Front are you saying Roger had a bad back during the USO....Are you saying you are upset with Roger for not winning Montreal because he had a sore back..then its true..when Roger wins its due to his superior tennis but when he looses it due to ailments
There is some doubt that all of your compadres have qualified their opinions. Busted surely claimed that Federer blew the USO and YE#1 by playing in Canada, but she's not around to defend herself. Darth and Front have both implied it. You don't want to be swept in with all Fed fans, in terms of opinion, but you don't get to tell us what they "meant" to say, either, especially if you're not reading carefully.
This is where we all part ways, and I don't completely understand it. Federer carries a back injury, sometimes. It's his Achilles heel, and has been for some time. Nadal has had tendonitis in his knees for most of his career. It has been there for everyone to see and read about. I think we all understand that. Fed fans keep saying that Nadal was "running around like a jack rabbit" even during the FO in '09. But you do know that he carried that injury, which is degenerative, into that tournament, in the same way that Roger carried his back injury into the USO this year. Forget excuses. I think we all know where these top champions carry pain and are vulnerable. Isn't that fair to say?
Your assessment is to my point, and Broken's. You make an excuse for the loss to JMDP and his other matches at the USO, and proclaim him the otherwise favorite, had it not been for his back. You are absolutely making an excuse for his loss of the USO because he had a bad back. Let's admit it: everyone thinks that this recent USO was a free one for the last elite man standing. Some Fed fans have made very snide remarks about Nadal not having to beat anyone of a decent ranking, and calling it the equivalent of a 250. Folks are just mad that Roger didn't take advantage of an opportunity, and it was one. But let's call it what it is: you're making an injury excuse that it wasn't Roger with a solid chance for the title. I think Rafa would have beaten him, if he'd gotten past del Potro, but I bet you don't.
No, of course I'm not saying that. But when they're carrying an injury, it might be part of what catches them up. For example, Darth cites the Tiafoe and Youzhny matches as indictors of Roger's back issues. I have no problem with that. But I know you refuse to believe that Rafa's knees were going in 2009, so we won't bother to go over that.
Given that I'm unwilling to go hunting back, which seems puny anyway, I'll retract the claim. As you say, it would be ridiculous to claim it outright, but there has been a lot of gnashing of teeth about how Roger blew his chances at USO and YE#1, which gets a bit tiresome for those of us fans of the guy who actually got those 2. But you all have a right to your what ifs. Still, I'm with Broken on this: if Rafa fans had spent as much time on the what ifs since Montreal, you lot would be eating us for lunch.
As I just said above, I have no problem believing that Roger was hampered by his back. And yes, sometimes you can really see it in his serve. If you don't call it an injury "excuse," but an injury "explanation," does that help? It's just that Fed fans have never bought hearing from Nadal fans that there were injury explanations to some (not a lot) of his losses. It's just that now the shoe is on the other foot, and you guys are kind of blind to the double-standard. Anyway, @britbox is fond of saying: if you show up to play, then you imply that you're fit enough. Personally, I don't buy it, but I've heard it aimed at my guy a lot over the years. And not just from the Baron.Yes, the favourite if not for his back. And? So? Your point? Where does that say I said he'd win if 100% healthy? I'll tell you where. Nowhere. Favourites don't always win as we all know but he still would have been the clear favourite if healthy given his form this year, the fact that he's won it 5 times (consecutively, no less) and had a winning h2h over the next best player in the draw this year. Who's making an injury excuse? This wasn't a case of the emperor's new clothes with an imaginary injury that only certain fans could see. Did you even watch how stiff, rigid and downright poor his movement was against Youzhny and Tiafoe? 5 sets with Youzhny in 2017 who hasn't been a good player for probably a decade should tell you something was wrong with Roger.
And as for your bolded part above, you're wrong again because, no, I would not have expected him to beat Rafa if he'd beaten Del Potro because Roger was clearly hampered and playing like crap and he won't beat the top players if not healthy. I don't really consider Del Potro 2017 a top player (he was better last year) and Roger only narrowly lost even with a bad back but stop with the nonsense about excuses when everyone could actually see he was injured. This is different than just some silly web page claiming player X is injured and nobody can tell any difference from watching them. He was sluggish, lateral movement was off and eventhough he's been slower running to his forehand side for years now, it's even more apparent when he's got back issues and can't stretch out properly. Oh and in case you missed it (clearly you have since you think Federer fans are making "injury excuses"), Roger's been serving like dog $h1t since Montreal. Wonder why. Could it be you need to arch and twist your back while serving? Excuses my ass. Anyone could see there was something wrong as he hasn't been playing remotely well for months now. Night and day difference from the start of the year when he was rested and healthy but feel free to keep telling yourself and others here that Federer fans are just making excuses.
That is a good and fair post, and I appreciate your generosity. However, I will give you an example, which I have laid out before. You have to understand that it's never going to be an exact 1:1, and I agree that Federer's was a shortened timeline. But hear me out on this: as I've said, after winning the AO in `09, in 2 back-to-back tough 5-setters, Rafa very ill-advisedly played Rotterdam. I've linked to it before and won't again, but his knees gave out and he could barely move v. Murray in that final. His fans were very angry that he hadn't skipped Rotterdam. Ok, yes, he did well-enough through the subsequent season, with his knees strapped, but then there was that brutal SF v. Djokovic in Madrid. All of this leading up to Roland Garros. I know you'll say it's a much longer time-line, but at least believe me that Nadal fans saw this all as a march to the end of his knees. And partly out of his own stupidity and hubris over thinking he could just play everything. It's similar enough, and we've been mad at him for that Rotterdam tournament for 8 years. It makes perfect sense that a non-Nadal fan wasn't looking at it that closely, but it does explain, I hope, why we saw his knees going, and you and others, who weren't fans, thought the knees-thing came up all too suddenly.
