“Bonus Mosh Pt. II,” by Taking Back Sunday.
Well, it’s love,
Make it hurt (I deserve it).
Well, it’s love, it’s love, it’s love,
Make it hurt.
Rafael Nadal is trending at Roland Garros
Just in case you were wondering who will win the French Open, Tennis.com’s pantheon of soothsaying leafreaders have spoken.
Amazingly, despite the leverage Novak Djokovic has as being the best player by far over the last year, there is unanimity that Rafael Nadal will win. Well, until you consider Nadal’s recent resurgence. Nadal’s confidence is sky-high, having won at 3 of the 4 lead-up tournaments to the French Open he entered in Monte-Carlo, Barcelona, and Rome, in the process taking both Masters finals matchups (Monte-Carlo and Rome) against last year’s bogeyman, Novak Djokovic. Nadal’s only blip came in Madrid, about whose novel blue clay he and others, including Djokovic, publicly fussed about (and which we can all agree now in retrospect was a failed contrivance to generate publicity and sales). So yes, we can defenestrate (a more concise term for the common act of throwing something out a window) any misgivings that stem from that lone stain on his claycourt record this year.
But to really see why this unanimity on Tennis.com is amazing (yes, it’s just one site, but still, this is a legit site!), we need to put this sudden steam Nadal is gaining with the predictions of tennis bloggers and bookmakers alike into perspective. Consider that Nadal had lost seven consecutive finals against Djokovic, with the most competitive being the most recent one, a heartrending near six-hour epic five-setter in this year’s Australian Open, in which Nadal was just two points away from grabbing a 5-2 lead in the deciding set and a chance to serve for his second Australian Open crown. Yet he still lost.
The tables began to turn when he beat Djokovic at Monte-Carlo for his eight straight crown there. However, many skeptics argued that that win didn’t really count, since Djokovic was mourning his grandfather’s death at the time. (I call BS on that one: if Djokovic was remaining in the tournament because he thinks that’s what his grandfather would have wanted—which he claimed was the case—you can bet your ass that he tried real hard that day to win for grandpapa. Nadal just whupped him, plain and simple.)
So Nadal had to back up that win, which he got a chance to just a few weeks later in Rome, and boy did he do just that, beating Djokovic in straight sets in Rome despite his very pedestrian first-serve percentage, which hovered below 50% for most of the day. That impressive performance must have satisfied his critics’ insufferable cynicism, right? Nope. Djokovic supporters still argued that Nadal wouldn’t have won, or might have lost, if Novak had kept his unforced errors down. Many tennis pundits bought into this increasingly preponderant subtext.
So even though Nadal’s evidently regained quite a bit of his characteristic panache in his last two match victories against Djokovic, it would seem on paper to be no slight fancy to declare him the prohibitive favorite at this year’s Roland Garros. Thus, that those two victories over Djokovic that he’s got under his belt have almost by themselves tempered even the most partisan prognostications for Djokovic says tons about the meaningfulness of his recent triumphs, however dubious to his brainless naysayers, to knowledgeable fans of tennis.
I contend that those who have now revised their opinions or lowered their expectations for a “Nole slam” are most certainly justified in their sentiments. Not only do those of us who watched Nadal’s victories against Djokovic this year on clay recognize how awesome his play was, Nadal’s only other reason for fear of failure, i.e., the only man to have ever beaten Nadal at the French Open, Robin Soderling in 2009 in the fourth round, continues, as we well know, to convalesce outside of the tennis court with his protracted battle against mononucleosis. So, on second look, the panel of Tennis.com can only be commended in putting out their sage view that Nadal’s hoisting yet another French Open title is about as foregone a conclusion as there has ever been.
Yes, big serving Ivo Karlovic is in his draw, as is Milos Raonic, but Nadal’s got a combined 6-0 record against them. Serbian second fiddle and good buddy of Nadal’s Janko Tipsarevic, the world number 8, is also in Nadal’s side of the draw, but Nadal also has an impeccable record against him, having won all three of their previous tussles. Andy Murray, who is 0-4 against Nadal on clay, hasn’t done anything this year to warrant throwing caution to that stat. So psychologically, Nadal’s got everything going for him, while physically, he seems as impregnable as ever.
Djokovic, on the other hand, has Tomas Berdych, Fernando Verdasco, and of course Roger Federer looming on his side of the draw. Roger Federer, if you recall, last year stunningly ended Djokovic’s 43-match winning streak in the French Open semis before losing to Nadal in the final. Despite his poor performance in his Rome semifinals match against Djokovic a week ago, Federer’s fast-paced, flat-hitting, technical game seems perfectly equipped to neutralize Djokovic’s deliberate game, which is constructed around creating angles with his double-handed backhand, especially when his backhand is on. (This is a problem Nadal counteracts naturally by playing left-handed.) And who can forget Federer’s imposing serve? In my opinion, Federer has the edge should Djokovic run up against the man who owns a winning career record on both clay and grand slam events against him.
