Just curious to know why Pete's posts generate many more comments than Steve's as I think Steve is the far superior and more interesting writer.

Consider some racing sport, track and field (long-distance race), or, even better (because I have a good example at hand), biathlon, where O.-E. Bjorndalen is the undisputed (and, alas, ageing) king. Alas, he is known as a relatively poor finisher. That is, when the race outcome is determined just on the very last meters of the distance, he tends to lose. Especially to a younger runner.
The fact, however, is that in overwhelming majority of races (as compared to his "rivals") Bjorndalen simply did not allow others to compete at those last meters, creating a huge gap before finish.
He is deservedly considered as "goat" (although biathlonists and their fans are wise enough not to use this term). Nobody attempts to call his legacy in question just because of some rare hot finishes he lost, even if to one and the same runner.

Have a clue?

Tennis is about winning tournaments, not H2H, that simple. Should it be organized more in a boxing fashion, it would be another animal. Say, several matches between the best two (to say more, equally distributed in different surfaces) in the end of the season, or so. Then we would see. But this sport is organized how it is. Plus rankings (that rarely lie, btw).

I am lazy to explore ATP statistics now but I think that in all tournaments Federer and Nadal were both in, the former has a visibly better overall results (not saying about other tournaments), especially at slams. Too many times Nadal simply did not reach those "last meters" to beat Federer at the very finish.
That's how it is, for the time being. Nobody knows the future.

All those H2H-health-fatigue-issues-work-ethics-unbending-will-unseen-modesty-against-arrogancy and similar stuff...that's for kids, Federer haters and journalists to keep fire, as they see it. Nadal himself has no need in them, he knows his tasks.

Steve, my comment about my *earlier* comment was intended to clarify that ennui over tennis at this time of year is not *my* attitude, but that that ennui may be the result of casual fans not needing a live tennis fix because they've been able to watch it so much on television compared to years past.

"BB 10/22/2010 at 05:17 PM

Just curious to know why Pete's posts generate many more comments than Steve's as I think Steve is the far superior and more interesting writer."

For this I have an explanation: you'll always get a greater reaction from the crowds if someone relatively "famous" (which Pete Bodo is in this little world of tennis journalism) says something which isn't very "intelligent" - greater crowds line up just to oppose it. E.g. I remember the thread where Pete suggests that under-hand serve should be used by the pros:). That generated a lot of feedback, i myself participated in that debate.
Hence if you look at all the comments with Bodo's posts, you will see often see that a lot of it is generated by the opposition to him - i.e. the number of comments is not all that counts, at least in my opinion.

Interesting - just overall, I would say that since Steve instituted his new 'low tolerance for cranky posters' rules, things around here have actually gotten more cranky. Unintended consequence and all that.

BB - good question. Frankly, I think some of it is habit. And that Pete's posts seem to push more buttons.

To Leon:
That's actually an interesting challenge to some of the statistics that were mentioned here. While I actually would not discount the H2H stats that Fed and Nadal have, I would be interested in the argument of who from these two did better overall when they entered the same tournament:
i.e. say they participated in XXXX tournaments and out of these how many grand slams did Federer win, how many Nadal, how many Master's...etc. Unfortunately this cannot be done yet...ie. both of them are still playing but it would be worth looking at over when one of them stops playing..i.e. take all those years where both were competing and see who they did in those years. But then again, what would you do about the time in which one or another could not participate in a tournament? Maybe we would discount those just for the clarity in numbers...
i.e. if there's anyone who wants to do that: count all the tournaments over the years in which both participated and tell us how the score line looks like?
I'd be interested in knowing this.

Ruth LOL! I just saw your comment when you clarified

Yes you were right sorry If I misquoted you but you summed up what I mean to say about Roger.

Maybe I should have had a stronger coffee when I posted my thoughts lol!

I think my name was mentioned as one who said something about Rafa not having to prove anything. I am not going to look back to see what I actually wrote, however, I don't necessarily agree with this "pre-cuse or post-cuse" idea.

