Referees

Was sort of an eye opener, this article in CNN.com.

How granted are referees taken in a game of sports? I don't know a single WC referee although I know a bunch of international players.

This snippet stands out for me from the article..

Referees, who can be twice the age of the players, sprint across the field keeping up with the players and closely tracking the action. They tend to run 12 miles during the game -- five more than the players, according to data from the U.S. Soccer Federation.

Hmm.. now that's something. Add to it this..

Unlike the elite soccer players who have a cadre of trainers and specialists, most of the referees have day jobs, like teaching or office work, and must find their own time to train.

I think I have a new found respect for them now.

As the world prepares for the biggest sporting showdown starting next week, I sure will keep in mind, that guy wearing black T-shirt and shorts running all across the field in stressed out situations making split second judgment calls. Salut to their Tribe.

Indian Mem

Looks like the British Groom is now looking to woe Indian memsaab - The IPL

"Once the ECB are aware of the requirements of the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) and IPL, they will move heaven and earth to try to accommodate this."

Have the tables turned or what in 61 years. Brits "moving heaven and earth" to accommodate India's product? Well what can you say? Money speaks, I guess.

In the meantime South Africa has already "proposed" to land of Gandhi.... Lez see who wins the Indian Mem finally. She for once looks gorgeously desirable.

NFL Evite

So we got this cool evite for the Superbowl party this Sunday. I thought it was funny.

Totally looking forward to it. These parties kick ass. Booze, Wings, Wisecracks. No way I am missing it. Rooting for Steelers this time!!! (Pittsburgh was my first city in USA)



**Have blanked out our Hosts name and address.

Cricket Australia : End of an Era

I wrote this in my old blog in August of 2005, when England beat Australia in an Ashes game(something that happens only once in a blue moon)

**************

As the gutsy Australian opener Justin Langer wrote in his column in BBC.com...

[..] in the bigger scheme of things it is one of the best things that has happened in international cricket for a long time[..]

No kidding. It takes a lot of self-confidence to say so, Justin !
As a cricket lover i have seen the Australians rise from the 'ashes'. I guess it was Bob Simpson and Alan border who built that formidable Australian side of 1987 which went on to win the Reliance World Cup in India. Thereafter there was no looking back. There was of course a minor dip in Australia's fortunes when Australia failed to reach even the last four of 1992 world , which incidentally was played in Australia. Barring that brief period Australia never looked easily beatable. I guess except for South Africa under Hansie Cronje, none of the teams really stood up to Australia's professionalism on the field. Their mental toughness has been un-matched ever since.

It takes a lot of foresight and planning to build such a temperament and attitude. Bob Simpson almost redefined the way one-day cricket was played. He threw his weight behind untapped areas of fielding, physical fitness, running between the wickets and discipline.No wonder teams like Windies,Pak and India who depended largely on just the batting/bowling skills of their players started looking increasingly inadequate against the Aussies.

The Australians ooze a silent confidence with their body language. Aggression is their second name. They play hard. But all this was not procured overnight. They actually build this step by step.Remember the tied match at Chennai when Ravi Shastri almost gave us victory. That word "ALMOST" has been our bane. The same word was applicable when we "ALMOST" beat Australia in 1992 world cup; when Steve Waugh even after dropping a catch of last ball had the cools to make an accurate throw at the keeper and run the lazy Sreenath out.

But to be fair to India, we have given Australia a run for their money from time to time. Whether the famous VVS Laxman series where he turned around a lost cause into a sweet win or when Tendulkar bull dozed Waugh's team out of Sharjah's dessert storm.

The Aussies have seldom failed to live up to their reputation. They have the last two world cups in their pockets and are likely to be the favorites for 2007 with their current form.

But as like in every sport and every team the downfall of Australia will come. The West Indies seemed indomitable and unbeatable not so long ago. They were the kings and rest all the other teams competed amongst themselves to come distant second. Their domination over the game was absolute. It was complete. I always argue that Clive Lloyd's team of late 1970s and early 1980s was the best cricketing side ever.

