Sunday, January 29, 2012

Nadal/Djokovic Insta-Reaction: That Might Have Been The Greatest Match I've Ever Seen

I...need to sleep and allow my body and mind to digest what it just consumed but I'll give these 5 quick post thoughts on Novak Djokovic defeating Rafael Nadal in 5 sets to win the 2012 Australian Open men's singles championship.

1) Five hours and fifty three minutes (5 hours and 53 minutes.)  The longest grand slam final ever.  By default that means this match has an argument in the "greatest of all time" conversation, right?
2) Speaking of entering the "greatest of all time" conversation, it's obviously not time for Djokovic to do that but I think we can safely say he's set himself up to be able to do that with this win tonight.  Last year was no fluke; it's pretty much officially clear that he's going to be able to win a bunch more of these and should battle with Nadal for many years.  This might have been what Federer/Nadal at 2008 Wimbledon was - except the tide didn't shift in this rivalry tonight.
3) You simply won't find a greater effort in defeat than Nadal's tonight/this morning.  The resiliency of that guy is just...unbelievable.  I'd never been a huge fan of his but he's really won me over bit by bit over the past few years and tonight was the apex.  It legitimately got dusty in my living room when he forced the fifth.  You simply don't see that kind of courage every day no matter what you watch.
4) I don't know how he did it but not only did Djokovic beat Nadal again, he topped his back-to-back semifinal/final grueling war double from a couple of years ago.  He topped both the Verdasco semi AND the Federer final.  My God.  I for one welcome our new Serbian overlord.
5) Thanks to the both of them for giving me a sports memory from January 2012 that will stay with me forever other than this one.  They reminded us all just how and why sports can be so great, particularly on a humanistic level.  Brilliant.

Something...longer to come after I wake up.  How did that surpass our wildest expectations?  Amazing.

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