Roger Federer on Tankgate

[Kieran]

As always, it's better for us to have a top pro's view on things, and Roger is as informed and articulate a tennis player who ever lived. Here he is on the Nick Kyrgios Tankgate controversy, in which - I must admit, as a fan - I came down against Nick. But Roger's words have given me pause for thought...

Q. There was a moment on Court 2 today when Kyrgios appeared to tank a game, not try.

ROGER FEDERER: One game?

Q. One game, yeah. Can you understand someone getting frustrated and doing that or do you find that disrespectful?

ROGER FEDERER: Towards whom?

Q. Towards the crowd who paid good money to watch you.

ROGER FEDERER: A game is like 55 seconds. Again, did he really do it or not? A game where a guy serves well, is that tanking, too? It's like sometimes it's part of like a boxer when he puts his hands down, is that tanking? Then he swings freely again.

I think we shouldn't dig too deep into those kind of things. If you told me he did an entire set, plus more, plus this, I'd say, Okay, it's a bit much probably.

But I just watched the end of the third, the end of the fourth. He was fighting then. He was really wanting to win. He should have been in the fifth at the end.

In my opinion, it was a great match and it was close. The fans got their money's worth, in my opinion. It was a close match last year. He saved nine match points against Richard. Today two.
So one game to me is part of tactics, as well, sometimes to throw the other guy off. Maybe yourself, you can be frustrated and just not feel like it for a couple of points. Especially a younger guy, it's going to happen more often than one of the top guys that have been around, that just like say, Okay, point mentality, we'll do it again and again and again and again. For a younger guys, it's a little bit boring at times, which I understand.

 

[Kirijax]

Doesn't really change my opinion of the fact that Kyrgios made a JA out of himself. He's like a petulant child, stomping his feet and banging his head against the wall and crying when he doesn't get his way. That display of throwing a game was a bright and shining neon sign saying, "Look, I'm a idiot and I don't give a crap." Hard to like or root for a player like that. No matter how good he is.

 

[El Dude]

Kirijax, he's 20 years old - virtually a child.

And don't tell me your beloved Andy Murray never threw a temper tantrum!

 

[Kirijax]

Kirijax, he's 20 years old - virtually a child.

And don't tell me your beloved Andy Murray never threw a temper tantrum!

Haha, you got me there. But Murray never stopped playing.

But I've always had the thinking that if you're old enough to be called a "professional" at something, then you need to be one. Kyrgios is not being one. But maybe I'm a bit hard on him. Can't stand the guy.

 

[El Dude]

I don't know how old you are, but remember when you were 20. Now imagine that you're 20 years old and considered the future of tennis for your nation. It would take some getting used to. Kyrgios isn't a prodigy, but he's a very talented player - definitely a future top 10 player, and as good a bet to be a Slam winner of any of the younger players on tour. He'll grow up, although often humility doesn't come until a player is just past their dominance, so he might not be likeable until he's in his late 20s but he will learn to tone it down before then. Remember how annoying Novak was with the shirt-ripping. Now he's one of the most gracious champions in memory, in my opinion.

 

[Kieran]

I'm old enough to remember Connors and McEnroe - and Ilie Nastase - and Nick tanking a single game and being in general a JA (and he is) is nothing compared to them. I agree, he's young, but this implies he should learn. Will he? Hopefully he will, but he didn't handle himself at Wimbo. Nick's gimmick is, he likes the Big Stage, so much so that he probably played more matches at slams than the normal tour, but this time he didn't hack the Big Stage at all. In fact, it turned against him.

I agree though with the Dude, he's young: I hope he gets a good mentor who tells him to button it - and knuckle down to the hard work...

 

[jhar26]

I can't deny that it rubbed me the wrong way. Temper tantrums don't bother me. They can even be entertaining at times :clap, but they usually come about out of a desire to win. But when I saw this I immediately thought, "Sorry mate, but you're not a guy I'm going to root for."

