The first day of action brought out the WTF in the ATP World Tour Finals.
In the first singles match of the tournament, Andy Murray beat Juan Martin Del Potro: 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. As Del Potro was getting gauze stuffed up his nose a la Vera Zvonareva in the first set, I sang to myself: Bonjour Jo-Wilfried! But the Argentine suddenly clicked into Playstation mode (an “on” button located high up in his nostril, perhaps?) and he started banging the ball off both sides for the better part of a set and a half. So the crowd got to inspire their hometown hero and Murray came out the victor in the end. Game, set, match London.
Things got really freaky when Roger Federer took the court against Fernando Verdasco. As soon as Roger was broken in the first game of the match, the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I knew: the Bad Roger had come out to play! I don’t mean the occasionally surly guy who curses at disrespectful chair umps and argues with Hawkeye, but the evil twin who shanks forehands against Murray, smashes racquets against Djokovic and looks to be as excited about tennis as a teenage cashier at a US Open concession stand.
So what inspires this dastardly R.F. clone to rear his well-coiffed head? I wracked my brain for answers during the first and most of the second set, when I was convinced that he’d stuffed the real Roger into a locker and swallowed the key. Obviously things changed dramatically when Roger broke Verdasco at the end of the second set to take it to a deciding third. Suddenly the Real Roger Federer was striding around the court, vanquishing both his evil twin and the floundering Spaniard: 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.
So maybe my theorizing was for nothing, but I’ll share my list with you for superstition’s sake.
Top 20 Reasons the Bad Roger Federer comes out to play:
1. 2:00am feedings
2. 4:00am feedings
3. 6:00am feedings
4. Boat ride to the tournament makes him queasy
5. And his racquets fell in the Thames on the way over
6. Blinded by Nando’s traffic cone orange shirt
7. Terrified that Verdasco or Carlos Bernardes might speak Spanish to him (click here)
8. Clause in new Lindt chocolate contract requires him to eat one chocolate bar per changeover
9. Weighed down by bulging bank account
10. Surprised to find that the court in London is blue and hard instead of green and grassy
11. Stayed up late with Mirka (and the Bryan Bros) watching Twilight: New Moon last night
12. Heart broken when Darren Cahill yelled “I love you best, Nando!” from the stands
13. Saving himself for Abu Dhabi
14. Worried that breaking a sweat might ruin his chances for AXE Deodorant contract
15. Overconfident from beating the other Spanish lefty 6-3 in practice yesterday
16. Can’t get the image of a crying Julien Benneteau out of his head
17. Caught a Karl Marx documentary on the History Channel and feels the urge to share the wealth
18. Pierre Paganini was on vacation last week and Dr. Walter Bartoli filled in
19. After this year’s run at the French Open, tournaments aren’t fun for him unless he’s coming from behind
20. After being fired by Andre Agassi, Severin “Slim” Luthi began a new life in Switzerland as Roger’s spiked-soda-pop-loving coach
Tags: ATP, Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, Federer, Verdasco
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Gotta be 11 and 12. Roger can handle everything else. But everyone, and I mean everyone, wants to be loved by Darren Cahill, and it can’t be easy to recover from the torture that is the Twilight franchise.
HA! I want to be loved by D.C. too! Platonically. . . .of course!
Platonic schmaschmonic, I’m going to propose.
last night during the first set or so i was thinking… darren, what did you do?! what secret strategies did you tell the chester cheetah t-shirt wearing nando to make roger bring his B- game? 100 mph serves out wide to throw rog off? be like rafa and try to break fed’s backhand?
killer cahill, you had no intention of working with rog full time… you just wanted a nice little vaca in dubai, some one on one time with GOAT and you wanted to pick rog’s brain so you could go back to your addidas camp with all the tools to try and take fed down. curse you dc! even though i think you make a fantastic commentator and seem like a really nice guy.
aaha, i believe ur onto something here.
