Life expert (my own!), whole-brained, spiritual & philosophical thinker, big dreamer, technologist, programmer, gadget-geek, mind & life-hacker, tennis fan(atic), food & wine lover, micro-blogger
I love it when we think out of the box and come up with new ideas that improve on inventions, but as great as this one is, I think - obviously others do too - that it should remain in the box. What do you think?
You'll hear a lot about why company A won and company B lost in any market, and in my experience, a lot of the theories thrown about -- even or especially by the participants -- are utter crap. A domain name doesn't win you a market; launching second or fifth or tenth doesn't lose you a market. You can't blame your competitors or your board or the lack of or excess of investment. Focus on what really matters: making users happy with your product as quickly as you can, and helping them as much as you can after that. If you do those better than anyone else out there you'll win.
Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure." ~ Kenneth Boulding
I wish Marc better success in his future endeavors, and I'm sure he will be more successful, simply because he has learned from a failure that he was willing to accept the responsibility for.
In this week’s Tennis Mailbag, Michael from NZ asks Jon Wertheim…
Why can't Fedofiles and Rafaelites stop fighting over who's the best? Sit back and enjoy the fact that, combined, they're the greatest phenomenon in tennis history (21 of the past 23 and 25 of the past 30 Grant Slams)! They could potentially end their careers as the equal GOATs -- and we as fans should love them both for it! Look at the video of the two promoting their Credit Suisse exhibition -- they're clearly great mates and so we should stop creating a "hated rivalry" when it doesn't even exist!! I'm all RF, always have been, but RN has my 100% respect. Let's just enjoy the history, don't you think?
…and Jon responds with this…
One of the truly special components of the Federer-Nadal rivalry is the genuine affection that passes between the two. The Credit Suisse video is just one example of many. When "Fedofiles" (KADs as Pete Bodo calls them) skewer Nadal and "Rafaelites" are pronouncing Federer dead, it's wildly at odds with spirit of the rivalry. I get rooting for one over the other. But when the two principals are so fond of each other, isn't it hard to generate deep hatred for the other guy?
It was the year 2000, and the great Pete Sampras, in winning his 7th Wimbledon and his 13th overall, had surpassed Roy Emerson’s long standing record of most ever Slams won by a male tennis player. At the US Open that year, Pete was looking for his fifth title at Flushing Meadows and his 14th overall.
As I watched the US Open coverage on TV that year, I vividly remember a quarter final match, between two scrawny 19 year olds, billed as the future of men’s tennis. One of them was a talented Spaniard – no, not that one – Juan Carlos Ferrero seeded #12, and the other was a kid from Switzerland, wearing a headband, a pony tail, and a goofy smile, who went by the name of Roger Federer.
True to its billing, these guys were playing some fantastic tennis, but what struck me most was the style of the Swiss kid. Unlike his opponent who seemed to be playing tennis the usual way – hitting the ball big from the baseline, this kid seemed to simply glide around the court, hitting his serve and ground strokes with barely any effort, making the game of tennis look deceptively, yet beautifully simple. “Boy, this kid is something else. He’s going to be in the top 10 soon”, I thought to myself. His game plan and his strategy on the other hand, was as terrible as his game was brilliant, and not surprisingly, he lost to his much “steadier” rival in four sets.
Sampras, despite poor results since his Wimbledon victory had made it to yet another US Open final. In his way stood Marat Safin, a tall lanky 20 year old from Moscow who, from what I’d seen and heard, was one of the most gifted players of his generations, alongside Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Carlos Ferrero & the afore mentioned Roger Federer. As gifted as he was, surely, he stood no chance against the most clutch player in a grand slam. Boy, was I wrong? What transpired over the next hour and a half left me, and everyone around me shell shocked. We had witnessed a brutal annihilation of arguably the greatest player of all time, as Safin, playing near perfect tennis, made Sampras look old, slow and inadequate.
Asked what he thought of his conqueror, Sampras had this to say… “He passed and returned my serve better than anyone I've ever played. He reminded me of when I was 19 and came here and won it for the first time”. A year later, Sampras would lose in a blow out, to another one of the new generation, Lleyton Hewitt. While Sampras did manage to win another Grand Slam beating his old rival Andre Agassi the following year, the torch had been passed. It was time for the king to move on. The year 2000 marked the end of the Sampras era.
Sampras however, is not unique to this experience. In the 30+ years that I’ve been following tennis, I have seen other greats go through this as well. Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, and Andre Agassi – all of them rose up the rankings, became great champions, dominated their competition for years, kept the younger generation at bay, before eventually fading away into the sunset.
That 19 year old kid from Switzerland that I thought would make to the top ten, what happened to him? Unlike the other players of his generation – Marat Safin, Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Carlos Ferrero and even Andy Roddick – who matured fast and made their marks on the Grand Slam scene, Roger Federer was a late bloomer, likely because he had way more talent, and way more variety in his game that he needed time to pull it all together into a cohesive game plan. Reigning in his hot temper to go with his brilliant game, was the last piece of the puzzle. Beating Pete Sampras at Wimbledon in 2001 gave him the confidence that he belonged, as he won his first Grand Slam – Wimbledon 2003 – at the age of 22, meeting the expectations that were placed on his young shoulders.
