As Far As You Know

For the first time in 24 consecutive attempts, Roger Federer has failed to reach the semifinal round at one of the game's four major tournaments. This run should stand as one of the truly amazing records in all of sport: a testament to the consistency and determination (and health) of the Swiss player. His loss at the hands of Robin Soderling today in the French Open quarters opens up the possibility that Rafael Nadal could reclaim the #1 ranking in men's tennis this weekend should he win his fifth title on the red clay in Paris. Of course, he may well have to get by Soderling in the final to do that--something Nadal failed to do the last two times they played, including a showdown at Roland Garros twelve months ago (his only loss in the French).

With Federer's loss yesterday and Serena Williams getting edged in her semifinal showdown today in Paris, the reigning Aussie champs had any hopes of a Grand Slam (winning all four major titles in a calendar year) dashed. Hard to believe Serena actually squandered a match point in her battle with Australia's Samantha Stosur before losing 6-8 in the final set.

Yesterday AT&T announced it would no longer offer unlimited data plans for its iPhone and iPad customers. (Seemed to me like kind of a "bait and switch" to alter the iPad data plan only a month into the product's life, though those of us who already signed up for unlimited 3G data can keep this plan.)

For the iPhone, "DataPlus" will cost $15 for a maximum data download of 200 megabytes a month while "DataPro" will be $25 for a maximum download of 2 gigabytes a month.

This means I have a couple of decisions to make. I looked up the data usage on my iPhone in recent months to see where my monthly consumption pattern falls:

It's usually over 200MB per month. But what is most interesting is the drop-off in the last few weeks, a period not represented on this chart; with only four days left in the current billing cycle, I have only used 128 megabytes of data. The obvious reason for this is the arrival of my iPad. Assuming a large chunk of my data consumption has shifted to the iPad, I ought to be able to save $15 a month from by going with the "DataPlus" plan on the iPhone.

And for the time being, I think I will keep the unlimited data plan for the iPad; I'm not sure I will need it after the summer because of the ubiquity of WiFi on campus, but until I figure out how I will be deploying the iPad when I travel, I don't want to lose the unlimited data plan option, especially since I've gotten accustomed to streaming movies on Netflix on the device. Moreover, the arrival of multitasking a few months from now may see me using Pandora a lot more than I do now. I can always downgrade the data plan in the future.

#3 seed Novak Djokovic blew a lead of two sets and a break before succumbing to Austrian Jergen Meltzer in the quarters today, presumably giving Rafael Nadal an easier path to a fifth French Open final.

In the wake of the postponement of U2's North American summer tour, I received in today's post a copy of the concert film from last year's 360° Tour recorded in the Rose Bowl. This will have to tide me over since I won't be seeing the band before 2011, apparently.

This promo clip from 30 Rock is just too funny. Check it out right here.

Pretty interesting celebrity-filled mash-up of adidas and Star Wars posted here.

I guarantee you Francesca Shiavone appeared on no one's short list of Roland Garros contenders this year. She played inspired tennis in assembling an upset of top-ten-ranked Sam Stosur in today's women's final. Schiavone WON this match, playing bold, fearless tennis is the second-set tiebreak. It was heart-warming to watch this nearly 30-year-old player achieve her life's dream on the terre battue.

With the threat of heavy weather, commencement exercises at Choate this morning started fifteen minutes early, which meant I got home to change out of my academic regalia just in time to watch the final point of the Soderling/Nadal French Open final. The Spaniard exacted a measure of revenge in beating the Swede--the only man ever to beat Rafa at Roland Garros--in straight sets.

It's great for the sport to see Nadal back in Slam-winning form, with his physical health and his confidence apparently restored to pre-injury levels after a sub-par 2009.

It will be very interesting to see what happens at Wimbledon next month, as Roger Federer and Nadal will be returning to the All-England Club, each having won the title in the last match he played there.

The new ATP World Tour rankings today have Rafael Nadal back at #1 in the world. Since he missed last year's Wimbledon and much of the summer circuit, his lead in the points standing will increase with every match he wins the next few months, even if Roger Federer successfully defends his All-England Club crown.

Steve Jobs is delivering the keynote address at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference today (1 p.m. Eastern time) and is expected to announce an OS upgrade for the iPhone/iPodTouch/iPad platform as well as the new version of the iPhone expected later this summer. And perhaps there will be a surprise or two coming as well.

