A welcome dampener to the wild, euphoric and, frankly, irresponsible British outpourings that followed his Sunday afternoon carving-up of Robin Soderling .
No – I’m happy this happened. Maybe now the press will realise that couldn’t actually be sustained. Believe it or not it is possible to get get through this thing without painting the sky seven different shades of argyle.
In fact the worst thing you could do in the aftermath of that ‘sub-prime’ performance would be to analyse what went wrong. Don’t even try.
Make like sunshine.
Announce a royal wedding.
Declare your support for the nuclear disarmament of developing countries.
Pretend. Nothings. Happened.
Coz in the grand scheme of things it might not matter. And in the grander scheme of things it might turn out to be exactly the kind of stimulus package he needs. The stick rather than the carrot.
It was nigh-impossible not to be sardonically-totalled by the careless, catatonic, dithering way Muzz began what was undoubtedly his most important match of the RR stage.
His shirt was the wrong colour. His shot selection was iffy. His first serve looked like it was in need of a banking bailout.
Like he said, against Fed that’s simply not going to get it done – against a Fed as focused and unforgiving as he was yesterday, it’s ATP hara-kiri – a wonder, really, that he avoided the bagel.
Far from being anything tactical, he simply wasn’t present.
Which is why I think a tactical analysis is essentially redundant and perhaps even counterproductive – why risk ushering in a double dip recession by focusing on any remaining layers of grunge that might still lurk in the subconscious of his tennis memory banks?
It’s not all bad. He was hardly going to better the euphoria of his first match – the best opener played by anyone this week.
Better to detox early on during the RR stages rather than in the midst of a chaotic semi with Novak or Rafa.
Fed will, now, only miss out on qualifying if he loses in straights to Sod (stop sniggering) and if Muzz defeats Daveed in straights in which case we have a three way “games-won” face-off.
But I don’t expect they’re thinking about any of that.
Speakin’ of detox….here’s someone that managed to exfoliate all seven layers of grunge remaining from his very tepid opener against Muzz.
Which is all the more surprising as Daveed had troubled him throughout the season both at the Slams and, it seemed, everywhere else.
Sod will have to beat Fed in straights (STOP SNIGGERING I SAID) and will need Muzz to lose to Ferru to stand a decent chance of qualification.
Which leaves me in something of a quandary. You don’t root against Muzz at home – you just don’t do it.
So which is it to be?
The Mighty Viking or the Celtic Tiger Kitten?
The home favourite or my favourite?
Faust himself would struggle with this one.
Posts
