Australian Open

[Dragon Brother 619]

I know that they havent played any of the finals yet, however I've just finshed watching Roger Federer losing in straight sets to Novak Djokovic with great delight. But there have been a few major things hoing on in the tennis in the alst few days, Rafael Nadal loses in straight sets (albeit in an injury affected match), Federer loses in straight sets, Justin Henin has to retire (again) because of an elbow injury.

 

Definitely been some great tennis to watch though, and I was fortunate enough to go to the Rally for Relief exhibition match that some of the the tennis players held to raise money for the flooding in australia.

 

Has anyone else been following the tennis? Watching it has inspired me a bit when ive had a hit with my tennis team the last couple of weeks, last week I played like crap though, but yesterday I managed to hit the ball nicely.

[chattius 2,539]

Tennis was totally unknown in my area before Boris Becker and Michael Westphal, even today there are no tennis courts. There is too much wind on our hills and too few people to make tennis halls economic.

The first tennis match I watched was Wimpledon 1985 when Boris Becker won. Was a month before I had to join army and I was doing a sort of goodbye drinking with friends at a pub. Suddenly someone switched the TV on and there was a tennis match...

The second was Westphal-Smid in Davis-cup semifinals octobre 1985. I just finished the stupid 3month general drill at army and we came back from a 30 kilometre running with backpacks when we noticed that most of garnison were watching TV in the cantina. Becker had won the first match when we were away and the total underdog Westphal was fighting like a lion. Match took till well over midnight and our sergeant did no pardon, wake up at 4am same morning.

 

I think Westphal-Smid is still the Davis-cup match with the most games played. Sad that Westphal died with just 25 years because of Aids. A girl in his class was drug addicted and had Aids, but the disease was not known in the time he was at school: 1970ties. Wonder how he would have performed if he wasn't ill.

 

With 5 kids and only 1 TV (no cable TV, and our satellite dish is a single receiver 200 metres away, terrestial digital broadcasting is promised for 2013 in our area): with some luck we parents can watch TV after 10-11pm.

 

For Australian Open: I think there was a german girl in the last 16. But I don't even know her name.

[Dragon Brother 619]

I think that was Andrea Petkovic. She came up against a player in great form who has since made it to the final.

[gogoblender 3,078]

 

 

Has anyone else been following the tennis? Watching it has inspired me a bit when ive had a hit with my tennis team the last couple of weeks, last week I played like crap though, but yesterday I managed to hit the ball nicely.

 

 

Ahh, just seeing you write about this is exciting. I'm not following Tennis that much anymore, and it's a shame. We had been to a couple of good tennis matches in Montreal, umbrellas and all, but the viewing for me fell a bit by the way side.

 

I didn't know you were playing with a team...you're that competitive?

 

 

gogo