A relatively quiet day after the departure of the Class of 2010 from the Choate campus yesterday. I met a couple of the new grads and their families for breakfast in town this morning, had a couple of meetings in the Athletic Center, got started on my term reports, and am visiting my parents for dinner this evening. Lots of work still ahead of me this week before I head off to Europe for an eight-day tour.

Tonight I made my cameo appearance in West Side Story. It was the show's closing night and by all accounts it was the best audience of the five performances. I spent the couple hours before the curtain mentally rehearsing lines: mine wasn't a big part, but screwing up my delivery would throw off my fellow actors (virtually the whole cast was on stage when I was). I had rehearsed the part twice with script in hand--most recently at the pick-up dress rehearsal on Wednesday--and could have cheated a bit by having my lines on a clipboard prop, but I was determined to perform without a crutch. Walking to center stage for my scene, I instantly got a round of applause (undeserved, of course) which made me feel like Jackie Gleason whenever he first appeared as Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners. I managed to get through my lines without error and even got a pretty big laugh for a visual gag I threw in, so I guess it was a success.

I certainly had a lot of fun doing this show (my cameo in No, No Nanette two years ago was a much more limited one). The whole process of rehearsing and performing was very nostalgic for me, since participating in school theatrical productions was a big part of my teenage years.

Win a Slam title on red clay. Next morning, shoot a few pics at Disneyland Paris, hop on the Eurostar to London, and have a hit on grass at Queens Club. Pretty jarring transition, it seems to me. Yet Nadal will play doubles tomorrow and singles on Wednesday on the lawn.

Just watched the keynote address Steve Jobs delivered at WWDC 2010, in which he unveiled the new iOS 4 as well as the iPhone 4. For me these were the key highlights:

• multi-tasking on the iOS


• being able to group apps into folders on the iPhone and iPad


• managing multiple e-mail accounts with one "In Box" on the mobile platform


• note-taking in iBooks

As far as the new iPhone goes, it's awfully attractive. The "Retina display" looks awesome. Camera improvements are great, too. And the FaceTime video chat feature is pretty sexy, though probably would not be all that practical. By all accounts the HD video capacity and iMovie are dazzling, but it's hard to imagine one would want to edit a lot of video on the iPhone (on the iPad, maybe).

I plan to try to resist the impulse to upgrade this summer. If I can hold out until 2011 when my AT&T contract expires, effectively skipping this release, there ought to be an even better version of the iPhone heading our way next June.

For the third year, I created summer training shirts for the boys' cross country team. 2008's was gray, last year's was light blue, and this summer's is gold. (In 2011, we'll go with navy before beginning the cycle once more the following year.)

The Latin quote on the back of the shirt is from Ovid. Roughly translated it means, "Be patient and put up with it; one day this pain will pay dividends." (The sources of the quotations seem to swing between high and low culture from year to year: 2008's was from Robert Frost, while 2009's was from a Van Halen song!)

An artist likes to signs his work. And as a teacher, my work is my students. So I designed some T-shirts bearing my signature for me to distribute to the kids in my classes and on my team at the end of the term--what may become an ongoing tradition. I have started to hand these out and have been met with some bemusement, but the shirts generally have been quite well received (people like freebies and like to get things that are limited in quantity). In fact, the economic principle of scarcity was in full evidence: I've fielded literally dozens of requests from other kids for extra shirts if there are any available.

Each group's shirt has its own moniker and color scheme: red on yellow ("Sunburst") is for my Shakespeare elective; pink on blue ("Baby") is for Constitutional Law; white on green ("Rally") is for varsity boys' tennis; and the silver on black ("Genesis") was the test run of a half-dozen or so shirts I had made some weeks back.

The newly released version of Safari includes plug-in functionality, so I could add an Amazon search bar to the browser window. Nice.

After seeing Waiting For Godot in London in March, I heard about this television series Theatreland, which is essentially a documentary about the Theatre Royal Haymarket and the staging of this production of Waiting For Godot with Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, and Simon Callow. The series is a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to operate West End theater, covering everything from the front of the house staff to the technicians to the artists and audiences.

I picked up the DVD from Amazon.co.uk and am digitizing it so I can watch the episodes during my travels next week.

