6 comments Jay Mariotti Hates It When Roger Federer and Tiger Woods Win

I just wanted to remind everyone, remember to update your College and NFL Fantasy leagues for this week. I am having a tough time with a couple of the college games. The Va Tech-Nebraska game is causing me great consternation and some of the spreads are huge so I don't know if some of the teams can cover or not. I have also been doing some serious studying and feel like I am going to bury Peter King and Bill Simmons in the NFL pick 'em. Enough rambling, on to the column for the day...

Jay Mariotti thinks the fans win when Roger Federer and Tiger Woods don't win tennis and golf tournaments. Jay believe his entire job is to say something controversial or something that will stand out so he gets attention of any type. When he was a child he probably intentionally broke things around the house so his parents would notice him. Good attention or bad attention, it doesn't matter to him. As far as I can tell the only people who really like Jay or respect his writing are AOL and ESPN. Everyone else, including fellow sportswriters, seem to think he is a crappy writer who has not had anything productive to say in nearly a decade.

A few months ago Jay wrote that he wasn't really impressed with Roger Federer because he can't beat Nadal on clay, today I don't even know what he is writing about. It's supposed to be about how the fans are better off when Federer loses, but it is really just a hack job on Roger Federer and he throws Woods' name in there for some reason.

Disclaimer: As I stated previously, I find Roger Federer to be smug and I don't think he gives his competition the proper credit when he loses. That being said, he is a fantastic tennis player and quite possibly the best I have seen in my lifetime, which unlike Peter King's "lifetime," actually encompasses my entire lifetime.

He lost tiebreakers, which rarely happens, and he committed 15 unforced errors in the fifth set to merely four for a 20-year-old foe in his maiden Grand Slam final experience.

Roger Federer had a bad match! Cancel tennis and let's begin to stock the bomb shelters, the end is nigh'.

Worse still, Roger Federer did something unbefitting a dignified, placid champion who speaks elegantly, wears stylish sweaters and counts Vogue editor Anna Wintour among his friends.

I am pretty sure Mariotti just accused Roger Federer of being a closet homosexual. I am not even going to re-read the sentence, I will just assume that's what he meant and judge Mariotti accordingly.

I've had to watch "The Devil Wears Prada" approximately 10 times, since the character in that movie is based on Anna Wintour (don't ask how I know this, I have found it out) I am going to say there are worse people in the world to be friends with. She's pretty much the type of person you would stereotypically think a tennis champion would have as a friend. I don't personally want to be friends with her, but if you like nice clothing and are wealthy...why the hell not?

(Bengoodfella goes and gets a tattoo, punches a random pedestrian and buys a motorcycle in an effort to reclaim his manhood)

When he was basically told to shut up, Federer responed with the latest obscenity in an expletive-filled tournament that should have been called the U.S. Bleeping Open.

Federer "responed?" I am pretty sure that is not a word. Did AOL have to fire Mariotti's editor to pay for his outrageous salary demands? Probably.

Two points from his 16th Slam title, the one that would have solidified his place as the greatest tennis player ever, he collapsed Monday in an all-time tennis shocker.

Just months ago Mariotti said Federer had to beat Nadal on clay to be the best tennis player ever...but now if he had won his 41st straight match at the US Open against a tennis player few had heard of he would be the greatest tennis player ever according to Mariotti. How things change in just a few months in Mariotti's mind...

Winning 40 straight matches is unimpressive to Mariotti, if only Federer had gotten that 41st straight match then, and only then, would he be considered the greatest tennis player ever. Of course this idea is incredibly stupid and doesn't deserve a response from me. You can't hold the loss of one match against a player who had won 40 straight matches prior to that.

That quickly, a familiar argument was reborn: Can Federer truly be considered the best ever when he has struggled so often against Rafael Nadal and was ousted in his event, on his court, by del Potro?

