Last night before going to sleep, I put that Madrid Master Series in my blackberry. 10am I would be watching this tennis match no matter what. Novak Djokovic (Nole) is unofficially the number #2 clay court player in the world at this moment and Nadal is probably the greatest clay court player ever. Little did I know, I would be getting ready to watch one of the best Master Series matches ever.
This match has been on the tennis channel for more than 4 hours now. Nole and Rafa are in an epic battle. The 3rd set tie break just started! I have not been this nervous in a long time particularly something that I am not a part of. Why am I nervous? Maybe because it is riveting television? Maybe because I am secretly rooting for Nole? Maybe because I love tennis and don’t want it to end? Maybe, because I am soft?! I have no clue. I don’t have a dog in the fight. In fact, while they both have their awesome aspects, they both have their shortcomings.
Nole is battling hard right now. His backhand is on point and he is serving well, but Nadal is the best counter puncher on the tour right now which is evident by him saving two matchpoints so far in this final tiebreak. OMG. This is getting just down right ridiculous. Nadal just won a point that he definitively should have lost...and it was for the win for Nole. Similar to what my homeboy Chris Rock said, I am not saying that I would kill Rafa, but I understand. It’s like doing absolutely everything perfectly in an athletic event and it, nonetheless, goes arry. Think about shooting a basketball perfectly at the end of a 4 hour game or kicking a soccerball perfectly into an empty net and then the world shifts and it goes all wrong…and it is for the championship? What else can you do? This is how depression forms. No seriously it is. An external locus of control is bad business.
Nadal just won 11-9 in the 3rd set tiebreak in front of a Davis Cup like raucous crowd. Nole should be commended for his play today. He fought hard and under normal circumstances would have and should have won the match, but he was playing a brickwall named Rafa IN SPAIN…IN SPAIN! So, that’s that. I am elated, adrenaline is flowing, I am gitty and antsy. Now, I can look forward to the next match of FedEx and Del Portro. I’ll go run a quick 3 miles before the next match to relieve some of this built up tension.
Tennis has officially gotten into my top 2 sports. Indeed, I should have realized that tennis was one of my loves or favorite sports when I became teary-eyed on a ridiculously early January morning after a gut-wrenchingly tough defeat for Roger Federer in the Australian Open…and it only got worse when FedEx realized the magnitude of this loss and became more and more saddened by his collapse and historical loss. The sadness was palbable in Australia as well as in my room.
It is official sporty nation, tennis and basketball are my favorite two sports and it ain’t that close. Be on the lookout for some frequent French Open blog posts.This is my minority report.
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