parles vous francais. Even if it is just counting from 15 to 40 in two
easy steps. For once it looks like we have a tournament on our hands.
There are two men playing tennis in the world today, the rest are just
ball boys or serving machines. Roger Federer wins almost every
tournament he enters and is on about a million ranking points, whilst
Rafael Nadal wins almost every time he plays anyone but Roger and is
on about half a million points. The next guy's name slips my mind, but
he's on about two thousand points. It's been such a procession
recently that there was value in holding a game on a mixed surface
court, half grass, half clay. It was purely an exhibition match, and
Rafa did win it, but Roger rightfully moaned about the sun being in
his eyes the whole time.
The whole first 13 days of this years French Open is just a way to
build up to the crescendo of the `more certain than the Pope being
Catholic' Federer/Nadal final.
Roger is the current holder of the last
three grand slams, and would complete his status as one of the best
ever if he could win the one title that has so far eluded him. He's
taken a slight blip in form recently and he even lost three
tournaments in a row just to prove he is human. He went and replaced
his coach (like he really needs one), and then went on to win his next
tournament against his clay court nemesis.
Rafa is still a kid at 19, but has risen to the top extremely quickly.
Fans of the Ninja Turtles are correct in pointing out that he's
missing a `ph' in his name, but who needs to spell when you've got the
baseline patrolled like a Panzer tank? He's no slouch on the
hardcourts, but is the undisputed king of clay, recently putting
together a record string of 81 consecutive clay wins in just under two
years. That all came to a slow slide in Hamburg when Roger woke up on
the right side of bed (in the second set). Rafa coasted through the
first with ease and it was looking very much like the stock match
we're used to. One break point taken and Roger reeled in ten of the
last eleven games, winning the final set six zip.
It's now setup for Roland Garros starting this week-end, with the
latest result causing a stir at the bookies. Of course my money's on
Federer, not because of his legacy, ability to adapt to clay,
sportsmanship or the fact that he's the consummate professional. He's
actually a Saffer, as his mom is from Joburg, so we might as treat him
as one our own. You have to look a long way further for the next best
boytjie on the tour. Wesley Moodie is 118 on the list and doesn't
really show signs of improving either.
I never thought I could say it, but we are actually missing Wayne
Ferreira! Forget his unfortunate complexion of an orange, he was just
so good at self-destructing in the major games. He'd be in the lead
with the hooter about to go and he'd just Francois Steyn it to Habana
and usher him under the poles. Never fulfilled his promise that
kid...pity. The other one we really do miss is of course little Amanda
Coetzer, she was a real Vrystaat hottie from Hoopstad, would run the
ends of the court stukkend and never ever had that ugly scowl of the
more followed (but less hot) Anna K. Are there any pretenders for us
to follow?I doubt it, SA Tennis looks like a real mess. New balls
please!
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