Shut up about this. Yes, he can be considered the best ever if he has struggled against the best clay court player in a long, long time and lost one US Open Tournament match in 6 years. He has lost ONE match in the last six years at the US Open and now that is enough for Mariotti to hold this against him when discussing the best player ever. You find me a tennis player who has never been upset and never lost a major tournament match and I will tell you that player is the greatest player ever, otherwise Roger Federer is on my short list for the non-official honor.

Doesn't he have to prove more in the next couple of years, when del Potro and Nadal will be dogging him along with Andy Murray, Andy Roddick and who knows who else?

No he doesn't. No offense to del Potro but the fact he beat Federer near the tail end of his career isn't that impressive to me. Federer is near-impossible to beat at the US Open and kudos to del Potro for doing so, but Federer has been dominating for so long it doesn't matter this loss happened when talking about Federer's legacy. Federer has eaten Roddick and Murray for lunch his entire career. This goes for pretty much every tennis player that Federer has faced and eventually dominated.

He has nothing to prove because he has shown he can beat every other tennis player on any surface at any point...except for the greatest clay court player and quite possibly one of the best tennis players of the past 20 years in Nadal. He does have a hard time beating him on clay, but so does every other player, which is what makes Nadal quite possibly the greatest clay court player ever. Just because Federer has competition doesn't make Federer not the greatest ever.

Yes, he does.

No, he doesn't.

Poised as we were to see Federer claim his third Slam of the year, his stunning takedown by del Potro was much better theater and adds more drama to a long-dormant sport that grabbed our attention -- for good reasons and bad -- the last two weeks.

Federer having competition is a good thing, but Federer not winning tennis matches is not a good thing. Dominant players are generally great for a sport and even more great for tennis since it is a sport that relies on competition and strong players for ratings and success in the mainstream.

Suddenly, everywhere he looks, Federer has rivals who can conquer him at any time on any surface.

I believe Mariotti said similar things in June and then Federer went out and won Wimbledon...without Nadal playing, but he still won it.

Losing one match in the last 41 matches does not mean Federer's rivals can beat him at any point. Even though he is near the end of his career I think Federer will tell anyone who thinks they can beat him any time on any surface to go ahead and try.

But Federer did seem disingenuous when he said this defeat will be simpler to swallow because he got married this year, became the father of twin girls and won two Slam titles at Wimbledon and the French Open.

That's right, he has won two Slam titles this year. Yet all of a sudden he is beatable because he didn't win three Slam titles. Not to mention he did get married and have two kids, he may not have been disingenuous here, he was probably being truthful.

Obviously because Mariotti is a gross, sweaty old man who has no redeeming qualities as a human, he has not gotten the opportunity to know how actually staying married and having kids who love him would feel, so I understand how he thinks the "family excuse" was just an excuse since he is unable to make a human connection with anyone. Yeah...I just went Dr. Phil on him and it was a bit harsh.

Ever hear Michael Jordan talk that way after a major loss? Or Woods? Or any of the greats? The most competitive champions never justify losing.

As we found out this weekend, Michael Jordan is sort of an asshole, which I knew previously from my fiance's interactions with him at a golf tournament. I am pretty sure we have focused on Woods' family enough to where other people made excuses for him based on the death of his father and the birth of his children. He doesn't have to make excuses, others realize the outside circumstances and have judged Woods accordingly after playing in a golf tournament when a major life event has happened to him. Somehow Mariotti is able to do that for Federer.

But it wasn't long ago when he was a slave to Nadal, who may have continued to carve up Federer if not for the injuries -- abdominal for the short term, knees for the long term -- that threaten to sabotage his body of work.

Saying he was a "slave" to Nadal is overstating the case a lot. Nadal is widely reknown as the greatest player in a long, long time on clay and they have played 11 matches on clay, which Nadal has won 9 of these. They are even 3-3 on hard courts and Federer leads 2-1 on grass courts. Another issue is that while Nadal does pretty well against Federer head-to-head, Federer is much more consistent and has played and won in more Grand Slam Finals. We can't ignore this fact. Mariotti may try, but I won't let him.