But as with Lloyds team when the key players started retiring one by one leaving a vaccum, the same fate is likely to hit Australia. Warne and McGrath are likely to retire sooner than later and Australia might need to build a second-rung of players who will fit in their shoes. Thats easier said than done. Off course Ricky Ponting is still young and very able skipper.

I would like to see England,South Africa and West Indies build up a formidable challenge to the Asians to see a balance in cricketing world. Cricket was much better when these teams were playing well. Today somehow it has become more asian and lost some of its lustre.

****************

How things change in less than four years. Cricket India is truly in the saddle. SA just beat the bejesus out of Australia. Ricky Pointing has a slipping grip over his captain ship and Australia has no formidable player to replace him. Hayden just retired so did Gilchrist, Warne,McGrath in last few years.

For someone who saw the Rise and Rise of Australian cricket, this is a bitter-sweet moment. I was a great fan of their professionalism. They probably gave the world some of the best cricketing moments we ever saw. Australians brought the glamor, the life, the pace to modern day cricket (Kerry Packer and Co, a salute to you). They truly were the pioneers of the game in a lot many sense.

But as with life, it is true for cricket. No great force can sustain for ever. It happened to the mighty Windies, it has happened to Australia. For me the writing on the wall is clear - "It's official. The Australian party is over".

But for all the great entertainment provided by the Aussies (and I am sure they will continue to do so in future as they re-invent themselves) this a royal salute to a great cricketing nation. You guys, gave us Cricket like we always wanted. Fun, Fast and Hard Core.

Edurance unlimited

Even as the Beijing 2008 Olympics came to an end, there's no doubt in my mind that it meant many things for many people around the world.

For people who keenly follow geo-politics, it was no less than a Chinese "statement" announcing it's grand arrival on world stage with a bang. No where was that statement more underlined than at the opening ceremony of these Olympics. There was an unmistakable machismo associated with that sensational exhibitionism and show of grandiose on Day 1.
2000 young Chinese men shouting out their lungs and beating drums marked the ARRIVAL of China on world stage, like never before.

It was never in doubt that China was going to use these Olympic games as a showpiece event. And China spent a whopping 43 billion USD to do what they finally did. (The London Olympics budget is 1/3rd of this even 4 years from now). Just shows how much these games meant for the 1.3 billion people of China. The People's Republic did not let it's people down. Brand China came out as the ultimate winner of these games.

If the opening and closing show was spectacular, the Medal tally of Team China was nothing less than a miracle. 51 golds, 21 silver and 28 bronze medals, a whooping 100 overall medals left little doubt in the sporting world, who was the next ogre. China finished in style.
It picked up about half it's golds only from 3 events - Gymnastics, Diving and Weight Lifting. Tells you of their incredible strike rate. It was a well planned effort. They focussed on events that would have highest returns.


If China's medal tally was story 1, story 2 would have to be Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps. If the Jamaican thunder bolt, made a mess of all records in athletics, Michael Phelps made a mockery of all previous swimming records. When Phelps left Beijing, he had broken 7 world records out of the potentially 8 he could have. Usain Bolt on the other hand was part of 3 record breaking efforts. These two are super humans. Phelps with 8 golds had more than 20% of total US gold medals.

Great Britain put a neat overall performance and came close 4th only behind Russia in medal tally. Coming ahead of teams like Germany and France would be specially sweet for the Brits.

Another story for me was the silver medal win by Afghanistan. Rohullah Nikpai's of this war torn country won it's country's first ever medal in Taekwondo . Truly a great hero.

I had a lump in my throat when Abhinav Bindra stood on the podium and India's national anthem was played. But Vijendra and Sushil Kumar's win were no less sweet for 1 billion Indians.

In the end, Olympics is about breaking new barriers of human endurance. Both mental and physical. How long, how high, how deep can you push the human envelope. At what point, would it break? If 9.69 seconds in 100 meters is not good enough, what is? Are we going to see some one break that record soon? May be Bolt himself.

Just as Bolt completed his 100 meters race, a thought struck in my mind. What if half of the humanity became half as fit as Bolt - wouldn't we solve the world energy crisis :) ? Think.

