Tennis-filled Saturday.
1. Tennis: Cincy Masters
ROGER'S THROUGH TO THE FINAL!!!!!!!!!!
He wrapped up the semi-final nicely with a straight-forward 6-4, 6-3 win over Marcos Baghdatis, who kindly saved all Fed fans the world over from the torture of sitting through a Federer/Nadal match by defeating Nadal 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the quarter-final. I have a soft spot for Baggy because I think he's really cute and nice, and he has really nice strokes to watch, so I was very happy that Roger faced Baggy next instead of Nadal. I was even happier when I suddenly woke up at 8-plus and checked my Twitter and found out that ROGER WON!
I'm hesitant to say that Roger's back to his old self but he definitely looks as if the past few months never happened. He played a great match against Davydenko and sustained the momentum coming in to the semi-final. Even if he got passed at the net more often than I would've liked, I was happy to see the controlled aggression and to see Roger stick to his gameplan. Nowadays he's playing as if he's thinking on the court, and no more of the bewildered, desperate shots that I'd seen way too much of post-Australian Open.
Mardy Fish pulled off a miraculous victory over Andy Roddick, beating ARod in 3 sets after coming back from being down 4-6, 2-5. From what I've read of this match Andy lost it more than Mardy won it, so I'm hoping for a straight-forward two sets victory for my darling Roger. IT'S BEEN TOO LONG SINCE I LAST SAW HIM WITH A WINNER'S TROPHY.
AND TO BE PERFECTLY HONEST, I'D BE FUCKING GUTTED IF ROGER LOST TO MARDY FISH. I was just laughing at Andy Murray the other day for losing to Fish, so if Roger does the same...I'D PROBABLY NEVER RECOVER.
The match is at midnight Singapore time. I think I'm gonna stay up to watch this! Screw work; it's been way too long since I've last watched a Federer match live!
I HOPE ROGER WINS!
2. Tennis: YOG Boys'/Girls' finals
Wei Chuen looked at the ticket and asked me what "boys/girls final" meant. I wondered the same thing when I went to the YOG website to book the tickets and saw that the "boys/girls final" was scheduled for both Friday and Saturday. Utterly confused, I was about to call up the geniuses behind YOG, also known as my genius fellow Singaporeans, until I scrolled further down and found a link to a PDF that provided further details on what the events entailed.
Turned out the geniuses meant boys' singles and girls' doubles. Was that so hard so say? Was that so hard to say? I love this country so much, I have no words to describe how much I absolutely love this country.
Anyway, I had a good time at the tennis tournament yesterday. Well, as good a time as I could've had, considering, in no particular order, the incredible, incredible weather and the annoying, brain-dead pro-China Singaporean supporters.
First, I shall complain about the weather. I went after tennis in the morning, and naturally I showered first after tennis before going to watch tennis. 10 minutes after sitting down in the bleachers I began to wonder why I even bothered showering. I could've gone all sweaty and dirty and it would not have a made a difference. 10 minutes ago I was clean; 10 minutes later I was perspiring all over the place. It continued all the way until about 5. And I sat down at 3.
I was impressed that Wei Chuen didn't complain and that I was the one doing all the complaining. He's not a fan of the weather too, to say the least. But it was really so bad that I started feeling like I always did in secondary school in my afternoon classes where I had to fight to stay awake in the oppressive heat: my head started feeling heavy and my general sweatiness/stickyness did not make me a happy camper. I also neglected to bring a hair-tie, which was rather stupid considering the current length of my hair is making me more susceptible to perspiration.
Speaking of my hair and how it makes me feel damn hot, I got into the habit of flipping my hair back over my shoulders in order to try to keep myself cool during the first match (girls' doubles). There was a row of stupid Chinese-speaking Singaporean aunties behind Wei Chuen and I, at whom we rolled our eyes several times at their sheer auntie-ness. They were generally inoffensive though, despite being utterly annoying...until the fat-ass auntie directly behind me tapped me on the shoulder at one point and said, "Excuse me, can you not always flick your hair? It's touching my leg. Thank you hor."
I said, "Er...right." I really wanted to say, "Excuse me, can you please change seats? It's not my problem that you're so fat that your legs are too close to my chair. Thank you hor."
To Wei Chuen's surprise (later he told me, "I thought that was the end of her"), I didn't say anything and went back to watching the match. I'm amazed at the restraint I showed. I'm soooo proud of myself.
Second, I shall complain about the pro-China idiots present at the match yesterday. I didn't bother looking up the results of the girls' doubles part of the tournament so I didn't know that China was playing Slovakia in the final. If I'd known, I probably would've given it a miss. Okay, I wouldn't have, but I would've been prepared for the annoying pro-China idiots that I was met with yesterday.
See, the ironic thing is, Singaporeans in general don't even like the Chinese. We complain all day long about these PRC aliens that are taking over our country, starting with our jobs, and then our freaking HDB flats or whatever. And yet, true to the hilarious inconsistency and general stupidity that plague the human race, especially Singaporeans, these Singaporeans cheered their hearts out for a team that came from a country whose citizens are coming to their country and making everyone unhappy.
