In the spirit of experiencing new things, here’s another one for the books: my clock tells me it’s 8:10 in the morning and I’m here, writing this in one of the plush couches of Starbucks Banawe.  I’ve hung out in coffee places before, but never alone, never with a laptop and never this early in the morning.

Anyway.  In light of the Australian open final that shall be held later on tonight, I figured I might as well post something tennis-related. 

I like watching tennis matches.  I enjoy them, even though I’d probably be in some sort of injury should I even attempt to play it myself.  I first became interested in watching said sport when I was ten or nine-ish when my father stopped his incessant channel surfing to follow an Agassi five-setter match.  I forget whom he was up against but I do remember finding out for the first time that my father was a huge Andre Agassi fan. 

My love for the sport after that came in bursts; it was never a regular thing.  There was just nobody interesting for my mind enough to latch onto.  I mean at the time Pete Sampras was quickly ascending to the top and there was nobody in sight to challenge him.  I’ve always been a fan of underdogs, and no one at the time stepped up to challenge the great Pete. 

Then a couple of years ago this Spaniard in a muscle shirt and white capris pants entered the circuit and my interest for the sport was piqued again.  And then the whole Nadal-Federer rivalry thing exploded and I watched, mouth hanging open and loving every minute of it. 

Despite what some people might think, tennis is a sport of the mind.  It’s basically a test of the wills, to see who has the greater focus.  Sure, there are a lot of great tennis players out there, but there are few who can stand the heat of tennis finals or even semi-finals, for that matter.  Many of them break under the pressure, getting their serves fucked up and having way too many unforced errors.  So really, it’s not all about having a bigger stick than the other guy.

I guess that’s where the experience comes into play.  Players like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have been on tour for how many years now so there are few players who can intimidate them.  If anything, they’re the intimidators on tour.  Novak Djokovic, sitting in the world’s number three slot, is one hell of a tennis player and is of the same age as Nadal, but his still falters under stress during the crucial moments.  I have no doubt that he wants it as much as any other player out there, but obviously he’s still not ready for the big guns. 

It really isn’t that big of a surprise that they’re (Federer and Nada) dominating the plays.  At least it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise.  These two players are probably the greatest tennis players in the history of the sport so everybody should just stop whining and enjoy the fucking ride already.  

Ahem.  Who knows what’ll happen this year?  For the first time in a very long time Roger Federer is not on the number one slot.  Maybe with all that pressure lifted off of his shoulders he’ll be able to cream Rafael Nadal like he creams everybody else on tour.  Maybe now that Rafael Nadal’s on everybody’s eyes as the world’s number one he’ll falter and struggle under the pressure.

 

Who knows, right?  Maybe this final won’t be as predictable as everybody thinks it will be.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to see the Nadal-Verdasco semi-final again.