Federer, Nadal, Djokovic And The Other Guy

What the hell happened down under in Melbourne yesterday?

I saw online during the early afternoon (PST) that some guy nobody ever heard of beat the puss out of Raffy Nadal. He didn’t just win, he crushed him 2, 3 and 2. Beaten by a guy unseeded and unknown, Raffy said afterward he didn’t know how to deal with incredible screaming shot after incredible screaming shot.

As I said, I read about it during the day at work. When I got home, I kept watching Sports Center on ESPN for a report on that match, and on the Federer-Djokovic match which must have followed.

Not a peep.

I kept wading through the reports of all of those NBA games I could care less about, and all of the those NHL games I care even less about, and Tiger in the first round of the Buick and women’s college basketball. I think there was even a report on a curling match in Altoona.

Nothing on the men’s semi-finals of the first of tennis’ grand slams.

I did not find out until this morning that Federer also went down in three sets yesterday. Two enormous, gigantic, gargantuan upsets of the number 1 and 2 players in the semi-finals of a Grand Slam event, and not one word last night on ESPN, the station that IS BROADCASTING THE FREAKING EVENT.

It kind of tells you where tennis stands as a sport.

The funny thing is, for the first time, I’ve really been following the Australian Open. On Friday night, I started watching Federer and Tipsarovic, a match which began at 10PM. It ended 4-1/2 hours later, and I was still watching. It both made and ruined my weekend. I’ve even watched some of these Serbian girls play. Just as I’m been getting into it, Nadal and Federer went down in the semis – and suddenly it’s nowhere to be found. The Doc said ESPN broadcast the Federer match last night starting at 12:30 AM.

I guess the final is on sometime tomorrow. Or is that today, since they are on the other side of the international date line? I have yet to see this “other guy” who is playing Djokovic. Notice I actually can spell his name correctly, but I don’t know the other guy’s name. Is it Jon Bon-Jovi, or Bonomo Turkish Taffy, or Jo Jo White, or something like that? He's the guy who looks like Muhammad Ali.

ESPN could care less – the deuce is broadcasting the finals of a Scrabble Tourney. "Yeah, baby! Double word score!"