federberg said:
haha! Ok. But let's get it straight.. Rafa's
(and I include his camp in this) accomplishments as an excuse maker in comparison to Fed is a gap as wide as Rafa's ranking compared to... Darcis
bobvance said:
Did Roger really complain last year when he was injured or is he mostly attributing his recent success to being healthy? These are two different things. I'm not saying Roger is the most stoic player in history with respect to injuries, but Rafa is definitely in a league of his own.
I quote you here BobV, because you ask about Roger complaining, and I will say, no, but his fans were.
federberg said:
If you say so.. Speaking as an observer.. and admittedly not a fan... it seems to me every loss of his is due to an injury. I even tongue in cheek asked if he'd been playing hurt during his recent Dolgo loss
It's no surprise that people (and not just on these boards) ask if Rafa's ever lost when he's not injured. Even pundits writing after Rafa losses are very specific in having to clarify that his movement looked fine. Don't want to tread over ground we've gone over many many many times... But I recall that match against Soderling. I watched that match.. and not once during it did I think that Rafa was impaired. Actually I couldn't get my head round why he kept on hitting short balls. But it seems to be conventional wisdom amongst his fans that he was clearly injured. I may not be a fan, but that does't make me lose my critical reasoning. If he was injured I would say it, if his movement had been impaired I would acknowledge it. Sorry... didn't see it. No revisionism changes that. But the guys ego couldn't tolerate a narrative where he's human and simply had an off day. Pitiful...
Alright, I'll jump into the fray to make this point: there is a difference between fans making excuses and players making them.
Federer fans put all of the lousy 2013 down to his back, and have been doing so for a long time. In fairness, the commentators are talking about it a lot now, and Roger himself has addressed it, as we see. But it doesn't change the fact that Federer fans have been using the back as an excuse for poor play, even though it really never took Roger out of competition. (Whether that was wise or not is a separate question.)
However, when Rafa, who is more injury-plagued, has to go down for a period of time due to injury, folks like you, federberg, doubt the validity of it, even if you can see knee strapping for months, and hear reports of progressive tendonitis. Rafa has acknowledged being beaten by better players on the day. You conflate the arguments we have between rival camps, after the fact, with what a player actually says. Also, you seem incapable of holding both ideas in your head that one player, (Soderling, Rosol, for example,) played a great match, and that Rafa may not have been tip-top. It still doesn't mean he would otherwise have won those matches. But it means he was forced to stop and face a deteriorating problem.
It seems the height of irony to me that the one injury Nadal-detractors have been able to accept as valid, his back, is also the one that hasn't taken him out of the game…"only" lost him a Slam, and maybe has hobbled him a bit of late. But what can Fed fans say, since they buy into Roger's back issues as a valid "excuse?"