http://www.eurosport.com/tennis/atp-dubai/...to1098734.shtml

Nice article to read. We have to see how Federer will respond.

Encouraging that players are trying to improve their games to put themselves into the position to challenge Federer.

However, a bit of journalistic licencing. The writer states that Rafa is confident of passing Federer.. whereas Rafa says that he will need to work hard on his game and improve in order to pass Federer.

Here's the relevant extract.

Nadal said he was confident at climbing one step higher on the rankings and bringing to an end Federer's 161-week spell at the top of the world rankings.

"I am happy to be the number two player for two years now. But I need to improve if I want to give myself a better chance and be at the top," Nadal added.


A bit of journalistic licence there. No wonder players' words get twisted in the press. Rafa says something sensible and thoughtful, and no! it's not dramatic enough.. add something about bringing down Federer's reign! ;)

Another relevant extract;

"I am happy to be the number two player for two years now. But I need to improve if I want to give myself a better chance to remain the number two,"

was that in the article GP I seem to have missed it :blink:

I have some sudden image of players like Berdych, Djokovic and Nadal sitting in a darkened room discussing some evil plot to bring about Federer's downfall........it would probably make a good film :blink:

Nadal needs to plot his uprising on hardcourts and improve his quarter final virus before he plans to beat Federer or topple him of the rankings!

It is just unbelievable how simple is to forecast troll's behaviour in particular the Chet's one roflmao roflmao ...

I saw this article more or less 5 days ago (Rafa was resented these arguments before being eliminated from Dubai) and I was thinking creating a thread. Suddenly, I said to myself: wait and see there will be for sure a troll's using that...and here we are roflmao roflmao ....

Anyway, you are looking for an answer by the Maestro, right? The most appropriate one...I guess it is this one (today' s released):

Federer ready to break more records

[...]
If he wins his opening match in California, he will equal John McEnroe's record of 42 successive victories.

Two matches later he could equal the Ivan Lendl run of 44, moving in sight of the all-time winning streak of 46 set by Argentina's Guillermo Vilas in 1977.

"It's nice to be playing against the history books," Federer told reporters. "It's one of the nicest things to be able to do because I never thought I would ever do such a thing."

His last defeat was against Britain's Andy Murray in Cincinnati in August.

"But I think we have to be a little bit patient and see how my records and career finishes up," said the modest Swiss. "At the end of my career we can sit down and say okay, did I break the records or didn't I? Am I the best or am I not?

"All this talk right now it's all speculation. I'm still very far off in terms of grand slam victories and tournaments won."


It is typical of Federer to take everything in his stride and he shrugged off any prospect of nerves heading to Indian Wells.

"Not one bit," he said. "I'm playing to win the tournament. In tennis we're very short-sighted.

"We go tournament by tournament, match by match, point by point even, so the records won't play a role."

Federer's next major target is the French Open. If he wins in Paris in June, that will give him four consecutive grand slam titles.

"This year again I'll be playing all the tournaments leading up to the French Open and hopefully I'm going to play well again," he said.

"It's definitely one of the huge goals, especially going again like last year for the fourth grand slam in a row and then heading into Wimbledon trying to win my fifth in a row there. It's an exciting time."

Full details here

:rolleyes:

It is quite interesting that in the rankings there is a bigger points gap between Federer and Nadal than there is between Nadal and Julien Benneteau who is ranked at no. 46. Nadal should completely forget about the no.1 spot at the minute. He should be looking to try and improve drastically on the hard courts, and maintain his ruthless domination of clay. The no. 1 ranking is well off the radar for him any time soon.

So funny,so true and yet its actually off any graph he plotted in his so called uprising to topple Federer!

roflmao