MELBOURNE—Talk about an epic. Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray started their match around 7:45 P.M. Friday night; I filed my post on it this morning at 4:25 A.M. I wondered if I was just a slow writer, until I saw a Tweet from the Herald-Tribune’s Chris Clarey. He was finishing up himself and preparing to meet the dawn as he walked back to his hotel. This may or may not be the Happy Slam, but it’s definitely a no sleep Slam.
It shouldn’t go as late on Saturday, when the women play their final, though you never know in a tournament without final-set tiebreakers. Who do you think will win? It’s a good match-up, storywise—young player coming into her own vs. a former champ who has labored hard to find her old form. I’m going to take Azarenka, even though it’s her Slam-final debut. She’s held impressively steady so far.
Before I get to the tennis sections of the local papers, there were two other sports stories in today's weekend Australian that, for whatever reason, I found moving. One was about the Indian cricket batsman Sachin Tendulkar, a legendary figure from what I can tell, who failed to get his 100th 100 in a test match against Australia yesterday. There’s a photo of a joyous Aussie team celebrating around the wounded figure of Tendulkar, with this quote from Australian bowler Nathan Lyon below: “It’s been a privilege to get him out.”
On the next page, The Australian brings us a column all the way from the London Times, by our old friend Simon Barnes. The Great Ponytail laments the words of British government official Jeremy Hunt, who recently referred to this summer’s Olympic Games as a “great business opportunity.” This sets the sentimental Barnes off to find 50 reasons, mostly sporting moments from the last 50 years, why his country still has a soul and can’t be reduced to a brand. What sounds like a baby boom nostalgia trip—No. 46 is, “The Beatles: still the best, forever the best”—ends up being, as I said, moving in its sincerity and peculiarity. Barnes’ No. 4 British sporting moment is, “Virginia Wade winning the women’s singles at Wimbledon in Silver Jubilee year (1977) to a soundtrack by the Sex Pistols: a glorious British contradiction.” Sports as part of the texture of life—well done.
Links: *The Australian*; *The Age*
How About "No. 1-less Slammers"?
Elsewhere in The Australian, Patrick Smith mounts an intriguing, counterintuitive defense for Caroline Wozniacki. He wonders why we need the No. 1 player to have won a Slam, when we don’t automatically make each Slam winner the No. 1 player in the world for that week. It’s apples and oranges, to Smith. To have any meaning, the ranking can’t just be the measure of any one, or even four, tournaments, but performance over a significant period of time.
About that Decline . . .
From the Fickle Media department: On Thursday he was on the way back up; Friday he was all but out of the game; now, on Saturday, Roger Federer has “more Slams in his sights.”
Or, at the Age puts it, “Unperturbed by Rafael Nadal’s apparent mental hold over him, a defiant Federer has vowed to return for many more cracks at the Australian Open.”
The paper quotes Federer’s line about Nadal playing “a bit better against me than against other players.”
Nadal was informed of Federer’s assessment in his own press conference. He agreed that he has “played some good matches” against his rival, but what was important was that he was “ready to play” those particular matches.
Locker Room Talk
The Bryan Brothers, on the eve of potentially breaking the men’s doubles Grand Slam record, return to the Age with a behind the scenes column on some of the top singles guys.
Rafa: “His personality has really blossomed over the years,” the Bros write. “He used to be pretty shy, but now it kind of feels like he’s a leader on the tour. He’s a bit more relaxed and voicing his opinions. You don’t see any of that in the locker room, though. He’s probably the most intense guy in there. He usually has his headphones on; he’s got his routine down.”
Janko Tipsarevic: “He’s one of the good guys. He’s really smart, down to earth, and just a cool guy. He has a really good perspective.”
Rafa Answers the Questions
Nadal has been taking a couple of fan queries each day for the past two weeks in the Age. There must have been a backlog, though, because he goes all out with seven Q and A's today. Two of them are worth repeating
Miri asks: How many Australian Open towels do you have now? [The players reportedly steal something like 10,000 of them here each year]
Rafa: “I haven’t counted them, and I give them away to my team. But around 10? Don’t tell the tournament though."
Juliette asks: "Hi Rafa, do you have a favorite poem or poet? I remember when you read part of a famous poem at Wimbledon . . . "
Rafa: "They made me read that poem that you find at the entrance of Centre Court [Rudyard Kipling’s “If–“]. It was nice, although tough for me to understand the words.”
Federer, Nadal . . . and Colaci?
That’s Dylan Colaci, a 14-year-old who ball-boyed the Nadal-Federer semifinal here. He's the YouTube story of the millisecond, for the catch shown below. Colaci has been interviewed by all of the papers here, but to be honest, I'm not totally sure what the fuss is all about: