The Maanga

for tennis. 

One look at tennis history and you find several champions that displayed freakish talent of some kind on the court. Boris Becker started off with a wonderful deceptive serve (they say the best of his era), John McEnroe hustled opponents by barging in off mediocre serves and made incredible volleys, Connors irritated opponents with on-court buffoonery and ran down balls like his life depended on it, Stefan Edberg used a continental grip on his forehand and still won some Grand Slams. There were lots more that added character to the game.

Then came Pete Sampras. Nothing special about him. Except he can hit a few good serves and remain focused on winning. Big deal. But atleast he was American and the media had a field day hyping him to the sky. Freakish players - Ivanisevic, Agassi, Rios, Korda, Kuerten and all the wonderful players of this era who won the French Open were derogatorily named dirt ballers by the stupid American media.

This decade, though, started with a bang, a hope that freaks will get their due and turn tennis back into a spectator sport. Lengthy altercations with the umpire made me a Roddick fan, ability to irritate the spectators made me a Hewitt fan. In the midst of all this, a cry baby suddenly found some form and finished 2003 with a bang. I was hoping Marat Safin would kick his butt in the Oz open next year, it didn’t happen. I though Tommy Haas will show Federer his place, that didn’t happen either. Sadly the bad boys Roddick and Hewitt lost their games and their attitude just because they believed the hype machine working in full swing. The tennis officials had got it wrong. Fans weren’t waiting for the next Pete Sampras (yeah some losers were), but for players who can show them different ways to play the game and win.

Much of the blame for this pathetic show should be borne by Marat Safin, for his preference to davis cup, Nicolas Kiefer and Tommy Haas for their untimely injuries, Roddick and Hewitt for believing in the media hype and not get in Federer’s face, Nalbandian for not even trying to improve his serve all this while. It’s utterly disgusting to watch Federer win slams after slams making tennis seem like child’s play. Even more so reading nonsense articles by devotees and listening to a match commentary.

Ofcourse, its easy to avoid watching Federer play as I have done for the past one year, but devotees on the commentary box seem to have a way of bringing him up during Gasquet’s matches comparing his backhand to Federer’s. Here’s a guy so full of himself and declaring himself as a legend of the sport (admirable if the attitude is shown on the court) and his fans are keen on defending him as the humblest champion ever. (I heard my professor say that Stefan Edberg is the classiest of them all, followed closely by Bjorn Borg, and that Federer doesn’t even come close. Considering that he is a brilliant man I would take his word.)

My best memories of Federer fans are when they list all the qualities of the great man and wait for me to acknowledge them. Much like how mormons show their happy family and pretend to have unlocked the key to happiness (in a south park episode). Well, fuck you.

And jumping off to the original point about this decade being the most disgraceful, you only have to look at the variety of players in top 10 in the world right now. Only Nadal and Gasquet stand out as the real freaks there, for different reasons obviously. Everybody else are boring SOBs. They’ve almost made reverence to Federer a global cultural phenomena.

There comes a time in a young man’s life when he has to choose. If he wants to become an intellectual or just make a lot of money, both of which are equally deplorable and unavoidable choices.

He digs into his past and finds a pattern in his choices, but isn’t sure if his tendency to go against popular trends would be helpful because he finds equal number of lunatics on both sides.

So this is where the cute 2 dollar Australian coin helps him decide that he should want to make a lot of money.

Ofcourse, this doesn’t change his core philosophy that Federer is the most boring player ever.

An excited Aussie friend wanted to place a $300 bet with me against the visiting Indian cricket team’s series victory. Since I don’t care shit about cricket, I managed to provoke him to place the bet on tennis.

The deal is this. The fellow whose countryman reaches top ten in tennis first will lay claim to the $300. In the process, I was allowed to utter unspeakable insults on Australian sporting culture. That is $300 well spent.

I might even win this bet. Because, Inspite of hiring Tony Roche and releasing media bytes on how hard the twit is training for the Aussie Open, Lleyton Hewitt is down in the dumps and the other shining lights of Australian Tennis, Chris Guiccone and Peter Luczak, still have trouble breaking into the top 100. We haven’t decided yet on what happens in the most likely incident of neither of our countrymen reaching top 10 inside our lifetime.

Let me stretch this bravado further to invite similar bets on India vs USA. I say that an Indian will be inside the top 3 before an USAian, including the super serving dimwit too.

Or what if we change themaanga.com into a place where people can place mutual bets on everything under the sun? Under the watchful eyes and a 5% commission to Nilu, ofcourse.