Sadly, I have no idea who it is. I guess it is the author of the tennis-X website newsletter, which I really should subscribe to. You can see what I am talking about here:<br />
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<a href=”http://www.tennis-x.com/xboard/viewtopic.php?t=506″>http://www.tennis-x.com/xboard/viewtopic.php?t=506</a><br />
(although watch out for all the horrid pop-ups that blight their site.)<br />
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They are upset about my <a href=”http://news.ft.com/cms/s/bd4db5c8-df3e-11d9-84f8-00000e2511c8.html”>Wimbledon preview</a> that I wrote for the FT, specifically the bit where I dismiss Safin’s chances saying that he has “never adapted his power game to grass”. Tennis-X counter with:<br />
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“Rob apparently missed Federer barely beating Marat in three sets in the Halle final? Stick to writing the financial pages. We don’t try to tell you how to invest your 401K.”<br />
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Good point, although the personal jibe isn’t very pleasant. We have all made mistakes. I perhaps should have mentioned Safin getting to the Halle final. However, in my defence:<br />
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– The only player to convert winning Halle to winning Wimbledon in the same year is Federer. <br />
– Getting to a grass court tune-up final means sod-all. Otherwise Wimbledon would be saluting Kafelnikov, Matsuoka, Ferreira, Forget and a whole bunch of others as champions or finalists. None of them converted success at Queens or Halle into anything like success at Wimbledon.<br />
– Safin has one quarter-final at SW19 to his name, which given his game (huge serve, massive groundstrokes, decent volley) is small beer. Therefore my comment about his temprament is, I think, valid.<br />
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And, look, Marat lost in the 3rd round. To a player he should have beaten. I rest my case.