I love the evil twin theory. Hopefully he was only required to show up once during this tournament! While I would have loved to have Roger win it in straight sets and be ahead of Murray, in the end I’m just happy he pulled out of it! And I’m hoping for a Soderling win tomorrow. After all, as you said recently FF, even when it’s not about Federer, it’s still all about Federer (or something like that
Oh, it’s always about Federer! Unless it’s about Jo-wilfried. Or Marat Safin. But it’s rarely about those other guys, anyway.
FF, i was there today and my goodness, did Roger play some absolute JUNK tennis in the 1st set (and most part of the 2nd set). Roger fans around me were shaking their heads left right centre! Nando was playing like a man possessed in the 1st set. Thank goodness the good Roger came out in time!!!! I can’t wait to see the Fed/Murray match on Tues night!
Some random observations: (non-Roger related)
1. there are more Del Potro fans in the house than I expected – not every one is cheering Murray (I wonder why, hahaha)
2. a really weird thing: they let people in during NON-changeovers, disrupting play quite a lot, and they even start the changeover music when Roger was leading 2-0 in the third set!!!! They need to get some pro from Wimby to help them, honestly.
i am soooooooo jealous. wish i was there too. thanks for the on-site reporting.
Yes, thank you LLKR for your on-the-ground reporting (you did some from Wimbledon as well, didn’t you?) On TV they showed a Fed fan in the audience with a photo-realistic image of Roger printed on her scarf! That was crazy. I’m sure she wrapped her entire face, burka-style, in that scarf during the first set. (That wasn’t you, was it?)
Was it really as pitch black in the seating area as it looked? Maybe they figured the players couldn’t see the crowd in the darkness. A commentator half-joked that the players wouldn’t be able to see signals from their coaches.
I wish I had some more outrageous outfit! but i stick with my RF cap and Swiss t-shirt. But you are right, it is soooo pitch dark there’s almost no point wearing them b/c no one can see. Well, they do turn on the lights during changeover though and then everyone will wave their Swiss flag like crazy!
and yes, you ALL be VERY jealous of me, i’m going to all the matches this week!!! is it possible to be over-tennis-ed / over-roger-ised? (hmm NOT).
absofreakinlutely jealous! it is never possible to be over-tennis-ed or over-roger-ised! top 8 in the world going toe to toe- sounds fantastic to me. enjoy every min and please allow us to live vicariously through you!
(Non-roger related) I like the O2 arena already! as chic as Bercy — but it could use some sensational allez! or c’mon. The brits need to pump it up a little bit.
It definitely has great potential for some spectacular atmosphere. Already a million times better than half-empty Shanghai and fully empty Doha, where the poor ladies are forced to play in front of empty audiences.
Definitely,think the reason that the crowd isn’t *quite* as pumped up as,say a USO night session is because,well,we’re Brits…
we’re all so used to just Wimbly here and it’s genteel feel that it’ll take a few matches for the crowd to realise that they can act differently!
Really loving the tourney atm though,the organisers have admitted themselves that it’s all aimed at a younger generation,and in the music choices,lighting effect etc I think that’s been clear
My point exactly. It’s not Wimby! Bring the hooligans. Andy needs it –well not now but will be soon
i love the architecture of the stadium in shanghai, but agreed on the lack of full capacity. the O2 seems cool, though not sure about the towers sticking out of the roof. it is interesting how this arena is such a huge contrast to the elegance, tradition and more refined feel of wimbledon center court. still, i find the O2 court to be done tastefully and cleanly in a modern way, as far as advertising on the sides, ball kid and lines person outfits, etc.
I am so glad I didn’t watch the game, I know by your description that it was pure torture, am so glad the Roger we all know and love showed up…
It was torture – but if you taped it watch the third set. Breathtaking stuff.
I loved your list, but did not like seeing the Evil Twin emerge once more. I thought he’d been buried in Madrid. My guess: Roger gets tight only when he has to play someone he’s supposed to beat easily. Maybe the fact that he had lost two matches in a row played a part, too. Oh, well. We can at least hope that the real Roger will come to play the next match.
Interesting theory! Should be smooth sailing from here on out, in that case!