"When I would have a dream, it was to win the U.S. Open. The other one is to be like Roger," del Potro said.

Can he be the next Federer? Or, maybe the better question is whether he's about to overtake Federer.

He has beaten Federer in one tennis match. We can start to have this discussion when del Potro wins about 10 more Grand Slam Finals...if that ever happens also, which I am not betting on. We have to remember that Federer has been there and done all of that at this point. He is near the end of his career and his resume speaks for itself.

It's refreshing to have him around. Not that we're tired of Federer, but it seems he's a bit weary of the scene after an astonishing 22 Grand Slam finals.

I am not weary of him. I don't necessarily like him but I am not weary of him. Having strong competitors at the top of the rankings is what makes the sport of tennis so attractive and draws ratings.

Take what is happening to the women's tennis game right now. Serena and Venus don't participate in many tournaments matches, Ivanovic and Sharapova are more interested in endorsements (ok, Sharapova has been injured but she does a lot of endorsements too), Safin is probably the weakest #1 seed in the history of the women's game because she has never won a major, and there is just no real leader in the clubhouse rankings. It doesn't make the women's game less fun to watch but take away the Williams' sisters and know that Kim Clijsters isn't going to play another 5 years and the women's game could have a real void at the top of the rankings and the television ratings in a few years because they don't have top players that consistently win the Grand Slam Finals.

Even if I don't like Federer, I understand he is good for the sport of tennis.

The fact he didn't win keeps us more interested. And the fact Federer didn't win Monday keeps us more interested. In the end, unpredictability trumps inevitability every time.

No one is going to argue that competition is not good for the sport of tennis but having Federer in the Finals of nearly every Grand Slam is not a bad thing...especially when he is against Nadal in the Finals match. There is also no way del Porto is anywhere near the level of Federer after beating him just once. I would call what Mariotti writes "shock journalism" but it's not even that good.

Here is an article that sums up Federer's loss much better than the attention seeking Jay Mariotti. It's not even written by a journalist but by an ex-tennis player. Rather than just making blanket statements and wondering why Federer lost or if Federer is losing it, she does actual analysis and tells what and why things happened during the match. What a novel concept.

6 comments Jay Mariotti Is Still Not Impressed With Roger Federer

I may not hate Jay Mariotti quite as well as the guys from his home hate site FJMariotti do it but I would say that I feel a certain disregard for him as a human being. He just seems like a completely negative and antagonistic person. I am not sure I have ever heard someone come out and just say what a great guy Jay is, which is probably because he is not a great guy, he is most likely a jerk like he seems to be in print.

Either way, Mariotti is still not completely impressed with Roger Federer and thinks he should have to do more to be the greatest tennis player ever. I am not saying I necessarily disgree, I am saying Jay Mariotti does not make a very good case for why he believes this. He contradicts himself and then sets a standard for Federer to achieve this goal and then completely ignores the own standard he set.

Yes, Roger Federer at last had seized the French Open, the one crater on his Grand Slam resume. But he'd done so only after Rafael Nadal, his injured nemesis, was bounced in a fourth-round loss that ended his 31-match winning streak at Roland Garros.

I wasn't aware that if the Finals of one of the Grand Slam events was not Nadal v. Federer, it did not count as an actual Grand Slam victory for whoever wins that tournament. Under this logic, if Nadal and Federer both lost early in a tournament and if someone else won the tournament, Mariotti would not think it really counted because that person did not beat Nadal or Federer.

Plus in this present case, Nadal was injured, so Federer may as well just throw his trophy away.

This is akin to having a tryst with Angelina Jolie while Brad Pitt is in a coma. It's a bit misleading, wouldn't you say?

No, I would not say. The fact that Nadal lost should be of no concern to Federer. Federer has played through injuries repeatedly. He had mono last year. Nadal lost and Federer did not, this should not take away from his achievement. He did not beat Nadal to win the French Open, that is true, but he still won the French Open after Nadal had lost.

Doesn't he have to beat Nadal at least once on the Paris clay, stlll a glaring bugaboo, before being declared the preeminent player of all time?

I see Mariotti's logic here, but since Nadal is not the greatest player of all-time I would say that Federer doesn't have to beat him to be declared greatest player of all-time. Maybe if Federer played against those players thought to be the greatest of all-time in a tournament, which is impossible of course, then yes he would have to defeat all of them to be considered the greatest.

I don't think beating Nadal in the French Open one time will all of a sudden make Federer the greatest player ever. One victory would not do that in my mind. Not defeating Nadal on clay is a slight against Federer's resume but every single great tennis player has a rival that has given them trouble. Nadal is fantastic on clay and Federer has dominated him previously on other surfaces.

Almost arrogantly, that ignores the epic achievement of a old-schooler such as the Australian, Rod Laver, who won the true Grand Slam twice -- all four majors within a calendar year, which Federer has not done. Laver won 11 Grand Slam titles, leaving him three shy of Federer and Pete Sampras, but he surely would have won many more in his prime had he been allowed to play in the majors between 1963 and the advent of the Open era in 1968.

Yeah, well Laver wasn't allowed to play in the majors so he didn't. We have no idea what he would have done. If Federer did not have to play Nadal he would have won more French Opens by now, but he had to so it's a moot point.

You don't. Yet Federer and his boosters take a quantum leap anyway, as if not considering what happened as recently as January at the Australian Open, where he was such an emotional wreck in losing another big one to Nadal that he wept uncontrollably at the trophy ceremony and had to be consoled by the Spaniard.

I tell you what we should do. We should not consider Federer the greatest tennis player of all time because he cried at a trophy ceremony one time. That makes perfect sense. I need better reasoning than this.

At that point, Nadal had beaten him five straight and won 13 of their previous 19 matches. Suddenly, we're forgetting all of that? Do we really think Nadal, at full health, would have lost to Federer in Paris? How do we anoint Federer as THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME when he has been on a lengthy death spiral against Nadal, whose most memorable triumph in the rivalry was the five-set classic in the Wimbledon final last July?

No one is forgetting this. Why are you forgetting that Federer absolutely owned Nadal on grass and at the US Open prior to this? Federer is old for a tennis player and Nadal is absolutely in the prime of his career. When comparing Nadal and Federer, which is really what Mariotti is doing, you have to consider this as well.

I am not saying Federer is the best player of all-time but you can't even compare Nadal's accomplishments to Federer at this time because Nadal has never been the hard court and grass court player that Federer has been.

Career records on each surface:

Clay courts: 9-2 (Federer is the clear cut #2 best clay court player...I don't think he has to be #1 to be the greatest of all-time.)

Hard courts: 3-3 (Since 2004, Federer has won 8 of the 11 Grand Slams on hard courts, including 5 straight US Opens)

Grass courts: 2-1 (Federer won 5 straight Wimbledon Championships from 2003 to 2007)

My point is this: Federer is the best hard court and grass court player in the world, even not being in the prime of his career, and is the #2 clay court player in the world. That counts for something in my book. The only time Federer has lost a Grand Slam Final is to Nadal and considering Nadal is shaping up to be one of the greatest players ever, I find it hard to hold that against him. If Mariotti is really insisting on comparing Nadal and Federer, he would also have to take into account the fact that Nadal has struggled to be consistent on hard courts throughout his career and hasn't always played well on grass either.

I feel very uncomfortable crowning Federer when Nadal has been appreciably better in head-to-head competition.

I don't think Federer is the greatest player ever and Nadal does hold the advantage head-to-head over his career 13-7, that is true. 11 of the 20 matches have been on clay and Nadal is the greatest clay court player I have ever seen. You can't hold this against Federer, I just don't think you can. Outside of clay courts Federer has a record of 5-4 against Nadal. It's actually a pretty even rivalry now, compared to what it used to be.

Can we not make the argument that Nadal, who just turned 23 and is almost five years younger than Federer, is positioned to win the most Grand Slams of anyone?

