Alix’s World: We Interupt This Program

Written by: Staff on 1st July 2010

Alix's World: We Interupt This Program |

Ladies and Gentlemen, please do not adjust your sets; what you have just seen on the TV is not a technical glitch. Roger Federer has just lost in the quarter finals at Wimbledon, his worst result in eight years.

But fear not – the earth is still revolving on its axis, the sun still rises in the east and England are still out of the World Cup. Life will go on.

The Mighty Fed had not failed to reach a final since 2002 and was hoping to pick up his seventh title in SW19 this year (and so match Pete Sampras’s record) but he ran into the man-mountain that is Tomas Berdych and got clumped 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4. Berdych was very, very good and Fed, quite simply, wasn’t.

But if the result put a dent in his unbelievable record at the All England Club, his press conference afterwards shattered his image as Mr Nice Guy. He was ungracious in defeat and, by the end, he was downright nasty. This was not good. Not good at all.

So how had the loss happened?

“I think he’s been able to play more consistent last year or so,” Fed said, “and I was just not able to defend well enough and I didn’t come up with the good stuff when I had to. So it was disappointing.”

This was not a good start but it was soon to get worse as then he committed the schoolboy error of trying to get his excuse in early. His second answer, just a minute or so in the presser, made him look very bad indeed.

“From my end, obviously, you know, I’m unhappy with the way I’m playing,” Federer said. “I couldn’t play the way I wanted to play. I am struggling with a little bit of a back and a leg issue. That just doesn’t quite allow me to play the way I would like to play. So it’s frustrating, to say the least. Looking forward to some rest anyway.”

The back and the leg issues, apparently, tend to come and go. They appear when he is losing – the leg problem started when he lost to Lleyton Hewitt in Halle – and go when he is winning. His back was giving him gyp when he was almost dumped out in the first round, went away again when he won his last two matches easily and came back when Berdych was walloping him. That did not go down well with the massed ranks of journalists in front of him. Fed was going to take a pasting in the papers around the world.

But he saved his worst for last. A poor little news bunny had been sent to the presser to get a line from the defeated champ about Andy Murray. This is standard procedure at Wimbledon pressers: the tennis writers take charge of the first part of the presser and the news guys get to ask their questions at the end. Given that Federer has been coming to SW19 since 1999, he knows the routine; he knows that my country’s press – especially the news men – are parochial.

But when a young, English voice asked about Murray’s chances now that the top players were appearing to have problems, Fed tore him to shreds. Even the tennis hacks felt for the news man – and we are not known for our sympathy towards the boys who ask about girlfriends, boyfriends, punch-ups and piffle.

“Yeah, I mean, true, Rafa played terribly lately,” he replied, his words dripping with sarcasm. “Soderling is not a threat either. He’s got an easy ride to this victory, that’s for sure. Djokovic can’t play tennis anymore it seems like.

“Got to make your own work, please. Respect the players. Obviously Andy is a fantastic player and he’s got all the chances to win here. We all know that.”

If only Federer had followed his own advice and shown respect to Berdych – then he might have got away with roasting a news hack. Instead, he will be roasted in the papers around the world for his response to defeat. If he thought his performance on court was poor, his performance off it was 10 times worse.

On a lighter note, we are not the sort of website to cast aspersions on the character of any individual, be they tennis player or not (Fed’s failure to deal with defeat was a statement of fact and not a matter of opinion), but we would like to suggest that Rafael Nadal is not quite as he appears.

The world’s most loveable Spaniard has not been telling the truth of late; he has been telling porkies.
That’s short for porky pies, Cockney rhyming slang for lies. These deviations from the real facts are nothing to worry about – Rafa is not a pathological fibber – it is just that he can be awfully economical with the truth.

For years we have heard him explain that the rankings do not mean anything to him. When he was Federer’s understudy as the Swiss mopped up grand slam title after grand slam title, he took it well. No, Roger was the greatest player of the history and to be No.2 behind him was not bad, no? And when Rafa became No.1, he was a humble and generous top banana. No.1 was nice but Roger was still the greatest player of the history, no?

But when, in the quarter finals, Pascal Maria refused to give in to Rafa’s arguments – the umpire had just awarded a point to Robin Soderling after a hotly disputed line call – he got downright angry. You could tell he was angry simply because he was arguing. Raf doesn’t do arguing with officialdom; Uncle Toni won’t allow it.

His parting shot to Maria was: “So you want to see a new No.1!”. Then he stomped back to the baseline, played a good deal better and, fired up by Maria’s mistake, beat Soderling to reach the semi finals.

And the oddest part of this little story is that Rafa’s ranking was never in any danger. Because Roger was defending his title and Rafa had not played in SW19 last year, Rafa could have lost in the first round and The Fed still could not have overtaken him at the top, even if he had retained the title.

As it turned out, The Fed lost, Rafa won and Fed will be the world No.3 when the new list is published on Monday. And he hasn’t been that far down the pecking order since November 2003.

Even so, Rafa knows that there are plenty of points up for grabs in the next six months and he wants as many of them as possible. For all that the Mighty Fed appears to be losing his grip on world dominance, Rafa is not going to count him out. As a result, one missed point in a grand slam quarter final could count for a lot when the ranking points are totted up at the end of the year.

So next time the man from Manacor burbles on about the rankings, do not believe a word of it. Rafa loves being the world No.1 – and if he says different, he is telling porkies.

And finally, if you are watching the women’s semi finals and you start to wonder why the Bulgarian ambassador to London is looking so smug in his seat on Centre Court, we have the answer.

Tsvetana Pironkova, the world No.82 and a lady whose previous best result at Wimbledon had been a second round appearance in 2006, had only booked her accommodation in SW19 until last Thursday. She expected to lose early and she wasn’t going to waste extra cash on unused nights in a hotel after she had – she expected – crashed out early doors (that would be early on for non-Brit readers). And now she in the semis.

Rattling through the draw, Tsvetana suddenly realised that she was about to become homeless. She had overstayed her welcome with her landlord. What to do?

Luckily, the head of the Bulgarian Tennis Federation came up with a plan: call the Bulgarian Embassy in London. The diplomats, in turn, came up with a plan of their own: the embassy could find Pironkova very flash apartment in South Kensington (or “sarf Ken” as your London cabbie might call it) while the ambassador could get freebie tickets to Wimbers. So as Pironkova plays Vera Zvonareva in the semi finals, she does so in the safe and secure knowledge that she has a roof over her head for as long as she wants it and the ambassador has one of the best seats in the house. Done deal. Done? You have been (as they say in London).

Topics: Alix, Axis, England Club, Good Stuff, Gyp, Ladies And Gentlemen, Leg Problem, Lleyton Hewitt, Man Mountain, Nice Guy, Pete Sampras, Presser, Quarter Finals, Roger Federer, Schoolboy, Technical Glitch, Tomas Berdych, Unbelievable Record, Wimbledon, World Cup

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