Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Wimbledon And A Whole New Ballgame?

A warm welcome to all of our friends who have checked in with us since Wimbledon and have been disappointed to see the lack of updates. We have been out in our secluded mountain retreat, communing with nature and crunchy little insects, armed only with our cellphones - one of which includes a shiny new iPhone, but none of which is capable of posting to blogger. Anyways, we hope to make up for our seemingly lacklustre July, with a more fulfilling and robust (some might say august) month ahead.

As for Wimbledon itself, as much as we enjoyed watching Safin and Federer go head to head, hope that this bodes well for Safin in his return to New York next month, the Federer v. Nadal final was everything that one could hope for - Sports Illustrated and many tennis commentators seem inclined to agree that it was perhaps the greatest match of all time, certainly of the last ten years. What is even more fascinating to us, is the potential of what is to come, and frankly, we are surprised that more commentators have not picked up on this yet. With Federer losing in the opening round of Toronto last week, and Nadal winning the tournement, it is increasing looking like Nadal will win the overall No.1 spot by the end of the year, regardless of who wins the U.S. Open.

In some instances though, who wins the Open is immaterial provided both Nadal and Federer make it to the same approximate stages, the excitement comes in what happens next. If Nadal proves that he can at least equal Federer on hard court, then the Australian Open will witness perhaps the greatest race in all of sport: the quest for the tennis' Grand Slam. It is hard to imagine an athletic feat as rare to accomplish, simultaneously being pursued by two players, both with equal chances to pull it off.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Something the Web Brought Up

Surfing the web has its uses: here's a little something we discovered via twitter user cafexperiment. You can visit their website at www.cafexperiment.com where they post daily collections of photos taken in cafes. Quite stunning for us espressoheads. Subscribe to their twitterfeeds for regular updates.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Safin to the Semis!

Marat "I Don't Like Wimbledon" Safin, is about to enter the semi-finals of the famed grass court tennis competition on Friday, facing down the sublime Roger Federer. For all the anticipation over yet another showdown between Federer and Rafael Nadal, this particular meeting of Safin and Federer is looking to be one of the most long-awaited match-ups in recent tennis history. As we write, Nadal is up two sets on Andy Murray, and really ought to be able to close out his match, setting himself up for a next round match against Clement or Schuettler, two opponents ranked around 140th on tour and not likely to offer a healthy Nadal much of a challenge.

Which brings us back to Safin. For all of the greatness of Federer, it was once fairly commonplace to hear Federer referred to as "the most talented male tennis player outside of Marat Safin", or "the only person with a forehand better than Roger Federer is Marat Safin". Of course, Safin's inconsistency has allowed Federer to take an 8-2 career lead over the Russian, including a third round dismissal at Wimbledon last year. What's different this year, is the composure that Safin is showing, much more reminiscent of when he beat Federer in the Australian Open semi-finals en route to his second Grand Slam.

Should Safin beat Federer, then a final featuring Safin and Nadal will be extremely exciting, as it truly will be anyone's game.
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