Tennis fan and still stuck at the office? USOpen.org is streaming the men's final (Federer vs. Murray) live. Right now. Go!
I am powerless against YouTube videos with names like Federer Madness. The video's so crappy that I can't even see the ball most of the time and yet I cannot stop watching. From there, it's federer legendary 10 top shots, Rafael Nadal neat ball trick, and Michael Chang's underhand serve at the 1989 French Open. Send help and Gatorade!
Weekend sports wrap
1. The Federer/Nadal final at Wimbledon was epic. I was tense for the entire duration of the final three sets, which lasted about 2.5 to 3 hours. After years of sportswriters declaring that Roger Federer is the best player of all time, we might be faced with the possibility that he's not even the best player of his generation. Two data points: 1) Nadal has shown that he can win on any surface, including Federer's specialty, and 2) Nadal's head-to-head record against Federer is 10-5 (although many of those wins came on clay). The match also clearly reveals the idiocy of this lame Bill Simmons article about how tennis needs to change.
2. Joey Chestnut successfully defended his title this weekend at the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, eating 59 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. He needed a 5-dog overtime to hold off long-time champ Takeru Kobayashi, who has lost to Chestnut the last two years. Chestnut weighs 230 pounds while Kobayashi is only 160 pounds.
3. The US Olympic swimming trials are over and Michael Phelps qualified in 5 individual events and will likely participate in three relays as well, giving him a chance to break Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals won in a single Olympics. Overshadowing Phelps' achievements was "41-year-old mom" (that's how they kept describing her on TV) Dara Torres, who qualified in both the 100-meter freestyle and the 50-meter freestyle.
Update: Ok, Nadal can't consistently win on hardcourt. But he's 22...give him time. (thx, everyone)
I love the idea of conservation of concentration conveyed in this piece about Roger Federer, that we've got only so much intense focus to go around and successful athletes like Federer are really good at saving it up for the big moments.
A couple of times during press conferences, I noticed something kind of interesting about Roger Federer. I'll get to it in a minute, but let me describe the scene first. Players enter Interview Room One, where all of the Rajah's pressers take place, at the corner diagonally opposite from where the players enter. The players come in and turn right, to take their seat behind the microphone on the little dais or stage. Most players look to their left as they enter, just gauging the room and who is in it and how full it is. Federer, though, always keeps his head down and eyes averted, until he sits and begins to answer questions, when he makes direct eye contact with each questioner.
Anyway, a couple of times during his press conferences, someone's cell phone went off, each time with an annoyingly loud ring tone. Both times, everyone turned, first to locate and then to glare at the culprit: have you no shame? And both times, I noticed, Roger kept his eyes locked on his interlocutor, never glancing in the direction of the phone. I'm sure he was conscious, on one level, that there was an interruption occurring, but he had decided to ignore it. Not even a darting of the eyes towards the irritant. Both coming in the room with his head down and refusing to allow himself to be distracted or interrupted seemed to convey the same thing: he chooses to focus selectively, and focuses intensely once he does.
It was difficult to keep the quoting down to those two paragraphs...just go read the whole thing. (And of course, this ties into my continuing fascination with relaxed concentration and the battle with the self as the true struggle in life.)
Novak Djokovic lost the US Open final to Roger Federer last night but the 20-yo Serb clearly left his -- how do I put this? -- impression on the tournament. Here's some video of Djokovic impersonating Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal at the US Open. He does several other players as well, including a fine Andy Roddick.
Update: In case you're unfamiliar with the mannerisms of the players mentioned above, here's video of Roddick, Sharapova, and Nadal. (thx, flip)
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are playing a match today on a specially designed tennis court that's half grass (Federer's specialty) and half clay (Nadal's preferred surface). Story includes a photo of the kooky court. (thx, dalben)
Crazy incredible shot by Roger Federer against Andy Roddick. He somehow gets to Roddick's overhead slam and slips it by him on the baseline.
If Roger Federer keeps going the way he's going, he could one day be considered the greatest sportsman in history.
Update: Via email, a nomination for Pakistani squash player Jahangir Khan, who engineered a 5+ year unbeaten streak during which he won the International Squash Players Association Championship without losing a single point. (thx, abbas)
Update: Also via email, a vote for darts champion Phil Taylor, who has won 13 world titles, including 11 out of the last 13. (thx, krush)
Bill Simmons, who writes at ESPN and is one of my favorite sports writers, recently penned a rave review of The Wire (scroll all the way down at the bottom). "Omar might be my favorite HBO villain since Adebici. And that's saying something." He also sings the praises of David Foster Wallace's article on Roger Federer.
Oh happy day, a new nonfiction article by David Foster Wallace! This one's on Roger Federer. "Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war." The footnotes appear on a separate page and almost comprise an article of their own. I love reading his writing about tennis. (thx, stephen)
Update: Here's a short clip of Wallace on NPR talking about Federer. When asked about the similarities between great athletes and great novelists, Wallace suggested that great athletes possess the ability to "empathize without sympathy" with their opponent, something that is useful in fiction writing when putting yourself in the shoes of a character.
Update: This YouTube video shows the Federer/Agassi volley that Wallace describes in the epically long sentence in the second paragraph...look for it starting at 8:10. (thx, marco)
