I’m not really sure what I watched today. Was it tennis that I was watching or was it a couple of guys trying to bash the ball from the baseline, attempting to play high quality tennis? Whatever it was, it was terrible. Sure Nadal’s semifinal match against fellow countryman, Ferrer, was cleaner and resembled professional tennis, but it was still a wash; Ferrer only won 5 games total. I knew that Nadals semifinal match was going to be a glorified practice session with a friend, though never in a million years would I have thought that the match between Djokovic and Federer would be as terrible as it was.
The first set of Djokovic’s match started pretty good, lots of good hitting, some decent points; Federer looked like he wanted it and Djokovic looked a little worn out. It all changed with Djokovic breaking Fed’s serve at three all, after that the first set was signed, sealed, delivered; 6-3 Djokovic. I thought for sure the second set was going to be more exciting, and it was, for a little while.
Early in the second set, Federer came out storming, immediately breaking the Djokovic serve; backed up his break and broke Nole’s serve again; 3-0 Federer. I thought for sure this was going to be the turning point of the match, where Federer would display his world class athleticism and dominate for the rest of the set and match. Nope, I was wrong. I’m not exactly sure what happened, my stream was spotty so I missed a few monumental points (I assume) but I came back online and it was 5 all. I can only assume that something had changed in Federer’s mind, perhaps he didn’t want to reach the French Open final or he wanted to give Novak an opportunity to join the “Career Slam” club that he and Nadal have owned for the better part of a decade. Whatever it was, the brain lapsed and the second set was gone. After the second set, I had to turn off the TV and find something else to do; it was infuriating to watch, I felt that I wanted to punch a hole through my monitor.
The errors alone were revolting; Federer had 46 unforced errors in three sets, what the heck? Sure, I could see that many errors from a lengthy five set match, but in three slow boring sets is beyond me. Federer had his moments of brilliance, hitting some nice clean and powerful winners; it was just the shanks that were disturbing…Roger Federer looked like how I play tennis.
I didn’t catch much of the third set and final, I was terribly bored watching the match that I turned to my twitter to see what people were saying. Turns out, that the general consensus was similar; there were plenty of questions going around, “What is Fed thinking?” “Are these guys playing tennis?” are few examples. It appeared that I wasn’t the only one grumbling about the match; it was a terrible semifinal, just atrocious.
Novack Djokovic will now face defending champion, and 6 time French Open winner, Rafael Nadal. This ought to be interesting, I’ll write up my French Open final predictions in a little while.
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