i never get tired of this magnificent post
What's strange is that I was just Googling Djokovic's retirement history to see if he had finally achieved the esteemed Career Retirement Slam and it brought me to this thread. I opened it, noting that it was from 2011, then started scrolling through and realized that I had posted in it back in the day. I was rather harsh with Veroniquem, wasn't I? Not that she didn't totally deserve it, of course, but maybe I had run out of wine or Rogi had a particularly poor day with his winner-to-error ratio, because I seemed a bit aggrieved. Or perhaps I just need to retire to my pillow-top mattress to dream GOAT dreams.
Speaking of retirements, I found out that sadly Djokovic today had not achieved the coveted Career Retirement Slam despite having long suffered the indignity of "Bird flu, anthrax, SARS, common cough and cold," as Andy Roddick has pointed out. But, as a positive, Djokovic — who, interestingly enough, retired from the match at a set and two games down just like the widely disparaged Klizan did to open Nole's tournament — has a great chance to achieve that distinction this year at the U.S. Open.
Rumor has it that Pepe has actually been coaching Djokovic toward that goal since last year's U.S. open when the Serb foolishly decided to complete his defeat against Stan Wawrinka. He could have pulled the rip-cord in set 4 as even TTW knew where that was headed, but he lacked the foresight. He can correct that in August. Let's face it — it's the only notable thing he can do in a grand slam this year.
One also has to point out that if Djokovic doesn't act, Rafa could jump in and take the initiative for himself, getting a U.S. Open retirement to go with his Aussie Open, a hard-court double. After all of the hot-plane calamities, banana imbroglios, low-door indiscretions, bread-knife misfortune, misaligned water-bottle tribulations and dangerous dalliances with chairs, it must be said that Nadal has under-achieved on the retirement front. He could be at 18 slam retirements with such an estimable enumeration of woe. The head-to-head with Federer here is, as you'd expect, unassailable, but he has some ground to make up with Novak. I think this summer hard-court season the time is ripe for Rafa (banana pun intended). Surely Veroniquem and I can agree on that.