Federer blog - Summer 2008 ...

After a long hiatus due to suffering from mononucleosis, the new world
#2 has finally found enough energy to put pen to paper and complete
the latest scintillating installment of his personal blog ... there
are even more fascinating insights within due to the amount of time to
cover!

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Dear fans,

It has been a while since my last blog, and the fact that there has
not been any since I won my previous slam a year ago is purely
conicidental.

It has been a very busy year what with that exhibition with Sampras,
attending some high-profile social engagements and many photo shoots
for different magazines - there's hardly been any time to get much
tennis in!! Fortunately due to my form this season I haven't had to
worry too much about burnout on the courts, as I have been losing
early in tournaments to complete clowns!! It's a good thing that my
agent Tony came up with that mono story to explain some of my worst
performances this year - it looks like we can still get some more
mileage out of it even though the doctor gave me a clean bill of
health about six months ago - ha ha!!

I had written many notes on the French Open final, but in a bizarre
twist of fate they were all accidentally burnt to a cinder in a
mysterious fire which broke out at my house. What a pity - but I shall
let you form your own opinions on what I'm sure you will agree was an
extremely close match which I was very unlucky to lose.

I read that Alex Corretja was very critical of my performance in that
final - that was somewhat surprising since I hadn't actually ever
heard of him before. I had to look up the records to find out who on
earth he was, and it seems he was a journeyman bumrooter who somehow
fluked his way to two French Open finals. Hardly much to shout about,
although it appeared that he also managed to end 1998 ranked #3 in the
world! I phoned the ATP records office to correct what was surely an
obvious error but was assured that the information was actually
accurate. "Don't forget that this was the late 1990s" laughed the
statistics person. Of course, an obvious explanation!!

After avoiding the decent players at Queen's to win yet another Halle
title, I arrived at Wimbledon desperate to somehow retain my crown,
and as usual that would depend on someone else beating the only two
half-decent players in the draw. I got a stroke of luck when Djokovic
crashed miserably to Marat Safin, although this did of course prove
just how tough a task I had overcome when facing Safin during his
heyday of October 2004 to January 2005. I did start to worry slightly
when Safin failed to crash out spectacularly in the next round as
expected, and in fact he made it through to the semi-final against me.
However there was no need to worry as it was obvious that his movement
had gone to *** and any half-decent shot hit out wide was enough win
a point!!!

I didn't play as well as I had done in my previous Wimbledon finals
and found myself two sets down when the rain came. Just the time for
some words of wisdom from my coach - but then I remembered that I
didn't have one (well, apart from someone who regards me as second
choice to Robby Ginepri). I had to rely on my experience, skill,
tactical genius and some massive choking from Nadal to get back in the
match. However, deep into the fifth set I lost my nerve, ... er serve,
in complete darkness and ended up losing my title. I suppose it was
some consolation that everyone thought it was the greatest match they
had ever seen - well, everyone apart from that miserable bitch Gwen
Stefani, who sat in the players box looking like she would rather be
having a leg amputated than watching the match. So ungrateful - well,
she needn't worry about coming back next year, I'll ask Anna Wintour
instead. At least Gavin Rossdale had the decency to appear to look
interested, though I thought he was taking it a bit far towards the
end - it looked he was going to take a fucking heart attack!!

My usual month off after Wimbledon was cut to a couple of weeks
because of the fucking Olympics - what a total waste of time they are!
I coped with the Wimbledon loss pretty well I thought - it was only
ten days later than Mirka finally came into my bedroom, switched on
the light and said "Come on Roger, stop crying and come out from under
the bedclothes, you have to get a plane to Toronto to play". God,
can't I get a little time to myself to deal with defeat?

I had no interest in the tuneups, but thought I better turn up as
Nadal was closing in on the #1 spot. However I played like a clown
against Simon and then lost to Dr Ivo to lose a shitload of points and
basically clear the way for Nadal to take over. I congratulated Rafa
for finally reaching the top, and no doubt it will be very hard for
anyone to match his incredible achievements - yes, 161 consecutive
weeks at #2 will certainly never be beaten! His 75-9 record this year
is extremely impressive - even though it pales in comparison to my
astounding figures compiled from 2004-2006!!

Stan Wawrinka phoned me to ask if I would play doubles with him at the
Olympics - that gave me a very difficult decision as I have always
played doubles with Yves Allegro and I surely owed it to him out of
sheer loyalty to stick with him. After agonising about it for a couple
of seconds, I decided to dump Allegro since he is basically pretty
*** and Stan is now a top ten player himself. I explained my decision
to Yves of course (without mentioning the bit about him being ***)
and he seemed to take it fairly well - he merely burst into tears and
mentioned something about his career being over (what career?) - for
goodness sake, grow up!! He should be happy that he had the privilege
to play even one match on the same court as a legend such as myself,
not moaning about the fact that no-one will ever remember who the hell
he was - honestly, some people! He calmed down somewhat when I
relented and agreed that he could still come to Beijing and carry my
bags onto the court - a very important role, I'm sure you'll agree!!