If I said something like another Rafa win would be icing on the cake this year, it's because it's the simple truth. Also, this business about "nothing to prove" seems to have been interpreted to mean something that it is not, at least in regard to Rafa. I think that this year he actually doesn't have anything else to prove. I am aware that he has set his sight on the year-end WTF in London, since he has never won there. It would be great to see him do well and, if he should come through and win, now that would really be icing on the cake as far as I am concerned!

Rafa winning the career grand slam and also winning RG, Wimbledon and the USO in the same year, has been the greatest of rides. Why on earth would I need to make excuses for his loss at Shanghai? It's not an excuse per se to state that your favorite player looks either mentally or physically tired. It's an observation. Why must it be misinterpreted as an excuse? If winning those three straight majors was easy, then it wouldn't have taken forty one years for someone to do it again. Rafa isn't a machine, he's a human being. If I watch him and say he's tired mentally, it's because I know my player. I don't have to make excuses for Rafa when he loses.

As a long time reader of Steve's columns, I don't think things have gotten 'crankier' not by a long shot but I guess cranky is in the eyes of the beholder.

As to the 'nothing to prove' phrase I think it's just that. Some fans use it as a way of saying their favorites have done enough that a poor performance here or a loss there should not take away from their legacy. Of course there is always more to accomplish, reoords to set or break, head to heads to mend... :)

Ivo, the fact is that Leon is right on the money.

Individual match ups don't matter squat in the whole scheme of things ... it's how you play the field in your career. Regardless of how well Rafa has played Fed over the years, Fed has been top dog the majority of the time ... if Rafa had been the better all around player, he'd have been #1.

And before you go the 'injured, fatigued, etc.' route ... fitness, health, and avoiding injury are part of the game. All the woulda coulda shoulda in the world + 50 cents won't get you a cup of coffee at the end of the day

I think the reason that there are few posts is that posters are afraid of Steve's temper. I would not judge Steve for that, since I have one also, but I think that's the basic reason.

x-fan: I'm glad that I read all the way to the end of the posted comments becuase I was going to write a comment that included your words exactly, "I guess cranky is in the eyes of the beholder," a few minutes ago; and I would have been accused of being a mere copycat. :)

I'm sure that Steve's intent was not to halt expressions of differences of opinion (thank heavens!), and I am glad to see that those have continued at CE absent the harshly dismissive comments and plain old nastiness --and, yes, maybe even crankiness -- that I think that Steve and everyone else (well, almost everyone else) hoped would end.

How long will it last? We gonna see, no?

Larry,

With respect, I can't agree with your comment. I don't think Steve has a temper at all, I just think that for some reason his posts have tended to attract some unpleasant reponses and, dare I say it a few trolls. Now that it is being moderated, I think that things will change.

Steve and Pete have a different style of writing and I thing Pete's is more generalised.

Still arguing about Federer and Nadal and who is the better man? I like both men, not the other two Americans: Agassi and Sampras. Even though Federer is a little bit arrogant, he is not morally challenged like Sampras. But Nadal is the best of all. If Nadal meet one of these players on a court, he will most likely to beat them all. Here is my calculating winning percentages for Nadal: Nadal-Federer (65-35), Nadal-Sampras (90-10) and Nadal-Agassi (95-5). Nadal is on the top of the list for his tennis and also his good heart; he is the people's champion. And Sampras is at the bottom of my list for his moral standard. You want to hear a hilarious story about the two American rivals? Unlike the European rivalry, the American rivalry is much uglier and it dated back far long ago before the two Americans retired. Most visiblly, it showed at the Hit-for-Haiti charity match when Sampras served into Agassi face. So the story goes like this. After beating Agassi at the Canadian Open in Montreal, PQ Canada, Sampras drove to New York to visit friends. New York is a state bordering Canada, so some Americans can tune in Canadian channels to watch some shows. And a French sport channel occasionally shows a rerun of sport matches for people who missed the live telecast. So Sampras, staying with friends, watched a rerun of his match against Agassi, which he won. At a moment of the match, Sampras served an ace. A French tennis commentator called: "Un ace", which is "an ace". But in French, the word "ace" is pronounced like the word "ass". So Sampras who has no knowledge of French thought the commentator said "an ass". He got mad and said: "An ass, I am not an ass", "Agassi is an ass", "His name has this word", "My name needs two more "S" to make me a double ass'es". His friends said: "No, they mean you got an ace". Sampras said: "Oh, I thought they say that I am an ass". His friends said: "That's what you are, but in the match here you got an ace". Just kidding, folks! I have no problems with Sampras even though he showed, by dumping his woman, his low character. Nadal and Federer have much higher moral standard, don't they? Untill next time!