A year ago, I referenced the words to "Never Die Young" by James Taylor as a song I associate with the graduation of students from Choate. Here are the lyrics of "Landslide" by Stevie Nicks, which also capture how I feel about a day like today:

Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too

Bon voyage, Class of 2010! You shall be missed.

I have just finished seeing the entire canon of Shakepeare's 39 surviving plays produced on stage. Timon Of Athens--the last drama remaining on my checklist--was presented by a troupe called the Actors Shakespeare Project, and this show turned out to, perhaps surprisingly, a very compelling piece of theater, and well worth the trip up to Boston to see it.

I hasten to add I am not "finished" with the Bard in any sense. I still have a schedule of plays I intend to see all over the place this summer. And I am scheduled to take a course on Shakespeare's comedies and romances at Yale this summer. But it is nice to have a sense of closure to this challenge I set for myself two years back.

Hmmmm . . . what to do next?

Looking forward to the November release of the third volume of the Edmund Morris biography of Theodore Roosevelt. I just pre-ordered it on Amazon.com. The first two installments were excellent.

Nearly showtime for the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament in South Africa. My earliest memory of this event is watching the 1982 final at a friend's house (Italy defeated Germany--then West Germany, of course). And since the 1994 event I always seem to be traveling in Europe during the tournament and it's a much bigger deal over there. I'll be abroad again next week and expect to be swept away by "football" fever once more.

Well, not really banquets, I guess. But at the end of the school year, there is a cluster of faculty events requiring my attendance in between report writing, meetings, and other such chores. Last night was the English department party. Today there is a catered luncheon in the Alumni Center for the history department, and tomorrow night is a big shindig for all the school's faculty and staff.

Ready to head off to Kennedy Airport for nine days in Europe. The more I travel, the more I am convinced I can make do with less stuff to carry around with me. So I am limiting myself to one backpack (my trusty HEAD-issued one) to hold most of my gear as well as a small shoulder bag I can use during the day.

Here is the gist of what I expect to get me through just over a week on the road: four T-shirts, two shorts, one pair of sneakers, four pair of socks, a track suit jacket in case it gets cool, a razor, a toothbrush, a comb, vitamins, a book I intend to finish, a universal plug converter, digital camera, iPad and its USB cord, MacBook Air and its power cord, a travel pouch with my passport and travel documents and Macbeth ticket, Bose nose-canceling headphones, EarThumps, iPhone, iPod Touch, and a few magazines. That's actually traveling light--though I admit I may be overdoing it on the tech front, with no fewer than four WiFi devices in tow! Probably should be able to ditch the laptop and iPod Touch, but whatever.

When I flew to London at the end of summer school in 2009, it started disastrously. I had to rush to finish reports and other chores before leaving and left packing until the last minute. Normally not a problem, but thunderstorms shut down the electricity, which slowed me down considerably and got me off to a late start. Road and traffic conditions were abysmal in light of the weather and I ended up getting to JFK fifteen minutes before my plane was scheduled to leave. I had to pay through the nose for a later flight.

This time around, I was packed early, left campus early, enjoyed smooth sailing on the drive down, checked in and cleared security quickly, and everything is peachy!

The production of Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe was as good a presentation of "the Scottish play" as I've seen. The entire theater was done over in black, with a blood soaked backdrop, and groundlings in the yard--me included for this show--had the option of standing under a canopy extended from the stage with dozens of holes cut into it such that seemingly decapitated heads floated on a sea of black to take in the spectacle. And the show had its fair share of blood-drenched bodies and gruesome encounters, along with spooky music to add atmospheric effects. This take on Macbeth was a hellish one indeed!

. . . go to bed. My flight just landed at Leonardo da Vinci Airport and I am exhausted. Fortunately, I only had to walk to the Hilton adjacent to the terminal. In the morning I head to Florence.

Not surprisingly, a lot of chatter around London today about yesterday's draw between England and the U.S. in World Cup soccer. This result was evidently a huge disappointment on this side of the Atlantic. Just had a good-natured exchange about the match with a quartet of locals in a restaurant here at Heathrow, who were bummed about the outcome but conceded the Yanks played well.

Happy Flag Day to everyone back home!