 

[Kieran]

Here's the game that Nick tanked. Not pretty viewing.

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkSi3kacFPA[/video]

 

[GameSetAndMath]

When you play a tennis match, the objective is to win the match and it is not about winning a set or a game or a point. If tanking a game or set is a tactical move with an aim towards winning the match, it is fine with me. On the other hand, if somebody is tanking because they lost belief that they can win, I am against it.

By extension, the objective of playing in a tourney is to win the tourney and not individual matches. I was fully in favor of Simona tanking in last year's WTF so that Serena gets blocked.
If rules are stupid, they need to change the rules as opposed to expecting players to behave like Mother Theresa.

 

[Kieran]

^^That's a good point. We often saw players tank a receiving game at 5-2 up, knowing they could serve it out...

 

[Kirijax]

There's tanking and then there's blatant disrespect for the sport and your opponent. At the world's greatest tournament no less. I don't care how old the guy is, he needs to take the pacifier out of his mouth.

 

[jhar26]

^^That's a good point. We often saw players tank a receiving game at 5-2 up, knowing they could serve it out...

I can imagine tanking a set out of strategic motivations. Like, "I'm up two sets, but I'm running out of gas. So I'm gonna give him this set, but I'm gonna see to it that my opponent has to work for it and I'm gonna make him do lots of running. Then at the start of the fourth when he's (hopefully) as tired as I am I'm gonna make my move and go for it." That sort of tanking I can understand and accept. But that's not what we got from Kyrgios. He was just pissed off. To his credit he snapped out of it, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[Backhand_DTL]

Remember how annoying Novak was with the shirt-ripping. Now he's one of the most gracious champions in memory, in my opinion.

I think people who don't like Novak too much in general tend to exaggerate the shirt-ripping issue a bit. He just did it two times when he wasn't even that young anymore (after the matches against Nadal at the Australian Open 2012 and Wawrinka at the Australian Open 2013) and after the handshake was over. Those were the two matches where he probably needed to go to the limit of his physical abilities to win. Of course you don't have to like it, but I find it kind of unfair to hold it too much against him as I don't think many people can imagine what a player feels after this kind of effort.

I saw more of a problem in that for quite some time he seemed to celebrate a lot of important wins somewhat aggressively, which understandably turned some fans of other players against him. But since some point in 2013 he mostly put that down and seems a lot calmer in victory.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Part of the game, if in small doses. Look at Monfils...he was walking like a dead man on the court, the ref asked at the change over if he was alright, and he said , and I heard this with my own ears "It is OK, I am sneaky like that...".

I don't know which is worse.

 

[Kirijax]

Part of the game, if in small doses. Look at Monfils...he was walking like a dead man on the court, the ref asked at the change over if he was alright, and he said , and I heard this with my own ears "It is OK, I am sneaky like that...".

I don't know which is worse.

Yeah, Monfils doesn't irk you like Kyrgios but I could never be a fan of his. The way he clowns around grates on me sometimes. Djokovic will have three sets of serious tennis, with a walkabout set thrown in sometimes. Monfils has three sets of walkabout with one amazing set of tennis. Maddening.

 

[jhar26]

Part of the game, if in small doses. Look at Monfils...he was walking like a dead man on the court, the ref asked at the change over if he was alright, and he said , and I heard this with my own ears "It is OK, I am sneaky like that...".

I don't know which is worse.

Yeah, Monfils doesn't irk you like Kyrgios but I could never be a fan of his. The way he clowns around grates on me sometimes. Djokovic will have three sets of serious tennis, with a walkabout set thrown in sometimes. Monfils has three sets of walkabout with one amazing set of tennis. Maddening.

I don't think that Monfils is getting as much out of his career as is possible with his talent. But I have a (all be-it small) soft spot for him because he's entertaining and unpredictable. To him having fun on the court seems more important than the end-result. He must be a nightmare to coach, but as long as he's a happy chap, who are we to say that it's wrong? He's making a nice living for himself (to say the least), he's having a good career and fans usually leave his matches with a smile on their faces. I wouldn't like a tour full of Monfils types. But if there weren't any they should have invented at least one.

