Monfils v. Nadal

I think I just discovered that the reason why people play tennis is because they are trying not to have sex. I mean, I used to think that people played or watched tennis for other reasons. In fact, I wrote this thing sort of contemplating why I was a tennis fan and tennis player once. But I feel that the real reason people play tennis or watch it, too, is because otherwise, they would be having sex all the time. And so, like, to not have sex all the time, they have to do other things, like play tennis. Because if I were Rafa, I would just be having sex with myself non-stop. Right? Who are we kidding here? Like, I would have so much sex with myself if I were Rafa that I would do nothing else and like, not even eat or anything and then I would die. And we don't want Rafa to die, do we? So it's sort of admirable that people try not to have sex all the time and that is probably why tennis was invented in the first place. I mean, that's a good reason to invent something, too, and the ultimate result is to prevent a whole lot of deaths.

Monfils is down a break. I gotta say, I cannot think of two other tennis players who I would rather be watching right now. This is just amazing hotness and wild, great tennis shot making. I'm having beer o'clock right now with my buddy, Steve. I just said, when the towel girl came to give Monfils a towel after he fell down, "I'd like to towel him off". Steve said, "Now, see, that is the sort of thing you think, but don't say." He has a point. But then I said, "but I'm getting all inspired to blog, and that's the sort of thing I blog about." And he said, "OK," and shrugged. Steve's used to me. We get shitfaced and watch sports a lot. He's the best.

Wow, 6/1 Nadal. I looked down and blog for two paragraphs and whoah- he cruised through two games super quickly.

Steve and his family and me and my family are going to have roast beef night.We do a Friday night roast beef night with great regularity. It makes me happy.

Yours Truly,

Paula

Verdasco defeats Karlovic

It's shitty outside, so what better thing to do than watch tennis? Why, nothing better.

Verdasco took the first set off of Karlovic. I have seen Karlovic play up close on a back court in Canada and it amazes me anyone can ever return his serve. But people can. Oooh, Verdasco is up a break here.

My brain hurts today. I'm not hungover-I know that is hard to believe, but I did drink some cheap shit last night, although not a lot of it, but still, the cheap shit can give you head pain, so maybe the booze is part of the problem--but for sure my cats did not let me sleep this morning. So, I didn't get my ten hours which I need to feel my very best. One of my cats- the one pictured here by the name of Rafa--attacks the other. Rafa thinks his sister is prey. Like she's some oversized mouse. So he was all over her this morning and you have to get up and get involved so he doesn't, like, eat her. I bet the real Rafa doesn't try to eat his sister. I wish my Rafa took more after the real one. They both have a little goofy boy vibe, that I will say.

Verdasco has 5/3 here. Can he do it? Can he serve it out. He's two points away. He seems quite calm, which is awesome because he can get pretty mental. He's a Madrileno (put a little thingy over the n in your mind), so I really want him to do well here. I love Madrid. Did I tell you that? I was just there last March. He did it! I wonder if he's going to go make love to his supermodel contingency or if he saves it up during tournaments the way Vince Spadea does and writes about in his book, Breakpoint, which is a great read, by the way. I highly recommend it.

I'm going to lie down now. More soon.

Yours Truly,

Paula

I Am The Future Of Sports Journalism

The title of this post is actually, very much, not at all true. But I like the sound of it as a title for a post, it has a nice ring to it.

People- I am watching tennis. I am watching Montanes and Gulbis. Very tight first set here. A quick digression though-- How awful was it to watch Moya get beat so badly. It was unbearable for me. Just awful. And the commenters called it! They said before the match started, "Moya may embarrass himself out there". My God they were so right. I looked away a lot. I worry because he broke Pennetta's heart, he is now cursed. Because it's not nice to break anyone's heart, but especially someone as cute and wonderful seeming as Pennetta. They kept showing his model girlfriend in the audience. Yeah, she's "beautiful"- but she's no Pennetta. She doesn't exude the same charm and fun lovingness as Pennetta. I bet Pennetta is more fun in bed. I bet the model just lies there, going "worship my perfect body" whereas Pennetta was more like, jumping all over the place, trying out new stuff, always eager and energetic. And now, because Moya stupidly left her for the model, he's not getting as well laid as he should, and so now he sucks at tennis. Wow, the thought of Moya having sex just really got to me and I think I have to take a little break here and calm down.

I'll be back.

