Congrats to Nole.......and kudos to Rafa and his incredible will.

Thrilla in Manila........what warriors out there! Astounding and inspiring.....

Federer has trouble with Nadal......
Nadal has trouble with Djokovic......
Djokovic has trouble with Federer.

Those match-ups just seem to be the perfect storm for men's tennis.

He is in the right place at the wrong time. And I'm always rooting for the underdog, silly me.

I thought Murray's match against Djokovic was insane, aside from that 4th set lull, he came back in the 5th and I thought he would pull it off. I guess the final had a similar trajectory and it was a real cliffhanger at the end, but for some reason I was just as engrossed, if not more, by the Murray/Djoko match. But both matches had tons of long, excruciating, insane points. The level these guys are playing at is just sick.

Anyway, great tennis for the men at the Aussie. And thank god it is all online these days. Several years of no pro tennis (cable-free-zone in my house) was brutal.

Totally late to this party, and veering off topic, but it occurred to me that there was a sports forum here and maybe some people are into tennis. I was so glad to see this thread

I got on the lifecycle at the gym just as Rafroid won the 4th set...then wasn't paying too close attention until he went up 4-2...shit, I said. It was thrilling in the 5th, not great tennis, just back and forth back and forth. From that 4-2 on, though, Djoker was playing a little better and I'm glad he won.

Clearly, Djoker will dominate this year, but not like last year.

This was Rafroid's best chance,I think because Djoker wasn't in the zone like he was last year, but he was able to lift his game when heneeded to...Rafroid was consistent, but it wasn't like he could play much better than he did.

I hope someone new comes up this year and starts challenging for the top.

I'm so glad I got up at 3:30 to watch this.

even if it took 10 minutes to happen. That ceremony must have been torturous for them.

Those two were warriors out there.

I'll say this, though--and it's a compliment to them to have these comparisons made: I didn't enjoy it as much as the legendary Federer-Nadal Wimbledon match from a few years ago, or perhaps even as much as the Murray-Djoker match the other day (I'm pretending that ugly 4th set didn't happen), if only because those matches had more pure shotmaking than today's match. Today was sort of a war of attrition between the two. I was sure it would be over in the 4th set...boy was I wrong. The 5th got pretty sloppy, but it was thrilling to see them try to rise to the occasion so many times, especially when I was sure Djoker was going to get the trainer at 4-5 in the 5th when it seemed like he was starting to cramp.

at the end was not great...long rallies but not many great shots. As I said earlier, this is probably Rafa's best shot at him this year because Djoker wasn't at his best today or all tournament...still he was able to raise his level today and against Murray.

The commentators kept saying Rafa can take this result and build on it. ..... But Djokovic had been to five tough sets with Murray, had one day less of rest than Rafa did, and was not nearly as sharp on his sideline-to-sideline shots today......and Rafa STILL couldn't beat him. I don't know how he can really take solace in that.

In fact, I'm re-watching that right now and it's almost at that point. I think everyone should fear Djoker this season, although I still don't think he'll be as unbeatable as last year, but clearly he will dominate.

That was good tennis.

I didn't get up to watch this one, turned on the TV just as Djoker had won and was tearing his clothes off (that is NOT a sight for first thing in the morning ....)

But as a selfish Federer fan I was happy that Nadal didn't get another slam to add to his collection.

That said, I'd love to see some new talent rise up this year. It's time.

....... there weren't very many points that required construction.

I may have just enjoyed it because Andy put up such a fight. That was always my husband's criticism of Pete though too - that he won everything on his serve. There are a lot of big servers these days and so much more power. Perhaps we'd have to go back to Lendl/McEnroe to see less of that. I also enjoyed watching Rafter, Agassi, and Guga when they were all playing.

nt

I saw the first two sets and then hopped a bus from Anchorage to Denali, then saw the results...Andy was not missing serves...and Roger was sort of struggling...then they showed those two bungled shots by Andy and that explained it all.

saying they played an hour less than Djoker and Raforid, but played almost 80 more points...that doesn't make it seem like there were simply aces or quick serves and volleys.

I dvr'd the game and did a 30 second skip between points and most of the time they had not even had a first serve when commercial skip stopped. When Nadal served it was at least 35 seconds between points.

Andy and Roger both play fast.

ball so long before he serves.

But then so does Nadal. In this article http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ycn-10860295 (which is about Nadal's ocd) it says he once bounced the ball 76 times before serving.

And I think he pats his shorts...whatever the routine, it is always the same.