Australian Open 2014 - Stan Wawrinka beats Rafa in the final

[adi B]

Nadal was tanking a grand slam final? The clay season is still months away. Don't be a mindless hater like that bone-headed guy dude. :cantstop:

i am taking nadal's side here mate,think from his POV.ur injured,cant play that well with the injury,already down and the other guy is going nuts..nadal was making so many UE in the final set,some were ridiculously uncharacteristic..only nadal knows what he was doing

[adi B]

You can't speculate what would have happened. There is no way Stan was going to keep those astronomical standards which he displayed in first set. This match was following typical pattern of Federer-Nadal match. Federer would always come all guns blazing like Stan did today but eventually Nadal would bear him down. Same was more likely to happen today as well. But in any case, the person who beats Djoko at Australia Open is a deserving winner. So congrats to Wawrink.

typical excuses like pakis,he lost because he didn't do this right,he did that wrong,he could have done this,done that etc etc..nadal was fecking outplayed by stan.period.

[Sooda]

Federer was crying buckets like a baby and for no apparent reason but to getting whooped by Nadal. Nadal was just welled-up and was in control. His reason for getting emotional was not defeat but he couldn't play to full potential.

Dont know why that keeps cropping up its not hard to appreciate is it, its clear how much these slams mean to the players that Aus Open loss when Fed 'cried buckets' was a very tough one for him it was a great match. So its not 'no apparent reason'. Heck he probably cried more when he won his first Wimbledon so he does generally unleash it all post match and he isnt the only player to do so

[Sooda]

There is no asterix against this title win, it is as good a win as any. He beat the defending champion and the world number one, that is as good as it gets. He dominated Nadal even before Nadal's back problem so to bring that up to discredit this GS win is a little desperate. It comes with the territory, the brand of tennis that Nadal plays is always prone to such risks. You have to take the good with the bad. Congrats to Waw on his first GS win and kudos to Nadal for fighting like the champion he is. Now the Federer vs Nadal debate will heat up again I guess. It is rather unfortunate that both sets of fans try to pull the other guy down in order to prop up 'their' player. Here is my 2 cents on the matter as of this moment: As of now, Federer it is. If Nadal wins at the RG (which is as likely as the sun rising tomorrow) then he'll be the same age as Federer - give or take a few months - was when he won his 14th slam. Fed only went on to win 3 slams over the next 4-5 years though, how will Nadal's inevitable decline (whenever it comes) play out? Only time will tell. I think fairly or otherwise, the person who retires with more GS out of Nadal/Fed will be seen as greater. If Federer doesn't add to his 17, Nadal will basically have to win 5 GS more...I'd say he'll definitely win at least 2 more French Opens, maybe 3...can he also pull off a US Open or a Wimbledon somewhere? Not unlikely, can be done; but with a rejuvenated Murray, Djokovic playing as well as ever and now Stan in the mix, it won't be as easy. Even Federer might nick a slam as long as he doesn't have to face Nadal. Moving on from the GS...looking at it from a different perspective, you can bring the other aspects into the picture..HTH for Nadal, sheer consistency for Fed (no of consecutive GS semis and finals and also number of weeks at number 1), end of the year championships in favour of Fed, and also Nadal's gold medal vs Fed's silver, Federer's more even distribution of slams (Fed for example has as many US Opens as Nadal does Wimbledon+US+Aus!) etc and they'll all be valid points. It really depends on how you rate players. For me, Federer is ahead at this point but Nadal is close. This matter will be put to rest one way or the other IF : In favour of Nadal - if Nadal surpasses Federer's slams, that's all he needs to do as far as I am concerned, preferably by winning another 2 slams outside of the French at least. It won't be as easy as it seems...4 slams are a LOT! For me, the most important factor will be how much longer he can keep up his dominance at RG...all good things come to an end...a Djokovic at his best maybe has a shot..maybe Murray too? I don't know. If he keeps up that dominance for another 2 or 3 years, then the record is all but his. This is obviously assuming Federer doesn't win any other slam. It does look unlikely but he did play as well as he ever did in the last 2-3 years at this Aus Open until he ran into Nadal. If he can keep out of Nadal's way and if he can keep up the standard of tennis he showed this time around, he may have a shot at winning one more GS.

This is a good post and generally agree. Though I do feel that Rafa fans key argument regarding Federers opposition at his peak is a strong one. I think had Rafa won today the fact that he would have won all GS twice at least- that is pretty amazing and would have been a real clincher regardless of what happens hereon

[Dil Dil India]

Meh, Rafa fans will bring up that competition argument, Federer fans will talk about the slowing of courts or Federer's much more even distribution of slams; it will keep going on in circles. In the end it is what it is. Disagree that if he had won today it would have been a clincher. It would have made it a lot closer and it may have given Nadal the legs to even tie Federer by the end of this year. I am not really a fan of stats such as "won all two GS twice"...you could easily say something like Federer is the only player to have won 3 of the slams at least 4 times each etc...get the drift? If Nadal were to win the Australian Open next year and then retire would he be seen as the greater player? Is 8-2-2-2 better than 7-5-4-1? I don't think so. Don't get me wrong, I rate Nadal. The guy is a pure champion and he is already in the top 3 for me, second probably. And as I mentioned in an earlier post he will likely overtake Federer and retire as the GOAT. As of now, I'm still leaning towards Federer though.

[Dil Dil India]

You can't speculate what would have happened.

And the very next line....

There is no way Stan was going to keep those astronomical standards which he displayed in first set.