Yeah, we all knew that this kid was capable of winning a few slams, but little did we know that he was about to go on a tear and become arguably the most dominant men’s player of all time, breaking records that we all thought could stand the test of time. It took 35 years for Roy Emerson’s record of 13 Grand Slams to fall. Nobody in their right minds would have thought that Pete’s new record would fall, leave alone in 7 years. 16 Grand Slams, a career slam winning all four Slams, reaching the finals of all four slams in back to back calendar years, 10 consecutive slam finals, 23 straight semi-finals, and a lot more. To say that his records are impressive would be an understatement by every stretch of the imagination. [...continue reading...]
It was abundantly evident that Fernando Verdasco was going down in straight sets to his more famous and accomplished countryman, Rafael Nadal, yet again to make it 0-11. This time around, the conditions were tough, windy & tricky to add to his woes. It's not as if he didn't have his chances - Rafa had been broken for the first time this tournament - but he simply could not close out that VERY key first set. So, there was ample reason for Nando to be utterly disappointed, but I had no idea how bad.
I woke up this morning and my twitter feed was all about the post match interview where Fernando supposedly picked Roger Federer to beat Rafa, if they were to meet in the final. Here's what some of the tweeps had to say...
Verdasco tips Federer over Nadal for U.S. Open title http://dlvr.it/50skx
Don't miss: US Open final betting odds: Verdasco bets on Federer http://ow.ly/18X65o
Boy! I thought. That defeat stung so much, that despite being a compatriot and good friend, he picked that other guy, yeah the guy who's been to six straight finals here and won five of them. The twitterverse and the blogosphere was abuzz about this sacrilegeous prediction. "No, this can't be right. Something definitely got lost in the translation here", I thought to myself.
It's the finals of Wimbledon 2010, between Rafael Nadal and Tomas Berdych, and my 6 year old son, an avid tennis fan is already working me... "Daddy, when is the US Open? Are we going this year?" he asks. It was 2008 when he had his first US Open experience. I had managed to snag a couple of luxury box seats right behind the court at Arthur Ashe. With the fantastic vantage point that we had, we couldn't have asked for anything more, but more is what we got, a lot more... food, drinks, desert, souveniers, and best of all two five set matches - The Djoker beat T-Rob in a controversial match, and Roger "the GOAT" Federer managed to scrape and claw his way past Igor Andreev - that bled into the night session.
The bar had been set high, my son was spoilt from that wonderful first experience that anything less was inadequate. Good luck trying to explain to a 6 yr old why we can't "buy" box seats, why we have to sit so far up in the stadium, while all the action is way down there, why you need something close to a hubble telescope if you wanna see what's going on down there, and, why the food outside of the luxury box simply sucks! Kids! Go figure!
So, this year, I scrounged around for a couple of box seats, but the effort did not quite pan out. So, backup plan... I had to get something for Labor Day Monday, before school started Tuesday. Court-side tickets for over $5000 each? No, thank you! I settled instead for the "decent" $225 tickets. No, these were nowhere near the luxury seats that my son was hoping for, but at least it wasn't at the very top of the stadium, in the nose-bleed section like the ones from last year. So, giant tennis ball in hand, with autographs from previous years scribbled on it, off we went on our annual pilgrimage to the US Open.
"Why don't you bring your camera with you to the Open?" asked my wife as I was stepping out the door. "I have my iPhone, don't I?" I said, but I quickly realized that my Canon EOS-10D with the 75-300 IS lens would come in handy. Boy, am I glad I brought the camera along? Thanks for the suggestion, honey!
The drive to Flushing Meadows usually takes an hour and a half on a good day, but since it was Labor Day Monday, there was hardly any traffic as we drove through the city. About 45 minutes later, there it was... the unmistakeable sight of the stadium named after the great Arthur Ashe.
Unlike the Australian Open Down Under, at the US Open the tickets are separated out for day and night sessions. The food, despite being prohibitively expensive is hardly epicurean. You can't bring your own water bottles, because the whole event is sponsored by Evian water, a bottle of which goes for $5? A decent experience at the US Open, for a family of four will easily set them back a good $1500. Wait, what??? I guess if you are a crazy, rabid fan like me, they figure you'd do it anyway ;) Okay, now that I have gotten that off my chest, let's get on with the actual experience, shall we?
I was never a huge fan of Andy Roddick during his younger days. I saw him as nothing more than a big forehand and an even bigger serve. He didn't possess skills like a Federer, Nadal, or for that matter Djokovic or Murray. Over the years however, what he has lacked in terms of skill, he has more than made up for, by putting in the hard work and showing a lot of heart - something a few players in the top 20 - Monfils, Gasquet & Berdych to name a few - could learn from.
His self-depricating sense of humor and funny post match comments have certainly been endearing to me over the years that I've been willing to overlook the "failings" in his game, and begun to root for the guy. Who can forget this brilliantly funny 2007 post match interview, after he was annihilated by a Federer who could do no wrong? Not too many people would have shown up for an interview after a beat down, let alone put it in perspective.
I like this... #17 "Microsoft interviewees are asked unusual questions to gauge their creativity"
And then what? They don't hire them? How else do you explain some of the most unimaginative products that Microsoft has produced?
