Roddick and Blake: Get with the program or make way.

How come Nadal and Canas are able to play stifling defense and are not scared to look ‘unglamorous’ while retrieving an impossible winner? How come they are able to not have shoulders that slouch when the scoreboard goes against them? Why is it that their body language never freaking changes, irrespective of whatever?

I’ll tell you why.  Actually, it’s not your fault. You see, once you are nominated as one of the sexiest players on the tour, it is obviously not becoming of you to run awkwardly after a ball, seemingly out of reach. You have to maintain some grace.

Just let the balls go past you. What you want to do is look presidential serving and making easy forehands that are fed to you with the exact trajectory.

You just want to play offense. Why not. After all, it keeps you within your comfort zone and the girls will never laugh at you scampering after a ball and God forbid falling. That will make you look like a fool and will tarnish your image.

We don’t want to do that. Actually we are so impressed that we have never seen you fall on the court and get bruised or hurt. What mastery of perfect balance and grace.

Besides, Nadal and Canas are from a different planet. They have a third eye, a third arm and they definitely have a second brain. Why would anyone like to look like them on the court? Looking helpless and on the back foot trying to retrieve balls from ridiculous corners of the court, with no guarantee that they will win the point.

See, that would be even more damaging – not winning the point after all those clown movements. We would rather you lose the point and the match and the championship than submit yourself to that degrading and pathetic play.

With so many people watching across the globe, why wouldn’t anyone understand the predicament you are in?

Here is some flash news for you: Irrespective of what freaking game you are playing in your life, it is the defense not the offense that gets you the victory, more times than none. This applies to any facet of life, not just sports, most of the times.

Of course, you know all that and have heard it a million times. And we sympathize with you that physically and mentally, Nadal and Canas have an unfair advantage over you. Obviously, if you have extra body parts, it is bound to result in a higher degree of performance.

Only if you had the same number of limbs and legs, you wouldn’t have been a one-slam wonder. That extra brain, they have really hurts, and sets you back irrevocably. We understand.

Don’t worry. Just do your best and return to your luxuries life. You have been put in an unfair position. Get over it by playing video games or taking long rides on your boat.  It’s so tragic and we sympathize with you wholeheartedly.

We just got this in: It seems their shoulder blades are designed differently and are unable to slouch even if they want to. So there you go. What a pity. This is so unfair.

We applaud you for not giving your 100 percent when you are down two sets in a five-set match. How many times has a player come back from that deficit? Very rare. So why tax yourself physically and mentally, when you are smart enough to read statistics and the logical outcome in such scenarios.

You have to play smart and fight the fight you have some chance of winning. Otherwise you are just spinning your wheels.

We appreciate how you let these matches, get over with quickly, so you can conserve your immense talents for the next tournament and again you are very quick to read any such situation in the next event and act with so much intelligence and bail out. 

We are sometimes able to notice these very subtle and ‘impossible to detect from the naked eye’ strategies you employ. We are in complete awe.

GET WITH THE FREAKING BLUEPRINT OF SUCCESS OR GIVE WAY.

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!!!

Nadal gets win # 73 emphatically.

Nadal brushed aside wild card Daniele Bracciali emphatically  6-4, 6-2 in the opening round to extend his freaking clay court winning streak to 73. Remember Nadal, we are shooting for number 126 to break Chris Evert’s record. Don’t mess it up.

You don’t get to that number everyday. Make the best of it.

Nadal will face Youzhny next. Youzhny has been a thorn in Nadal’s side, having won their last two encounters. However, when they met on clay back in 2005, Nadal waxed him for 6-0, 6-2. Still Youzhny has a healthy 3-3 H2H against him.

Nadal needs to be at his very best to reach the finals here. His draw is similar to what Federer found himself in at last year’s Wimbledon. After Youzhny, he will most likely face the red hot, Djokovic who just won the title on clay at Estoril last week. Djokovic dispatched Nadal in straight sets at Miami last month. Their only meeting on clay was last year at Roland Garos quarterfinal. Nadal took him out in straight sets 6-4, 6-4.

But this is a new year, and a new and improved Djokovic. Djokovic is the most unlikely player to be intimidated by Nadal’s variety on clay. It should be a tough match and a good one to watch live.

Nadal’s next one is probably going to be against the dreaded Canas. Canas is a qualifier and shouldn’t have much trouble booking this year’s second meeting with Nadal on clay in the semifinals. Can he knock out a streaking World’s No. 2 like he did with the World’s No. 1 in March.

Federer cannot be more happier with his draw, with Canas across the fence. He also will not have to face young Gasquet in the next round since he was eliminated. This is Federer’s best chance to reach the final comfortably and then try to use all that conserved energy to dislodge Nadal or will it be Canas?

Tennis player arrested on the court of a tennis tournament. What a perfect model!!!

 

Looking for a good role model for your kids? How about a nice tennis player? He has done everything to qualify for the position. There are many others floating around at the brink of this kind of stardom. Don’t be impatient. It’ll be worth the wait.

Remember what I talked about in yesterday’s post? Give him a break, will you? He is just following the tread marks and signs on the tennis alley. Just a normal retired tennis player, OK.

Roscoe Tanner (born October 15, 1951) was a professional American male tennis player and World No. 4 in 1979. He was born in Chattanooga and with Sandy Mayer helped to lead Stanford University’s rise to the number 1 spot in collegiate tennis in 1973. Tanner played number one singles, with Mayer playing number two. The team also featured Rick Fisher, Stanley Pasarell, Jim Delaney, James “Chico” Hagey, Gery Groslimond, Pat DuPre, and Paul Sidone. Tanner is best remembered for his devastating left-handed serve, his victory at the 1977 Australian Open (January) and 5-set loss to Björn Borg in the 1979 Wimbledon finals.

Of the winning 1973 Stanford tennis team, Tanner, Mayer and DuPre were all brothers in the Zeta Psi fraternity.

Since retiring from the ATP Tour, Tanner has run into a fair amount of legal trouble with women as well as financial problems, he moved to Germany (Ettlingen) with his wife and daughters:

• Divorcing his wife.
• Divorcing his second wife.
• Impregnating a woman from an escort service.
• Marrying a third wife.
• Writing a bad cheque to buy a $35,595 boat then getting a $10,000 loan with the boat as collateral. The boat was later repossessed after being returned to the owner.
• Spending ten months in jail in Germany, Florida and New Jersey for failing to pay child support and an outstanding debt.

He was arrested while on the court of a tennis tournament in Germany; and then, he was extradited to Florida on charges of passing a bad check, and was wanted in New Jersey due to owing $500,000 in back child support. In 2005, Orange County (CA) authorities put out a warrant for his arrest after he failed to show up for a child support hearing.

In 2005 he co-wrote his autobiography, “Double Fault: My Rise And Fall, And My Road Back”.

On January 17, 2006, Tanner was sentenced to two years in prison for violating terms of his probation related to his grand theft conviction for failing to pay the $35,595 check he used to buy a 32-foot boat in 2000.

After serving one year of his two year sentence in a Florida prison, Tanner was released February 1, 2007 after credit for “good behavior”. He was then transferred to the Orange County, California jail where he was booked on February 8, 2007 on Criminal Contempt of Court and Failure to Pay Court Ordered Child Support charges. The California warrants were issued in mid-1995, and the authorities there had tracked Tanner through several states and European countries before his arrest.

On March 1, 2007, Tanner was convicted and sentenced to 43 days in the Orange County Jail, and put on probation until March 1, 2012.

Roddick throws his racket at Federer.