
Roger Federer as Religious Experience - vorador
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
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tel
If you've never read anything by David Foster Wallace, this is an excellent
place to start. It has all of his tricks — the footnotes, the hyperliterate
sentences, the disregard for periods, total maximalism — and not a few
examples of his descriptive virtuosity.

It'll also, no matter how much you may already be awed, keep you from ever
watching another of Federer's match without seeing the effervescent white
light surrounding him or looking to see if his feet every really do touch the
ground.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Heh. I've been crawling through _Everything and More_ and it's definitely
_not_ an excellent place to start, unless you've already got the transfinite
math chops and are reading it for sheer enjoyment. (Note: I don't already have
the transfinite math chops, and while I'm reading the book for enjoyment, it's
"sheer" mainly in the sense that the unforgiving cliff face to which a novice
climber clings is sheer.)

If you enjoyed this essay on Federer, the logical next place to go with DFW is
his essay collection _A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again_.

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kbob
I loved A Supposedly Fun Thing, but my wife hated it. Maybe that was my fault
for suggesting she read it on the cruise ship. (-:

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sohooo
This great article[1] covers a lot of finesses in the Tennis universe with its
Swiss king. The high level beauty of Federers game can be seen even from
Tennis newbies. With his smooth movement, it looks like he has an additional
second of time. Where other players struggle with intense footwork, he
seemingly floats around the court (probably best seen with his great inside-
out shoot).

If you get a chance to seem them, probably some of the best modern matches
are:

* ATP Wimbledon Final 2007 & 2008: Federer - Nadal

* ATP Australian Open Semi: Nadal - Verdasco

[1] from Aug. 2006, a time where Federer hasn't yet topped the Grand Slam
record of Sampras

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rubyrescue
all three are great. but more recently you're forgetting the 2009 Wimbledon
Final - he beats Soderling, passes Sampras's record of 15 grand slams, AND
wins on a near-record 14 games to 12 fifth set.

~~~
VinzO
Except that he beats Andy Roddick on that 2009 Wimbledon Final. It is in
Roland Garros that he beats Soderling in final that year.

~~~
rubyrescue
Doh! i watched those matches back-to-back last week (they replay lots of good
tennis here in Argentina), which is why i got confused...

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CaptainMorgan
Great article... wish I read it four years ago, then again in hindsight it's
nice to be critical of a journalist having knowing the content a bit.
Particularly, this was quite comical: "Nadal ... his way of always cutting his
eyes warily from side to side as he walks the baseline, like a convict
expecting to be shanked." soo true, ha.

Pretty accurate description of, "if you've only watched pros on TV, then you
really have no idea how" fast the game really is or how hard they are hitting
the ball, that suffering from TV you lose that extra dimension to viewing the
game, also where he talks about the foreshortening of the court assists in
lessening the effect these players actually have if you were in person.

Another area that I found interesting: "The metaphysical explanation is that
Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be
exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws."

"... a creature whose body is both flesh and, somehow, light." Well, if you've
ever really looked at Federer, he really is one of the skinniest out there, in
both tennis and overall sports... even Tiger Woods who is the same height and
weighs _less_ than Fedex, looks at least to me, heavier than Fedex... can't
deny Woods has more muscle mass than Fed and might well explain Fed's ability
to float around the court.

Finally, what can we learn when he talks about what the game looks like to
Fedex? It's almost like it really does depend on what's going on inside his
brain, pistons firing like no other brains can.

Good find.

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tptacek
If you're in the narrow group of people that like both Federer and David
Foster Wallace, you'll like Infinite Jest, which is a 1000 page DFW book about
tennis, drug addiction, and garbage disposal.

Otherwise, I found this NYT essay a lot less engaging than the essays in "A
Supposedly Fun Thing...". Another good one at The Atlantic (it was better in
print, where they got to play with the typesetting too):

    
    
       http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200504/wallace

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crazydiamond
For Federer fans, here's something you may like:

<http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=272192>

(Title: Federerisms)

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jamesbritt
Stop, you're killing me!

I live with the worlds biggest Rafa fan. :)

(Actually, I also prefer him to Federer, perhaps because of canonization of
St. Rodger.)