Because of Federer’s presence in his draw, and the other potential landmines I’ve mentioned, I’m not so sure that Djokovic will even get to the finals of the French Open this year. He seems enervated at this stage compared to last year, looking sluggish and strangely insouciant even when he’s winning. His backhand doesn’t appear to have the same zip that it did last year and in January’s Australian Open, leaving him looking vulnerable a lot of the time when defending with that wing. Moreover, he’s not traditionally been a great performer at Roland Garros, as evidenced by the fact that he’s yet to earn a trip to the final in seven career tries, losing all three semifinals that he’s played. It can’t be denied, however, that Djokovic is primed to make a breakthrough soon, but I’m not sure it is this year, with all the pressure bearing on him to become the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four grand slams at once.
But with Djokovic, you can’t really side with history. He was, until last year, Nadal and Federer’s perennial championship vulture, despoiling the remains of whatever grub they unexpectedly failed to capture, assuming he was himself still alive at week’s end. Then he took the tennis world by surprise, going on a sublime run whose improbability really cannot be put into words. So, however unconvincingly Djokovic makes his maiden run to a French Open final, I think he will finally break across that plane.
So like most of tennis punditry, I am going to predict a Djokovic-Nadal final. And, like the more sensible ones of them, I see Nadal reversing Djokovic’s recent grand slam mastery over him, capturing his seventh Roland Garros championship and in the process breaking his current tie with Bjorn Borg at six French Open winner’s trophies apiece. And as in all three of their previous meetings at Roland Garros, I see Nadal defeating Djokovic emphatically in straight sets.
Has President Obama led the country on a spending inferno?
Umm, despite what Mitt Romney and the GOP would have you think, it is the Republicans that have been far more promiscuous with their spending, as this chart shows:
That’s right, under President Obama, national spending has grown at a rate more than five times less than Bush’s rate of spending relative to his predecessor, Bill Clinton, in his more restrained term.
But of course, facts will be disregarded, and Mitt Romney will continue to get soft treatment from the media whenever he disseminates this myth of Obama being an out-of-control spendthrift in return for greater access to his campaign.
More from MarketWatch here.
Mitt Romney’s great-grandfather Helaman Pratt had several wives, going so far as to emigrate to Mexico so as to be able to continue the Mormon practice while escaping United States anti-bigamy laws that are still in application today.
Because of his family’s ties to polygamous Mormon ancestors, Bill Maher argues that maybe Mitt Romney, the most well-known Republican Latter-day Saint, which Mormons are today known euphemistically by, has more wives than we know of.
Naturally, Maher doesn’t personally believe nor wants to believe that this is true, as many a “birther” has often said of Obama’s possible Kenyan birth. In any case, all Romney needs to do to dispel such hogwash by proponents of this nascent movement of “wiferism” is to produce an un-photocopied, un-faxed, original marriage license, on which it is clearly stated that Ann Romney is his only wife.
And no, of course it cannot be short-form. We need the original, uncondensed, un-photocopied, unfaxed version of his marriage license, signed and dated on the day of his marriage, made available to the first-hand touch or sight of any hyperparanoid lunatic who is convinced that Romney’s marriage arrangement is a total sham.
Hard to disagree with Maher, since birtherism is just so reasonable.
“Hands Down,” by Dashboard Confessional.
Hands down, this is the best day I can ever remember.
I’ll always remember: the sound of the stereo,
The dim of the soft lights,
The scent of your hair that you twirled in your fingers,
And the time on the clock when we realized it’s so late,
And this walk that we shared together.
The streets were wet, and the gate was locked,
So I jumped it, and I let you in.
And you stood at your door with your hands on my waist,
And you kissed me like you meant it.
And I knew that you meant it,
That you meant it.
As a photographer, you know when you have a unique moment. But I didn’t realize the extent to which this one would take on a life of its own. That one became an instant favorite of the staff. I think people are struck by the fact that the president of the United States was willing to bend down and let a little boy feel his head.
Pete Souza, White House photographer
Novak Djokovic has left Sergio Tacchini
I’m not at all surprised. As Chris Chase of Busted Racquet wryly observes,
The world No. 1 being dressed in Sergio Tacchini was the equivalent of 2001 Britney Spears signing a deal with RC Cola. It never felt right.
But who was the worthy successor? Apparently, a Japanese equivalent of the rising affordable fashion brand, H&M, called “Uniqlo.”
I’m still puzzled by why this would be a more sensible choice. If Sergio Tacchini’s customized Novak Djokovic wear was priced too uncompetitively compared to sports apparel giants Nike and Adidas, I’m not sure how much of an improvement a quantitatively less—but only by that measure—unheard of Uniqlo will be.
I actually have never heard of Uniqlo, but I also never heard of Sergio Tacchini until Djokovic switched over from, I believe, Adidas a couple of years ago. Shows you how much I know about fashion. (This isn’t to say, of course, that I don’t know how to dress in fashion. There’s a difference here, ladies.)
In any case, it is sad to bid adieu to the creator of such fierce Nole kits as this:
On the backs of just about any other tennis player, those designs would have made me chortle. But somehow, they always seemed to jibe just right with Nole.
