Reading the Readers: Bandwagon Edition

It's time to unload the mailbox again. There was a lot of year-end correspondence this time around. Not all of it was well-wishing, exactly, but that's just how it goes around here, right?

2012 Prediction: Roger Federer achieves Grand Slam. What percentage would you give TMF for that amazing career defining possibility?—sfedster

Uncle Toni must step aside. Rafa's playing some idiotic tennis and his body can't make up the difference like it used to.—Martini Hingis

And I thought we Philadelphia sports fans were bad about leaping on and off our teams’ bandwagons.

If the ATP wants to do justice to the NAME of the World Tour Finals, it has to give the impression to the people that all players have an equal chance of winning and deliver the all round best of the best champion.—hitius

The commenter is saying that the WTF’s surface should be rotated, to give each player a better shot at winning a tournament that is supposed to represent the tour as a whole. In theory, while the event has always been played on hard courts and almost always been indoors due to the time of year, there’s no reason it should never be played on clay—it’s not as if that’s a freak one-off surface. The trouble, as the schedule is now, is that this would mean the players would have to come straight from indoor hard courts in Paris and move over to clay two days later.

I wonder if that belief- everyone doing it makes everyone equal- is what has led to the defense of Contador by some of his countrymen. Many, myself included, believe that doping in cycling is widespread. If nearly everyone was cheating, should Contador get punished only because he was unlucky enough to get caught?—JDB

That's not a good reason to let him go; accountability for the winners is the only way to make any inroads into that doping culture, and there has been evidence that doping in the last Tour de France had lessened. If they can't catch and punish athletes in cycling, where doping is so rampant, who can?

I also find the hand-holding children odd -- actually, almost eerie contrasting with the apocalyptic growl of Joe Strummer warning "now war is declared and battle come down." The hot rancor of the song, the icy chill of the fog, the 3 foot-tall innocents leading the buffed and bronzed gladiators to the arena -- all those mixed messages make a girl a little dizzy . . .

But I guess tennis is kind of like that, too.—Ruby

I hadn’t heard “London Calling” being played then, but that’s a funny image and mixed message. I did like Djokovic’s smile with one of the kids, though, as well as his friendly reaction to one of the women who came out to do the pre-match coin toss. Probably his two best moments at the WTF this year.

The thing about Federer is that, until recently, he always thought he had Novak's number, always thought he could work it out using the same game. The fact that he beat him in Paris and came close to doing so at the Open proves just that.
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But now that initial stubbornness will be fully replaced by real strategic adjustments (he's clearly been working on his return game), and 2012 could be an entirely different ballgame. Novak's got all the pressure, Nadal is suffering from a severe lack of confidence and Murray is...still Murray. It's going to be interesting, that's for sure.—Michele

It's true, the guy gets a new coach, makes a few changes in 2010 with an eye toward being more aggressive, uses them to beat his primary rival and the world No. 1 in last year’s WTF final and then . . . gets knocked off by the other guy in Melbourne, Dubai, Indian Wells, and the U.S. Open. What should Federer expect for 2012? Murray to win 43 straight?

"We’ll debate this forever, but for now I’ll take Djokovic’s 2011, with his 10 wins over Federer and Nadal, for the No. 3 spot."

Although I am happy to see that, at least, you are reasonable enough to put Laver's 1969 and Federer's 2006 season in front, I still don't know how you can consider Djokovic's season better than Connor's 1974. Here is my black and white comparison between the 4 seasons (I would love to read about yours).—Abraxas

Yes, Laver’s 1969 and Federer’s 2006 are safe from Djokovic’s 2011. As far as the other great years, what’s special to me about Novak’s season are the 10 wins over Federer and Nadal. Connors’ record in 1974 was obviously fantastic, and he was perfect at the majors (though he was lucky that an aging Ken Rosewall knocked off John Newcombe, the second best player in the world at the time, at both Wimbledon and the Open). What diminishes ’74 at least slightly is that Connors spent a lot of it racking up wins in the B League run by his manager, Bill Riordan. Here’s how his season was described by Sports Illustrated:

Most pros spent the months between the Australian and French Opens playing Lamar Hunt's World Championship Tennis, a circuit much like the one Robert Culp and Bill Cosby plied on TV's I Spy: Johannesburg, Munich, Rotterdam, Tokyo, Toronto. WCT had the money, glamour and top competition.

Connors contented himself with the International Players Association tour, the vehicle Riordan had created for him. The IPA was an archipelago of Palookaville events in college gyms and bush league auditoriums in Omaha and Roanoke and Paramus, where, Connors recalls, "The crowd was in your lap. Why not involve them?"

Only a handful of top players joined him on the Riordan circuit: Sandy Mayer and his brother, Gene; Vitas Gerulaitis; and most notably Nastase, the lone rival with whom Connors would forge a close friendship. But therein lay the boxing-promoter genius of the IPA. Connors could husband his energies and burnish his mystique for the title fights, Wimbledon and Forest Hills.

Will the slower courts (perhaps NP will not agree that they are slower, but we shall see), and shift to baseline play result in more "dominant" seasons?—Dunlop Maxply

I lamented the slower courts in Paris last month, and I’ve been amazed at how slow Indian Wells plays when I’ve hit there. But I wonder if we’ve begun to overrate how much of an effect the courts have (or maybe I’ve read too much nonsense about the courts being slowed down to benefit Nadal specifically). Decades of trends in racquets, technique, and Bollettieri-style coaching have to be equally big influences on the way the game's played now. But it’s true, we have seen an outsized number of three-Slam seasons recently, though Federer didn’t get his with war-of-attrition type tennis.

yeah, Fed definitely has lost a step, in general - don't know whether Steve meant that that point was 'evidence' that he hadn't, or if he was simply saying that it gave a glimpse of what he could do in his prime (and still can, if not nearly as frequently).—Isis

I guess what I mean is that Federer hasn’t lost  as much quickness as I would have thought by this time, or as much as most people seem to believe. He’s definitely less springy and free flowing than he once was, but he still gets to tons of balls I don’t think he has any business getting to, including that amazing get I referenced in the London final. Age can show in a lot of ways, in reaction time and consistency and mental stamina and obviously speed, yet another all-time athlete, Carl Lewis, set the world record in the 100-meter dash when he was 30.

And as the photo above clearly shows, Federer can still do it in his sleep.

Crystal:
In my 3:30 a.m. post, I already demonstrated why your comments regarding the 1975 Spanish Davis Cup team and Sampras-Muster are ludicrous and why your comments regarding Sampras-Kuerten and Sampras-Bruguera are largely irrelevant.
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Not surprisingly, you, sadly, now try to discount: (a) Orantes straight-setting Borg on Swedish clay one year before Borg won his first Roland Garros crown and a year after Borg won his first Davis Cup match, pro; (b) Orantes straight-setting Borg on Barcelona clay the first year Borg won his first title at Roland Garros; and c) Orantes’ 1975 U.S. Open title on green clay (or Har Tru), won the same year as the pertinent Spain-Sweden Davis Cup tie.—J. Balcells

It's officially on now, tennis.com style. I mean, we all knew Juan Balcells was up on his tennis history, but who knew he could bring it like that?

Oh no ... Steve Tignor has picked Fed to win. I asked you days ago not to curse Fed by picking him to win. It's the only thing that dents my confidence for the upcoming WTF.—Tigress

Oh, that’s good, that’s funny, that’s . . . wait, you’re being serious.

Too many journalists including Steve are picking Roger to win so I believe he wont win this year. I think Djokovic will win.—wilson75

Jinx!