Roger Federer
It is widely debated that Roger Federer is the best tennis player of all time.
I think that tennis is one of those sports that you cannot truly enjoy watching unless you play. Otherwise, (1) you can't follow the scoring and (2) you can't have a true appreciation of how amazing the game play is. Like golf... it might look boring unless you can appreciate how extremely precise their shots are, and how difficult it is to do what they're doing.
Watching Roger might make you feel that it's not such a difficult thing, being a professional tennis player, because he makes it look so easy, so graceful. You can now watch his laser precision in slow motion.
posted by Timothy @ 12:03 PM
7 Comments:
well, thats SWISS tennis!
that was quite the display, I must say. Federer is a guy I like to root against because he's so good. I rooted against MJ too... I wonder though, who would win Sampras in his prime, or Federer now.
Out of curiosity, how is your lob shot?
It's ok... about the same as all of my other shots = wildly inconsistent. But I'm working on that!
xoysiyro
Mando: Federer, hands down. More weapons, bigger weapons. Sampras' best shot, the forehand, is not as versatile as Fed's. And we've all seen what he can do to serve and volley'ers, which is what Sampras essentially was.
Timothy mentioned there was great debate. There's not really much debate. Most tennis scholars acknowledge Federer as being the most skilled player... whether he will be the best all time, which is judged by accomplishments, depends on how long and successfully he plays.
and if the tennis thing doesn't work out, he could always take up ballet.
Lol... big time. He'd look great in tights, too!
Since Timothy won^H^H^Hcan't get around to adding this to the post:
There's a great article on the superlative skill of Federer entitled, "Roger Federer as Religious Experience" that makes an absolutely perfect companion piece to watching him in slo-mo action. The writer describes Fed's game in great, entertaining detail.
An excerpt:
"By way of illustration, let’s slow things way down. Imagine that you, a tennis player, are standing just behind your deuce corner’s baseline. A ball is served to your forehand — you pivot (or rotate) so that your side is to the ball’s incoming path and start to take your racket back for the forehand return. Keep visualizing up to where you’re about halfway into the stroke’s forward motion; the incoming ball is now just off your front hip, maybe six inches from point of impact. Consider some of the variables involved here. On the vertical plane, angling your racket face just a couple degrees forward or back will create topspin or slice, respectively; keeping it perpendicular will produce a flat, spinless drive. Horizontally, adjusting the racket face ever so slightly to the left or right, and hitting the ball maybe a millisecond early or late, will result in a cross-court versus down-the-line return. Further slight changes in the curves of your groundstroke’s motion and follow-through will help determine how high your return passes over the net, which, together with the speed at which you’re swinging (along with certain characteristics of the spin you impart), will affect how deep or shallow in the opponent’s court your return lands, how high it bounces, etc. These are just the broadest distinctions, of course — like, there’s heavy topspin vs. light topspin, or sharply cross-court vs. only slightly cross-court, etc. There are also the issues of how close you’re allowing the ball to get to your body, what grip you’re using, the extent to which your knees are bent and/or weight’s moving forward, and whether you’re able simultaneously to watch the ball and to see what your opponent’s doing after he serves. These all matter, too. Plus there’s the fact that you’re not putting a static object into motion here but rather reversing the flight and (to a varying extent) spin of a projectile coming toward you — coming, in the case of pro tennis, at speeds that make conscious thought impossible. Mario Ancic’s first serve, for instance, often comes in around 130 m.p.h. Since it’s 78 feet from Ancic’s baseline to yours, that means it takes 0.41 seconds for his serve to reach you. This is less than the time it takes to blink quickly, twice."
I recommend tabbing the video in one page and the article in another, and switching back and forth as needed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?ex=1160884800&en=ab7194a24c569b8e&ei=5070
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