What is Roche (Federer’s ex-coach) thinking right about now?

Mr. Roche, do you think it is fair to say that your tactics were ineffective? Are you freaking kidding me????

You should have, yourself, opted out of the partnership after the first year itself. Maybe you deprived the world and the tennis fans, of what could have been an even more dazzling and awesome run in the history of the game.

You can now clearly see what you were doing wrong. Federer displayed all that for you so clearly on the court. Or do you need a memo mailed to you at your home? You don’t travel anyway. So there is no chance you will miss it then.

You were given the most talented human being to ever pick up the racket and what did you do? You freaking turned it into mud. Absolutely unforgivable.

It reminds me, of all the prime years Mohammad Ali lost when he was banned from boxing. Fans can only imagine what he could have done, if not for that tragedy. What all he achieved, past his prime, only accentuates that notion.

Federer is clearly past his prime at nearly 26. He could have been playing for his third Grand Slam right now, if not for your freaking ‘expert’ advice on clay.

For freaks, not aware of your excellent record as a coach and a player, he is a glimpse. This is an excerpt from a recent post on this site which explains the dilemma:

“Federer has now had Tony Roche for two full season, since the beginning of 2005. He has a ‘handshake’ deal with Roche with no contract. Roche is paid by the week. Roche has won Roland Garros ONCE. Guess why he is there – oh, you guessed it? Yeah, to help Federer win the French Open.

Do you think this is the right arrangement to get results? Guy has no contract!!! Do you think that might effect someone’s motivation to produce results? Why else would you have such an arrangement? Is it money? Can you think of any better reason?

Do you think it is good idea to consider someone’s track record as a coach, before hiring? Well, Ivan Lendl hired Roche as a full-time coach. Lendl’s dream was to win Wimbledon and he thought Roche’s expertise on volleying might help. How many Wimbledons did Lendl end up winning – a whopping ZERO.

Well, he was hired again by Patrick Rafter. Patrick came out strong – winning whopping TWO majors.

Maybe, its time to correct, either the mechanics of the existing arrangement to have some accountability or just look for another direction. Is that reasonable enough?”

Mr. Roche, do us all a favor and try coaching on the senior’s tour – of golf. Leave tennis alone for at least the next decade.

Is the slump officially over?

Federer, can we conclude that now? Or is it too early?

Here are some pointers that scream it is over:

You defeated Nadal at the height of his incredible run. That means you fought off a very strong momentum swing, an extremely confident and fierce competitor in his own backyard.

That bagel just ices the cake, and completes the process of eliminating the unwanted edges off your game. It rounds off the journey you were on, since the first loss to Canas, to regain the form and determination.

Doing it on clay, just before the FO and Wimbledon, swings the pendulum your way and it is your job now, to ride this momentum hard not only for the FO, but for the rest of the year. With Wimbledon in sight, its time to reassert your dominance, dispel all doubts and crush all hopes of usurpers wishing for the throne.

Winning the FO does not seem to be a very far fetched notion any more. More importantly, this win gets you a nice place in Nadal’s psyche. Mentally, it has to be disturbing for him, being so close to FO.

But at the same time, it is also a win against a tired and spent Nadal. His matches against Davydenko and Hewitt are enough testimony. You need to follow it up with the win at FO to solidify and validate this win. To officially announce your arrival at the palace.

You cannot let this momentum slip by now, to ensure this victory is not considered just a last gasp before the slide. It has to be consolidated and fortified to give semblance of the official end of the slump.

Analysing Federer’s win, Nadal’s loss. Here are the freaking numbers!!!

The big difference for Federer was return of his serve. Something that had been emphasized and made the scapegoat by even the cucumbers in the snack stands at Hamburg.

Federer won 76 percent of his first-serve points. Nadal won just 52 percent.

Federer for a huge change also had 31 winners to 20 from Nadal.

Not only did Federer snap Nadal’s 81 clay court winning streak, he also denied him a historic sweep of the clay ATP Masters Series to win a fourth title at Hamburg. No one in the history of the game has done that.

This was Federer’s first win against Nadal on clay in six career meetings.

Federer overall has won three of the past four meetings, but still trails 4-7 H2H.

Last three times, Federer has played at Hamburg, he has won the title. And that’s clay!!!

This was just the third bagel for Nadal in his 134 career clay court matches.

Federer has now won 48 ATP titles, six on clay.

Federer and Nadal have appeared in the same clay court tournament nine times and this is the first time that Federer has won the title. (Nadal has won seven of those nine tournaments).

Federer won his first ATP Masters Series title of the year but 13th of his career, second only to Andre Agassi’s record 17 titles. (Nadal was chasing a fourth ATP Masters Series shield of 2007 and the 10th of his career.)

