Tennis in 2010: Players Who Could Use a Second Shot Part II
As part I of this feature stated, an eventful year is finally at an end and with that thought in mind, it is natural to look back at the occurrences of the season and wonder how everything could have been different. There are some players on the ATP who
would probably give a great deal in order to go back in time and re-do 2010. Part I of this series discusses Andy Murray and his Grand Slam failure. Here are three more players who could have done better.
Roger Federer:
Pete Sampras (another player on this list) once said, “any year with a Grand Slam is a good year”. By that logic, Roger Federer had already assured himself of Grand Slam in January. The rest of his year was also a triumph – particularly the Barclays ATP
World Tour finals, where he won the title for the fifth time in his illustrious career.
However, even the Swiss Maestro made mistakes this year. His biggest slip up was at Flushing Meadows in New York, towards the end of a spectacular semi final against World Number 3 Novak Djokovic at the US Open. Federer, who has won the tournament five times,
teetered with Djokovic on the brink of defeat. In the fifth set, Nole balanced on the curve of failure at 15-40, 4-5. The Maestro brought his opponent to match point, but perhaps the memory of his previous losses from match point unnerved him. Although he
did not admit it outright, Federer did confess to being too passive during the last few minutes of the match. And while Federer played shy, Djokovic gave it his all; like he said, “I just closed my eyes and hit my forehand as hard as I could.” Federer on the
other hand was cautious on the returns and developing rallies, while his Serbian opponent played with no reservations.
Despite this, Federer finished the year spectacularly. He won titles at Basel, Stockholm and the London finals, but even the Maestro must look back at 2010 and wish to have a chance to play the last two match points over again. Had he played more positively,
he would surely have earned one of those two – and a long with it, a chance to win his sixth US Open cup.
Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi:
American tennis legends Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi probably want to rewind to their Hit for Haiti charity match in March, and re-do the immature behaviour which made them the laughing stock of the tennis world.
A night which should have gone down in the annals of tennis history as a match between four of the greatest tennis players ever, is now tainted by the puerile antics of the two pros. Sampras and Agassi were joined by Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer to compete
in a doubles exhibition match to raise money for the Haiti earthquake victims; however, Agassi and Sampras refused to behave charitably towards each other on the court.
Agassi began the jesting by jeering at Sampras’s reputation as a bad tipper – a joke which most of the Indian Wells Tennis Garden did not respond to – and Sampras, aggravated, imitated Agassi’s style of walking. Although both players apologized for their
behaviour, they should have picked a better place at which to reignite their rivalry.
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