* !Picby Pete Bodo*
Afternoon, everyone. In a way it's a pity that Rafael Nadal's criticisms of Roger Federer dominate the tennis headlines today, stirring up two partisan armies that might otherwise be bivouacked in serenity because the great rivals are separated in the Australian Open by 62 working stiffs, half of whom would just love to derail Nadal prematurely, while the other 32 have designs on Federer's predicted place in the semifinals.
I'm going to keep my comments on the brouhaha brief, as I'm tired of banging on about the calendar issue (I believe this post is particularly useful for background). Here are my takeaways from this latest controversy, although I'm afraid none of them are particularly novel:
- Rafael Nadal is a disgruntled young man. Maybe this all goes back to those injured knees in 2009. I think his discontents have metastasized rapidly.
- I need more specific details about Nadal's "super-majority" to buy that it exists. I tend to be suspicious of arguments that begin, "everyone knows. . ." or "everyone thinks. . . " If the entire tour is up in arms, why haven't we heard more complaints?
- Roger Federer deserves the "Master of the Obvious" award for the remark, "It's better to have too may tournaments than not enough tournaments." It would be absolutely insane to cut back the number of events—just ask yourself how such a move would strike you if it were contemplated in any other sport you follow. Which leads me to this point:
- Nobody can really stop a pro from playing as little—or as much—as he or she wants (note to Rafa: call Serena Williams), not as long as the rankings-based, open-entry system exists. Furthermore, if the top players got together and said, "We're not willing to play this schedule anymore," the schedule would change. As soon as humanly possible. End of story. I'm not a lawyer, but I feel certain that the anti-trust laws in the U.S. at least would rule against anyone who tried to stop a tennis professional from pursuing a living.
- I don't blame Federer for acting in a presidential manner any more than I blame Nadal for behaving like a disgruntled star. I'm just not certain those roles do equal justice to the two men. Enough said.
And with that, let me turn this over to you. The first round of the Australian Open gets underway tonight here in the U.S. (where it was -2 F this morning at the farm in game-rich Andes), so let me revive a tradition from the early days of this blog and quote former U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt's most famous speech, The Man in the Arena.
It's a passage that sometimes makes me uneasy about what I do for a living and what how it requires me to view the game and players—but then all of our lives are beset by contradictions and complications, right?
So here's to all the doers, the strong (and not-so-strong) men and women who are about to enter the arena in Melbourne. Enjoy the tennis everyone; we'll be all over it here at TENNIS.com like white on rice.