A True Champion

With the dust now settled at Roland Garros at the end of the day both Men, Nadal and Federer have won all four major Grandslam titles ...they now play for history and to be etched with the true tennis greats of all time.When Federer beat Djokovic in the Semi's the Nadal camp breathed a sigh of relief as Uncle Tony said in a press report "The game of Rafael is not too good for Roger," Toni said, adding that Federer's "mentality against Rafael is not the best." Nadal leads Head to Head against Rodger 17-8 so one would have to agree with this.Federer made 56 unforced errors to Nadal's 27 in a match such as this a very significant statistic.Whilst Rafa did not serve as many aces as Rodger , he did have the edge on winning second serve percentages.Mentally Rafa is tougher and does not give so many free points away,when the pressure was mounting during the week his uncle Tony had some wise words to say  'Stay calm. Winning or losing won't change your life.'" He did and the rest is history.I do believe it would of been a different match up with the Djoker.The mental side in tennis is so important and thats where tennis players in New Zealand suffer.They grow up in an environment that if you reach the top of your age group then you have done so without too much competition.Because of this we have a strange perception of working hard and what sacrifices you have to make to get to the top.We simply dont work hard enough , we simply are not tough mentally,we look at our local rankings and set training accordingly.Parents and players are easily conned by local coaches setting "Wimbledon Dreams".No tennis player will succeed without discipline this is a fact and New Zealander's can dream all they want, until Parents and players get their head around this we wont be producing top 100 players .Marina Erakovic is an exception she is one player who I think had the Mentality and discipline to succeed.I will devote another blog post in the future to why New Zealand tennis players are just not "tough enough" and why we have more prima donna's playing game than most country's.Young juniors out there in Tennis Land use Rafael Nadal and his ethics as a role model, lets hope you have the mental fortitude to emulate Nadal! Congratulations Rafa bring on Wimbledon!