Federer had a severe bout of mononucleosis in early 2008. Thatās a big problem for an elite athlete in just about any individual sport where endurance can be a factor.
As someone who has had that illness, you couldnāt underestimate the debilitating consequences of it. One of the lifelong consequences of it is often problems with fatigue.
5th set losses since his illness to Raonic and Kevin Anderson at Wimbledon and to Del Potro and Dimitrov at the US Open are testament to the adversity that Federer has had to overcome and how heās at a disadvantage if he ends up in the war of attrition that a 5 setter invariably becomes.
Mononucleosis is a serious thing, or at least it can be. However, there is a big misconception among most people that having mono means a year-long fight filled with debilitating fatigue, fever, weight loss, etc.
Most people are wrong. Not about the symptoms or their debilitating effect, but about the length of time that most bouts with the virus last.
While there are certainly extreme cases of Mono causing lasting effects for many months or even years, these cases are extremely rare. Nearly all cases are mild, and all effects are gone in the matter of a few months.
For the record, once contracted the virus incubates four to seven weeks before symptoms appear. Symptoms such as fatigue, sore throat, fever, etc. last two to four weeks, although fatigue can last roughly two to three months from the onset of symptoms.
While vigorous activity should be abated during and shortly after the acute symptom stages, it can be resumed once okayed by a doctor.
So why am I giving this lesson on the so-called ākissing virus?ā
Because once and for all I would like to put to bed a common myth that many fans of Roger Federer have been using to justify an abnormally unsuccessful 2008 campaign in which he lost to Rafael Nadal in both Roland Garros (a lopsided affair) and Wimbledon (a razor-sharp one).
I donāt doubt for a moment that Federer had mono. You wonāt hear me argue that it probably contributed to his demise at the Australian Open that year. I might even go as far as to agree that the last vestiges of the fatigue may have also hurt him during the spring hard court season, but that would be as far as I am willing to budge.
Also, in between the end of the spring hard court season and the clay season is about three to four weeks in which players like Nadal and Federer rarely play. This added recovery time basically ensures that by the time he stepped onto the courts at Monte Carlo, Federer was physically fine.
Roland Garros seems to be a big indicator to a great many people that Roger was still reeling from the effects of mono. That he was basically eviscerated is somehow proof that itās true.
But is it?
I have several much more reasonable assertions as to why he lost in such a drastic way that day. How about this one for you: he simply had a bad day at the office.
Whether you ever shot around with a basketball and nothing felt right? Regardless of whatever you do it seems like no shot wants to go in. You try and try and eventually call it a day because it just isnāt clicking that day.
My guess is that Roger simply did not come close to bringing his A-game that day and he paid dearly for it. Many of his shots early in the match were going out by merely an inch, just consistently enough to end the match quickly.
Roger looked unsettled throughout the match. He appeared unable to truly decide how to attack or even really play that day. He had played great throughout the tournament, but that day against Nadal, it looked as though his own tactics mixed with Higuerasās were conflicting so much that it may have kept him from fully committing to much of anything.
Itās these reasons and not some lingering fatigue from an illness that by all accounts should have been out of his system for a couple of months by that point.
Wimbledon should have been a big indicator that everything was just fine considering the high level of play, and yet still itās mono that cost him the title and not Nadalās level of play.
There are reasons why we should know that Roger was perfectly fine come the clay season. One is that he himself said he was perfectly fine.
Another reason is his performances leading up the Roland Garros. He faced Nadal twice at Hamburg and Monte Carlo. Both were tight matches, with Hamburg being a 7-6, 7-6 loss.
A person with mono, especially against Nadal on clay could not play to that level; in fact, it could be argued that to play tennis at all, your mono cannot be that severe.
The hot conditions, long rallies and high level of play say to me that Roger was Roger as we know it, he just was playing against a Nadal at a ridiculous level.
I donāt have any real hardcore proof. I donāt have doctorās reports, nor anything else that can say definitively that Roger didnāt have mono at that time of the year, but neither does anyone else. At least my reasoning is more sound, and though itās based on medical time tables, performances, etc., at least itās based on something.
Federer has won plenty of 5 setter games in recent years, it was remarkable to see a player who had gone 6 years without a slam come back from knee surgery at the age of 36 and win three 5 gruelling 5 set matches to win his first slam in 16 attempts.
Nadal has missed 4 times the amount of slams through injury than Federer and Djokovic had up to this year.
Federer has missed two slams with injury in his entire career.
Djokovic has missed one with injury in his career.
Nadal has missed 8 so of course Nadalās injury problems are far more severe.
Nadal is the only one who has had to alter the way he plays his game due to injuries. Djokovic and Federer still play the same type of game they always did.
I donāt have a particularly firm view as to who should be considered the greatest player of all time. Itās not a very precise exercise anyway. Players like Laver and Borg have to be considered as well as bare statistics donāt tell the full tale in their cases.
Youāre clearly a massive Nadal fan and I sense in your arguments (which are in fairness well made) a lack of objectivity and dismissiveness of the claims of everyone else.
