Australian Open 2014 : MOTD : Day 14 Men's Final

ALLLEEEZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!

Yes!!!!

Just two holds please.

Big serves please Stan, don't let him back in!

0-40

Sad, very sad. He has himself to blame for this one though.

2 bp#s!

One thing that Stan has on Rog is that he can hit that BH DTL with authority.

SERVE IT STAN PLEASE!

Great retrurn and a great point. Just do not get broken now please.

CRYING WITH HAPPINESS!

Yes!!! Cannot believe this AO has a happy ending after all. Good for Stan, could not have happened to a nicer man.

Allez!!! STAN..                                                   

summerblues wrote:One thing that Stan has on Rog is that he can hit that BH DTL with authority.

Absolutely right.. His shbh is not as breakable as Fed's... Congrats Stan.. Love this AO2014.

Strange ending, Stan not very ecstatic like you would expect form a 28 year old after winning his first slam.

It's like NAdal realized he went too far this time and held back in the end. He probably knew he would never talk him out of this farce, had he won the match

THE BIG 4 MONOPOLY IS OVER!

OMG!
Thank you Stan            

You've made nadal look pretty silly. He can't win even with the help of the most spectacular gamesmanship. What a mentally tough champion!

Time to finish the points table of the prediction game.. will be done in the next few minutes.

I did tell you 

Switzerland is a tennis power house. They have a guy who won 17 slams and he is not even the best they have

SB, waiting for the Hawkeye injury article on v2?

LS, as I said yesterday, let's not do poster-to-poster baiting. I am no fan of Nadal, I think he cheats more than most and certainly do not think he is above technical MTOs and related comedy, but different people see it differently. Nothing wrong with her articles. Especially today, I am pretty sure my take on it will be a minority opinion.

Fair enough.

ALLEZ STAN THE MAN!

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:Love this AO2014.

Me too. Though I suspect we both were just a match away from hating it.

It is unreal how Stan has improved - never even taken a set off Rafa and today just brushes him aside.

A shbh destroying 5 gazillion rpm's. Just brilliant.
That first set and a half was awe inspiring.

FedererKing wrote:I did tell you 

Did you have the slightest inkling Stan would be the one holding the AO'14 trophy 2 weeks ago?

summerblues wrote:It is unreal how Stan has improved - never even taken a set off Rafa and today just brushes him aside.

So glad we finally have a new Slam winner. Who says players start declining at 27? He did it at 28. He should now be an huge inspiration for all the others young guns in their early 20s.
Warwrinka ranking higher than Fed, that's too surreal. But I'm SOOOO happy for him. 

Amri,   

History repeating at AO for your man. So it's surprising and yet not surprising for nadal's loss.

But don't worry, he has no injury. Just testing to see how far he can go with the MTO. Not this time, obviously. Today Stan was simply the better player like in last WTF vs nadal, only that the Swiss succeeded in keeping his cool.

summerblues wrote:

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:Love this AO2014.

Me too.  Though I suspect we both were just a match away from hating it.

 No No SB. This AO was already a good one for me. It just got the 2nd best it could have been, the best being the all swiss final. Fed is back to playing some real good tennis, he needed a kind draw to pull out anything more. Beating a full flowing Tsonga and the fitness freak Murray to reach semis is a good result. Fed with a racquet is still a work in progress.

But Stan winning it playing the best tennis he ever had, makes this AO 2014 absolutely lovable.

Congrats to Stan the Man. Commiserations to Nadal and his fan(s).

Haha LF!
I have calmed down had time to reflect and change my views somewhat. I had just seen it before so I was very sceptical.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:No No SB. This AO was already a good one for me. It just got the 2nd best it could have been, the best being the all swiss final.

Fair enough.  Nice to see an unpredictable winner for a change, and nice to see someone from the second tier really stepping it up and at least trying to challenge the top guys.

The tattoo that he added a year or so ago reads ''Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."  (While I thought it was a bit silly to have it tattooed,) I thought that was a good mindset to have - just keep trying and don't get discouraged.  Easier said than done of course.

He failed to fail this time, but I am sure he will be fine with that

SR wrote:

FedererKing wrote:I did tell you 

Did you have the slightest inkling Stan would be the one holding the AO'14 trophy 2 weeks ago?

Yeah, I did.  Seriously. He has come so far, and I was mighty impressed with his overall form.  I thought he was a contender, but made Djok favourite.  When he got to the semis, I was probably the only one who thought he could win the tournament.  


I am so glad that cheating scum bag was booed and lost.

Just came back from church, and before I dash off to lunch which will feature some fine toasting wine, may I just say that we should all (and that includes Stan, as well), be grateful and forever indebted to Amri who badly let Nadal today by not jinxing him.

On behalf of all of us on OTF and elsewhere....

THANK YOU AMRI!!!!!!  

noleisthebest wrote:

Tenez wrote:Woww Stan.....doesn't matter if you lose from now....you are the best!

Off I go.....see you everybody.

Get that Yonex firing

I actually played so poorly yesterday that I whacked it to dust against a wall.....I never used to do that but I have broken 2 in 2 years....I must watch my behaviour! Not good!

Well done Stan...never in doubt! Cough....cough!

Tenez wrote:Well done Stan...never in doubt! Cough....cough!

Well, we were all wrong and we will all happily get over it.  Stan could not have found a better place to win his first three sets against Rafa.

Also, let's not forget that we owe a big big thank you to Amri for forgetting to jinx Stan, but it only shows how everyone thought this was a done deal before it even started.