Logic, right? I'm all for Asian representation on the international stage, sporting or otherwise; but I at least have some consistency when it comes to my grievances and my likes and dislikes. I wanted Slovakia to kick some Chinese ass (the Slovaks were also way hotter than the Chinese - the legs on those two girls were out of this world. I sound like a pervy teenaged boy) but alas, it was not to be. I also wanted to beat the living crap out of the "zhong guo jia you!" idiots around me, but alas, that was not to be too. And it wasn't like the Chinese team was THAT much better than Slovakia so they didn't even have that as an excuse.
On to the actual matches:
A. The girls' doubles was okay. I don't really care for doubles because I think tennis is primarily an individual sport, and the fact that you're out there all alone is part of what makes it intriguing, so the concept of doubles is kind of at odds with the concept of tennis to me. But it kept my attention. Slovakia started out strong and played some great volleys but couldn't sustain it and lost in the end. Ah well.
B. The boys' singles was MUCH better. Watching a live singles match is so different from watching doubles. You really get a sense of how much these players work to win a point and how strenuous it is to stay mentally checked in for the duration of one tennis match. The first set was pretty shoddy with neither player able to hold serve and both making pretty stupid mistakes (India's Bhambri more than Colombia's Gomez) but the second set was pretty solid. We were pulling for Bhambri to win, partly because it was quite late and he had to go for a farewell dinner and I just needed to eat, period; but Bhambri lost the second set tie-break and we went off after that. I eventually found out Bhambri retired after being down 1-4, citing cramps, so it was no great loss ultimatley.
Watching live tennis is really quite different from watching TV tennis. You don't fully get the sense of how hard these guys are hitting the ball and how fast the ball travels when you watch it on TV. While the two guys were just juniors, they played at a rather decent standard. I could've done without Bhambri's ten million unforced errors, but I liked the aggressive gameplan. I could've done without Gomez's constant retrieving, but he did well turning on the aggression when he did so. But it was fun to watch. The crowd was generally pulling for Bhambri which was quite amusing. Too bad he had to bow out with cramps. That's rather lame but who am I to say, right?
3. Tennis: Playing tennis
I attempted to hit 20 shots in a row but died at 14 and that was my maximum. You could say it was not bad or whatever but I hate it when I don't succeed at something that I try to do.
I did hit a nice forehand swing volley so that's good.
4. Others
I think life is pretty boring in general.
And I really hate it when people start talking to me when I'm writing.
Boyfriend's in Malacca. A bit jealous - I like Malacca and it's been a while since I've been there. More importantly, why oh why am I in Singapore?
ROGER'S THROUGH TO THE FINAL!!!!!!!!!!
He wrapped up the semi-final nicely with a straight-forward 6-4, 6-3 win over Marcos Baghdatis, who kindly saved all Fed fans the world over from the torture of sitting through a Federer/Nadal match by defeating Nadal 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the quarter-final. I have a soft spot for Baggy because I think he's really cute and nice, and he has really nice strokes to watch, so I was very happy that Roger faced Baggy next instead of Nadal. I was even happier when I suddenly woke up at 8-plus and checked my Twitter and found out that ROGER WON!
I'm hesitant to say that Roger's back to his old self but he definitely looks as if the past few months never happened. He played a great match against Davydenko and sustained the momentum coming in to the semi-final. Even if he got passed at the net more often than I would've liked, I was happy to see the controlled aggression and to see Roger stick to his gameplan. Nowadays he's playing as if he's thinking on the court, and no more of the bewildered, desperate shots that I'd seen way too much of post-Australian Open.
Mardy Fish pulled off a miraculous victory over Andy Roddick, beating ARod in 3 sets after coming back from being down 4-6, 2-5. From what I've read of this match Andy lost it more than Mardy won it, so I'm hoping for a straight-forward two sets victory for my darling Roger. IT'S BEEN TOO LONG SINCE I LAST SAW HIM WITH A WINNER'S TROPHY.
AND TO BE PERFECTLY HONEST, I'D BE FUCKING GUTTED IF ROGER LOST TO MARDY FISH. I was just laughing at Andy Murray the other day for losing to Fish, so if Roger does the same...I'D PROBABLY NEVER RECOVER.
The match is at midnight Singapore time. I think I'm gonna stay up to watch this! Screw work; it's been way too long since I've last watched a Federer match live!
I HOPE ROGER WINS!
2. Tennis: YOG Boys'/Girls' finals
Wei Chuen looked at the ticket and asked me what "boys/girls final" meant. I wondered the same thing when I went to the YOG website to book the tickets and saw that the "boys/girls final" was scheduled for both Friday and Saturday. Utterly confused, I was about to call up the geniuses behind YOG, also known as my genius fellow Singaporeans, until I scrolled further down and found a link to a PDF that provided further details on what the events entailed.
Turned out the geniuses meant boys' singles and girls' doubles. Was that so hard so say? Was that so hard to say? I love this country so much, I have no words to describe how much I absolutely love this country.
