There's this sport that I've been finding increasingly interesting lately. It involves two people, a line judge, some ball boys, a furry green ball, a court complete with net and a couple of racquets.
It is called
"tennis" and I'm shocked and saddened that we don't already have a thread for it!
So let's pad this OP fucker out.
Here's a classic from John McEnroe!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekQ_Ja02gTY
Djokovic is a funny motherfucker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRiQjpqi4S4
The French Open is going on right now! I was really hoping that Federer would be able to go up against Nadal for the finals, but he just got knocked out by Robin Soderling. Now I'm rooting for Djokovic/Nadal.
So let's talk about tennis!
Posts
And Dementieva better win the FO this year and stop letting her head just completely screw up her game. Although I do like Sam Stosur's resurgence in singles since last year and her S&V game which the women's game has severely lacked since the 90's.
I think it's pretty much expected at this point that Nadal will be in the finals, but I'm still not sure if I want to see him win. Apparently he'll keep Federer from breaking the "#1 ranking for so many weeks" record if he does it.
Berdych is more of a hard court player with his forehand, but he's really trained to have the stamina that he lacked in previous slams. If Soderling plays like today he'll be in the final again (and he also has bad blood with Nadal, mainly from '07 Wimbledon)
And yeah if Nadal wins the FO he becomes #1 again since Federer lost before the semis.
What also happens is that the slams move it around a bit and go by things other than ranking like wanting "their guy" (ie someone from the country) to have a good draw. Jo Wilfried Tsonga, the highest ranked Frenchman, they wanted to have a path to the semis so he was in the lower top bracket with Andy Murray.
And at Wimbledon they have an addition to the draw match where it takes into account not only the ATP ranking but how well the player played on grass the past two years which skews things away from clay court players and to those better on grass like Roddick, Hewitt, Karlovic, etc.
It's the first sports game I've ever purchased in my life
I kinda like it, except it has the dance song from Napoleon Dynamite on the soundtrack and the crowd is all cardboard cutouts
First, since I mildly dislike Federer and like to see him lose in non-cheap ways.
Second, during some other match the announcers were going on and on about how Andy Roddick had been complaining about how the way they store the tennis balls at the French Open left them exposed to the rain.
This doesn't sound amusing, except that it was pretty much 20 minutes of unintentional "balls" double entendres. "Andy Roddick kept complaining about having to shake out the wet balls" and "Some clay court players like Nadal prefer to play with a wet, heavy ball".
Also, I used to mildly dislike Federer but he seems to have lightened up a bit recently
I wish I'd paid some attention to Soderling today. I saw clicked in just after the second set and thought it was just a lucky go and then went to exercise. Came back from lunch and it was a completely different ball game.
Ball.
I'm sure it's nothing, but the eventual slide has to start sometime in the next few years, doesn't it?
Considering how frequent the rain delays have been, there's a really good chance they'll re-show the entire Federer/Soderling match at least once.
Soderling played a great match and winning or losing was on his racquet the whole time.
Additionally, he tweaked his knee in the first set and walked awkwardly for the first hour of play, so it may even have been a 3:0 without the knock.
Federer's career is pretty much done as far as motivation is concerned. I seriously doubt he'd have had the success he did last year if not for Nadal's knees and Djokovic going walkabout, but now with the twins his mind is obviously not that much into tennis, especially outside the majors.
Here are my contributions:
"WTA - It makes sense!"
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/2968/marionorigyc8.gif (800k)
and how not to use a racquet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi-CgSO9Evw
I've always had a problem with Federer because while he is a good guy truly, and has great talent, he has an ego that while rightfully earned comes off a bit weird, where he's only gracious when he wins. And it was even before 2005 and 6 where he really became dominant.
If you ever want to see good matches, there was of course the Nadal/Federer '08 Wimbledon epic final that really was great, but also the 2005 Australian Open Semi-Final of Marat Safin vs. Federer. If you watched the match, they were crushing the ball for 4 and a half hours, it was so good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6LeILBuPik
Also there was the 2003 Davis Cup semi-final between Hewitt and Federer, where Hewitt won in 5 sets. I've always like Hewitt the most because he had speed and had this never give up attitude which he used in the match, I have never seen someone get completely inside an opponent's head like Hewitt did after being down 2 sets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQE2JE6JtlU
And finally one of the longest rallies from Federer and Hewitt in Indian Wells in 2005:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tZhQi8aDcg
And Hewitt's wife is insanely hot.
