Indian Wells, BNP Paribas Open, Masters 1000

[GameSetAndMath]

This, since we're trying to define "choke," I completely disagree with. If the match is close, well-played, I don't think "choking" is involved. One player pushes the other, they force errors on the other. No one choked. One was out-played. And even perhaps a bit psyched-out by the end. But that's part of a tight match.

My bad. What I meant to say was "Whether somebody choked or not has nothing to do solely or purely with whether the match is a tough loss or not" The bolded words are new additions that I should have put in my original post.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I think we all would say that to accuse a player of "choking" is an insult.

Choking is certainly bad. However, to choke in one match or in a few matches is different story than being a habitual choker.
That is the difference in the positions of Nadalgoat2 and me. NG2 says "Federer is a Choker" and gives a long list of (mostly
fabricated) matches in which Fed allegedly choked. In other words, he is characterizing Federer as a choker.

I am no way trying to characterize Federer as a choker. All that I am saying was that Fed choked in Sunday's match.
That is a huge difference.

To characterize a player as a choker, the player should have lost on several occasions from winning positions due to
choking. While I have not checked the stats explicitly, it is not a stretch to say that Fed have won probably more than 90% of his matches in which he was in a winning position. So, one cannot characterize Federer as a choker like NG2 does.

However, Federerberg takes the opposite position that just because Federer is a great player he cannot choke (almost by definition).
That is clearly false. The only thing we can say by definition is that no great player can be a choker. So, Fed is not a choker. But, Fed
not being a choker does not mean he never chokes.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Fed himself asks a reporter in the presser, can you look at my record and tell me how much percentage of times, I have lost a service game after leading 40-15? This is something that he utters voluntarily without much of a provocation.

 

[Moxie]

Choking is certainly bad. However, to choke in one match or in a few matches is different story than being a habitual choker.
That is the difference in the positions of Nadalgoat2 and me. NG2 says "Federer is a Choker" and gives a long list of (mostly
fabricated) matches in which Fed allegedly choked. In other words, he is characterizing Federer as a choker.

I am no way trying to characterize Federer as a choker. All that I am saying was that Fed choked in Sunday's match.
That is a huge difference.

To characterize a player as a choker, the player should have lost on several occasions from winning positions due to
choking. While I have not checked the stats explicitly, it is not a stretch to say that Fed have won probably more than 90% of his matches in which he was in a winning position. So, one cannot characterize Federer as a choker like NG2 does.

However, Federerberg takes the opposite position that just because Federer is a great player he cannot choke (almost by definition).
That is clearly false. The only thing we can say by definition is that no great player can be a choker. So, Fed is not a choker. But, Fed
not being a choker does not mean he never chokes.

I'm so glad that you posed this. I have been very confused by Fed fans insisting that Fed is a choker. (Darth makes a case for it, even if you don't.) Or your very confusing position, as bolded above, that Roger can't be a choker, and yet he is. WTF? NG2 has less of a confusing position on this one that you guys do. At least federberg's makes sense to me. "Failure to execute." Roger's been on the tour for nearly 20 years, 97 titles, etc., etc. Is he a "choker?" I don't see it. Please explain.

 

[Moxie]

Fed himself asks a reporter in the presser, can you look at my record and tell me how much percentage of times, I have lost a service game after leading 40-15? This is something that he utters voluntarily without much of a provocation.

Nobody is saying it wasn't a rough loss, or a pathetic end by Roger. I still say, he deserved it, over the course of the match, and the weekend.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I'm so glad that you posed this. I have been very confused by Fed fans insisting that Fed is a choker. (Darth makes a case for it, even if you don't.) Or your very confusing position, as bolded above, that Roger can't be a choker, and yet he is. WTF? NG2 has less of a confusing position on this one that you guys do. At least federberg's makes sense to me. "Failure to execute." Roger's been on the tour for nearly 20 years, 97 titles, etc., etc. Is he a "choker?" I don't see it. Please explain.

I am not calling Roger a choker. All I am saying is Roger choked last sunday.

I don't know why you are failing to understand the distinction. You may not call a person a liar. That person still could tell a lie once in a while. You call a person a liar when (s)he is a habitual liar, not when they lie once in a bluemoon.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Nobody is saying it wasn't a rough loss, or a pathetic end by Roger. I still say, he deserved it, over the course of the match, and the weekend.

Yes, to win the Saturday match was a miracle. To get to third set on Sunday was another miracle. Nobody says he achieved those like a walk in the park or in a dominating way and in that sense he deserved it. But, we don't talk about the past in the choking discussion. In the choking discussion, we only focus on the portion of the match after he put himself in a winning. position. This happened since the moment he served for the match.

 

[Moxie]

Yes, to win the Saturday match was a miracle. To get to third set on Sunday was another miracle. Nobody says he achieved those like a walk in the park or in a dominating way and in that sense he deserved it. But, we don't talk about the past in the choking discussion. In the choking discussion, we only focus on the portion of the match after he put himself in a winning. position. This happened since the moment he served for the match.

OK, that is very helpful, and I think this is where some of us might disagree. You're calling "choke" because, even though he barely made it to the last set on Sunday, he did come up short, when he was in a position to win. But you do agree he was outplayed all weekend. So if you say he "choked", do you not denigrate his loss to JMDP a little bit? And does the notion of his "choking" it not have to do with his status, as compared to his play, across the weekend? You said it doesn't, but I think it does. As I said, had it been Cilic or Berdych, or otherwise, no one would have said that they'd choked it away v. Juan Martín. We agree that he was uncharacteristically awful at the end of the match on Sunday, but he could easily have lost that match in two. And he could have likewise been out in the semis.

 

[DarthFed]

I'm so glad that you posed this. I have been very confused by Fed fans insisting that Fed is a choker. (Darth makes a case for it, even if you don't.) Or your very confusing position, as bolded above, that Roger can't be a choker, and yet he is. WTF? NG2 has less of a confusing position on this one that you guys do. At least federberg's makes sense to me. "Failure to execute." Roger's been on the tour for nearly 20 years, 97 titles, etc., etc. Is he a "choker?" I don't see it. Please explain.

Actually I'm not calling him a choker but as GSM mentions that doesn't mean he NEVER chokes. I refer again to the famous Sampras quote that "everyone chokes". Even the greatest do. Also people keep saying he was lucky to make it to the 3rd set but I don't see that. He actually should've won that set before the TB and was up 6-3 in the TB before nearly pissing it away. DP was the better player the first half of the match and Roger was the better player the 2nd half of the match, particularly the 3rd set. I think some of us will agree to disagree on the end of that match. Roger had next to no trouble holding serve from the middle of the 2nd set and suddenly he couldn't buy a first serve from 40-15 up and that came after he DF'ed at 15-0. And then just a poor shot selection and errors that seemingly came out of nowhere. I guess the question is would that game have happened to Federer at 3-3 or was it due to feeling pressure to close the match out. Was the disaster TB just random or was it due to the pressure of it being a decisive set TB with it being in the back of his mind that he badly screwed up when serving for it? Yes, IMO Roger has choked a bunch of matches but so have pretty much all other great players.

 

[10isfan]

Fed choked when he was serving for the title.
End of story.

 

[Federberg]

Choking is certainly bad. However, to choke in one match or in a few matches is different story than being a habitual choker.
That is the difference in the positions of Nadalgoat2 and me. NG2 says "Federer is a Choker" and gives a long list of (mostly
fabricated) matches in which Fed allegedly choked. In other words, he is characterizing Federer as a choker.

I am no way trying to characterize Federer as a choker. All that I am saying was that Fed choked in Sunday's match.
That is a huge difference.

To characterize a player as a choker, the player should have lost on several occasions from winning positions due to
choking. While I have not checked the stats explicitly, it is not a stretch to say that Fed have won probably more than 90% of his matches in which he was in a winning position. So, one cannot characterize Federer as a choker like NG2 does.

However, Federerberg takes the opposite position that just because Federer is a great player he cannot choke (almost by definition).
That is clearly false. The only thing we can say by definition is that no great player can be a choker. So, Fed is not a choker. But, Fed
not being a choker does not mean he never chokes.

That's not my position. My position, if it needs clarification is that, Roger has done this rodeo before. The idea that he choked in a Master Series final at this stage in his career is implausible. His form was patchy through out the tournament, it is far more plausible that his form dipped at the critical moment in the tie break. What exactly were the stakes here that paralysed his form?

The whole discussion made me think about what is meant by choking. Difficult to find personal parallels, but one of the things I think of is making speeches. It used to absolutely terrify me in my youth, and I freely admit I used to choke. Then as I got more mature and experienced I could breeze through them. But that doesn't mean that I don't occasionally make shockingly bad speeches. And when it happens it doesn't mean I've chocked. There's a middle ground. Sometimes you just execute poorly.

By my definition, choking is a deterioration in form due to mental inhibitions, fear, anxiety etc. When I think of it in those terms it's hard for me to see why any of those emotions could be attributed to Roger. If anything I think he wanted it too much and he strayed away from the mental setting that works for him. I'm not saying he didn't lose focus, I'm saying that losing focus isn't necessarily down to choking

 

[Federberg]

PS, To be clear, I'm not saying he can't/ doesn't choke. He's human. Just don't think it's a plausible explanation in this case

 

[mrzz]

Actually (trying to get in this discussion way late, having found interesting arguments in both sides), first (as always here) it is good to define exactly what is choking, as Federberg put (and others too, I guess).

From the outside, it is impossible to distinguish bad execution from choking, as choking is merely an explanation for bad execution. What we mean by bad execution here is "normal" bad execution.

