Nope… Time for some Superbowl!!!
Oh yeah Nadal is on his way to oust Federer this year with a 5 set win.
Australian Open Ball Boy Incident
Does anyone really care about the Australian Open? I have the tennis channel, it’s on during the day but I don’t actually watch much of it so it kinda defeats the purpose. There’s only so much tthh-pock! … bounce tthh-pock! … bounce tthh-pock! … bounce I can actually listen to before I need to flip back to the Reggae channel. . Our English speaking castaways down under have a hot tournament but I don’t think many American’s care that much.
Getting insane on the court
When younger, I had a huge temper when I played sports. Frustration got the better of me and quite often took me out of a match in individual based sports like golf, bowling and tennis. Not so much in baseball or basketball as I subscribed heavily to the team player focus; you know, I was only a fraction of the problem if we were to loose a game and rarely found a reason to blame myself for any loss.
In HS we were fortunate to have a tennis sponsor. A local tennis shop, if I recall, aptly named The Tennis Shop, was owned by the parents of our supper-star player Ryan Johnson. We loitered their frequently during the season like after school kids at a 7-11 drinking sports drinks, picking up free racket strings, neon tennis balls, wrist bands of all colors. Rackets themselves were heavily discounted and The Shop had a great “check-out” program where we could use new rackets for trial any time we wanted (for as long as we wanted). Like a tennis star I carried 3-4 rackets all strung at different tensions for different types of play (and courts should I just happen to stumble on to a grass or clay court).
When a match would sour, I had a nasty habit of chucking my racket either at the back fence or into the net. I’ve missed the net on several occasions and had to deal with an irritated opponent thinking I was gunning for him when my toss rose above the tape. In one inter-high school match I blew an easy cross shot and smashed my racket in frustration to the ground shattering the head in three pieces. $100s worth of damage, but at least I had 4 others to fall back on.
Mikhail Youzhny however, takes his anger up a notch, beating his racket to the dome repeatedly and drawing a gash of blood and look of lunacy for his tantrum. This act forced the match to be held up while he was stitched – I’m sure the blood spilled on the court encouraged the battle – he went on to win the match in 3 tough sets: