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NEW YORK -- Gael Monfils knew he probably couldnt match Novak Djokovics game, so he tried to get into his brain.The result was a bizarre semifinal Grand Slam match that had most pundits and commentators up in arms and fuming, while Monfils argued that his only crime was daring to depart from convention and doing everything in his power to reverse his dismal 0-12 record against Djokovic.Even Monfils borderline outrageous tactics were insufficient to bamboozle Djokovic, who survived some anxious moments to win in 2? hours, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2.The match began predictably, and depressingly, enough for Monfils. Djokovic leaped to a 5-love lead. Then Monfils adopted a rope-a-dope suite of tactics. He stood flat-footed and seemingly disinterested to receive serve, then looped back short moon balls, daring Djokovic to attack. Sometimes he took reckless swipes at serves or foolishly charged the net at inexplicable times.Commentators, spectators, pundits all were baffled, unsure if Monfils was tanking or pursuing some silly strategy. ESPNs John McEnroe called it the Dont Try strategy. Others used words like bizarre and absurd.The odd thing? It worked. Djokovic was clearly rattled and his game ran off the rails for a while. From 0-5, Monfils bunted and slashed and rope-a-doped his way back to 3-5, 15-40, with Djokovic serving. Monfils bought himself some much-needed breathing room. The process wasnt pretty, but it was effective.The iconoclastic Frenchman later said his strategy was valuable but that critics dont want to see it because theyre too hung up on convention.Everyone is like, Play tennis like this. Do this, he said. But when the guy is too good, you change. I am not academic; I try to be better.Many witnesses to the match had trouble understanding -- or perhaps it was sympathizing -- with the way Monfils chose to play. Clubbing 52 unforced errors, as Monfils did in this match, is not a very good way to win friends and influence people. Its also undeniable that Monfils dramatic shift of tactics turned a potentially ghastly blowout into a strange, sharp-edged and fairly competitive match.Monfils was similarly slapdash in the second set, by the end of which the crowd was getting restless and demanding better tennis. Spectators periodically booed Monfils. When he fell behind 0-30 in the first game of the third set, someone cried out, Play tennis! When he lost the next score to make it 15-40, Monfils was roundly booed.Given that a large number of spectators were listening to McEnroe and his fellow commentators on earpieces, theres a good chance they were egged on by the dismay of the experts.If at the end I had the mic, I would say to the audience, Stop saying that Im unprofessional, Monfils said. The guy is killing me, you know. Im just embracing the fact the guy is too good for me and trying to switch strategy.Monfils did begin playing a more familiar brand of tennis soon after that early break and a Djokovic hold. Monfils won four games in a row with the kind of electric shot-making that makes him such a popular figure. He won the set, but his own analysis was confirmed. Djokovic was just too good for him if the both played straight up, conventional tennis.I could have expected it in a way, Djokovic said of the odd match, without a trace of anger. I was caught off guard. But thats Gael. He loves defense, impossible shots, long rallies.Shortly after the match, McEnroe summed up his disappointment in Monfils performance. He predicted that the players in the locker room would have nothing but contempt for it. He called it the ultimate backdoor effort.Monfils offered a responseIm very sad to learn that such a legend criticize me, Monfils said, because at the end, what I can say to John is, You know, John, I want to be the best. Its tough, you know. And I try my best.Monfils might have added that when the front door is always locked, theres no choice but to try going around the back. Air Max 97 Canada . Third-seeded Murray had the easiest path to victory on New Years Eve, barely breaking a sweat during his 6-0, 6-0 win over 2,129th-ranked Qatari wildcard recipient Mousa Shanan Zayed. Cheap Air Max 97 Sale . -- Canadian Andrew Wiggins got the ball on the wing, made a nifty spin move and then let go with a soft floater from about 10 feet that swished through the net in Allen Fieldhouse. http://www.airmax97cheapcanada.com/ . Once again Jordan Cieciwa (@FitCityJordan) and I (@LynchOnSports) go head to head in our picks. Last weekend at UFC Fight Night 32 my #TeamLynch got the best of #TeamJC by a score of 9-6. Let us know which side youre on for UFC 167 use the hashtag #TeamLynch or #TeamJC on Twitter. Wholesale Air Max 97 Canada . The Olympic champion curler and TSN curling analyst immediately went online to look at the Halls long list of honoured members. Thats when the enormity of the honour sunk in. Cheap Air Max 97 Wholesale . -- PGA TOUR Canada member Steve Saunders took a three-stroke lead Saturday in the Web. Twenty years ago Tuesday, the film Jerry Maguire landed in theaters. The story of a sports agent who was reduced from 72 clients to one after his revelation to be more honest and serve fewer clients was rejected by the big management company he helped found, was an instant hit.It had all the elements of a perfect Hollywood plot. A flawed lead (Jerry); a competitor (agent Bob Sugar); someone to fight over (a full Rolodex of athletes including future No. 1 draft pick Frank Cush Cushman) and a love interest (Dorothy Boyd).Factoring box office receipts into todays dollars, it was the second-highest grossing sports movie of all time, only behind the original Rocky, which came out 20 years before (1976). Just as impressive, Jerry Maguire earned 43 percent of its box office revenue outside the United