 

[tented]

Consider the first set of the 2008 Hamburg final. Federer was up 5-1, 40-30 -- and Rafa won the set 7-5.

If ever there was a moment for Rafa to tank, that would have been it. But he didn't. And by not tanking, he sent a message not only to Roger, but to the rest of the tour: I'm NOT going to tank, I'm going to play every point like I'm saving championship point, you're not getting a gimme, you're not going to have one moment of rest, because I'm going to keep coming at you every point.

There's a lesson for Nick in there ...

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Part of the game, if in small doses. Look at Monfils...he was walking like a dead man on the court, the ref asked at the change over if he was alright, and he said , and I heard this with my own ears "It is OK, I am sneaky like that...".

I don't know which is worse.

Yeah, Monfils doesn't irk you like Kyrgios but I could never be a fan of his. The way he clowns around grates on me sometimes. Djokovic will have three sets of serious tennis, with a walkabout set thrown in sometimes. Monfils has three sets of walkabout with one amazing set of tennis. Maddening.

I don't think that Monfils is getting as much out of his career as is possible with his talent. But I have a (all be-it small) soft spot for him because he's entertaining and unpredictable. To him having fun on the court seems more important than the end-result. He must be a nightmare to coach, but as long as he's a happy chap, who are we to say that it's wrong? He's making a nice living for himself (to say the least), he's having a good career and fans usually leave his matches with a smile on their faces. I wouldn't like a tour full of Monfils types. But if there weren't any they should have invented at least one.

Some tank games, some tank sets, some tank matches; But, Monfils tanks career.

 

[isabelle]

I'm old enough to remember Connors and McEnroe - and Ilie Nastase - and Nick tanking a single game and being in general a JA (and he is) is nothing compared to them. I agree, he's young, but this implies he should learn. Will he? Hopefully he will, but he didn't handle himself at Wimbo. Nick's gimmick is, he likes the Big Stage, so much so that he probably played more matches at slams than the normal tour, but this time he didn't hack the Big Stage at all. In fact, it turned against him.

I agree though with the Dude, he's young: I hope he gets a good mentor who tells him to button it - and knuckle down to the hard work...

Agree with you, Nasty, Mc and Jimbo were some ex of JA, even worse than Nick !!

 

[jhar26]

I'm old enough to remember Connors and McEnroe - and Ilie Nastase - and Nick tanking a single game and being in general a JA (and he is) is nothing compared to them. I agree, he's young, but this implies he should learn. Will he? Hopefully he will, but he didn't handle himself at Wimbo. Nick's gimmick is, he likes the Big Stage, so much so that he probably played more matches at slams than the normal tour, but this time he didn't hack the Big Stage at all. In fact, it turned against him.

I agree though with the Dude, he's young: I hope he gets a good mentor who tells him to button it - and knuckle down to the hard work...

Agree with you, Nasty, Mc and Jimbo were some ex of JA, even worse than Nick !!

They were the real thing. Nick is just a pretender.

Those were different times also. People today, especially young people where 'rebellion' usually comes from are much more accepting of authority. They no longer reject 'the suits', instead they hope to become one themselves one day. Beatnik has gone to hippie to punk to yuppie, so to speak. But in the days of the Nasty's, the Jimbo's and the Mac's it was still different. Authority, suits, and short haired pompous 'straights' as they used to be called were not to be trusted and the enemy. And tennis with it's at their time still stiff upper lip snobistic image was the perfect stage for such 'bad boys' to prosper. Whereas today people are outraged if a player does do as much as breath, in the 70's and early 80's there was still an attitude of "Let 'em have it Mac! Tell it how it is!" "Step aside suits with the plastic no hair out of place heads on top of them. We the people who you have always regarded as little more than riff-raff are taking over the game!" :devil