By winning his third title of 2007 (Australian Open, Dubai, Hamburg), Federer improved to 23-4 on the year; Nadal slipped to 36-6.

Nadal suffered just his fourth loss in 25 career finals, slipping to 21-4.

Mind boggling numbers from both of them.

What a freaking turn around. No matter how tired Nadal was, Federer had to have reached a new stratosphere to dish out a bagel. If you haven’t watched the match yet, get off your freaking (ok chair) and hunt it down. What a display!!!

Nadal talks about his loss.

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Federer talks after winning title at Hamburg.

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Federer stuns Nadal. Wins Hamburg title. What a story this is turning out to be!!!

WOW!!! Are you freaking kidding me????

Federer demolishes Nadal, bagels him, ends his streak at 81, all in his own backyard. The score? The freaking 2-6, 6-2, 6-0. 6-0?????? What the….

You know, I was the only one in the whole world (trust me I have checked the entire internet) who had predicted that Nadal’s competing at Hamburg this year, was going to become an issue and it did.

Don’t freaking believe it? Check out this post few days ago entitled ‘Is Nadal trying too hard’.

Now that I have that off my chest etc, I digress.

Federer deserves a lot of kudos, nevertheless. The firing of the coach (again, issue hammered home repeatedly on this site), proved decisive. Had it happened couple of years ago, who knows what could have happened.

Federer, it appears, jumped on the train just in time, before it left the station. French Open suddenly becomes an intriguing and captivating tournament again, after most relegated it to another routine run from Nadal.

“It was an incredible performance from my side,” Federer said. “I had a great day, it’s nice to be playing well again. It’s my first title on clay in a couple of years.”

“He is unbelievable,” the Spaniard said.

“If I have to lose against anyone, then he is the man,” Nadal said. “I am not sad to lose to the best in the world.”

“I was dictating play,” Federer said. “His streak was phenomenal — 81 matches in a row on clay is fantastic.”

“I returned better and I served better and I was dictating play,” Federer said.

“He can come back any time and I was making more mistakes than usual,” Nadal said. “I lost a little bit of power after the first set and maybe I was mentally a little bit tired.”

“Now I have to start another (streak).”

But Federer still cannot read too much into this victory and there is no time to celebrate extensively. He caught Nadal who was in the midst of a tiring run through four straight clay (physically more demanding that other surfaces) tournaments. Davydenko and Hewitt, both not in their prime and not specialists of the red surface, gave enough evidence, that the needle in the Nadal gas tank had started blinking.

Nadal will look back at it and realize he went overboard in his quest to close in on the No. 1 ranking by year end. He departed from his proven tactic of skipping Hamburg in the last two years, when he claimed the FO crown. Agreed, the exhaustive finals at Rome in both those years contributed to that decision, but it brought in the big catch. He tried to fix what was not broken.

He could have done more damage than he thinks. He has given Federer that swagger back, instead of dragging it in his camp. Federer has duly noted the discrepancy in the number of hours he and Nadal has spent on the court. Add to it the sting of humiliation in the past few months for having lost to journey men. That is not a good omen for Nadal.

With that one move, Nadal has let the momentum swing away from him. Federer did well to dig out of tough matches on his way to the final. Federer must be kicking himself for not having made that decision with Roche a lot earlier.

There is no question, it had been on his mind for a long time. He still found it difficult to sever ties, since they had good chemistry and Federer probably felt it would hurt their friendship. What was boiling for a long time, came to the breaking point when the defeats kept mounting, and the pressure from fans and the media could no longer be ignored. Actually it gave Federer an excuse to pull the trigger he felt he could not pull totally on his own.

Federer has this unique and once in lifetime opportunity to close the deal, right here. Please do not go on long press conferences and victory laps for this. Get back to the drawing board and forget the world. This is it. Capitalize with the killer instinct.

The rivalry gets a new and fresh shot in the arm for the good of the sport. This 6-0 set has registered deep in Nadal’s memory banks, despite what comes out of his mouth at these press conferences. The scene is soon going to shift to Federer’s backyard and you bet Nadal is thinking revenge and humiliation.

The fierce competitiveness at this level leaves you with very little choice. When Safin defeated Sampras in straight sets at the 2000 US Open finals, what do you think Sampras did? He took Safin out in straight sets, couple of months later at the Tennis Masters Cup in Portugal. 

When asked about it, Sampras said “I take my losses very hard. I am a competitor and that probably drove me”.

History has witnessed these events over and over again in every facet of meaningful human endeavour.

Are we in for a another treat of competitive tennis or what??????

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