I would also like to mention that one of the reasons I got hooked to this years Olympics is a well packaged presentation by NBC. The other day I read a report in Hindustan Times, about how India's Doordarshan had messed up it's Olympics telecast big time. A cousin, in India, I spoke to told me the same. He said no one was really following Olympics there.
Luckily NBC is pretty professional and if I was from Chinese government, I would send across special thanks to NBC for being agents of these games promotion for the North American audience. Not only did NBC focus on sports, it took us to various facets of Chines culture. It was truly fascinating.

I am going to the Gym now. Hope this Olympic fever does not fade out soon. I will be resting my bums on the couch a little less.

Sushil and Vijendra

I would put grappler Sushil Kumar's and boxer Vijendra Kumar's achievement's at Beijing no less than Abhinav Bindra's

They both won bronze for the country and we owe them big.

And if UPA politician Suresh Kalmadi is not too busy blowing his own trumpet at bird's nest, the Indian Olympics Association would do well to recognize the brilliance of these two great heroes.

This is the best performance by Indian contingent at the Olympics ever and it is no thanks to IOA or MS Gill (who congratulated himself when Bindra won). In fact India won three medals not because of IOA but INSPITE of it. And that is a tribute to individual spirit of persistence and hard work.

The three medalists have given lot of us hope and lot of positives to take away from 2008 Olympics. As a country we owe them all a royal salute.

*********************

P.S : I would like to see all politicians not hog the limelight for once, when Indian Olympic team is felicitated. This disgusting scenario we saw on the podium in Mumbai, when Dhoni's team India was relegated to back rows when all khadi clad Sharad Pawar led politicians hogged the limelight after the WC-T20 win. Please spare us this time!

Yes Yes Yes ...

It took us more than a century.. but it is an awesome feeling. India finally won an Olympic individual Gold.

Congratulations Abhinav Bindra. You have made a nation starved of true sporting heroes, look for that glimmer. Thanks for that. You did this when the well fed and well looked after Indian cricket team surrendered tamely to Sri Lanka in a Test cricket and on the day when Sania Mirza (India's medal "hope") pulled out of Olympics due to injury.

We owe you, dude.

Take that France

I have never jumped off my couch after a 4 X 100 swim relay. But at 10:30 in the night today, I did just that as Team USA beat the shit out of the arrogant French team.

"The Americans? We are going to smash them. Thats what we are here for" .. The french relay team was quoted as saying. This was all over the French daily news. Now who's talking, France?

Australia started off with a cracker but as it happens more often than not, the leaders are left behind in relays; the pattern continued.
Americans had already broken the World Record in the preliminaries but the final was a different ball game. The ecstatic screaming of Phelps was so infectious even as America edged out the stunned French team. They surely had the last and the loudest laugh.

I am already loving it. Yesterday it was the "Redeem Team" making a mincemeat of Chinese team; a team who's every move was being cheered lustily by home crowd.

8.8.08

Olympics predictions

1] China: highest total number of Golds and over all tally
2] USA: distant second followed by Russia.
3] Russia : Used to be consistently #1. The dragon will replace it.
4] India: Hoping against hope for a miracle.

Military style cricket

Whoa! Now this is new?

Pakistan cricket board has put it's players on a regimented schedule as reported by TOI.

"Cricketers are generally used to five-star hotel facilities even during training sessions, but Kakul offers no such luxury, not even room service."

Wonder how our Dada of Kolkatta would have reacted, if BCCI would have done this? ;-)

But I think it's a great idea. One, it toughens you mentally and physically, and two it usually comes with a bonus of increased camaraderie. That can't be bad.

Federer is Human

I took a somewhat different view of him couple of years back.

And I surely missed this epic last Sunday as I was not in town. I would have been glued to the television for all of 5 hours for sure.

But this classic battle only proves that Federer is human after all. This also reinforces the fact that the other greats before him, Bjorg,McEnroe, Sampras all had their peaks and troughs. In case of Federer that peak lasted 5 years at Wimbledon. And that would be a tough ask to top for anyone in future.

