rafa's 10

rafa won his 10th grand slam title, his 6th in roland garros! i stayed up late, not to watch the live proceedings (destiny cable doesn't have balls), but to wait for breaking news from cnn, bbc or al-jazeera. and around 2 am, i saw the news! vamos rafa!!! some 'he said, he said' below.

“When you talk about these statistics, when you try and make these comparisons, really it’s not very interesting to me,” continued Nadal, who would have ceded the No. 1 ranking to Novak Djokovic with a loss Sunday. “I’m very happy with what I have, with who I am. I’m not the best player in the history of tennis. I think I’m among the best. That’s true. That’s enough for me.”

“He plays better against the better ones, and that’s what he showed today,” said Federer, owner of 16 Grand Slam trophies. “He’s a great champion, on clay, especially.”

The real Rafa is both the Rafa who wins and the Rafa who plays well and the Rafa who suffers and doesn’t play that well,” Rafa Nadal.

It also was the first major championship match contested by any two men who already completed career Grand Slams. And Nadal and Federer put on a worthy show, more than 3 1/2 hours full of lengthy exchanges, brilliant defense, sublime shotmaking, and some dizzying shifts of momentum. - Howard Fendrich.

Stay calm. Winning or losing won’t change your life.”- Toni Nadal.

Nadal now has 10 majors. Federer was 25 years, 173 days when he hit double digits. Nadal got there 171 days faster.

Not a margin to write home about. But proof, nonetheless, that when Federer looks behind him, there’s a looming Spanish shadow.

If Nadal was a boxer, he’d be billed as The Man with the Iron Chin.

Federer chucked the kitchen sink at him on Sunday. Still, he wouldn’t go down.

Forehands that zipped off Federer’s racket with a “pop,” zany-angled backhands that looked to be scudding out of court—Nadal hunted almost everything down like a hound told to “Fetch!”

Often, he not only retrieves seemingly lost balls but somehow managed to whip them back with interest, too. So where one venomous crosscourt winner might suffice against lesser players, Federer needed two, three or more cannon balls to breach the chateau-like defenses of Nadal.

When it comes off, one can only sit back and applaud Federer’s tenacity and ability to make such a succession of fine shots. If at first you don’t succeed …

Because he is forced to make plays, Federer had many more winners—53 to 39. But by hurling his artistry back at him, Nadal also forced Federer into mistakes. Federer had twice as many unforced errors, 56 to 27.

In short, Nadal forced Federer to lose beautifully.

“I like to see him running left and right and left and right and see how long he can sustain it, you know?” Federer said. “Mixing it up. That’s what I always do, and he does his things. … You know, I think he’s happy to be Rafa; I’m happy to be Roger. That’s why we like to play each other, maybe.”

It’s also why we like to watch them. Appreciate it while it lasts. - John Leicester.