Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic are all transcendent tennis players. The only beef I have with Joe is that I think they're all tied as 1A. I will never stop believing that Rod Laver is the greatest player ever.
I'm not big on tennis, so the bone I hafta pick is with the Ted Williams reference.
Ted Williams did not somehow summon some long lost skill or otherwise rise to some thought-to-be unreachable height by homering in his last at-bat at Fenway Park. He was still an excellent hitter at 41, batting over .300 with 4 HR and a .600 SLG in September of 1960 before that game. He hit .316 with 29 HR for the season overall and slugged .645 in under 400 at-bats. While everyone knew he was retiring, he made sure they also knew it was because HE was choosing it, not being forced to do so by the team. He wanted to go out on top, for himself if not for the Red Sox (who finished in 7th place in the 8-team Junior Circuit that year). This was his self-fulfilling prophecy.
In that game, he'd taken a walk and then flied out twice before homering off Jack Fisher in the 8th. Fisher was a decent young swing man who would go on to lead the league in losses twice and in earned runs allowed 3 times, and he was probably gassed after throwing 8 innings of relief for Steve Barber. Homering off Fisher was not a particularly impressive feat in itself.
And then - with his team still losing, 4-3, - Williams took himself out of the game, though he did run out to left field and allow the home crowd to cheer him one more time before returning to the bench. I guess gods do answer letters, occasionally. Carrol Hardy took his place, batting 3rd and playing LF. Hardy was a speedy .220 hitter who had also played football and is now known more for the intersection of his career with notable players (Williams, Yaz, Y.A. Tittle, John Elway) than for anything he did himself.
So, rather than stay in and try to help his team win, Williams left so that he could preserve the factoid that he'd homered in his final Fenway AB. Sure, the Red Sox were WAY out of the race out of the race and the Orioles had been eliminated a few days earlier, so the game was meaningless. As it happened, the team did in fact come back to win on a fluke play in the 9th (an RBI groundout and an error). Hardy was waiting on deck, which means Williams might have had a chance to actually do something heroic in his final at bat if he'd kept playing and that error had not happened.
And then, again, to preserve his "legacy", he sat out the NEXT 3 GAMES, in which the Red Sox got swept by the Yankees in New York. They lost those three games by a total of four runs, Hardy going 1-for-10 with three walks in those three games. Williams had proven that he could still contribute, but refused to do so.
What he did on September 28th (and what he did NOT do that weekend) was for himself, and nobody else. He knew that history would record that he had hit a homer in his final MLB at-bat, at Fenway, no less, and that most people would dig no deeper than that, and that it would make him sound like a hero. There was nothing noble or unusual or surprising or even particularly out of character about any of it.
The surprising thing here is that Joe, usually no stranger to rabbit holes, either has abandoned his typical Alice-esque tendencies and taken this one at face value, or is willing to parrot the simple "hero" explanation to try to make a point. Neither one is especially in character for him.
It didn't help at all that Medvedev invoked Djokovic as motivation, earlier in the tournament. If you want to be loved, I would think the first rule would be not to antagonize the crowd. If you want to antagonize the crowd and feed off the negative energy, fine. That's your thing. But, don't pretend you're hurt when the crowd decides they hate you.
beautifully written Joe! And I couldn't agree more about Medvedev. He is all of those things and I think a pretty great sport as well. I love what he said about Nadal in his on court interview after the match. When a Canadian isn't playing against him (or Nadal or Federer) I'll be routing for him to succeed and not rooting against him when he loses...
On that note, when he came back from two sets down against Auger-Alliasime we got to see that same heart of a lion... a point here, a point there in the third set and the match totally shifted and the result almost seemed inevitable from there. It's easy for me to root for champions who can do that.
> Yes, there are super-compelling arguments for Federer even if he doesn’t have the slam record, and even more compelling arguments for Djokovic, and in the end I still believe that they’re all tied for No. 1.
This put me in mind of the run up to the last Super Bowl. In the inevitable talk around the quarterback match up, all the journalists acknowledged that while Brady was *in the conversation* for GOAT, this game was all about the inevitable coronation of Mahomes. The morning after the apotheosis of the one and only true god of football, no one seemed able to quite recall that previous conversation, Brady's numbers and achievements having turned the conversation into a monologue.
