Some of those voyeurs become open “critics,” because it is easier, after all, to praise or denigrate others than it is to create something of perceived value on one’s own. The vast majority of voyeurs-critics are the lazy consumers, judging not through any informed stance, but judging only through the image of themselves they have created for others to see. And I guess in some odd way, we are all serial creators. It is just that most of us are too afraid to put what we create - that image we silently portray to the rest of the world - into a form that, once we do it, is no longer ours.

So, in opposition of Blackmore’s understanding it is we who allow the meme to happen. For, how can information replicate itself without consciousness to carry it from place to place, person to person?  Surely information replicates itself, surely ideas replicate themselves. However, it is us - humans - who give that information or idea its life and pass it from human to human like a virus (hence, the term, “viral marketing”).

A perfect example of this is Big Brown’s Belmont Triple Crown run, or lack thereof, and the issue of steroids. We are all aware of the issues the press - acting largely as image critics rather than informed serial creators - has presented us relative to steroids. As they relate to adult, male athletes the information we have been prodded to digest is built on faulty evidence and lies. Despite the extraordinary mea culpa by leading negative meme generator on steroids, Armen Keyeyian, the overwhelming majority of steroid meme generators within the sporting press corps have purposely and irresponsibly collapsed any chance at meaningful conversation on the topic.

The press are lazy. The people digesting this false information are lazy. And no one but no one with a public voice in or outside of the press dares turn their attention toward the real culprits behind all this mess - the people getting a cut off the illegal sales of hundreds of millions of ampules of underground steroids.

It is a sickness; a sickness that illustrates the problems inherent with the human condition.

Bill Rhoden, New York Times columnist, provided us with a perfect example of this sickness. In Sunday’s Times Rhoden openly wondered if steroids are responsible for Big Brown’s failure in the final leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown. Here Rhoden, for all his wonderful past writings, has fallen prey to the “steroid scare” meme:

He blew away the field at the Kentucky Derby. He made the Preakness field look like circus ponies. But on the day that would solidify his legacy and give racing a respite from intense scrutiny, Big Brown crumbled. He crumbled so badly that one could legitimately wonder whether he was nothing but a chemical horse, a paper tiger propped up — and propelled — by steroids.

Then Sunday, fellow NYT writer Joe Drape, one of the top horse racing writers in America, at once told us on national television that scientists and veterinarians tell us that steroids cycle out of the horse’s body in two weeks and thereafter there are no after-effects.

And yet.

Drape, despite medical and scientific - authorities in any other instance - evidence to the contrary and evidence that points to another very real problem with steroids and horses, also openly blame steroids for Big Brown’s failure in the final leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown.

That same Sunday Drape made his statement I was told by a reliable source who was contacted by equine doctors after writing a column on Big Brown that there is indeed a major deleterious effect when racehorses are injected with steroids. Steroids injected into in horses to do not create “super horses.”

The reality is much more insidious. And it speaks directly to the laziness of humans.

Steroids act to mask problems with a horse that a trainer or breeder would, under normal conditions, see and/or check for, find, and treat.

Injecting a racehorse with steroids basically makes the job of training a racehorse easier. It is the tenet of, “Nothing to see here, move along,” as applied to thoroughbred horse training.

How wonderful that we have found a way to inject a substance into an animal just to make our job of training them and coaxing them to race for our pleasure all the easier.

As we can see from Big Brown we have two mediums, television and newspapers, through which false memes are passed by human meme generators. One - television - is a famed processor of false information that more often than not becomes replicated. As it is passed from person to person - self-image to self-image - and is applied from subject to subject, it finally takes on a life of its own in the form of a lie that is embedded in our psyches to the point where any voice or voices that rise to question or dispute its veracity come under a hive-mind attack with a goal to kill off that which opposes it; like killer bees reacting to even the false threat of anything that approaches the hyper-protective masses’ queen.

The other - newspapers - is an equally famed processor of false information. It is said to be dying but for reasons other than what is real. Newspapers have been largely replaced by the bastard image of the ever-flickering picture screen that is television, that is the computer monitor, and the cell-phone screen.

Newspapers and other print mediums like magazines are generally too slow for our somnambulistic yet ADD-mimicking minds. And those mistaken for being some of the “best” writers today are actually those who paint pictures that mirror the screen; incomplete, full of hyperbole, bent on obscuring the fact that ———- there are no facts in what is written. Oh sure, there are tried-and truisms that are sure to get a desired response, but are there facts that act to explode the hyperbole, or at least show a reality behind the image?

