Pay Some Respect, Damn It!

Yellow Ball: Men's Final last night was excellent. Bag-that-ass played genuinely excellent tennis (without freaky luck) and still took a set off Federer, so it was good to watch.

Even better was the absolutely clinical demolition in the 3rd and 4th sets. Fed showed him up for the also-ran he is.

DISCLAIMER: I'm still dirty that Bag-that-ass knocked A-Rod out and lost me my 10 bucks. However...

This f**king bandwagon-jumping drove me insane! I should expect it from our meeja, given that there were no Aussies left, and the Melbourne Greek community will dry hump anyone successful who has one eyebrow, but how about recognising the fact that we are truly blessed to be able to watch a supreme athlete like Federer run around the court.

Tiger Woods has played down here about as many times as I've got par (and not even Greg Norman plays here anymore). We'll never see a top 1% soccer player kick a ball in anger here. We had the best athletes turn up here once in 1954 and once in 2000, but we won't see 'em for a while.

So, when we see him, we spend the whole time saying how he's not at his best, and how he might slip up here etc etc.

Let's play hypotheticals. Federer wins, and everyone says they expected that, but what a performance from Bag-that-ass to get this far! Federer loses, and all of a sudden there is a new world champion.

No wonder the poor bastard couldn't help but cry after winning. He goes on to explain here that

"Being such a huge favourite had put so much pressure on me. And if I had lost it would have been the biggest upset since I don't know when. I can't remember when I had last been that nervous going into a match. And waiting all day for the night session, that was even more nerve-racking on top of it."

He's by far the best racquet-swinger running around at the moment. He's not a complete lunatic on the court (I'm looking at you Little). He's gracious in victory AND defeat (on the odd occasion that occurs). He gives so much more to the media than any others (read here).

How about next year we give him some more credit, eh?