Re: This is not an excuse...

On Jan 25, 8:21 pm, Lax <Lax.Cla...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This is not an excuse for Federer's loss.  But here goes...

I've had stomach flu and food poisoning (not same time) before, and
even after I got rid of it, it took me a good 2 weeks to feel 100%.
It affected me in subtle ways in every part of my life.

Even at work (where I'm a programmer), I was a tad slower and less
sharp during the 2 weeks.  When playing tennis, my timing was off and
I felt a little "fat" (I wasn't fat, but I felt slower as if I had
gained weight).  And I couldn't hit the ball as hard for long periods
of time.

This thing must have affected him.  And I'm not including the facb
that it ruined his preparation/warm-up.

I believe that a bit abnormal behavior of Federer in this AO is due to
(in the order of importance)
HISTORY BURDEN translating into on-court pressure, As some posts have
pointed out and I fully agree, when Sampras broke #12, he approached
that target almost quietly because by at that time nobody explicitly
used that criterion as a critical judgement of 'Goat'. Sampras was the
advocater. Nowadays, ever since Fed got his 7-8 slams, the talk of his
supassing 14 is overwhelming. When that number was far, he was able to
keep a peace mind. When that number is close, his winning slams was
less and less convincing (2007). The bad thing is that he has been
deeply involved in the history talk, and the worse was that he shows
more and more interest in this talking by even engaging in exhibitions
with Sampras and 'good friend' Tiger Wood crap. I believe that this
history burden is lethal if he can't get rid of it asap. Unfortunately
this is hard to go back to a peace mind once he is on this boat. He
will have more exhibition matches coming and media will continue press
this history button day in and out. It is like a drug indulgence. He
should not have tasted at the first place.

THE FIELD is catching up or more familiar with his tactic, but he
doesn't want to change. He is recently less focused on games or
subconsciously disdain other top players like Djorkovic (not Nadal of
course) after deeply engaging in history talk.

DESPERATE in winning FO by preparing at every possible occassion and
focusing on Nadal only, it makes him somewhat weaker to other good
players. There is nothing wrong here for his goal on FO, but should
not disdain other players

BAD HEALTHY before AO, there is no way to know if this effect was
there

FAMILY ISSUE OR OTHER, again hard to know and less critical than the
above issues.

Fed may have lost this AO without the above issues but those abnormal
on-court signs are really bad for the rest of year, especially if he
can't get rid of that history demon. Fed should focus on his games,
respecting and studying every dangerous players. He'd look back
history only after being done or less competitive. Breaking 14 doesn't
mean his is Goat and less than 14 doesn't mean he is innferior to
Sampras, he should understand that.

James Chang
.