Sadly, no. Some sportswriters we read daily cannot think that far. Some very good ones, like Rhoden or Drape, fall prey to what is popular, what is easy, what will keep the hive-mind hoards off their backs.

Now just how the hell does all this apply to Rafael Nadal and his dismantling of the field at the French Open this year?

Here we have this gifted athlete in Nadal who plays every tennis match on the largest tennis court, total area-wise, in the world. It is an advantage that no other player, not even Roger Federer had in this year’s only Grand Slam tournament played on clay.

Center courts are huge expanses compared with other courts and allow the better athlete to retrieve shots from their opponents and hit replies to those shots that are seen in no other circumstance in tennis.

Advantage Nadal.

Combine that with tennis rackets that weigh but 11.5 ounces but have the stability of rackets that just 12 years ago or so would have weighed at least 13.5 to 16 ounces (Pete Sampras wielded one of those) and an athlete like Nadal can swing this new-fangled weapon as hard as would like for as long as he would like and takes swings that are, even in the era directly previous to this one, abnormal to hitting the tennis ball solidly
without incurring injury to his elbow or shoulder, and you have another major advantage for Nadal, the athlete.

Combine those two advantages with synthetic gut strings that, either alone, or when combined with gut strings allow a player to hit the ball with an ungodly amount of spin ——– and you have created tennis players who, if they have just one powerful shot, can rise in the rankings to heights never seen before in the sport of tennis.

Just ask James Blake, who possesses a wicked forehand thanks to his athletic ability and this technology, but who is so limited that, even as the #7-ranked player in the world, cannot satisfactorily hit the common topspin second serve (once called an “American Twist”) that is designed to allow the server to swing as hard as he or she would for a first serve but acts to allow the server to clear the net by a safe distance yet bring the ball down into play.

Just ask Rafael Nadal. Raffa, despite his strength, does not possess a serve that is a weapon enough to generate easy points in a pinch. He is mediocre at best at net. And yet he has never lost a match at Roland Garros.

He often stands eight to 10 feet behind the baseline to return serves, something he could never do on courts with smaller “off the court” surface areas. He often plays most of his points from that same position. On these bigger courts, particularly at the French, he is able to run down balls he would normally not move for, just because of the extra space afforded him. For those who have played tennis, watching Nadal play on Chartrier is like watching a proficient adult player move a 10-year old around the court.

Angled shots the adult can easily run down, the child can only watch go by. The angled shots the adult reaches and returns on even more obtuse angles are shot that the 10-year old would never think of attempting to retrieve.

This is a main reason why one thought to enhance the game of tennis and make it more palatable for young children is to create courts of smaller size commensurate with the size of young children. It would allow children to hit and cover shots as do adults rather than ask them to negotiate what is, for them, a huge spatial expanse. It can make for frustrated children and act to turn them off to the game rather quickly.

With these advantages Nadal can, without a complete game, make even Roger Federer look like a buffoon - or that frustrated child playing a proficient adult.

But for Nadal, it is because he may be a first generation athlete representation of the choice humans make when viewed in light of Susan Blackmore’s meme and teme theory. Nadal, rather than optimizing his game, has chosen - at least at this point in his career - to become what he is by melding his athleticism with technology.

Nadal, like Maria Sharapova in the women’s game present us with the image of what a great tennis player is without actually becoming great tennis players. Both have glaring weaknesses in their games that, if they played with lesser technology in the way of tennis rackets, would be exposed - as would their lack of true talent for the game.

And yet if you listen to, watch, or read the meme generators that make up the press corps, Nadal certainly and Sharapova if not now then soon, are two of the greatest tennis players ever to grace a court.

Bjorn Borg was the first player to be a better athlete and win because of that athleticism and the secret knowledge that if he played solely within himself plus used that athletic advantage to grind his opposition to dust. But when he came across John McEnroe who was not quite as gifted an athlete but was truly talented as a tennis player, Borg was quickly exposed for the flawed player he was; a player without a serve that could consistently get him out of trouble or earn him cheap points when needed, a player with a mediocre at best volley because he lacked the requisite innate understanding and touch necessary to properly wield his racket when at net.