Perhaps once the last of the Big Three limps off the court for the last time, people will only wonder why it took so long to recognize the true GOAT.
Med is my favorite of the younger generation of players. I know he doesn't want to play the villain, but I kind of love that he just doesn't sit there and take when the crowd sides against him - he's got something to say about things. As much as I love the Big 3, it is truly fun to have someone a little bit combustible in the mix to keep things spicy. Sometimes it seems he can use it for motivation (whether he likes it or not, he does play the heel role well), but now I'm starting to see how much it does wear on him to be in that position. The times when he gets a little too mean, a little too personal with the umpire or opposing player, it's not always just gamesmanship. There's a level of frustration that gets to him. Still, I thought he was going to win, right up until he didn't.
Nadal has always been a prodigious sweater, but he seemed to take it to a whole new level that first set. He seemed uncomfortable and was thoroughly outplayed in the first 2 sets. Medvedev started to make more errors as he realized that Nadal wasn't going away in the long rallies the way he was in the first two sets. I still thought he might pull it in the fifth. When Nadal didn't serve it out at 5-4, I thought maybe he had given all he had physically and Medvedev and symmetry would win out.
He turned the tables on Djokovic, beating him 3-0 after losing 0-3 in the first final they played. And here he was in another epic with Rafa down a break in the fifth again as he was in 2019. Only this time, he was one that ceded sets 3 and 4 after winning the first two. To reverse the pattern, he was supposed to recover and win the fifth. But at 5-5, Nadal is Nadal and Medvedev had been fighting him, himself and the crowd for three sets at that point. I think he always had the belief he could win, the same as Nadal. One of them was going to get crushed by coming up just short.
What's the saying? The thrill of... something... and agony of... something else?
So much of what makes you so good at this is it's so clear how much you love sports, perhaps the way you loved them when you where 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 years old. I'm convinced many sportswriters do not, but never you. I try to love them as I did when they defined my life. Reading you helps.
Amazing, Joe ... new subscriber here. I used to read your stuff all the time, and like the cheapskate idiot I am, I waited until now to pay for your content. So, I sign up, and within a week, I get to read the following masterpiece:
"What made it all so thrilling was how different they were, Federer as swashbuckler, Nadal as gladiator, Djokovic as turbulent artist."
So happy to be back. What a read this was - loved every word.
Such enjoyable writing, as always. Every once in a while you come up with a classic, creative line- “an angle Euclid could not have fathomed” Brilliant! Being a tennis player myself who very, very occasionally hits such an angle, I’ll now think of Euclid next time that happens.
And maybe most people didn’t care much about the story on your serve. But as I’ve had that experience - being too far forward and hitting it into the net- way too many times, it resonated with me.
I thought for sure, when you talked about Medvedev and feeling sad, it was when he apologized to his mother and sisters and "promised to do better next time." He looked astonishingly sad to me when he said it. Otherwise, that was one of my favorite tennis matches of all time.
I am not a huge tennis fan but I think players go from villain (too strong?) to meh to fan favorite over time. Probably happens in all sports but seems more common in tennis. Probably will happen for Medvedev. Also I just really enjoy reading Joe’s writing about people and especially about greatness.
And I don’t mean to Jeterate but Jeters last at bat in Yankee Stadium was a microcosm of his career. Single to right to drive in the winning run. Watched it live on tv and the roar of that crowd was primal. Can’t figure out why they pitched him on the outside half, at that point he couldn’t get around on a good inside fastball. If Baltimore wasn’t in the playoff hunt I would think Buck Showalter served it up for the sake of history …
What a fantastic article!! Maybe one day when the big 3 retire the crowds will begin to cheer for Daniil
I can only assume that one of these days, you’ll write an incredible book about the intertwined legacies of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic.
I don’t even watch tennis, but I read every one of your tennis posts and love them. I would definitely read that sure-to-be amazing book.
This would be another wonderful book!
Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic are all transcendent tennis players. The only beef I have with Joe is that I think they're all tied as 1A. I will never stop believing that Rod Laver is the greatest player ever.
I'm not big on tennis, so the bone I hafta pick is with the Ted Williams reference.
Ted Williams did not somehow summon some long lost skill or otherwise rise to some thought-to-be unreachable height by homering in his last at-bat at Fenway Park. He was still an excellent hitter at 41, batting over .300 with 4 HR and a .600 SLG in September of 1960 before that game. He hit .316 with 29 HR for the season overall and slugged .645 in under 400 at-bats. While everyone knew he was retiring, he made sure they also knew it was because HE was choosing it, not being forced to do so by the team. He wanted to go out on top, for himself if not for the Red Sox (who finished in 7th place in the 8-team Junior Circuit that year). This was his self-fulfilling prophecy.
In that game, he'd taken a walk and then flied out twice before homering off Jack Fisher in the 8th. Fisher was a decent young swing man who would go on to lead the league in losses twice and in earned runs allowed 3 times, and he was probably gassed after throwing 8 innings of relief for Steve Barber. Homering off Fisher was not a particularly impressive feat in itself.
And then - with his team still losing, 4-3, - Williams took himself out of the game, though he did run out to left field and allow the home crowd to cheer him one more time before returning to the bench. I guess gods do answer letters, occasionally. Carrol Hardy took his place, batting 3rd and playing LF. Hardy was a speedy .220 hitter who had also played football and is now known more for the intersection of his career with notable players (Williams, Yaz, Y.A. Tittle, John Elway) than for anything he did himself.
So, rather than stay in and try to help his team win, Williams left so that he could preserve the factoid that he'd homered in his final Fenway AB. Sure, the Red Sox were WAY out of the race out of the race and the Orioles had been eliminated a few days earlier, so the game was meaningless. As it happened, the team did in fact come back to win on a fluke play in the 9th (an RBI groundout and an error). Hardy was waiting on deck, which means Williams might have had a chance to actually do something heroic in his final at bat if he'd kept playing and that error had not happened.
And then, again, to preserve his "legacy", he sat out the NEXT 3 GAMES, in which the Red Sox got swept by the Yankees in New York. They lost those three games by a total of four runs, Hardy going 1-for-10 with three walks in those three games. Williams had proven that he could still contribute, but refused to do so.
What he did on September 28th (and what he did NOT do that weekend) was for himself, and nobody else. He knew that history would record that he had hit a homer in his final MLB at-bat, at Fenway, no less, and that most people would dig no deeper than that, and that it would make him sound like a hero. There was nothing noble or unusual or surprising or even particularly out of character about any of it.
The surprising thing here is that Joe, usually no stranger to rabbit holes, either has abandoned his typical Alice-esque tendencies and taken this one at face value, or is willing to parrot the simple "hero" explanation to try to make a point. Neither one is especially in character for him.
Damn, I never realized that age 35 was so ancient. Here I am thinking that people in their mid 30s are basically kids.
Beautiful. I don't follow tennis, but whenever you write about it I wonder if it's too late to start.
It didn't help at all that Medvedev invoked Djokovic as motivation, earlier in the tournament. If you want to be loved, I would think the first rule would be not to antagonize the crowd. If you want to antagonize the crowd and feed off the negative energy, fine. That's your thing. But, don't pretend you're hurt when the crowd decides they hate you.
beautifully written Joe! And I couldn't agree more about Medvedev. He is all of those things and I think a pretty great sport as well. I love what he said about Nadal in his on court interview after the match. When a Canadian isn't playing against him (or Nadal or Federer) I'll be routing for him to succeed and not rooting against him when he loses...
On that note, when he came back from two sets down against Auger-Alliasime we got to see that same heart of a lion... a point here, a point there in the third set and the match totally shifted and the result almost seemed inevitable from there. It's easy for me to root for champions who can do that.
I loved Dwight Stones - before he became just another talking head.
> Yes, there are super-compelling arguments for Federer even if he doesn’t have the slam record, and even more compelling arguments for Djokovic, and in the end I still believe that they’re all tied for No. 1.