Itās debatable in the extreme to suggest that Nadal has had to overcome the type of adversity that no other player has had to deal with. He doesnāt have a patent on dealing with adversity. As you have conceded, Nadal for years played a very attritional type of game which effectively involved running marathons and a lot of his injury problems are most probably self inflicted and a consequence of not playing smarter in the earlier part of his career.
There is an element in all sports of playing through the pain barrier with injuries as Djokovic has done with his right elbow injury and Federer with his chronic back problems. Iāve always sensed an element of a hypochondriac in Nadal. If heās not in tip top shape heās liable to skip an event rather than play through the injury.
The debilitating consequences of conditions like mononucleosis for Federer and Djokovicās celiac condition cannot be underestimated either.
Debilitating conditions like mono, for most people it lasts 2-4 weeks. Federer made 2 slam finals in a month in the year he had, played a 5 set, 5 hr final at Wimbledon that year. He never missed a slam due to it, he never looked noticeably fatigued. It looks like youāre just searching for excuses.
Nadal and clay courters have been discriminated by the tennis calendar, there should be another clay slam every year to counter that balance, a hard slam should probably go. Itās why the top 20 these days is full of 6ft5 guys with big serves. Nadal is the one who has had to consistently evolve and adapt his game throughout his career. First he had Federer to overcome, Federer was the king of tennis, by the time Nadal won his first non-clay slam Federer had already 12 slams on the board. Then he became the king and Djokovic brought it up to a new level but he came back on top there.
Thereās a huge difference between Nadalās injury problems and those of Federer and Djokovic. Federer missed 2 slams in his career with injury, one of them was this year when he was 38, the other he underwent at 35 years of age. Djokovic missed 1 slam at the age of 30. They are the kind of natural wear and tear on the body. Nadal on the other hand had to miss 7 slams before the age of 30, the prime of his career, he was unable to defend US Open and Wimbledon slams in the peak of his career through injury - that never happened Federer and Djokovic.
Nadal plays no more an attritional game than Djokovic does, he just had to battle injuries from the start of his career. Hard courts are the primary source of his injury troubles and it doesnāt help that the hard court season makes up more than 50% of the tennis season.
Youāre comparing apples and oranges, being forced to miss 8 slams in the prime of your career is not in any comparable to two rivals missing a combined total of 3 slams in the twilight of their careers.
Nadal has had to battle obstacles the other havenāt, itās as simple as that. How many slams would Federer and Djokovic have if one of the hard court slams was swapped to clay and we then had two fast court slams that suit the big servebots and two slower courts that suit the more rounded baseliners?
Would Nadal be on 30+ slams?
Imagine Nadal broke through in an era with Hewitt, Roddick, Nalbandian and Safin as the main guy, how many slams would he have won then? Would he now be on 30+ slams, this also applies to Djokovic - itās the single biggest advantage any of the big 3 had. Federer won the bulk of his slam when tennis was at a weak era.
Federer won 12/18 potential slams in a 4 and 1/2 year period. When he captured his first Wimbledon he then won 5/5 grass court slams and 7/8 hard court slams in a period where his competition was weak. Nadal was 17-21 in this time, a clay courter gradually improving on other surfaces through time. 2006 final a 4 set win against a 20, year old Rafa, 2007, a 5 set win against a 21 year old Rafa and then in 2008 Nadal had bettered him. Nadal was coming for him. Similarly in that time Djokovic (16-20), Djokovic grabbed his first win in 2008 against Federer and won his first slam at the age of 20.
Now Federer had top class competitors, not trash like Hewitt, Safin, Roddick and Nalbandian. All those guys were top 10 players when Federer was racking up slams, all were there at their early 20s, the same generation as Federer. Then along came a new wave - not just Nadal and Djokovic but the likes of Wawrinka, Murray, Tsonga, Berdych, Ferrer, Del Potro and suddenly Federerās era could barely crack the top 20 when they should have been in the prime of their careers.
Maybe itās grass court players that are discriminated against. The grass court season only lasts for about 5 weeks. Of the 9 Masters series events, there is none on grass, there are 3 on clay.
Tennis is played on 3 distinct surfaces, grass, hardcourt and clay. Hardcourt tennis is by far the most popular the world over. The make up of the Grand Slams is just right as the hardcourt in Melbourne play a lot faster whereas the hardcourts in Flushing play a lot slower.
Youāre essentially bemoaning that the calendar wasnāt stacked more to favour the competitive advantage Nadal enjoys on clay as while heās obviously a top player on grass and hardcourts, heās not the same force outside of clay.
Itās not. Grass court tennis has a very short window due to weather conditions and it also plays extremely similarly to hard courtsā¦the foundations of grass and hard courts are your serve. You get so, so many free points on serve.
Clay is the one surface than suits all round players.
Iām bemoaning the calendar isnāt split 50/50 between all rounders and servers rather than 25/75.
. Thatās a far from textbook swing for a scratch golfer