Because he was faced with the reality of John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg retired from the game of tennis at age 26. He stated that he retired because he did not want to take the time to do the things necessary to attempt to retool his game to match that of McEnroe’s. If he put in the work and failed, he said, it would be devastating.

Still, Borg spawned wanna-bes. Boys around the world began playing from the baseline with two-handed backhands and Western-grip forehands. They were unimaginative metronomes satisfied with pounding away from the baseline until their opponents became tired, were lulled to sleep, or became impatient. Mats Wilander, a Swede and one of those young players came along and won seven singles Grand slam trophies. However, unlike Borg, Wilander also won one Grand Slam doubles trophy, which meant he, unlike his hero, had learned to volley.

But it was Borg’s game that inspired Nick Bolletieri to take Borg’s style of play, combine it with better racket technology and have young boys and girls use Borg’s strokes but hit the ball as hard as possible, which acted to revolutionize the game of tennis.

From Bolletieri came Jennifer Capriati, Aaron Krickstein, Jimmy Arias, Jim Courier, and most famously, Andre Agassi. All were junior champions and all had some measure of success as pros but it was not until Agassi joined with Brad Gilbert and realized he was a talented enough tennis player to vary his serves and use them to win cheap points, and that he could do something other than hit the ball as hard as possible, that Agassi became the player who won Grand Slams on every surface.

When Agassi realized he could volley and possessed the touch to volley well his game became complete. Capriati never won a Slam until she realized the same thing about her game. Courier, who won two French Opens and two Australian Opens beat opponents down in the same style as did Borg and as does Nadal. But when it came to faster surfaces like the grass at Wimbledon or the quick hard courts of the U.S. Open, players with complete games always rose to defeat him (at the time the Australian Open was played on a slow, rubbery surface). As a result, his time at the top came and went quickly.

If it sounds familiar, it is. Nadal is all those players before him but with today’s technology.

But we must ask, who, among the players Nadal’s age - 22 - will win out and which players will those coming up after them choose to mimic?

Will Nadal’s athleticism plus ability to wield the technology win out? Or will players like Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Gael Monfils, Sam Querry and others who are excellent athletes, and in the cases of Djokovic and Monfils, extraordinary athletes, win the day? These players use the entire court and their entire games to defeat their opponents. All are comfortable at the net. All possess excellent touch and volley well. All possess huge and varied serves that are sure weapons.

All possess all-around games.

And so, the question becomes, will the image of the great tennis player - the Nadalian Cyborg player - win the day, or will real players who are complete players - those who maximize themselves and their games - win the day?

The answer will be well worth watching, for tennis, for the meme carriers in the press, and for us all.

Tags: Andre Agassi, Big Brown, Bjorn Borg, French Open, James Blake, Maria Sharapova, meme, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer

D.K. Wilson is a freelance sports writer. He is better known on the internet as "DWil," and writes for Sports On My Mind.

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16 Comments

1. Dear DK:

   1. Nadal’s skills as a tennis player have certainly improved even since last year. His practice sessions (hours and hours long) are not to improve his altheticism; they are specifically to improve his tennis technique. To suggest that he is not really trying to gain a more complete game is off the mark.
   2. All players have access to the same technology so this does not in any way explain Nadal’s advantage over another player. It becomes a non-issue.
   3. You can’t separate out athleticism from skill in sports. You develop both as much as possible (and clearly Nadal pumps some iron when not practicing) so that you are better at the sport.

