Mary Carillo during the Safin/Federer match talked about Hernan Gumy's influence on Safin's game.  After Safin had knee surgery, he put on weight, and when he returned to the tour, he started to play more passively behind the baseline more because he was afraid of injury.  Gumy showed him tapes of how he used to play inside the baseline.  Hmm! Does this mean that a post surgical knee condition forces players to start playing behind the baseline more?  Safin's knee injury was not that bad.  His only required tendon reattachment.  His leg did not result becoming almost an inch shorter than the other, like Muster's did. 

Maybe Safin's condition may educate the numb-skulls of this world that a post-surgical knee forces players for psychological reasons like Safin's, or for physical reasons like Muster's, to play behind the baseline more because the knee can not take the stress of lateral movement and the stress of bracing oneself once playing inside the court.  Muster had no choice but to play behind the baseline.  He did not choose to do so.  If he was not hit by that drunk driver back in 1989, he may have won many more majors, and different ones too, not just French Opens. He may have limited the number of majors of many players like Bruguera, Courier, Chang, Kuerten, Sampras and Agassi won. 

I hope 21st century Muster wins on Sunday the Wimbledon final. All this talk about playing serve and volley and the classic tennis B.S. will be put to bed. I want people to understand that Federer is a clay court player who is very good on fast surfaces.  He is not the classic tennis player.  He is a modern player with a semi-western forehand, and swing volleys.  He has classic elements but no one in the old days played like Roger. They serve and volley on every point, but Roger plays the baseline with the semi-western forehand, which he hits inside-out  a lot.  He is not the so-called classic player.

Roger should not impersonate a classic player because McEnroe, Carillo, and Sampras say so.  Roger is better than that. He is clay court trained like Nadal and Borg.  Borg transitioned from clay to grass, and Nadal is doing a fine job of the same thing.  Roger happens to be a very good clay court player who transitioned to the fast courts, but just can not win the French Open because he is second best to Nadal.  (Federer is not a fast court player transitioning to the clay). If Nadal wins on Sunday, he may spell the doom of the so called "classic" game (it actually is dead).  The idea of a clay court "specialist" winning on grass is too much for people to handle. It has been done before, i.e. Borg. 

Vamos Rafa!