The following is not an opinion. It is as indisputable as the death of disco, as true as Moses separating the waters of the Red Sea in that ancient book of half-poetry. The logic goes that if many people share an opinion it must be true. We are talking about him. You know who.
Along with him we are talking about a popular theory: He played in a weak era. Again, you know who.
We are to agree that he is the overrated patriarch from the early-2000s Weak Era. The winningest member from that country that isn’t supposed to fight back, let alone be giving birth to lucky specimens like him. This effete who fancies nice clothes while sporting flawless locks of hair and offering to his nemesis’ fans’ chagrin one too many smug comments. You know him.
He is that fortunate opportunist who managed 16 slams somehow before the super-duper next generation had a chance to gestate enough to really lay a beat down on him. Try to understand that if these evolved new kids on the block only had that chance to evolve at the same time, man, that Swiss pony-tailed dude might have not even managed one slam.
That’s right, you better believe this, according to the smart people who participate in our discussions here.
Yes, and so after more rain delays in the Big Apple, 30-year-old Roger Federer, dismembered a child of our Stronger Era Thursday evening. Oops, that came out rather tactfully.
No, you don’t say. How could this be? Isn’t this contrary to everything we’re taught in BR’s pro-Rafa academy?
Federer did this no-small task while dipping into maybe about 50 percent of his talent reservoir. It was a spotty and sketchy performance lacking the signature beauty of the previous clinic against Monaco.
Furthermore, he may very well lose to that gluten-free Serb come Saturday. Still, something didn’t quite pan out the way it was supposed to. According to state dogma, this old guy lived and feasted in a weak era.
Come on, guys like Hewitt and Roddick and Safin, who are those guys? Pushovers, for sure.
But it just doesn’t make sense now. According to our popular and undeniably accurate theory, stuff like this isn’t supposed to happen. This guy Federer is into another semifinal with a chance to upset The Novak Djokovic, the stupendously successful product of modern evolution and this old guy, is right in the middle of the fray. Like almost to the dramatic tune of, once more into the fray, dear friends, once more.
Can he get beat especially at this later stage in his life? Sure he can. It can and probably will end soon enough. Though that would be a small consolation at this point for the friend Spaniard’s loud contingent. They would have to probably root for Roger, which may confound their poor souls with a spiritual crisis that would make Mother Teresa blush.
What’s really throwing a monkey wrench into their plan so far is that this theory of theirs just doesn’t hold. Here he was supposed to lose to a guy who "has his number," who is younger, who is more "powerful," "faster," more "athletic" and the "cutting edge" of new-DNA and talent and so the babble goes and yet all that didn’t happen.
Maybe we need to change the theory at this point. Or maybe we don’t. Because just maybe it’s all part of an agenda to try to undermine this great man’s achievements and legacy so as to elevate his nemesis. So it’s not convenient for one party that’s invested so much in this view.
Then the picture gets even more messy. Then they have to admit that speculation about Weak and Strong Eras always comes well seasoned with a strong personal bias. And that they were possibly overreaching, although indirectly critiquing is more like it. When you air out the poofs of hocus-pocus away, it’s just a rabbit in a hat.
Then could it be that every era has its strengths and weaknesses? Could it be that both Federer and Nadal have experienced strong eras in different ways, in different aspects of meaning?
It could be that this weak-era argument moves in the one-dimension, conveniently ignoring the other dimensions that give an era its strength and challenges.
Ah, but this sort of thinking is slightly more complex and pushes every one of us to engage ourselves and our own biases. No, best to stick to our bread and butter: his "ungracious comments," his early opportunism, his subliminal, or was it sublime, jabs at innocents like Rafa.
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