I decided not to stay in the Olympic village during the Games, as
quite frankly I had no desire to hang around with some other Swiss
sportsmen who are nowhere near as famous as I am - instead I checked
into the nearest five-star hotel. My campaign foundered against James
Blake, another worrying defeat to a guy I normally despatch without
any trouble. I joked to James that he was simply "Way too good!" to
which he replied "Er, no Roger, actually you were way too ***!". For
once he was absolutely right - my game was in tatters, with my chances
of winning more slams to challenge Sampras's record looking worse by
the day. I packed my bags for the trip home but then remembered that I
still had to hang around for the bloody doubles - ***!! I suggested
to Stan that I should drop out and let Allegro play with him, but at
that his face went white. I decided to at least turn up and surely we
would lose easily to the first decent doubles specialists who could
expose my lack of volleying skills. However, it turned out that the
doubles specialists could not actually hit any groundstrokes and we
ended up in the final - what a stroke of luck!!! In the final we
played Thomas Johansson (I thought he retired a few years ago?) and
some other bloke who *** himself when he saw me on the other side of
the net - we could hardly help but win!!! Stan seemed overjoyed at
winning (well, considering his career record it's not surprising)
while I pretended that this was a big title, even though it's really
worth about as much as Estoril, even without a default in the final
(i.e. fucking nothing). Still, as least Djokovic went home with less
than I did, which is always a good thing, ha ha!!

However, imagine my surprise when shortly after the Olympics, the ATP
(or ITF or whoever) announced that they had decided to upgrade the
Olympics to Grand Slam status, and that for this year only there would
actually be five slams, not four. I could hardly believe it!! I
protested with reasoned arguments such as the Olympics matches were
only best of 3 sets, that the draw was only 64 players, but mainly of
course that I hadn't won it. My complaints were rejected, but it
appears that the proposal had the strong backing of the current world
#1 (R Nadal) - damn those rankings!!

It is well documented that my team had a serious discussion just
before the US Open, to try to come up with a plan to win the
tournament in spite of my dreadful form. It was a very good discussion
- people chipped in with insightful comments such as "Well, your
movement's gone to hell, Roger", or "Your forehand's a total
liability", or even "A couple of defeats and your confidence is now
fucked". Of course I didn't take these comments seriously as I knew
that my entourage was merely trying to motivate me with subtle
pyschological tricks to encourage me to find my game - although I must
confess that they were very convincing, if I hadn't known better I
would have thought that they really did believe that my tennis was in
the shithouse!!!

I ran into Djokovic in the semis in a repeat of the Australian Open -
however this time I could actually move on court while Djokovic was
knackered after being taken to five sets by Tommy Robredo. I must
thank Tommy for tiring him out enough for me to win - mind you, that
must be the first time I've ever thanked him for anything other than
crashing out early in every tournament so that I don't have to suffer
watching his terrible style of play!!

My luck held as Nadal exited to Murray, although he complained that he
was tired after a hard season. However I would strongly advise Rafa to
continue to play as many tournaments as possible though - there's no
substitute for hard work, and if he does happen to miss the next year
(or preferably two) through injury, well it's not the end of the
world, is it?

That bloke Higueras was at the final again, in fact he was sitting in
the players box for some reason. Didn't I fire him after Wimbledon? Or
maybe I forgot? I haven't spoken to him for a couple of months so
hopefully he was not taking any credit for my magnificent victory -
no, as everyone knows, the credit must go to Murray, the New York
weather and the hopeless scheduling by the dumbassess who run the
tournament - thanks guys, the cheque's in the post!!

My 13th slam keep me on track for Sampras's record, and hopefully I
will be able to pass his total before my game really does go right
down the toilet. Only one slam this year unfortunately, but given my
rubbish play that's not bad going. Don't forget that Sampras only won
one slam in one of his peak years (1996), and that was extremely lucky
as he was match point down to Alex Corretja (is that the same bloke I
was talking about earlier?). Of course, some will argue that Pete had
to face opponents who played with much more variety, and so his task
was more difficult than mine. Well, you only have to look around at
the top players today to see that there is a huge variety in the ways
in which they can blow matches, I doubt that you could find this
during the 1990s!!

There's a rumour that John McEnroe Sr is planning to take over running
the ATP - this could be a good thing, but only if he listens to the
views of the players (well me, anyway). The first thing he needs to
do is change this stupid ranking system - it appears that there is no
way I can regain #1 for months unless Nadal gets injured, or suffers a
mysterious accident (hmmm...). The balance of surfaces is just not
right - there are simply too many tournaments which are played on
surfaces which suit his game and not mine - clay, grass, hard court,
while there should be more events on, er, um ..., ***, what surface
can I dominate on these days?

It's a while to the next slam, but I have some important events coming
up - in particular the doubles exhibition with Borg against McEnroe
and James Blake. James wasn't very impressed when he heard he was
playing with me - "Couldn't they get someone I can't beat, like
Fernando Gonzalez?" he quipped. He's a very funny guy!! I'm sure Mac
will be worried about playing against the reigning Olympic doubles
champion, even though since I am playing with Borg there could be a
serious weakness in net play on our side of the court!

See you for my 14th slam in January, although I suppose I better play
some of the Mickey Mouse events before then to try to keep the #2
spot. Even though I've lost the top ranking, I can take comfort from
being acknowledged as the "Talent GOAT", a new award which is judged
by a host of former great players to recognise my rightful place as
the most talented player in history - although I heard that there were
some objections to this from certain quarters - can you believe that
there are still some people who cannot recognise true genius when they
see it? - sheesh!!!
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