Categories: sport
Date: 25 January 2008 00:40:15
I went away from following the tennis for a while: I kind of lost interest. I remember, in the late 80s and early 90s, getting up early each morning and staying up late to watch the likes of Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilander, Michael Stitch, Boris "Boom Boom" Becker and Australia's Pat Cash in the men's tournaments, and Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova and Gabriela Sabatini -- among others -- in the women's. With Pete Sampras reigning high for so long, and with, in my opinion, tennis becoming a bit duller [perhaps because I watched it for so long], I lost interest. I had also played for a few years in Saturday competitions during my late primary and early high school years: I may've just had enough. No huge successes -- no players were in danger of me threatening them! -- and I was fairly low in the competition ladders: but it was good fun and I remember those Saturdays fondly.
I kept up-to-date with some players of recent times. I watched Tommy Haas and Marat Safin come on to the scene, and you cannot help but like and admire the amazing Roger Federer: he may be practically unbeatable, but he is amazing to watch and seems like a great and principled person.
I've been tuning in to the Australian Open semi-regularly. With no offense to the fairer sex, I still have trouble with all the grunting and squealing that often accompanies women's matches, so I rarely tune in [perhaps I should watch with the sound down?] There have been some very interesting players: the spectacled Janko Tipsarevic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who seemingly came out of nowhere to move closer and closer to the finals, and then gained his place in the finals, beating Raphael Nadal last night. I was watching the match on the big screen while we were at trivia [the less said about that the better: 2008 is not looking like a good year for us!], and often missed a question as I was so focussed on the match. A fellow sitting behind me was also going for Tsonga: we chatted a bit and got ever-louder in our cheers as the end of the match drew near.