:haha:

[zep1706]

i am taking nadal's side here mate' date='think from his POV.ur injured,cant play that well with the injury,already down and the other guy is going nuts..nadal was making so many UE in the final set,some were ridiculously uncharacteristic..only nadal knows what he was doing[/quote'] It was not tanking. Tanking is when someone intentionally throws a match. This match got over after two games in the second set. There was no hope for him to win the title from then on. Nadal actually played on just to give something to the crowd who paid huge amount of money for it. Stan choked in the third set. There was no reason he should have lost that set. But that's understandable. It was a big moment for Stan, so he was bound to go through some emotionally up and down moments. You cannot play tennis with a severe back pain, that's near impossible. That's why I give so much credit to Federer for battling through back pain and winning Wimbledon in 2012. He was a bit lucky that the day he had the worst pain he faced Xavier Malisse, who is nowhere near Stan Wawrinka as a player.

[zep1706]

Meh, Rafa fans will bring up that competition argument, Federer fans will talk about the slowing of courts or Federer's much more even distribution of slams; it will keep going on in circles. In the end it is what it is. Disagree that if he had won today it would have been a clincher. It would have made it a lot closer and it may have given Nadal the legs to even tie Federer by the end of this year. I am not really a fan of stats such as "won all two GS twice"...you could easily say something like Federer is the only player to have won 3 of the slams at least 4 times each etc...get the drift? If Nadal were to win the Australian Open next year and then retire would he be seen as the greater player? Is 8-2-2-2 better than 7-5-4-1? I don't think so. Don't get me wrong, I rate Nadal. The guy is a pure champion and he is already in the top 3 for me, second probably. And as I mentioned in an earlier post he will likely overtake Federer and retire as the GOAT. As of now, I'm still leaning towards Federer though.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you have said. I am a Rafa fan and also not a big fan of the whole GOAT concept but right now if there is anyone who deserves the GOAT title in the open era, it would be Federer. One can bring all the excuses like weak era, no competition and whatnot, but he has won everything he has won fair and square.

[yoda]

Glad to see cry baby Nadal lose. At one point I thought the guy would just quit cause he down 1 set and losing the 2nd, at least he made an attempt to play and won the 3rd.

[Cricketics]

So happy to see Wawrinka win. He deserved it. Nadal is gun and he beat him in style goe son to show that Wawrinka was always good but just didn't have that last bit to cross the line against the big 3 before. Now he has atleast that in his game. Great Australian Open for him. Played some great games, especially against Berdych, Djoko and Nadal. Well done Rafa too, still the hardest to beat along with Djokovic.

[The Outsider]

lol..you clearly need to learn a bit about Tennis. He leads Federer on (open) hard courts 8-2. 5 times they played after Federer turning 30 and 5 times before that. Either side of Federer's 30's, record was 4-1. two questions which no Federer-bhakts willing to answer are? 1. At what age Federer became too old? 2. At what age Nadal stopped being too young? A Federer fan's answers to these questions are. 1. 26 2. 16.

My understanding of tennis is very tenuous because I've hardly played the game even as a recreation. My propensity to squash means it as an either or for me given the dramatic change in wrist position required for a novice like me. Having said that and got my tennis ineptness out of the way, my observation of the game is that it has become more of a young player's game where a few years short of 30 you are out of contention. I doubt we will see another Agassi in our life times. Hopefully, I answered both your questions implicitly, but explicitly I would say that a 5 year age difference is too much too catch up once you are beyond 30 in tennis.

[gaurav92]

Congrats Wawrinka. Nadal stunned :D

[zakk]

Congrats Wawrinka :cheer:

[Gambit]

Wawrinka was immense in the final. His serving was vicious and for a change good to see a Swiss not getting his ass whooped against Rafa. Only Rafa could have taken a set off given his state and how Wawrinka for playing. Rafa should take 1-2 months off now and get fit for RG and SW19.

[b555]

Good that Wawrinka won Gives some hope for the regular guys on the tour #staminal :D

[Yoda-esque]

http://www.schweizer-illustrierte.ch/sites/default/files/styles/square-750x750/public/gallery/stanlisas-wawrinka-im-sport-extra-si-ueber-tochter-alexia-138841.jpg?itok=5XQGQjPn

[cricraja]

I apologize to any reasonable Federer fans like Adi and Cricketics. This retard however needed a lesson.

You are right. I read Mulghonto's posts. He is just crazy, that needs mental help. Just like on the Steyn vs Johnson thread. Not surprising that he does not know much about Tennis either, all rhetoric.

[cricraja]

LOL Nadal as usual delivers an ass whooping to Federer. Federer is mentally shot against Nadal. This ruthless and complete owning of a supposed GOAT is unmatched in history.

As beautiful to watch and great as Federer is as a Tennis player, there is no denying Nadal just has that mental edge, no matter what. That Wimbledon final win in 2008 Final sums up his dominance over Fedex. GOAT debate for Federer ends to me based on just that head-to-head record. Very tough for someone to ignore that, while annointing GOAT.

[cricraja]

another of gems.. Djokovic is like Safin...:hysterical::hysterical: Man' date= do you even understand Tennis? Djokovic is one of the most complete Tennis player of all time. He has everything that a Tennis player needs. Forehand, Backhand, Serve, Defense, attack everything and you compare him with a joker like Safin. If it was not for extremely strong field that Djoko faced in his peak years he would won 10 + grand slams easily. He can still won though. I use your posts the I way I use Catch-22. Whenever I need a laugh, I pick catch-22, will read 1-2 random pages and I'll get enough laughs. Same with your posts. I read one of 2 lines, and that is enough for :hysterical:

I doubt it. He is just one of those nuts who just read some opinionated articles over the years, and blurts out. The mother of all posts is that one which predicted, Chang would have won 4-5 slams in 2000's.