This put me in mind of the run up to the last Super Bowl. In the inevitable talk around the quarterback match up, all the journalists acknowledged that while Brady was *in the conversation* for GOAT, this game was all about the inevitable coronation of Mahomes. The morning after the apotheosis of the one and only true god of football, no one seemed able to quite recall that previous conversation, Brady's numbers and achievements having turned the conversation into a monologue.
Perhaps once the last of the Big Three limps off the court for the last time, people will only wonder why it took so long to recognize the true GOAT.
If one of the Three is still winning Slam events after the others have been gone for 5 years, then sure.
Med is my favorite of the younger generation of players. I know he doesn't want to play the villain, but I kind of love that he just doesn't sit there and take when the crowd sides against him - he's got something to say about things. As much as I love the Big 3, it is truly fun to have someone a little bit combustible in the mix to keep things spicy. Sometimes it seems he can use it for motivation (whether he likes it or not, he does play the heel role well), but now I'm starting to see how much it does wear on him to be in that position. The times when he gets a little too mean, a little too personal with the umpire or opposing player, it's not always just gamesmanship. There's a level of frustration that gets to him. Still, I thought he was going to win, right up until he didn't.
Nadal has always been a prodigious sweater, but he seemed to take it to a whole new level that first set. He seemed uncomfortable and was thoroughly outplayed in the first 2 sets. Medvedev started to make more errors as he realized that Nadal wasn't going away in the long rallies the way he was in the first two sets. I still thought he might pull it in the fifth. When Nadal didn't serve it out at 5-4, I thought maybe he had given all he had physically and Medvedev and symmetry would win out.
He turned the tables on Djokovic, beating him 3-0 after losing 0-3 in the first final they played. And here he was in another epic with Rafa down a break in the fifth again as he was in 2019. Only this time, he was one that ceded sets 3 and 4 after winning the first two. To reverse the pattern, he was supposed to recover and win the fifth. But at 5-5, Nadal is Nadal and Medvedev had been fighting him, himself and the crowd for three sets at that point. I think he always had the belief he could win, the same as Nadal. One of them was going to get crushed by coming up just short.
What's the saying? The thrill of... something... and agony of... something else?
So much of what makes you so good at this is it's so clear how much you love sports, perhaps the way you loved them when you where 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 years old. I'm convinced many sportswriters do not, but never you. I try to love them as I did when they defined my life. Reading you helps.
Amazing, Joe ... new subscriber here. I used to read your stuff all the time, and like the cheapskate idiot I am, I waited until now to pay for your content. So, I sign up, and within a week, I get to read the following masterpiece:
"What made it all so thrilling was how different they were, Federer as swashbuckler, Nadal as gladiator, Djokovic as turbulent artist."
So happy to be back. What a read this was - loved every word.
Such enjoyable writing, as always. Every once in a while you come up with a classic, creative line- “an angle Euclid could not have fathomed” Brilliant! Being a tennis player myself who very, very occasionally hits such an angle, I’ll now think of Euclid next time that happens.
And maybe most people didn’t care much about the story on your serve. But as I’ve had that experience - being too far forward and hitting it into the net- way too many times, it resonated with me.
I thought for sure, when you talked about Medvedev and feeling sad, it was when he apologized to his mother and sisters and "promised to do better next time." He looked astonishingly sad to me when he said it. Otherwise, that was one of my favorite tennis matches of all time.
I am not a huge tennis fan but I think players go from villain (too strong?) to meh to fan favorite over time. Probably happens in all sports but seems more common in tennis. Probably will happen for Medvedev. Also I just really enjoy reading Joe’s writing about people and especially about greatness.
And I don’t mean to Jeterate but Jeters last at bat in Yankee Stadium was a microcosm of his career. Single to right to drive in the winning run. Watched it live on tv and the roar of that crowd was primal. Can’t figure out why they pitched him on the outside half, at that point he couldn’t get around on a good inside fastball. If Baltimore wasn’t in the playoff hunt I would think Buck Showalter served it up for the sake of history …