That....Was....EPIC!

Yeah what a match.

Though just couldnt stay awake for the final set. Shame Rafa couldn't win but with an epic like that I guess it doesnt matter.

Poor Nadal :/

One of the best matches ever

Both Djokovic and Federer got tested today, but prevailed. And Azarenka's out; as per usual, the women's side is wide open.

Not getting my hope up yet, but maybe Na could defend her title.

No serena, no venus, no clijsters, no henin, no nobody. There are no more female stars. I can root for Sharapova I guess. I really would like to see her win another major even though she's a noise machine.

As for the men, I hope Federer somehow wins this but I doubt it. I think Nadal will win this.

Oh well, Na is out as soon as I said that.

Nadal is looking too good.

Good job to Federer. I heard he was down 2 sets and was like uh oh. Nice to see he recovered. That's a good sign for him to come back from that.

What are you talking about...sucked?

You have Clijsters, Henin, The Williams Sisters and Sharapova. I don't think that group of players sucked. Each had their runs and there was more than a few memorable matches. I almost left out Hingis and Davenport. I thought this was a nice group of power womens tennis even with all the shouting and high unforced errors and the lopsided Williams v Williams finals.

Personally, I thought it was men's tennis that was boring until the emergence of Federer and his reign. Sampras, I never really connected with and Agassi didn't get really great till later in his career for me.

If Maria can't beat this girl then she probably ain't winning another GS ever. I'll be rooting for her though.

Maria winning the French would be great for her, considering she doesn't fit the surface at all I thought she'd never had a chance. 7 Grand Slam Finals is impressive. Great career and she's got mileage left

I get the feeling by 2013 or 2014 one of Kvitova or Azarenka will move into "shitting on everyone" dominance mode. Hopefully both. I read some blog posts at the end of last year by the tennis scouting insider guys who were predicting Kvitova was going to have a 2004 Federer year where she went from 1 major and top player to 3 major type FU mode and they were talking about her as all time material. That surprised me because I hadn't been wowed and looks like they were hyberboling it, but we'll see.

That looked remarkably easy for Djokovic. It probably helped that Federer kept beating himself.

Assuming he beat Nadal and got his Novak Slam and career slam, you'd really think he'd be one of the top 10 players ever? I looked at the top Slam winners and he has a ways to go. If he never won another major he wouldn't be top 10 and I don't think he's there yet now. Novak is having a very nice run but he needs to win more slams to be a top 10 Ever for me.

Novak winning tomorrow would be one of the most important tennis victories ever. The Novak slam + cutting off the head of the dragon by beating Nadal at the French would be just huge. It'd be the greatest year and a half for any tennis player, ever. Assuming he gets one of the final two majors to get another 3 major year, it'd be basically be a 2 year run that can go against anyone - and it'd be against similarly legendary competition.

I would go as far to say Djokovic would be in the GOAT conversation if he won tomorrow and retired. Most people would put Federer ahead but it'd be with a "Yeah, but Djokovic's peak..." and talking about how Federer never matched this because he couldn't get the edge on Nadal. They could talk about how in Federer's early prime he got to beat up on the Roddick and Hewitt and Safins, but at the same time in his career Djokovic had to play prime Federer and Nadal, whereas if he had Roddick and Hewitt as comp he'd have racked up 2-3 majors a year. So Novak would be in the conversation.

The thing is he's also quietly put up some numbers that would be ultra impressive if Federer didn't exist. 8 straight semi-finals was the record before Federer I believe. 6 of 7 Finals and 8 overall is really good.

In a weird way though Djokovic's last year and a half may have SAVED Federer's GOAT ranking, just because if Novak stayed at the level he was before 2011, Nadal would be about to win his 14th or 15th major and chasing down Federer while continuing to kick his ass in Finals - he'd basically be a lock to go down as GOAT. Now Nadal is having done to him what he did to Federer, so combined with the fact that he's never been as good in non majors records or hardcourt/grass majors as prime Federer or peak Djokovic, his GOAT case is basically dead unless he somehow turned around and started beating Novak on grass/hardcourt majors

I think at the end of all of this it's going to be agreed that these are basically the 3 best players ever.

Very impressive match between the two.

Goddamn rain delays.

Gratz to Rafa. Novak is good but he ain't that good. It's also neat how Rafa has not stopped Federer and Novak from holding all 4 majors 3 different times. That FO is just a roadblock for anyone to this day.

Damn it, missed the final. Congrats to Rafa, good to hear he won.

I was gonna get up to watch the continuation at 0600 but missed it. He closed it out quite quickly.

Nadal out!

So glad Nadal is out. That stupid cheater can go back to obscurity now.

How is he a cheater?

He ran into a player who was serving like Sampras.

He abuses officials with his time wasting and coaching. He knows he can get away with it because he's a star.

He's cheating and the umpires are letting him do it.

His sportsmanship in the Rosol match was disgusting. Bumping someone to throw them off their game is crossing the line and his repeated offenses like getting coached throughout the match and time wasting are violations that should be neutralized.

Also, he complained about the guys movement before he served because he thought it was too distracting. But he wastes time like no other and yet the other guy doesn't complain. I also loved how he made Rosol serve again after the guy serves an ace to close out a game. The receiver is supposed to play to the speed of the server, not the other way around. Nadal had more than enough time to get ready on that point.

He sunk to a new low for me with that match.