Forget jinxing or not, I don't think anyone could have predicted what just happened.
As a Nadal fan, even if Berdych had won the semi you feel it would have been the same result in the final, but fitness is part of tennis and that's just tough luck- Nadal can either come back from this strongly and use it to motivate himself, or let it get to him and hinder his progress.

As for Stan, he really does deserve this fantastic success. Could have won last year if he had just beaten Djokovic (unlucky line call), went close to Djokoivc in USO as well, and this time he beat Djokovic, Berdych, Nadal in a row to win.

Julia Santamaria wrote:Forget jinxing or not

I am sure you will never again forget.

Tenez, you only have to watch the first game of the second set to understand what happened. It's crucial you watch that game.
You can see a fit as usual Nadal, playing like he always does yet he is blown off court no matter what he tried. Even in the long rally he dominated he is 4 yards away from the last ball Wawrinka hits. After 3 points he looks to Tony with panic in his eyes and Tony coaches a bit, but the very next point Stan hits the best return of the day. Nadal is stunned.
There was absolutely no sign of injury but it was a certainty Nadal would ask for a time out after that display of Wawrinka. Nadal's game never looked so obsolete as in that first game.
5 minutes later Nadal starts the drama, but the crucial part was when he returned on court: the audience really went against him and that left him with a big dilemma: he wanted to fight back but how credible would that have been?

I think Stan had the form to beat NAdal anyway but Nadal shoot himself in the foot today by pushing the drama a bit too far.

I decided last night to set my alarm clock for 4:30am (match starting 3:30am) expecting to check the score, find out Rafa was blowing Stan away, and to continue sleeping.

I woke up around 4:15, checked the score, saw it was 4:2 for Stan.  Still thought he would choke the set away so stayed in bed, keeping an eye on the score.  When Stan was serving at 5:3 and went down 0-40 I told myself "just as well I did not bother getting up to watch".  Two minutes later I was glued to the TV.  Very enjoyable morning.  Will watch the rerun of the bit I missed later today.

summerblues wrote:

Tenez wrote:Well done Stan...never in doubt! Cough....cough!

Well, we were all wrong and we will all happily get over it.  Stan could not have found a better place to win his first three sets against Rafa.

Also, let's not forget that we owe a big big thank you to Amri for forgetting to jinx Stan, but it only shows how everyone thought this was a done deal before it even started.

Again, that's the beauty of sport....those things happen rarely but they do.....today they happened the right way, other times the wrong way.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnKl04es5qkqdGQxVFNxdVNSQzRCQXJ6aU5lOTR1Z0E&usp=drive_web#gid=0

I have also updated this.  Any errors, let me know

gallery play wrote:Tenez, you only have to watch the first game of the second set to understand what happened. It's crucial you watch that game.
You can see a fit as usual Nadal, playing like he always does yet he is blown off court no matter what he tried. Even in the long rally he dominated he is 4 yards away from the last ball Wawrinka hits. After 3 points he looks to Tony with panic in his eyes and Tony coaches a bit, but the very next point Stan hits the best return of the day. Nadal is stunned.
There was absolutely no sign of injury but it was a certainty Nadal would ask for a time out after that display of Wawrinka. Nadal's game never looked so obsolete as in that first game.
5 minutes later Nadal starts the drama, but the crucial part was when he returned on court: the audience really went against him and that left him with a big dilemma: he wanted to fight back but how credible would that have been?

I think Stan had the form to beat NAdal anyway but Nadal shoot himself in the foot today by pushing the drama a bit too far.

I thought you'd check the result on Weds!

Oh yes, I saw the first set and Nadal had no injury...I know this. But I will cheack and see whether I see it as you do...certainly a possibility of Nadal forced to act injured till the end not to have the crowd against him. Again....I stopped watching at the end of the first set...and no injury until there for sure.

gallery play wrote:Tenez, you only have to watch the first game of the second set to understand what happened. It's crucial you watch that game.
You can see a fit as usual Nadal, playing like he always does yet he is blown off court no matter what he tried. Even in the long rally he dominated he is 4 yards away from the last ball Wawrinka hits. After 3 points he looks to Tony with panic in his eyes and Tony coaches a bit, but the very next point Stan hits the best return of the day. Nadal is stunned.
There was absolutely no sign of injury but it was a certainty Nadal would ask for a time out after that display of Wawrinka. Nadal's game never looked so obsolete as in that first game.
5 minutes later Nadal starts the drama, but the crucial part was when he returned on court: the audience really went against him and that left him with a big dilemma: he wanted to fight back but how credible would that have been?

I think Stan had the form to beat NAdal anyway but Nadal shoot himself in the foot today by pushing the drama a bit too far.

gp, I didn't have the sound on so I couldn't tell what was happening at the crowd.
Did they get fed up with the MTO and boo him when he came out? Do you think the angry fans played a part in unraveling nadal's game and composure and contributed to his loss?

The crowd were very very positive for him after the mid-2nd set.

Finally had a chance to write here. Here goes...

Yaaaaaaaay!!!!!! Whoopeeeee!!!! You did it Stan! 

Do you know that Switzerland is the only country to have two slam champions playing the game at the moment! Hooray for Switzerland as well, I say.

Julia Santamaria wrote:The crowd were very very positive for him after the mid-2nd set.

Only because they believed he was injured....as they seen him serve bombs and run like a rabbit they would have been very angry and the whole press would have stoned him to death! That's what GP is saying .

Polly 81 wrote:Finally had a chance to write here. Here goes...

Yaaaaaaaay!!!!!! Whoopeeeee!!!! You did it Stan! 

Do you know that Switzerland is the only country to have two slam champions playing the game at the moment! Hooray for Switzerland as well, I say.

You see Jinxing works!

Are you Swiss?