Of course, in general one chokes in important moments, big points -- but as it is a psychological thing, sometimes you choke in apparently absurd moments -- precisely the moment were you understand you are in an important/winning position, which could be something like serving 30-15 at 4x4 in third set, and realizing that you are playing better and you are supposed to win.

All this to say: it is hard to tell. My point before was that del Potro made it quite hard for Federer, and the lost game at 5x4 is understandable, specially taking into account the precise Haelfix's arguments. But, as GSM put, Federer serving stats on the tie-breaker were atrocious, his whole display was terrible, while he was the better player so far in the third set. The drop in form is there.

But he could be angry that he let it slip on that previous game... it could be a lot of things. From the outside, is hard to tell. Only the guy that felt (or not) that burning stomach can tell. All in all, I personally classify it as "relative choke", but just in the TB. I'll give a pass for the drop shot (even if the drop shot is the classic move by chokers who gave up fighting on the point, on the other hand it was part of Federer strategy).

What I think is interesting to analyze as well (@El Dude, jump in!) is, if we admit Federer choked, how the hell one guy that won 20 majors, just won the last, just got to #1, chokes to close out a (relatively speaking) smaller tournament that he won tons of times? It would tell a lot about the player -- that those guys are completely and utterly addicted to winning, for example.

 

[Federberg]

Actually (trying to get in this discussion way late, having found interesting arguments in both sides), first (as always here) it is good to define exactly what is choking, as Federberg put (and others too, I guess).

From the outside, it is impossible to distinguish bad execution from choking, as choking is merely an explanation for bad execution. What we mean by bad execution here is "normal" bad execution.

Of course, in general one chokes in important moments, big points -- but as it is a psychological thing, sometimes you choke in apparently absurd moments -- precisely the moment were you understand you are in an important/winning position, which could be something like serving 30-15 at 4x4 in third set, and realizing that you are playing better and you are supposed to win.

All this to say: it is hard to tell. My point before was that del Potro made it quite hard for Federer, and the lost game at 5x4 is understandable, specially taking into account the precise Haelfix's arguments. But, as GSM put, Federer serving stats on the tie-breaker were atrocious, his whole display was terrible, while he was the better player so far in the third set. The drop in form is there.

But he could be angry that he let it slip on that previous game... it could be a lot of things. From the outside, is hard to tell. Only the guy that felt (or not) that burning stomach can tell. All in all, I personally classify it as "relative choke", but just in the TB. I'll give a pass for the drop shot (even if the drop shot is the classic move by chokers who gave up fighting on the point, on the other hand it was part of Federer strategy).

What I think is interesting to analyze as well (@El Dude, jump in!) is, if we admit Federer choked, how the hell one guy that won 20 majors, just won the last, just got to #1, chokes to close out a (relatively speaking) smaller tournament that he won tons of times? It would tell a lot about the player -- that those guys are completely and utterly addicted to winning, for example.

your point about relative choking could easily be explained by a loss of focus. This is an important distinction from choking in my view because to my mind choking is based on fear. If you lose because you've lost your temper is that a choke? Or a lack of focus. I simply cannot believe that there fear was part of the equation in this case. It's far more credible that in that moment he was seething about having messed 2 match points. I repeat it's very easy to attribute some Federer losses to choking because he's a front foot player. This is why one has to be particularly careful in throwing that accusation around

 

[mrzz]

^good point. So Federer is head case

 

[Federberg]

We’re all head cases mate

 

[mrzz]

You should see me playing!!!!!

 

[El Dude]

From Merriam-Webster : to lose one's composure and fail to perform effectively in a critical situation | He had a chance to win the game but he choked.

We can vary that in our own way, but regardless there's always going to be interpretation involved. A critical situation is involved, and a player doesn't perform effectively, whatever that means.

I think part of the problem with Roger is that "perform effectively" generally means perform at close to his best level, which is so damn high that any time he doesn't perform close to his best could be described as choking.

Now the disagreement seems to be whether A) Roger choked or B) Del Potro outplayed him.

I say, why isn that either/or? Why not both?

I think everyone would agree that Roger wasn't playing great over the weekend and Del Potro was. Everyone would also agree that Roger is a greater player than Delpo, so in most cases will win.

Losing a service game at match point when up 40-15 is pretty much the definition of choking. At the same time, Delpo also did remarkably well by forcing a tiebreak and playing in the clutch, so in essence out-played Roger.

So again, both.

 

[Horsa]

We’re all head cases mate

I'm very sorry for interrupting but I just had to say, "Yeah, right. Thanks for that. I really appreciate that. I admit to being a special type of crazy which I've been all my life that's equine-crazy & I don't want the cure for it. Thank you very much.".

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I think part of the problem with Roger is that "perform effectively" generally means perform at close to his best level, which is so damn high that any time he doesn't perform close to his best could be described as choking.

What nonsense? To perform effectively usually Federer does not have to be close to his best level. How many times has he won matches with his D game and C game?