I am sure a sense of deja vu would have prevailed over those commentators watching this game. Because 28 years back, two giants clashed in a similar fashion. Only thing, that time, the defender prevailed.

Espanol!!!

So it finally came down to Spain vs Germany. Two of footballs power houses. Spain being the chronic underachievers and Germans , some may say, over achievers. I would usually take "over achievement" as a positive; because that suggests that Germans usually played beyond their potential and raised the bar of the game each time to achieve what they did in all these years.

Normally I would have supported Germany, but last Sunday I was for Spain. For one I wanted them to release their "chokers" tag. It's like I would usually support Yankees but if Red Sox has not won for 88 years and meet Yankees in finals, I would root for them. (Remember 2005? or was it 04. Anyways)

I have sympathy (which I know I shouldn't) for chokers. Like South Africa in cricket. How such a talented lot end up screwing everytime, is still a mystery for me?

Coming back to the finals, I would have preferred a higher score than 1-0. Nevertheless Torres's superb flick of his toes more than made up. Although the score of 1-0 did not really do justice to the dominance of Spain in the game, it also did show some German resilience.

Finally more than anything else Soccer won. Euro showed us that Soccer is alive and "kicking". The Europeans are shedding off that extra cautious 'defensive' approach they acquired in last few decades. The high scoring games, barring the finals, showed that. Also Turkey was the story of the tournament as far as I am concerned. And the way they made mockery of so called top teams, goes to show soccer wouldn't be a monopoly of Latinos and Euros for too long, hopefully.

It was fun 21 days. Can't wait for 2010 WC. Nothing gets bigger than that.

Impossible Is Nothing

{Copying this post from my old blog. This is about a year old post. Remembered this since its the soccer season again :)}

Adidas's new ad with the tag line - 'Impossible is nothing' - has caught my imagination. The ad has two Latino kids "imagining" a dream football team each. They toss and select a player each. They not only select players from different countries but also from different generations. At one end they have Zidane,Beckham and all and at the other end one guy selects Platini and Beckenbeur. And then they start playing till one of them is stopped by his shouting mom to stop playing and come back home.

The ad instantly touched my core. I could relate to it since when we were kids we used to do the same for cricket. For example me and my cousin in the backyard of the house would make two imaginary teams and select a player each and start playing. I would choose Australia or England and he would choose Windies or India. And then we would select players and play a 10 wicket game between just the two of us. That is he has to get me out 10 times so that "my entire team" is all out and then i would have to do the same :)

After seeing that ad i was reminded of those innocent days. In that sense the ad has a universal appeal. Showing how kids all over behave the same. All have their moms shouting to come home for having their bath or lunch or getting something from grocery store. And making sure she embarrasses her lazy son.

If an ad is all about sending a message, this ad has conveyed one too many. I must say i was impressed !!

OOOOOOOOOrange !!!!!

The "Orange" Dutch decimated the French 4-1 just couple of minutes back in Euro 2008. And I am loooooooooving it. I love it when France soccer team looses. And it may have something to do with this little game that i saw as a kid. It was the quarterfinals of 1986 Mexico WC. Unbelievable game that was. Some people with knowledge of football have called it the greatest WC game ever.

Anyways, since i was supporting Brazil that day and have always been since then, I started "hating" the French team. And always rooted for the opposite side.

Today the Dutch were awesome, as they were 3 days back against the Italians. 4-1? Man, if you beat the French 4-1, you got to be the tournament favourites. Schneider's goal was awesome but, the best goal was the second one set up by Arjen Robben's. And he topped him up with his own goal just few minutes later.

Would like to see thee teams make the Semi-Finals line up : Holland,Spain,Portugal,Turkey.

Slaughter House

ATTITUDE







309 Unbeaten. Day 3, 1st Test, Chennai,India.
03/28/2008

Take a bow

RESPECT !

A victory of the uncluttered minds

Dharampeth, Nagpur on India's win. Courtesy:Ninad Labhe










Question : What is better than winning a World Cup?
Ans : Winning a world cup by beating Pakistan.