I don't know. They interviewed him after his loss to Soderling yesterday and he said something along the lines of, "I don't think I played all that bad, he just came up with some really great strategies" or something like that.
Nobody thinks higher of Roger Federer than Roger Federer.
Edit: Speaking of egos, those two would gladly fight with baseball bats(about 2.55 is the highlight, but the whole thing is worth watching)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QSK9t6OrgU
EDIT: Yep, last set, Stosur is up a game and if she takes this one it's the match
EDIT EDIT: Shit, match point
Not cool, Djokovic loses to Melzer
But yeah, I agree.
EDIT: Also, if Rafa wins, he'll have had a perfect clay court season.
Yeah, it's been because of the new guys like Tsonga, Murray, Del Potro, Verdasco, who don't have Federer or Nadal living in their heads. Before 2008 it was basically Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic, and every now and then Davydenko or Roddick would get hot somewhere in the season.
For the longest time the only people who weren't scared of Federer were Nadal and Nalbandian. Hewitt wasn't scared but he's been injured a lot and started a family and his mind has really been elsewhere (when you're game is based on speed like Hewitt or Blake or Michael Chang's was and you get injured, you're done).
And as far as Roger's ego, if anyone deserves it it's him, but when he is beat soundly like against Nadal, he has trouble accepting it, and it's not like it's a fluke, Nadal is one of the guys who has a winning record against Federer (14-7 record; Murray has a 6-5 H2H record). Like with the 2009 Aussie Open, after that great 5 setter, Roger cried and said he was the "true" #1, which was a slap in the face to Nadal who worked himself to injury to finally get to #1 after being #2 for 4 years in a row.
And when Clijsters can come back from 2 years of retirement and win a Grand Slam in only her second tournament coming back, something's really wrong.
Schiavone vs Stosur final is pretty much set up.
Edit: And never mention how men play more as an argument against the equal pay, because the "obvious" solution to the people in charge is to make them play best of 3 too. They already fucked the masters finals, they could go and fuck the Slams without blinking.
Stosur is running away with it and serving herself out of trouble, I just hope she doesn't get the yips in the final.
And while making slams go to 3 could be possible, I doubt it would happen because then you would be saying "from this point on every person who won a slam did so at only a fraction of what past players did." It would make current slams much more meaningful.
The masters series I understand why they did it (though the year end tournament should be best of 5) because players constantly skip them even though they're required and did so in order to make the tennis calendar, which is one of the toughest in sports, a bit more accommodating.
And the Masters series did it because in 2006 we got 2 amazing matches back to back in the Monaco & Rome finals which left the Hamburg tournament slightly unhappy with Rog & Rafa withdrawing, IIRC.
I'm all for the top players playing as often as possible, but giving us best of 5 memorable moments is worth way more than seeing them week after week as far as I'm concerned.
Don't think I'd ever forget the Monte carlo final, right there with wimbledon & oz.
Edit: I'm speaking only of the best of 5 finals btw, not of the whole tournament being best of 5. With the current calendar, there is no way to have so many est of 5 tournaments, I agree with that.
I remember in 2007 they made the Miami final best of 5 because CBS asked for it to be a best of 5, and you could kind of see that Djokovic and Canas only knew about it when they were walking onto the court.
You're correct of course. It's the 5 setter that I remember, so Rome for me too.
The clay slows down the ball, serve and volley isn't very effective, so it's basically a back and forth making the other player get an unforced error.
We'll have to disagree. Best surface to watch as I love extended rallies and especially best surface to play on, IMO. I don't see it as an endurance contest and certainly not one lacking winners!
Henman and Llodra both showed that there is a way to play serve & volley on clay, but certainly not to win consistently as it's too physically demanding. Martinez Sanchez also did very well with short rallies and going to the net in Rome. It's a bit sad that more players aren't being taught anything but the standard "stay back, hit hard". Especially on the women's tour, where having any kind of different game gives you a decent enough chance vs almost anybody.
Unless something happened after the first two hours that I missed because I did something else instead
Hopefully tomorrow it's a good match or a Nadal-2008-FO-final level of a beatdown on Soderling.
I need to take a trip to Spain or somewhere sometime and bring my racquet. I've only ever played hard courts, unfortunately.
I hate it when the ugly one wins in women's tennis. it ruins it! But seriously, aussy pride .