The Beautiful Game (sort of)

The Australian Open is upon us once again, and for the most part, I couldn't be happier: I love tennis. I feel I've done a pretty decent job of watching most of the good matches, and having just witnessed the downright clinical thrashings of Federer, Nadal and Ferrer, I have some musings I would like to share.

1. Tennis, by nature, is a frantic, intimate, emotional game. As such, it evokes a range of feelings from viewers like me, ranging from job to downright disdain and despair. Here's what I mean:

- I love seeing Ferrer's terrier-like ball tracking finally rewarded by Murray's inevitable blotched overhead. Classic.

- I love Federer's uncanny ability to suddenly raise his serve to the exact appropriate speed and angle to ace whoever he may be playing on the big points.

-I love smooth-talking, cool chair umpires who don't take shit from the likes of Roddick, and who make overrules without a second glance.

- I love how a bigger deal isn't made out of Andy Roddick's name. I mean, come on- Rod Dick? He might as well be christened Colloquial term for penis/Colloquial term for penis. Hehe.

- I love how the crowd blatantly and unequivocally is cheering harder for Federer, despite his playing against a home favourite (and yes, total wanker) like Hewitt. 

-Yet I hate seeing Judy Murray, doubtless a pushy cow like I imagine her to be, stand up to applaud her son's shots, teeth bared and fists clenched.

- I hate how the likes of the 199 ranked Tomic appears to actually harbour belief that he may triumph over a top ten player, solely because of "home advantage".

- I hate the over use of the trite phrase "good hustle" from commentators- this isn't American Football for christ's sake.

- I hate it when players emerge on to the court, so heavily bandaged that if they showed up looking like that anywhere else, a friend might reasonably comment, "were you hit by a bus or something?"

- And I hate staying up till 1:30am, only to have my heroic efforts rendered pointless by that fucking Scot.

2.  When you watch as much tennis as I do (and granted, plenty of others see much more- Sky does a generally dismal job of putting tennis even vaguely high on their priorities), you come to know the players well, and if you're like me, to speculate about their lives. An example of this come up when the camera inevitably pans to the players' boxes- specifically, to their parents, who are often present. 

Take Federer and Murray, for example. Federer, of course, is the infinitely cooler one of the two. I see his parents, his father surely being the guy the Monopoly man was based on, and I imagine that they leave Federer alone most of the time. That even when he was Murray's age, they had better things to do than perpetually run around after Rogie. That he called them up and said, "hey, guys... fancy free tickets to the Open this year?"

Murray, on the other hand, lies at the opposite end of the cool spectrum. He is, and will always be, a mumma's boy (is that how you spell it? Looks a but ghetto to me). I look at Judy looking rough as usual in the stands and see her subconsciously re-wording the constructive criticism she will doubtless deliver to her son following the match, win or lose.

Thanks for reading.