DanC_84
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Everything posted by DanC_84
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Nah you can be a fan of both. Nadal is probably my second favourite player now, given that Hewitt is not really a factor anymore and Gasquet is going to be off for an extended period of time due to injury/drug ban. Federer is definately the more naturally talented. Nadal is a great player don't get me wrong, but I think he would have been killed by a prime Federer on everything other than clay. Go back five years when Federer was motivated and trained exceptionally hard and had a coach etc etc and the man was the closest thing to invincible you will ever see on a tennis court. He doesn't have the focus anymore. He doesn't train as hard, he isn't in as good a shape as he was. Take last night. He was shanking forehands all over the place. A prime Federer barely missed a forehand in 5 sets. I think he made 15 unforced errors off his forehand in two sets, that would never have happened when he was at his best. I would hate to see a prime version of Federer play his current self, it would be a humiliation. The current version would do well to get to a breaker in any set.
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Haha. I am more than accustomed to the Federer hate. My 21 year old brother absolutely despises the man. I would like to see Federer win Roland Garros. He is far from the player he used to be but I think the he is without a doubt the best tennis player I have ever seen and I would like for him to be able to retire having won all four majors and holding the record for major wins. I don't know about him being handed the title though. Based on his form over the first week I would have a hard time picking him to win it. There are several guys in the draw playing a lot better clay court tennis than Roger at the moment, he really needs to lift his game if he is to win it.
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Haha, yeah, I was in Borders on the weekend and it seemed that she had written every second book in the store.
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'Plain Truth' by Jodi Picoult - 9/10.
This was the first Jodi Picoult book I have ever read and I will certainly be adding some more of hers to my wishlist. I really enjoyed this book. The style of writing really drew me in immediately. I loved the portrayal of Amish life which I had only a very, very basic idea about prior to reading the book and I loved the way the main character narrated every second chapter.
I thought all of the central characters were really well developed and there were basically no low periods in the book at all. The author did a great job of creating a melting pot of emotions surrounding the young Amish girl. I was up until 1 am finishing it last night, and I am paying the price for it now, but it was definately worth it. I just couldn't sleep with only 100 pages left.
Thanks very much to Beth for the recommendation! I would never have read this book without it.
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Thanks a lot for the recommendation Beth. I just checked out the synopsis of the first Luxe book on Amazon and it definately sounds like one I might like. I have added it to the list.
I loved Plain Truth, here is what I posted in my books thread:
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'Plain Truth' by Jodi Picoult - 9/10. This was the first Jodi Picoult book I have ever read and I will certainly be adding some more of hers to my wishlist. I really enjoyed this book. The style of writing really drew me in immediately. I loved the portrayal of Amish life which I had only a very, very basic idea about prior to reading the book and I loved the way the main character narrated every second chapter. I thought all of the central characters were really well developed and there were basically no low periods in the book at all. The author did a great job of creating a melting pot of emotions surrounding the young Amish girl. I was up until 1 am finishing it last night, and I am paying the price for it now, but it was definately worth it. I just couldn't sleep with only 100 pages left. Thanks very much to Beth for the recommendation! I would never have read this book without it. I haven't decided what to read next, I will need to go through my pile tonight. Unfortunately several of the books that I really want to read at the moment are still in transit from Amazon, so I will just have to make do with another in the meantime.
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He nearly got beaten last night. Haas was all over him the first two sets and Federer was playing horribly, shanking forehands all over the place and even serving pretty poorly, which is rare for him. Still he managed to pull it out in the end and only dropped 6 games in the third, fourth and fifth sets. In the other matches Gael Monfils had way too much for Roddick whilst Del Potro beat Tsonga and Robredo beat Kohlschrieber, both four set matches. Federer will need to play better to beat Monfils in the quarters. There are two quarters tonight - Murray v Gonzalez is probably the best.
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Yeah, Del Potro is playing great tennis. It is so open now, its mental. Everyone was just assuming Rafa was going to win it again and now it is totally open. Crazy.
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Incredible results at the French last night. Rafa received a lesson from Soderling. It was a pretty incredible match. I went to bed after the third but it was pretty clear Rafa was going to get beaten. He just wasn't hitting through the ball as well as usual and Soderling was doing a great job of standing up in the court and really taking it to Nadal. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if Rafa had a very quiet second half of the year. He has been off the pace a little the last month or so and I don't expect him to do very well at Wimbeldon or the US. Verdasco got thrashed by Davydenko as well. I did not predict that. Fernando has been playing great tennis lately and Davydenko is still on the way back from a very lengthy injury layoff. It was a very easy win though, 2, 2 and 4 or something like that. Murray and Gonzalez both had easy straight set wins and will play each other in the quarters tomorrow night. That should be a great match. It is going to be really interesting to see who will win it from here. If I had to pick right now it would probably be Gonzalez. I have seen him play a few matches this week and he has been brutal. Still, it is wide open for sure now. Roger will probably never get a better chance than this to do the career Slam.
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Haha, I would be bitter as well if I was you. Ferrer just isn't the player he used to be. I don't know what happened to him but he lost something and hasn't been able to get it back.
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Haha yeah, there is no way Nine will show that. I am going for Lleyt but Rafa will kill him. I could never go against Hewitt.
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Federer got a bit of a scare last night. Acasuso was hitting the ball tremendously for a good set and a half and should have won the third, but Federer came back from 5-1 down to win it in a tie-breaker and then take the fourth 6-2. Safin played what will almost definately be his last match at the French.
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Starace was playing at a very high level there about an hour. It was always pretty unlikely that he was going to be able to sustain that. Still, Andy looks average on the clay. He doesn't get the pace of it he likes to work with and his movement is nowhere near as good as it is on the other surfaces.
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Just finished 'A Great and Terrible Beauty'. I didn't think much of it. I never really developed much of a connection with any of the characters and I thought the plot was kind of average. I found a lot of what happened in the second half of the novel to be fairly obvious also. About to start 'Plain Truth' by Jodi Picoult which is a Beth recommendation.
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Murray just won. He did look in trouble there for a while but he managed to turn it around.
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Hiya Beth,
Hope all is well. Just thought I'd let you know that I finished 'A Great and Terrible Beauty'. I wasn't terribly impressed to be honest. The characters didn't really make any real impression on me and I thought the story was so-so. It could also be that I am just coming of reading Jennifer Donnelly's 'The Tea Rose' and 'The Winter Rose' which are also set in late 19th/early 20th century Britain and this book just failed to meet the standard those books set, I'm not sure.
I am about to start 'Plain Truth'. Thanks again for the recommendation!
Dan.
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I can kind of see where you are coming from. I read this book with extremely high expectations after the reviews I had read. Whilst I still enjoyed it, the book definately fell short of my expectations.