I have arrived in Firenze, the home of the Italian Renaissance. After a bit of urban bushwhacking to find the place, I have settled into my hotel and discovered that the "free wireless Internet" advertised here is exactly an hour's worth after there are charges (!) and that the connection speed of the hotel WiFi is so slow it has me yearning for the good ol' days of dial-up!

Heading out to explore the city a bit this afternoon.

Stopped by an Internet cafe to get online at a reasonable speed after the disappointing hotel connection earlier today. I've never understood why it's so hard to type the "@" symbol on the computer keyboards in European countries; it's nowhere to be found on the keyboard! Clearly they use it for e-mail addresses too, right? I had to cut and paste it from a website.

It's also annoying that other keys, such as the apostrophe and the question mark, are in different locations than the standard American "QWERTY" design, too. This is another reason why it's far better to use one's own computer when traveling.

Great excitement about Italy's World Cup game against Paraguay here in Florence, of course. I watched it in my hotel and when Italy scored to level things at 1-1, the cheers from all directions outside the building seemed to shake the city!

Got an early start and spent much of the day hitting the museums in town. Not a bad way to spend part of a vacation: checking out works by the likes of da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Rafael, and Caravaggio.

The sculpture of David is most closely identified with the city, of course. What strikes one when first seeing it is the size of the work. I guess one assume's it will be life-sized, but it is considerably larger than that! (And I'm hardly an art critic, but the hands did seem a little too big.)

Good to know the chances of meeting up with someone connected to Choate are pretty high no matter where one goes in the world. Had an enjoyable dinner near the Duomo tonight with one of my former advisees from the Class of 2009, a runner and tennis player. He is here for six weeks studying Italian.

I took the high-speed rail from Florence back to Rome this morning, cruising through the rolling hills and expansive green landscapes of Tuscany. As soon as we pulled into Termini, I could feel the pulse of this city. There's an energy to Rome that's much more intense than a place like Florence can offer. This is a capital city, a center of politics and commerce and media. There's an almost palpable buzz one can feel in the air, not unlike what you experience when you arrive in the middle of New York City.

So nice to fly Lufthansa, the German carrier, because they actually feed you and offer you a choice of drinks without the stupid nickle-and-dime approach the U.S. airlines have adopted in recent years.

I have a connection to Budapest to catch shortly. Fortunately, it was just a few gates away from where I deplaned from my flight from Rome.

I arrived in Hungary and have settled into the Ramada Plaza, which overlooks the Danube River. Happy to report there is excellent WiFi service here! Tomorrow I explore Budapest.

Happy Bloomsday to all you members of the literary cognoscenti.

Spent most of the day exploring Budapest. The city is beautiful, with wide avenues and some striking architecture. It bestrides the Danube River and has an efficient and cheap public transportation system (I used a combination of subway trains and trams to get around). It feels a lot like Prague in some ways.

Greg Hicks is a spectacular Shakespearean actor. I saw his impressive turn as Leontes in The Winter's Tale last summer here at the RSC and this afternoon I watched him command the Courtyard Theatre as King Lear. Though a youngish Lear--whose age the text places at "fourscore and upward"--the fifty-something Hicks managed to convey an astonishing emotional range in this tragedy. Kathryn Hunter made the Fool work for me better than ever before, too. And the actors portraying Goneral, Regan, and Edgar were similarly top-notch. The nuances of the acting in this performance brought out elements of the play--the Shakespeare work I probably know better than any other--that I had never appreciated before.

That's a snippet of Wordsworth.

I am spending tonight and tomorrow night in Oxford, a short jaunt from both Heathrow (where I arrived today and will have to return my rental car first thing Sunday morning) and Stratford-upon-Avon (where I will spend most of tomorrow seeing two plays at the RSC).

Because I took a British Airways flight back to London from Budapest this afternoon, I finally got to experience Terminal 5, which opened in 2008. This terminal is everything the rest of Heathrow Airport is not: beautiful, airy, efficient.

The second half of today's RSC double feature was Antony and Cleopatra, featuring more or less the same cast as this afternoon's Lear. I was stunned to discover at the interval that it was Kathryn Hunter--whose Fool captivated me earlier in the day--who was playing Cleopatra. Her Queen of Egypt is very different from the usual portrayal of this character--the accent and almost raspy vocal shadings gave the role more of a exotic Earth Kitt-type vibe. While the diminutive actor doesn't convey sex appeal the way most actors who play this role do, there was no denying her chemistry with Darrell D'Silva's Marc Antony.