Yes we did it finally. We beat Pakistan in a World Cup final.
Imran Khan summed it up well in his interview to NDTV - "The better team won"

For all the debates on secularism and bringing religion etc in sports (Shoibh Malik's silly "Muslims of the world" post match comment), it is *still* sweet, very sweet to beat Pakistan.

Over the years the passions have come down a bit because of too much exposure to each other, yet no Indian or Pakistani cricketer will ever tell you beating any other team is sweeter.

Ian Chapel said after India beat Australia in the semis that India was a "destiny team". It was team destined to win the cup after it "bowled out" Pakistan in first round game.There's some merit in what he says. Teams are often destined to win. By some divine intervention the path to the World Cup is cleared at every stop for the winning team.

Does anyone remember how Pakistan won the 1992 World Cup in Australia? I do no know a better example of a "destiny team". Imran Khan's boys were almost out of the reckoning even before the quarterfinals. (Those days Super 8 had not come into being)

There was one game that was going to knock Pakistan out of the game. The game was against England. England was looking in great nick. They had beaten big teams. Not only that, that day they bowled out Pakistan for just 75 runs. Pakistan were batting first. England needed just 76 to win. Every thing looked on course when.... Rain Gods came in.

A sign. A sign.

Pakistan split points with English and just about managed to put their foot in the closing door to keep the hopes alive. That foot was later going to be a giant one, that of Inzamam ul Haq - a very young burly giant who was starting to get the grip and go on to give Pakistan it's most famous victory. In 1992 Pakistan was the "destiny team"; a team God had decided would win and it did.

New Zealand lost just to one team in that entire tournament. It was against Pakistan and more specifically against Inzy. They lost their battle, their nerve, their game just "like that". I cannot explain what happened to them on that fateful day. Martin Crowe, arguably the greatest batsman for New Zealand and who was in the form of his life did not play that game and Pakistan were through. Destiny was slowly rolling Pakistan towards WC.

A sign. A sign.

Pakistan went on to beat England in the finals, team that itself was lucky to make to finals thanks to the silly Duckworth-Lewis system.

1992 is probably the greatest example of a Destiny Team.

Circa 1983. Indian cricket team led by a young Kapil Dev was by all means a minnow. Although a test playing team, one day game had never really caught India's gloves. Indians were the quintessential pushovers. I bet, no one at Lords and ICC was even contemplating Indians to come to the knock off stage. And then something happened in the midst of the tournament. A non consequential game for the cricketing fraternity got under way somewhere in remote country side of England. India was playing another minnow Zimbabwe. No one was even bothered about that game. It was purely academic. It was two inconsequential teams playing against each other; two teams who would have no impact on the ICC World Cup. So much so that this match was not even recorded by TV crew, forget showing it to live audience. There was scant respect for this match from all ends.

Destiny had other ideas though.

India was in a desperate situation, 17/5 and Zimbabwe was about to wrap it's innings. Kapil Dev the "jaat" from Haryana was probably thinking that he would hit some shots here and there and pack his bag and start preparing to leave England. Or was he? Kapil Dev probably was not thinking too far. He, like most Indians must have given up, and may be he played without fear thinking it was already a lost cause. And thus began his "no fear" cricket. Kapil Dev produced an innings that was going to change Indian cricket history for ever. Zimbabwe's nightmare did not end before Kapil Dev had made 175 runs. And India won the game.

A sign. A sign. India was the destiny team that day.

We all know how Kapil Dev, the *batsman* played. But that day, there was not a single nick, not a run out, not a mis time slog. Not even one. Remember Kapil was not an "all rounder" per say in the same league of say Ian Botham (though after this particular game he firmly established himself as one). So he getting 175 not-out sounds a little...what can i say, out of the world. The highest one day score from a "bowler-all rounder" was astonishing to say the least. What were the Zimbabweans thinking? If at all they were?