Arghhhhhhh! And that was the easy one! Roger, no more! I just about collapsed after the first set! I personally think it was nos. 1-3. Look at him falling asleep on that boat ride.
your’re right, he can’t keep his eyes open
Meanwhile Severin looks like he’s on speed!
maybe he accidently drank “slims” soda.
sometimes the evil twin needs to come out so the champion roger is can shine. i’m always amazed that no matter how much we gasp at his fh errors, bhs into the net, chip returns, he continues to go for his shots w/belief. he actually continued to become more and more aggressive as the match went on and i just kept channeling “roger, i really really want u to win”. at 6-5 in the 2nd set, 15-40 i saw roger the champion and i literally had tears of joy and knew the “evil twin” had left the 02 arena..
looking forward to sod/rafa manana….
FF, had same thoughts about del po..but i can’t carry a tune.
I really am surprised del Po made a match of it But I’m happy for him – it would have been lame to go down in flames. Hope they at least show Jo-W sitting in the stands. . .
i wanted del po to win, but i was happy that he at least made it competitive, post nose bleed. that was icky! glad it was not a cake walk for murray mints. everyone in group A inc evil twin fed should be tired before they face goat fed!
agreed, jwt should get some love for being there.
Anytime Roger gets broken the 1st game it spells trouble. It happened vs Andreev at the USO and Berdych at AO. It was really frustrating to watch the 1st set, but I’m happy he got over the ‘3 set syndrome’ that has plagued him lately and pulled out a win!
I was wondering if Roger might reconsider his strategy of always choosing to serve. I noticed he won the coin toss and chose to serve. I understand it can be an advantage and is a sign of confidence, but perhaps in a big, first round match against a WTF newbie, it might be nice to make a semi-weak server like Verdasco squirm a little bit. And it did work for Rog in Madrid vs. Rafa. Oh well, the more I armchair coach the more likely Rog is to prove me wrong and win all four majors next year. (Maybe I should keep it up!)
Yes, so glad he won that deciding set. . . .this time!
I think he generally does best when he gets to serve first (remember Wimby final set). At the end of the second set against Verdasco, I was REALLY glad he got to serve first. Let’s hope he brings his A game tomorrow night.
Bernardes would probably speak Portuguese, not Spanish… but now it makes me wonder: would we have a fit of Roger giggles if someone spoke Portuguse to him? Can I be the one to try the experiment? Please?
i could understand a nervous start, new WTF arena, big championship, pressure of being expected to win and wanting to retain the #1 ranking. still, it took rog a long while to settle in and into the 2nd set i was getting frustrated. no offense to nando, but it’s not as if he was playing spectacular tennis or pushing rog around a lot. fed was making too many easy errors, couldn’t find the court.
evil twin rog definitely came out to play. i love this theory ff! 1.-3. made me laugh (kind of deserves it with his cheap ass self not sharing twin pics!), 7. fear of spanish giggles could have been a factor, but a little laugh may have pulled him out of the funk earlier, 8. choc during changeovers, i’m pretty sure he had a kitkat and pepsi before the epic wimby ‘08 final… which rafa won, so… 9. he has been signing big deals lately so that bank acct is getting nice and fat! he did seem a little slower in the beginning, 16. i think it’s this benneteau image that is stuck in fed’s head…
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/2009/tennis/11/11/federer.paris.ap/julien-benneteau.p1.jpg
i’d like to add another reason bad fed came out to play… he thought his navy blue camouflage would be much more effective. obviously he learned nothing from basel!
did anyone else notice during the match, i think it was late 2nd set when things were still iffy and fed could have lost in 2, that mirka was looking super stressed and massaging her jaw? i was like, ‘rog, stop stressing your wife out!’ mirka is the boss and the mother of your children. do not piss her off!
thankfully he turned it around, but geez, the competition will only get better, so get it together now please! one early break could make all the difference. it’s ok, we don’t need the drama of a come from behind victory. you can be ruthless and play brilliant tennis the whole time!
If given a choice, I rather choose the drama of coming behind victory, than winning the first set playing brilliantly and losing the second barely, and throwing the last set completely…
i second that.