Nadal , if he can keep the balance right ; has pretty good chance of beating Rogers record.

No one has any idea what Del Porto will be like , Murray is a choker , Djoker still lost playing his A game and the rest really dont matter.

The only person I see right now as having a chance of stopping Nadal is Del Porto on hard , and thats IF his wrist is ok.

The no 1 reason i disliked Pete was the lunatics he seemed to inspire as followers - not least a person known as Whisper on rec.sport.tennis

I kid you know when I say that person is actually is insane , go look at his posting count over the years / do the math and boy you will be suprised.

I doubt there has been any one on the web who spent every waking second ( up-until Fed broker his record ) posting his claims / argument for Sampras being GOAT.

Other than that , i have nothing against Pete , I dont like him , but that one person alone on RST must of killed off his popularity like nothing else.

Petes serve is still possibly the single greatest shot in tennis ( when you conasider how bad his groudies became ) and he also had very underrated footwork .

Personality wise though he sucked , you could have Pete play any one and still had boring match - primarily because his game was so 1 dimensional , and his attitude more akin to contracted killer than sportsman trying to ambassador for the sport.

Pete never cared about any one , but i guess we're all wired differently and - in that sense just made full use of this capacity.

My only question is , if he plans on having singles exhibition with Nadal too -perhaps on caly or grass ?

That would be interesting , now wouldnt it ?

Nice to see Fed and Rafa playing dueling charity matches ... using their legendary rivalry for a good cause other than to frazzle their KADs is pretty cool. LOL

Well, for what's it worth, Fed said in his post match presser in Stockholm that he didn't have anything left to prove. Except to himself.

steve!
put my in one of your posts pleaseeeeeeee :)

Yes, Federer said that ... I wonder why ...

@ Tenis lv 10/21/2010 at 11:54 PM

I loved your post. I didn't know the numbers and hadn't thought of checking relative rankings. Very illuminating.

I wonder if we are framing the WTA debate the wrong way. Graf, Evert, Seles, Navrotilova did not all play at the same time. You had 1, at best 2 players at the top at the same time. And you have the tier 2 spoilers like Sanchez-Vicario.

Same with the ATP. As much as we like to talk about the big 4, 5, 6 or whatever number ESPN comes up with, two men are carrying the ATP. We really had only Sampras for most of the 90s. Borg and Connors were very dominant number 1s. Same with Rosewall and Laver.

And from that standpoint, the distribution in the WTA seems to be up to par. You have Serena. And we also had Henin for a large part of this decade. And Clijsters and Venus have been strong seconds. Its just that the tier I's lack of commitment to the full tour because of injuries, desire etc... means that the tier 2 is more exposed than usual.

federer, stockholm interview, after he won the final:

“Early on, I think that feeling of wanting to prove yourself to the world and all the doubters is a very strong one, so you’re very aggressive in your ways of winning and not enjoying them,” Federer said.

“Today it’s much more of the enjoyment part because I don’t need to prove myself to anyone anymore, except to myself.”

"... I don’t need to prove myself to anyone anymore, except to myself.”

Hallelujah! Eureka! Amen! Straight from the horses's mouth and all that!!

So glad I got to see this quote before the title of this RtR thread fell off the front page. So, Roger thinks that he just might have some things he wants to prove to himself (while we watch, of course). :)

Who knew? Well, quite a few of us, actually! LOL