Anyway, I had a good time at the tennis tournament yesterday. Well, as good a time as I could've had, considering, in no particular order, the incredible, incredible weather and the annoying, brain-dead pro-China Singaporean supporters.
First, I shall complain about the weather. I went after tennis in the morning, and naturally I showered first after tennis before going to watch tennis. 10 minutes after sitting down in the bleachers I began to wonder why I even bothered showering. I could've gone all sweaty and dirty and it would not have a made a difference. 10 minutes ago I was clean; 10 minutes later I was perspiring all over the place. It continued all the way until about 5. And I sat down at 3.
I was impressed that Wei Chuen didn't complain and that I was the one doing all the complaining. He's not a fan of the weather too, to say the least. But it was really so bad that I started feeling like I always did in secondary school in my afternoon classes where I had to fight to stay awake in the oppressive heat: my head started feeling heavy and my general sweatiness/stickyness did not make me a happy camper. I also neglected to bring a hair-tie, which was rather stupid considering the current length of my hair is making me more susceptible to perspiration.
Speaking of my hair and how it makes me feel damn hot, I got into the habit of flipping my hair back over my shoulders in order to try to keep myself cool during the first match (girls' doubles). There was a row of stupid Chinese-speaking Singaporean aunties behind Wei Chuen and I, at whom we rolled our eyes several times at their sheer auntie-ness. They were generally inoffensive though, despite being utterly annoying...until the fat-ass auntie directly behind me tapped me on the shoulder at one point and said, "Excuse me, can you not always flick your hair? It's touching my leg. Thank you hor."
I said, "Er...right." I really wanted to say, "Excuse me, can you please change seats? It's not my problem that you're so fat that your legs are too close to my chair. Thank you hor."
To Wei Chuen's surprise (later he told me, "I thought that was the end of her"), I didn't say anything and went back to watching the match. I'm amazed at the restraint I showed. I'm soooo proud of myself.
Second, I shall complain about the pro-China idiots present at the match yesterday. I didn't bother looking up the results of the girls' doubles part of the tournament so I didn't know that China was playing Slovakia in the final. If I'd known, I probably would've given it a miss. Okay, I wouldn't have, but I would've been prepared for the annoying pro-China idiots that I was met with yesterday.
See, the ironic thing is, Singaporeans in general don't even like the Chinese. We complain all day long about these PRC aliens that are taking over our country, starting with our jobs, and then our freaking HDB flats or whatever. And yet, true to the hilarious inconsistency and general stupidity that plague the human race, especially Singaporeans, these Singaporeans cheered their hearts out for a team that came from a country whose citizens are coming to their country and making everyone unhappy.
Logic, right? I'm all for Asian representation on the international stage, sporting or otherwise; but I at least have some consistency when it comes to my grievances and my likes and dislikes. I wanted Slovakia to kick some Chinese ass (the Slovaks were also way hotter than the Chinese - the legs on those two girls were out of this world. I sound like a pervy teenaged boy) but alas, it was not to be. I also wanted to beat the living crap out of the "zhong guo jia you!" idiots around me, but alas, that was not to be too. And it wasn't like the Chinese team was THAT much better than Slovakia so they didn't even have that as an excuse.
On to the actual matches:
A. The girls' doubles was okay. I don't really care for doubles because I think tennis is primarily an individual sport, and the fact that you're out there all alone is part of what makes it intriguing, so the concept of doubles is kind of at odds with the concept of tennis to me. But it kept my attention. Slovakia started out strong and played some great volleys but couldn't sustain it and lost in the end. Ah well.
B. The boys' singles was MUCH better. Watching a live singles match is so different from watching doubles. You really get a sense of how much these players work to win a point and how strenuous it is to stay mentally checked in for the duration of one tennis match. The first set was pretty shoddy with neither player able to hold serve and both making pretty stupid mistakes (India's Bhambri more than Colombia's Gomez) but the second set was pretty solid. We were pulling for Bhambri to win, partly because it was quite late and he had to go for a farewell dinner and I just needed to eat, period; but Bhambri lost the second set tie-break and we went off after that. I eventually found out Bhambri retired after being down 1-4, citing cramps, so it was no great loss ultimatley.
Watching live tennis is really quite different from watching TV tennis. You don't fully get the sense of how hard these guys are hitting the ball and how fast the ball travels when you watch it on TV. While the two guys were just juniors, they played at a rather decent standard. I could've done without Bhambri's ten million unforced errors, but I liked the aggressive gameplan. I could've done without Gomez's constant retrieving, but he did well turning on the aggression when he did so. But it was fun to watch. The crowd was generally pulling for Bhambri which was quite amusing. Too bad he had to bow out with cramps. That's rather lame but who am I to say, right?
3. Tennis: Playing tennis
I attempted to hit 20 shots in a row but died at 14 and that was my maximum. You could say it was not bad or whatever but I hate it when I don't succeed at something that I try to do.
I did hit a nice forehand swing volley so that's good.
4. Others
I think life is pretty boring in general.
And I really hate it when people start talking to me when I'm writing.
Boyfriend's in Malacca. A bit jealous - I like Malacca and it's been a while since I've been there. More importantly, why oh why am I in Singapore?