   Thanks
   Dave

   Comment by Dave DeBonis on June 9, 2008

2. pseudo and shallow academicism aside (memes being, of course, a term coined by Dawkins for cultural replicators akin to genes), I find it curious that DK implies incessantly that Nadal benefits from melding athleticism with technology more so than any one else on the tennis tour. DK’s argument makes it seem as if Nadal’s “light” racquet is solely an option available to him whereas all others are playing with outdated racquets from Borg’s era. Considering that all professionals, Rafa and Roger included, use the lightest and strongest racquets available, I fail to see how this is only Nadal’s advantage…? Everyone uses synthetic or mixed guts (and has the option not to), so how this benefits only Nadal is also dubious. As is DK’s claim that the “huge expanses” in central court serve to benefit one and only one athlete, one named Nadal. Surely, all athletes play on the “huge expanses” and have equal opportunity at exploiting them. Surely, it is an advantage to Federer also–who is considered by the tennis world as a supreme athlete himself. Speaking of Federer, or even McEnroe, I think they would scoff at the notion that Nadal is “mediocre at best” at the net. Sorry, DK, but I’ll go with McEnroe’s assessment on this one. He did watch the last two wimbledons in which Nadal went to the finals, after all.
   Also, DK, I’m very puzzled when you say that there are shots that Nadal “wouldn’t normally move for.” Here, you’re disputing the verdict of the entire tennis community, including Djokovic’s who called him the “best defensive player in the history of tennis.”
   Finally, I really begin to doubt your expertise on the subject of tennis when you state that Federer “looked like a buffoon”…!!! Even Nadal, who beat him, was extremely respectful of his opponent’s off day.
   Forcing the pseudo-cultural and pseudo-academic jargon of “temes” on Nadal does complete injustice to the fact that pure athletcism exists genetically, not memetically–and Nadal and Federer have it in great doses. The true difference is that Nadal has just turned 22 years old, and at 27 Federer is, in tennis terms, the older generation.

   Comment by Sujay Sood on June 9, 2008

3. This is an unbelievably ignorant article, unable to be hidden by the attempts to involve philosophy and science and apply it to tennis. You say in the article “the press are lazy”, yet you typify the same laziness extensively throughout; obviously you know nothing about tennis, but instead of researching it properly before writing, you come up with this drivel. I was amazed at your summation of Nadal; there are too many holes in your ridiculous arguments that I’m not even going to bother mentioning them - I wouldn’t know where to start. But then, already in disbelief, I continued reading, you started explaining away Borg’s success as due to his athleticism only, my incredulity only increased just when I thought it couldn’t. Bjorn Borg is one of the top 3 (or at worst) 5 best tennis players EVER, and is considered so by experts - this is something even the casual tennis follower would know. Nobody wins 11 Grand Slam tournaments, including the amazingly difficult French/Wimbledon double THREE CONSECUTIVE years, (even back when Wimbledon was the fastest court and Roland Garros the slowest) against all time great opposition, without being supremely talented in ADDITION to being a great athlete. This is some of the most ridiculous writing I’ve ever read, and I even read some of those articles where your “average joe” can submit any crap, let alone a supposedly professional writer. I hope you don’t get paid very much (if at all), because that would be irresponsible of whoever does that to encourage you to keep writing.

   Comment by harvey on June 9, 2008

4. This article is so ill-informed it is mind-boggling. It actually uses the phrase “lack of true talent for the game” to describe the world’s number two tennis player, who consistently beats the world’s number one, and has four grand slam titles to his credit. Nadal has been dominating this sport, along with Federer, for three years and it is only in the past few months that they’ve had any competition whatsoever, in the person of Djokovich.

   All players use the same types of racquets. Nadal doesn’t have a magical, super-tech one that floats him above everyone else, as the author would like to believe.

   Then there’s the nonsensical statement, “players … can rise in the rankings to heights never seen before in the sport of tennis.” Unless some new mathmatical reality has taken place, the rankings are exactly the same as they’ve always been. It’s simple. One, two, three, etc.

   Congratulations to the author on watching the Tennis Channel before writing this drivel. Now maybe he’d like to switch over to the Military Channel, watch an hour, and start advising the Joint Chiefs on military strategy.

   Based on that brilliant theory of memes, of course.

   Comment by Yasmina on June 10, 2008

5. This is what happens when you get your ideas off academic books, instead of looking at the real world.

   You said it yourself, so don’t be the lazy one and do some work on the real world to earn your ideas and the money too.

   Readers deserve more than this kind of unthinking, lazy stuff.

   Comment by NBB on June 10, 2008

6. Next time try to do some work and research the result of Nadal’s performances at other surfaces, and his health conditions at that time.

   What an irresponsible writer…

   Comment by mudz on June 10, 2008

7. The author forgets the player that technology helped the most was Pete Sampras. I remember turning off a final between Courier and Sampras in the 90’s because the ball went over the net at most, 3 times. When that generation of players arrived with the new rackets, no one could return the fast serves. That has changed with increased technology. The athleticism that is now needed, has to do with the ability to return a serve that is moving at 130mph. You can’t play baseball unless you can hit the fastball, the same is true with tennis. At least now the balance between servers and returners is much more even. In the early to mid-90’s it was nearly all serve, and boring beyond belief.