If we want to have pure speculation, how about this? What type of record would Nadal have against Federer if Federer were 23 and Nadal were 28? I don't know, I am just asking. I am admitting Federer may not be the greatest ever but I think it is closer than we think because he is having to go against one of the other greatest players ever and Federer has dominated on two surfaces. It would be helpful if they were the same age.

Point is, the only way Federer got his mojo back was when Nadal struggled at the French.

And Nadal only beat Federer at Wimbledon after they changed the grass surface to bounce a little bit more like a hard court.

The announcement should come by Wednesday. If Nadal skips Wimbledon, Federer will have a golden opportunity to win his 15th -- again, because Nadal was absent.

Yes, Federer will have a great chance to win his 15th because Nadal may be absent. I don't like the implication that Federer would not win the tournament no matter if Nadal was able to play. Federer has been an absolute master on grass in the past and regardless of whether Nadal is the defending champion, I would still consider Federer the better grass court player.

With advances in racket technology and physical training, you sense we're watching the game at its optimum level, even if tennis doesn't jazz the masses as it did 30 years ago.

Just a few paragraphs ago Jay Mariotti was saying that Rod Laver could be the greatest tennis player ever when he played in the 1960's, but he thinks tennis is being played at it's optimum level now. So the greatest player ever would have to come from the era of when tennis is being played at its optimum level (logically), which would mean Federer or Nadal are the greatest tennis players ever. I don't agree, but I am not also not undermining my own point like Mariotti is.

If Nadal plays at Wimbledon and beats Federer, the Swiss gentleman will lose the cachet he reclaimed in Paris. The sport will belong to Nadal again.

I will agree with this sentiment. It will show the Wimbledon Final from last year was an outlier and Federer is still the greatest player on grass. I still think we have to take their ages into account and the fact Nadal is a great tennis player in his prime, while Federer is not in his prime right now.

Not to mention Nadal has been so much more inconsistent in reaching Grand Slam Finals than Federer has been...as exhibited this year when he lost in the 4th round and Federer won the French Open. Something has to be said for consistency over a long period of time.

Federer should be all about amassing major championships over the coming two or three years, aiming for a final number that history can't ignore.

Jay Mariotti irritates the shit out of me. He doesn't even stay on topic with his argument. So if Federer wins three more Grand Slams over the next two or three years and loses in the French Open to Nadal every year, how does this make him the greatest player ever? Mariotti was basing his whole argument on the fact Federer can't beat Nadal on clay, but Mariotti is ready to say he is the greatest player ever even if he never beats Nadal at the French Open? That doesn't make sense to me.

I can't remember an athlete trying to make history when the precious present is holding him back. Federer got a reprieve in Paris -- a shot of rejuvenation -- but it will be forgotten if Nadal continues to school him.

Nadal has never schooled Federer, except on clay courts. Federer has schooled Nadal and the rest of his competitors on nearly every other surface. Federer has been in the Finals of Grand Slam events consistently while Nadal has been out of the tournament already before reaching the Finals. Somehow Mariotti forgets all of this. The only reason Nadal-Federer have not played more on grass and hard courts is because Nadal can't always make the Finals.

Head-to-head it is a close matchup but when you look at the big picture, Federer is a better player.

And don't be surprised if in 10 years, we'll be calling Nadal the greatest tennis player ever.

You can't. Federer won 5 straight Wimbledon titles, 5 straight US Open titles and three Australian Open titles, at the exact time when Nadal was playing as well. Only after Federer has gotten older and Nadal has entered his prime has the matchup become more even on any surface other than clay.

Fourteen is debatable. Nineteen is unassailable.

Even if he never beats Nadal at the French Open? Based on Jay's argument how the hell does this make sense? He argues that Federer is not the greatest tennis player of all-time because he has not beaten Nadal at the French Open, but says if Federer wins 5 more Grand Slam tournaments he will be the greatest tennis player of all-time...and he can do this without beating Nadal on clay. That doesn't make sense to me. I just wish he would make a clear-cut argument and stick with it.