I am attending the pre-Wimbledon coaches gathering hosted by the LTA that I have been to twice before. I've also attended the USTA's version of this conference, held on the eve of the U.S. Open, many times over the years (though that conference used to be a lot bigger than its British equivalent). And I even made it to a similar such conference in Melbourne before the 1998 Australian Open. I usually pick up a few good ideas at these workshops and meet some interesting folks as well.

Seeding and draws for next week's Wimbledon tournament have been released. Though ranked #2, Roger Federer is the top seed in the men's singles event. Seeded #2 is Rafael Nadal. Both men have seven-match winning streaks at The Championships to defend! The Spaniard appears to have a tougher road to the final, though he appears fresh and confident after his successful European clay court spring. Andy Roddick is in the same half as Federer, so we won't see a rematch of the classic 2009 final. A rematch of the 2006/2007/2008 showdown might still be in the cards however!

On the women's side, the big question is: can anyone derail the Williams sisters? Venus and Serena seem to own the All-England Club.

It's the summer solstice: the longest day of the year and the official beginning of summer. No better way to spend the day than taking in The Championships at the All-England Lawn Tennis Club.

Then I fly home tonight!

On the eve of another Wimbledon, may I suggest an absolutely brilliant piece of prose: the late David Foster Wallace's "Federer As Religious Experience" essay from the New York Times in 2006. The author of Infinite Jest is able to capture--better than any writer I've seen--the magic of tennis in the hands of the world's most talented practitioners.

Picked up my credential for Wimbledon today, which means I won't have to go through the hassles of sorting out tickets tomorrow morning--which usually entails queueing for hours!

All winter long, the girls on my squash team tried to get me interested in watching this season's breakout hit TV show, Glee. I fended them off, but the last week or so I've slowly been digesting the first season of this series and it's one of those slightly addictive guilty pleasures. It's easy to work my way through a television series on the iPad while killing time in airports, on a flight or train ride, or in my hotel room before bedtime.

I finished a surprisingly good novel today: It's Superman. The book takes as its premise the hero's original appearances in the late 1930s as a champion of the oppressed without the expanded powers and complex mythology that grew around the figure in the decades that followed. The novel reworks the backstories of Lois Lane and Lex Luthor with a hefy dose of gritty realism. Tom De Haven clearly did his homework in capturing the feel of New York City and the midwest in the middle of the Great Depression. (Maybe he did a little too much research, as at times his frequent allusions to historical events and contemporary films and music as well as popular consumer products of the day was a little excessive. No need to show off so much!) An enjoyable read.

Went to see Pixar's latest, Toy Story 3, in 3D tonight here in Wallingford. Like the earlier installments in this series, the film managed to be utterly charming, funny, and heart-warming. These Pixar guys really have the magic touch.

Got a call from a Class of 2008 alum who invited me over for dinner--he's alone this week at his beach house on the Sound--and we went to catch the late showing of Get Him To The Greek, which I found only mildly amusing.

Loaded the new iOS 4 on the iPhone this morning and have already started organizing my apps into folders. Also a big fan of the unified in box for my various e-mail accounts. Haven't gotten around to multi-tasking yet, but I'm sure I'll be using Pandora a lot more now.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the imprisoned leader of the democracy movement in Burma, turns 65 today. Walk On.

Spent a glorious day at the All-England Club. Watched the men's defending champion dodge the upset bullet: by all rights Roger Federer should have lost, as he was being thoroughly outplayed by Alejandro Falla. But the Colombian couldn't pull the trigger while serving for the match in the fourth set. Once that set ended, I had to head back into London to retrieve my stuff and head to the airport. But I knew Federer would survive, and sure enough he won the final set at love.

In the wake of the World Cup excitement earlier in the day, another intriguing sports storyline developed abroad, as John Isner and Nicolas Mahut battled into the gloaming in a five-set first round men's singles match at Wimbledon. Before play was halted due to darkness at 59-all in the fifth, this final set alone was longer than the previous record for longest match played at the professional level. And it will continue tomorrow. Wow!

Caught the thrilling conclusion to the USA's final round robin game in the World Cup tournament, in which a 91st minute goal from Landon Donovan elevated the team's prospects from elimination to first place in the group. This was like watching Lance Armstrong sew up the Tour de France climbing up Alpe d'Huez or Nadal edge Federer in the Wimbledon final two years ago--a can't miss sporting event that leaves you with a lump in your throat. What a great moment!