How can Kapil Dev get 175 even against a minnow like Zimbabwe? This boggles me no end. No Vivian Richards, no Zaheer Abbas, no Gordon Greenidge, this was our Haryana da jaat, Kapil who made 175. Yes 1, 7 and 5. This was an era when a score of 200 was considered winnable and Kapil had managed 90% of that total single handedly. I can't even begin to tell how funny this sounds.

Doesn't this sound funny even today? We have taken that innings so much for granted but there was something divine about that innings. That 175 was as much important in India winning the WC as Kapil Dev's awesome catch running backward in the finals of the same tournament to get rid of the menacing Richards.

I just cannot fathom how Kapil could make 50 with his batting skills, forget 175. Wasn't he the same guy who had that weired looking Natraj shot to hook a bowler.

Anyways so he did make 175 and left a lot of eyes rubbing in disbelief.

But Kapil made 175 because India was destined to win that WC. I cannot have any other explanation for that innings. And i don't have any other explanation for Crowe not playing the semi finals against Pakistan and England winning on Duckworth Lewis system to beat SA in semis, only so that Pakistan can win the finals in 1992.
8 out of 10 would say that a Pak-SA finals would have thrown different result. It would be unfair to call Imran lucky, but may be he was.

India beat Pakistan in the 20/20 WC today. There cannot be a logical explanation for Misbah trying to sweep a looping shot over fine leg when Sreesanth was not even in the inner circle. He was very much at the traditional position to take , what could probably be the most important catch of his life. Misbah had already messed up once against India in the league match. You would expect at least him not repeat a silly mistake like this. But he did. And Pakistan lost a game that was almost in its pocket. 6 runs of 4 balls in 20/20. You are kidding me if you loose from this point. May be the pressure did him in. May be he wanted to finish it off and release the burden quickly. He was no Miandad, a hardened warrior of many battles. He was Misbah-ul-Haq, someone India would love as much as it hates Miandad.

India was the destiny team. It was almost as if some kids collected on the South African ground and came to enjoy the tournament and play against some big uncles like Hayden and Smith and God said, "Oh kids you want to enjoy a little more, well take this cup, take this bounty". And before even God knew, an entire nation of one billion people had turned kids. They were dancing on streets, hugging each other, even crying out loud.


The finals was befitting the 20/20 format. Two teams with average age of less than 25 came into the finals and unfortunately only one got to go home with toffees and ice cream cups. (Even Sehwag who's still not in his 30s was looking like a veteran coach in the team set up).

This could also be a lesson for the other teams like Sri Lanka and Australia. May be for 20/20 format you just need HEART and young heart at that. A fearless one. No analysis, no strategy, no laptop coaching. All you need is "no fear" cricket. That's what India and Pakistan had. They did not have big names, just big hearts. And they deservedly reached finals. Sometimes you don't want to take a game or sport so seriously and 20/20 was meant to be enjoyed. And India did just that. It enjoyed every outing like a picnic. You could see the players laughing during the "penalty shoot out like" bowl out between India and Pakistan. They were making merry.

I do not want to take anything away from these young kids. Not only have they done us proud and filled us with great emotions, they have given this nation starved for success in sports, a breath of fresh air. Sachin Tendulkar said, "Cricket is now in safe hands".

May be it is.

I think RP Singh was the find of the tournament. Irfan Pathan was always good, he just found back his rhythm at the right time. Yuvraj was simply what he was, AWESOME. Dhoni was ok and i wouldn't really think high of his captainship. His moves came out right. But that's about it.

All in all 20/20 required boys in their 20s to make it. As it turned out the oldie-goldies were rested and luckily for India, the college crowd won an international fast paced tournament.

It was a victory of the uncluttered minds.

Why Federer isn't the greatest..

When i first started watching Tennis, it was the good old Doordarshan era. We had a black and white television and me and my father used to watch Wimbledon whenever it was shown. I guess only the semi finals and the finals were shown at that time.
The only other matches that were streamed via the DD were the boring-till-you-die Davis cup games where the Amritraj brothers would loose as a habit. Till date i am not sure how a non-athelete like Ramesh-chubby-pouch-Krishnan ever get into a game like Tennis. Speaks volumes of the Tennis at that time; in India atleast.