States which is unheard of for a movie about American football.And six months after the movie was released, its broadcast rights had been bought by Fox and the initial video release sold nearly 10 million copies.Despite the fact that the film shows so many unflattering parts of the sports agent business (Jerry calls it an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege), the film touched a nerve with high school and college students, including me. I was in my freshman year at Northwestern University. If we werent going to make it as pro athletes, we all wanted to be sports agents.Jerry Maguire opened our eyes to the game behind the game like we had never seen it before. Many of us loved every bit about it.I had gone to law school to become a sports agent and I came out in 1996, David Canter, a veteran agent who represents Baltimore Ravens safety Eric Weddle and New York Giants defensive end Olivier Vernon, among others, said. The amount of people who wanted to be sports agents after the movie was insane, so many had fallen in love with the celebrity of it all.Over the next five years, the full impact of what the movie inspired became clear. Five years before the movie, there were roughly 400 registered NFL agents. Five years after? More than 1,000 and that was even as the NFL Players Association more than doubled the fee to certify and agent.Sure, businesses mature and more people were going to come into the business because players were getting paid more money. But the reality is Jerry Maguire completely screwed up the sports agent industry by providing an avenue paved with fools gold.It led to the first generation of kids growing up wanting to be sports agents, which led to more sports management programs.In the early 1990s, there were few sports management programs, though notable ones at Ohio University, the University of Massachusetts and the University of Oregon. A decade later, there were more than 100 programs, including some programs that were starting online.Industry insiders like Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban panned the programs for the false promises they offered, including the fact that placement into the industry versus placement in other industries became virtually impossible.Sports management is new rocks for jocks, Cuban told the MIT Sports Analytics Forum in 2012, noting that he saw thousands of people with the degree applying for the same jobs, which came with little pay.It didnt help that, at the same time Jerry Maguire hit theaters, Arli$$, which featured Robert Wuhl as a sports agent, began its six-year run on HBO.Some of whatt happened to the agent industry would have happened without Jerry, but definitely not as fast as it did, said Peter Schaffer, who has been a sports agent since 1988 and represents Cleveland Browns offensive tackle Joe Thomas and Denver Broncos running back C.ddddddddddddJ. Anderson.The awareness provided by the film and the show led to big companies like SFX and Assante buying firms, which allowed agents to protect themselves from new blood in the business with big budgets that affected recruiting, and allowed the offering of jobs to family members and marketing guarantees. This kept the business from maturing because new, and perhaps better negotiators faced an uphill battle. Its why two out of every five certified NFL agents represents no players. As the players got more guarantees, the money actually declined. Why? Because all of the competition spawned insanely low commission fees. What used to be a four percent fee on a contract was reduced, in some cases, by half. Some agents forced fees even lower in order to score big-name athletes. That means that the money on some of the deals would have had to have been four times as much, or more, to make up for the players increasing demands for agents to take a smaller piece of their financial pie. Pretty soon, the athlete representation business didnt even make sense to the big acquirers, who eventually spit them out.The joke of this is that Jerry Maguire wasnt about a successful agent. If you pay attention, youll realize Jerry has to be broke, as his assistant and later wife, Dorothy (Renee Zellweger), revealed to Rod and his wife. In fact, Maguires new business after leaving Sports Management International actually didnt seem to make a single dime.Maguire receives a contract offer for Rod Tidwell from the Arizona Cardinals, a three-year deal worth $1.4 million (1997 base salary: $350,000, 1998 base salary: $450,000, 1999 base salary: $600,000), but he rejects it and lets Tidwell play out the final year of his contract so that he can become a free agent.In order to make some cash to keep the business afloat, Maguire sets up Tidwell with a marketing deal (of which agents normally take 20 percent). But when Tidwell doesnt want to ride a camel for the local Chevrolet dealer and walks off the set, Maguire doesnt get his money.In the final minutes of the movie, Tidwell is with Roy Firestone on ESPNs Up Close when Firestone informs him that he has been given a four-year, $11.2 million deal with the Cardinals, but the film ends without us seeing Tidwell sign it.Jerry spent all this money bankrupting himself by flying around the country traveling to see Rod at games, Canter said. And then he gets this big contract at the end. So many didnt realize, if you do the math, and Jerry takes four percent on the deal Rod got, he winds up with a gross of $84,000 a year. Think about that.When the movie opened, CNN aired a piece on the film and discussed its possible effect on the industry.The movie will focus more attention on sports agents, correspondent Sean Callebs said. But some wonder whether thats a good thing.It wasnt a good thing. The funny thing is it actually wasnt Jerry Maguires fault. He tried to warn us how difficult this business was. We just didnt listen. ' ' '