Since its primary rival, Marvel, had an app for the iPad (and iPhone) ready to go the day the iPad became available, it was only a matter of time before DC Comics jumped into the digital download arena. That day has come, as DC released its own app this morning in order to bring Superman, Batman, and friends to tablets everywhere!

After another hour of play, picking up from where they left off at 59-all last night, John Isner managed to break Nicolas Mahut for a 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68 win! Total time on court for this one match? Eleven hours.

Boarding Amtrak right here in Wallingford this morning, just a mile from campus. The rail journey this morning will get me to Delaware, where I am delivering a presentation at a conference tomorrow. Pretty convenient to avoid even the short drive to New Haven to catch this train.

I just finished my athletics-themed presentation at the Risk Management conference sponsored by TABS (The Association of Boarding Schools), and it seemed to be well received. I'll take a 1:34 train from Wilmington and be back on the Choate campus for the opening dinner for the summer session faculty at 6:00.

I updated my travel map page with summer 2010 trips:

Since this is a pretty small map, you might want to check out the page with maps of all my treks since 1995.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is in the last weekend of its run at The Public Theater downtown. The play came highly recommended and l saw the first of two shows tonight and am happy to report it lived up to its billing. Ostensibly the story of Andrew Jackson's life and political career, it is a biting (and musical) look at populism in America.

Fourth round gets played at Wimbledon. That's ALL of the fourth round singles: 32 men and 32 women will face off and half will be heading home before the end of the day. All-star line-ups on Centre Court, Court No. 1 and even the outer courts. Some featured showdowns: Djokovic vs. Hewitt, Serena Williams vs. Sharapova, Murray vs. Querrey, Henin vs. Clijsters. Good stuff!

New students are arriving on the Choate campus as the summer session kicks into gear. I am prepping a new class for middle schoolers as well as teaching a small group in this year's Kennedy Institute In Government program.

When I spent the day at the All-England Club last Monday, I spent some time cruising around the outer courts, looking for a good match between (relative) unknowns to digest for a while. Away from the show courts, one can take in the action at court level, very close to the players, and thus appreciate the nuances of pace and spin and athleticism that get lost on television or up in the stands. I settled in at Court #11, where Argentina's Horacio Zeballos was battling Taiwan's Yen-Hsun Lu. The latter prevailed in straight sets.

Fast forward to today and Lu found the spotlight with a five-set upset of fifth seed and 2009 finalist Andy Roddick on Court #2. He advances--improbably--to the quarterfinals.

One of the two classes I am teaching this summer is a middle school history class. Working with ten 12- and 13-year-olds is a new experience for me, in that I have to shift my assignments and teaching style a bit for this different age cohort. So far they seem to be a pretty capable bunch and I'll be interested to see just what they can do as the syllabus unfolds over the next few weeks.

I was in Central Park tonight for the Public Theater's 2010 Shakespeare In The Park series. The Winter's Tale is in repertory with The Merchant Of Venice (I am scheduled to see the latter next Tuesday)

The Winter's Tale is one of my favorite plays by the Bard. It's a late play, a romance--not quite fitting into the usual breakdown of comedy, tragedy, or history. The cast was quite strong and the production generally solid. I saw two stagings of this play in England last August: the one at The Old Vic was The Bridge Project's presentation, which played around the world, and the other was the RSC's in Stratford. The Public's version tonight held up well next to those two excellent renditions.

And who wouldn't enjoy a night of al fresco drama at the Delacorte Theater, with the beautiful Turtle Pond visible behind the stage and a moonlit sky overhead on a clear summer's night?

Hard to think that Roger Federer's loss in the Wimbledon quarterfinals today doesn't constitute the end of an era. The man played in seven straight finals at The All-England Club (winning six of them). And this result follows a defeat in the same round of the French Open. The Swiss star will drop to #3 in the world for the first time since 2003. He has won only one event in 2010--admittedly a big prize, the Australian Open--and has been hit off the court on big occasions by the likes of Nadal, Del Potro, Soderling, and Berdych--the next generation, if you will. Federer has been written off before, notably in early 2009; can he bounce back once more?