John McNroe was already a hot item and his and Jimmy Conners battles were legendary. I think that was the start of the golden period of tennis. Somehow as years passed and i watched Tennis more regularly, i figured that great rivalries were essential ingredients to make this game tick. If you remove rivalries, you remove the spice and the motivation to watch this game.

There was the Becker-Edberg rivalry then there was the Sampras-Aggassi rivalry. On the female side after the Martina-Evert rivalry reached dizzying heights, Graff replaced Evert and then Seles replaced Navratilova.
Rivalry almost defined this great event every year. Sampras-Aggassi rivalry was by far the greatest in recent times.

Then somehow tennis started loosing these battles and it became more and more one sided. I started loosing interest in tennis when i saw different faces every year in different arenas. Federar was the only constant. This leads me to believe that the era of great rivalries has finally ended in Tennis. Now, some would argue that Roger-Rafael can be considered rivals ; i'd say not exactly. Except for great stamina, that Nadal uses effectively on the clay courts, talent and skill wise Federer is leaps and bounds ahead of him. They are not equals like say Sampras-Agassi or Borg-Conners.

So although Federer is the undisputed King of the court, [even though he lost all French opens], there's no one to challenge him. No one is stretching him too far. He is number 1 and the next best is number 8 or 9.

So when Federer is called the greatest Tennis player of all time, its a shot in the dark. How is he the greatest? Why is he the greatest? On the basis of records and statistics? I'd say thats not really the ideal way to conclude then!

Apart from pure skill and talent there are a few things that make a player a great one. Stamina, attitude, raw power and above all consistency. If you got to judge players from different eras and rank them on all these parameters the results would be closer to reality. Just because Roger Federer does not have a genuine competion and no pressure from bottom you cannot rank him as the greatest.

Somehow this notion of talking in superlatives have come into us.

I'd say Sampras was the greatest and yet i could be wrong for some 50 year guy who might still consider Rod Laver as the greatest.. There's no easy way to compare. It's like comparing current Australian cricket team with the West Indies side of the late 70s. You just cannot compare the two, can you?

People compare Tendulkar and Bradman. HOW? How can you compare them and say one is better than the other. There's no possible bench mark that can be defined EVER.

So Federer does have a great back hand. I can say thats the best back hand that *I* have ever seen. But again i haven't seen so many players that i can rank him as the best ever, It's the best ever that I know of.
His backhand is dangerously flat, very fast and acute angled and impossible to return. Yet i would desist from calling him the greatest player ever.

But i can say something for sure. If Sampras would have been born say 8 years later or Federer was born a decade earlier, Tennis would then have seen its greatest rivalry ever. Both are great serve and volley guys. Both have great power serves, though Sampras has the better height and angle and is more studied. Both have great attitude and both are great spectacle to watch.

Imagine the great returns of Becker [ the ones where he falls and yet angles the ball exactly out of the reach of the opponent] , the powerful aces of Ivaniciwich, the awesome serve and volley of Sampras, the near perfect placement of Agassi and the terrific backhand of Federer all in one era !!! What a treat that would have been.

Nevertheless the point is we cannot rank one player or one team for that matter better than any other player or a team from a different era.
Federer is by far the best player amongst the current crop, but he still is not the greatest ALL time guy IMO. I am sure on a good day the best of Becker or Agassi can beat him.

Tennis is also about mind game. The way McNroe used his anger to manipulate a hapless Conners into submission is the aspect usually missed in his victories. This is not to say he wasn't a great and gifted player. Yet besides all that he had this power of unnerving his challenger by showing physical emotion on the field. A craft he greatly used for his wins.

Federer of what i have seen is not mentally tough. He, i think can be easily manipulted by a really smart player. Or even a super cool head like Sampras could have worked on his weaknesses and made the most of it. Tennis like all sports require hard-nosed mental toughness and if you don't have that your best skills may still let you down.

So here's the bottom line. Don't ever call anyone, anyone as the Greatest EVER. That can never be proved.
Federer is a good player, infact a great one but GREATEST, nah. I am not sure.