   Comment by Mark Anderson on June 10, 2008

8. I stumbled on this article when I googled Nadal. Such a hopeless article…The worst ever. Are you even a sports journalist??You shud think about quitting..Try to blend “Technology” with your “Ignorance” and “Lazyness”…Grow up!!

   Comment by Jackson on June 10, 2008

9. Does Nadal have a secret stash of magical, enhanced rackets that are not available to the other players or what?

   And Novak Djokovic’s volleys suck, by the way. It’s the one are of his game that needs most improving. Which is why he hired a special coach for it.

   This article is precious.

   Comment by AM on June 10, 2008

10. Andy Murray, Gael Monfils, Sam Querry
    All possess all-around games.

    Yeah, that last part was the 100% proof that this piece of fiction was written by an 16 year old with no knowledge of tennis.

    Comment by Shantal on June 10, 2008

11. I will let a past Federer quote answer this article: “People completely underestimate Nadal. Some people think he is just a good athlete, but he is so much more than that. He is an unbelievable player and people who can’t see this perhaps don’t understand tennis.” (2007)

    Comment by Sophie on June 10, 2008

12. only lazy academics without nothing better to do than muse about the world could afford to think of far-fetched ideas unrelated to the real world.

    about man and technology: there is nothing new to what you are saying, and you are in fact at the receiving end of that recycled line of thinking that looks at technology as some voodoo item detached from the human mind that first conceived them. how long has it been forgotten that the human side of objects come first, and if others make other use of it, it is because there is that innate human tendency to see the potential of things. how did our ancestors conceive of the use of fire, for example? are we to blame them now because they saw the use of fire, and other species did not? or, how should we look at the west for appropriating the technology around gunpowder, long in use in China for merry-making only, and turned that into a series of technology leading to the nuclear arsenal that is now the bane of mankind?

    as for tennis, i remember there was a time when the likes of Mc Enroe would scoff at those power servers that you now enshrine in your article, wailing about the death of rally artists who made tennis an interesting game. and yet, looking at Nadal, there isn’t that many players nowadays who could be depended upon to rely on their rallies, instead of just their serves.

    Borg retiring because of Mc Enroe? wow, where did you get that idea? everybody knows that Borg retired out of boredom, out of burn out. when you’ve won Wimby 5x and the French 6x, what else was there to accomplish in his time, when the likes of Sampras, Federer, or Nadal weren’t around yet?

    there was a time when the ideal athlete was a perfect blend of athleticism and brains. that was the Greek ideal. Nobody disputes that Nadal’s athleticism is supreme. Now did it happen by chance or by hard work? Is that laziness for him, or for the others? Shoud we look down at Woods for spending longer time at the gym while his competition spend longer time on leisure and holidays? Nadal’s mastery of the court, is it a given or a studied ability? Think about it if you care one bit about such talents. If nobody understands it like Nadal, is it his fault then? His mastery of technology, is it his fault? It’s not like the technology is only available to him, but here we are again talking about the gunpowder, China, and the West…

    Comment by harry_potter on June 10, 2008

13. Might as well talk about the nature of competition.

    You can not take out technology and superior understanding and ability taking over the competition.

    In wars as in tennis, superior technology, or innovative use of an existing technology will always wipe out the competition. Talk about the wheel, the chariot, new rackets, and imaginative ways of using them.

    In chess, the new genius always defeat the old, having studied the latter’s games and found the means to defeat him. Talk about Alekhine, Capablanca,Smyslov, Talj, Botvinnik, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, etc..

    Comment by houdini_07658 on June 11, 2008

14. Like it or not, today’s games, not just tennis, are undergoing some measure of evolution and revolution. Too bad that we are caught in the middle of these transitions. We are caught in traditions of the past, the kind that our sons and their sons will not share with us. It’s just in the nature of things.

    We like to think that tennis is pure art. But is it? If the technologies that we have now were available to the first players, do you think we’ll see the kind of plays we grew up with?

    The truth is that tennis is both science and art, as every human activity is. Some play on each side of the extreme scale, and it’s just a matter of taste for someone’s preference. It just so happened that you have a preference for the artistic side, but I don’t think everybody share’s your preference.

