DISCLAIMER: My French sucks. I think my oral-aural skills have dropped to the European A2 standard at best (i.e. slightly better than basic, with something like 5% listening comprehension), and my written/reading is somewhere between that and B1 (tolerable but laboured). My English doesn't suffer from the same malaise, unless I'm translating a ( Read more... )

Hamburg 2008 F: [2] R. Nadal d. [1] R. Federer 75 67(3) 63Federer today is holding a masterclass on "How to completely lose your nerve despite having an insurance break against Nadal". First set today was painful to watch. Shades of Monte Carlo, with Federer going up 5-1, two breaks up and serving for the set, only to have nerves take over and ( Read more... )

There is one Swiss player in the semifinals at Rome, and his name is not Roger Federer. Two weeks ago, Stanislas Wawrinka was ranked #30 in the world; come Monday he will definitely be in the top 20 (some are saying top 10 if he takes it all). I watched almost the entire Blake-Wawrinka match and parts of the second set of the Federer-Stepanek match ( Read more... )

Monte Carlo 2008 F: [2] R. Nadal d. [1] R. Federer 75 75Well, I predicted it. And Federer took more games off Nadal than did any of his previous opponents. Why do I still feel so shite about it ( Read more... )

[1] R. Federer d. [3] N. Djokovic 63 32 Ret.Down a set and a break against Federer, Djokovic retired, for reasons as yet unknown (EDIT: acute exacerbation of mild cold that never bothered him while he was bagelling Andy Murray and Sam Querrey. Pretty disappointing behaviour from a guy who's very likely to stay in the mix for top dog for the next ( Read more... )

A certain Mr. Federer made my day today, beating a temporarily non-flaky David Nalbandian 5-7, 6-2, 6-2. From the comments made by my match-calling friends at TennisWorld, it seems that this match is a keeper for those collecting The Amazing Matches of Roger Federer (i.e. am going to hunt for a download for this one). I'm also liking how he got so ( Read more... )

... sometimes I really don't know what's happening with the guy. After comfortably handing qualifier Ruben Ramirez-Hidalgo a breadstick in the first set, he totally left Mother Earth (and not in a good way) and played atrociously until Ramirez-Hidalgo was serving for the match at 5-2, 30-30 in the third. At this point, the Spaniard proceeded to ( Read more... )

(Scoreboard watching is so fun ( Read more... )

Prediction for Miami 2008 final: Nadal, in 3 ( Read more... )