    I once saw a version of Arthur and Merlin where the young actor who acted the Arthur part was of such finesse weilding his Excalibur when killing his enemies - including a dragon - I wanted to watch the movie again. Yet, watching Terminator 2 or Predator, I had the same feeling, though Schwargenneger as the Terminator could hardly be called artistic in killing his enemies. He relied on pure technology, but the thoroughness in the way he disposes of his enemies may just pass for some dark artistry, if we can call it that.

    The arguments about the greatest player in the tennis world always revolve around a few names — Laver, Borg, Sampras, Federer. Yet this may be just a result of the presumptuousness of a few generations. I believe that the best tennis player is yet to come, weilding the great balance to use science and artistry at the highest level and at will, not lacking in the ability to master one surface like Sampras or Federer, nor the one-sidedness of ability of some players as the writer of this article wants to point out. But he must be careful about Nadal. Nadal is too young and still developing his game to the highest level. And he is performing well on other surfaces, not just clay. The writer may not know that Nadal has beaten Federer on a hard surface final. He also recently reached the Australian semifinal without dropping a set before before being sent away by Tsongas by surprise. He has had injuries in previous years, the reason his appearance on other surfaces was limited. And let’s not forget that he has been challenging Federer at the Wimby for 2 years now, the last almost coming through…

    Comment by $piral_Brig on June 11, 2008

15. you suffer from a low list of talents at tennis that you have the eye to appreciate. for that, you are just what you said, a memetic product of other’s thoughts, not able to originate your own first hand criteria on what clicks on the tennis court.

    perhaps you should think about this: Nadal’s physique is deceptively misleading, making people think that that is the mere reason to his successes.

    everything about Nadal is almost misleading. he has a gargantuan physique, and a gregarious, voracious, predatory appearance at the tennis courts, intimidating most of his opponents, overshadowing perhaps his deadly abilities at the court except for some with enlightened eyes and judgment, yet his character suggests a well-bred personality inside.

    all these appearances could not hide the fact that Nadal could be on the way of redefining the game. we’ve heard it all before about power tennis, and Nadal’s brand of power tennis has never been seen before: look at the way he covers the court and retrieves those, for others, unretievable balls. we’ve heard about tennis rackets being so advanced nowadays, but they’ve never looked so good until it was the hands of Nadal that held them: look at the way he summons those rackets to come up with spins that no other players could ever conjure up in their wildest dreams.

    add to that list the other abilities that Nadal has which equals the best ones around, such as his net talents which you also fail to see, as well as the new skills he has been adding to his arsenal in latest tournaments.

    tennis is so demanding nowadays, a player can not expect to last if he deals with it as other players of old did. aside from dealing with a flurry of power servers, there is that hectic scheduling of games that can dry a player of mediocre health in no time at all. hence, building a powerful body looks like the right way to meet this new dimension of tennis if a player wants to get anywhere aside from just collecting money from minor tours.

    being a victim of memetic, second-hand thoughts, you fail to see innovation when it arrives. unshackle yourself from thought slavery, and you will see what open eyed viewing can give you

    Comment by herbal_spring on June 11, 2008

16. I came here after reading the extremely biased analisys this pseudo-sports writer does about Nadal’s win in Wimbledon, and now everuthing falls in place… He just cant stand Nadal… It would be better if he just writes an article about his reasons to hate Nadal, something he is totally entitle to do, instead of looking for arguments where there are none for a personal dislike… Is a lack of respect to Federer to try to diminish the game of Nadal. The greater the talent of the vistor, is the greater the opposition of the loser will be considered… if Nadal wins only for the use of new technologies then Federer is a fool for failing to adapt to them… It is well known that Nadal exploited the very few weaknesses Federer has, why couldnt Federer then exploit in his favor all the advantages that, according for this joke of author, Nadal has for himself? I read this clown for the first time because someone posted in Mr. Bodo’s article saying that there were very hilarious opinions regarding last sunday final, after checking the link I read the article about the slowing of Wimbledon surface being the only reason for Nadals triumph, inmediately I wished to check what this Wilson guy had said about the blow out in RG… I say I cant wait to read Wilson’s article when the inevitabel happens and Nadal wins a GS in HC… but not to learn something but to enjoy how ppl’s imagination can flow when they dont want to face reality

    Comment by morerespect on July 9, 2008

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