Gulbis won the first set. He's playing so well. I sort of feel for Montanes though, as he is the underdog here despite being a true dirtballer. Anyway, it's not over. I guess today I'm sort of rooting for the underdog, which happens a lot with me. You see, I am an underdog of life. So, I just relate I guess. For instance, before spending the entire day sitting around, trying to get men to chat with me and watching tennis and having chicken sandwiches delivered to me from the Vietnamese Restaurant and possibly getting stoned on my allergy medicine and later I'm thinking gin and tonics even if it is a little chilly because they get me fucked up faster than wine, I decided to go on a run at the gym. I ate a cliff bar- it went down really well, which is great, because sometimes they make me gag--chugged some coconut water and water water, and went to the gym and mounted a treadmill. I, unlike Rick Rock, love the treadmill -- usually. I like staring at nothing or a hockey game and I crank my mp3 player really loud and mouth the words and occasionally do a little dance and don't give a shit that I look wierd, because I'm just into my thing and enjoying our brief time here on this planet. But the treadmill was like Gulbis today, and I was like Montanes, the underdog, fighting away to not lose and even though, like Montanes, I fought valiantly (he's down 0/3 here and looking kind of hangdoggy, poor guy, I think he's really hot with his sort of bucked teeth and his swarthy good looks, he totally reminds me of Freddie Mercury and I love Freddie Mercury and I just broke out into "We Are The Champions" in my mind and now I'm smiling, oh shit, this is so awesome, life, tennis, Freddie Mercury), the treadmill was winning from the very beginning. I started my jog and immediately felt horrible. This is not uncommon. My knee, then my shin, then my hips, everything fucking ached. But, like Montanes, I kept fighting. Soon, I felt like, whoah, I'm breathing hard, am I going to die? I often feel this way when I exersize. So then I said, well, I'll slow it down. (That would be like the treadmill winning the first set.) So I did. That helped with the "fear of death by heart attack" that was in my brain. So then I felt a little better, starting mouthing the words all happy-like, and I said, man, if I don't feel better, I'll just stop at a mile. Nothing wrong with that. Then, that made me happier, so I kept going. Then, I said, well, why not run two? I can quit at two, nothing wrong with that. This made me so happy. At two miles, I said, well, maybe two and half. And that made me so happy (always happy feelings comes over me when I think of stopping running soon) that I turned up the speed and anyway, I ran three and half and I didn't get to four or five because, then, like Gulbis, the treadmill kicked my ass and I started coughing some and thought I was going to have a massive allergy attack which has been happening a lot lately so I panicked and ended my run, losing to the treadmill. Sigh.

Montanes is going for some treatment and really breaking up the rhythm. I'm fast forwarding. OK, this is now not fun to watch. Montanes can't move well. He's down 4/1. You know, I watch a lot of tennis, but sometimes it makes me uncomfortable and sad. That's why fast forward is so good. It can make some of the painful bits go away. I like Gulbis, by the way. I just- I'm feeling sensitive. Maybe that's because of my own defeat today. You know what I like about Gulbis? He's a billionare and yet, he works hard and is a success at tennis! Dude, if I was a billionare, I would be on a yacht, getting really fucked up, and cruising around the Greek Islands with a handful of boy toys and some slaves, or staff, or whatever. I would not be working hard at anything. Or so I think. I may never find out what I would really do if I were a billionare. Sigh.

Aw, Montanes lost like me. 6/1 in the second. Now Baghdatis is beating Chiundelli. This is OK by me. The Bag has really struggled. So this is good.

Yours Truly,

Paula

Madrid Masters Starts Today! (Where I contemplate the spending of an entire day watching tennis).

I am watching Melzer, the wily Austrian play the tree-like, or giraffe like, Kevin Anderson of South Africa. We saw Anderson this past summer in Binghamton (I think, or the summer before? I could search the blog and find out. Maybe I'll do that later. Or maybe not.). He had a huge serve. He's young. He just cracked an amazing ace. I served like ass yesterday. Meltzer won the first set, but Anderson is up a break here in the second.

Aaaaah, eight hours of tennis. Now, it's Monday. The beginning of a new week. A day when, after a weekend of rest and relaxion, or wild drunken partying and illicit sex, one usually "gets back to work" either literally like my husband, or at least figuratively, um, I guess like me. As in, I don't go anywhere, but maybe I should do something, besides sit around and watch tennis all day- and mind you--all night long , too. Well, not all. But at least until midnight, when the internet miraculously leaves me, because Rick Rock had to install some software to make it so, because I was staying up until 3am waaaaaay too often and partying with old boyfriends and other people. Now, it's kind of cool that one can party with other people and not actually leave their house. Indeed, it's ideal for me. I love to party, I hate to leave my house. But anyway, it got out of hand. And I just seriously digressed.

Whoah. OK, so Monday, the first day of the week, is the day I choose to sit around watching tennis all day long. Now, there are lots of people doing this! For instance, the commenters on the Tennis Channel, the cameramen, the ballboys, the chair, many sports journalists, the people actually attending the event in Madrid and so on. And many of these people get paid to watch the event! And some others paid to go to the event! I, on the other hand, am not getting paid (not entirely true, I have made about 20 bucks or so- thank you people, for clicking on my ad thingy!) to watch tennis all day long, nor did I pay any money to watch it all day long (as in, I am not there, which is "special" as opposed to being here, at home watching TV, which is not special, although I do pay extra bucks to get the Tennis Channel). So why does it feel sort of wierd and useless? Because I'm not getting paid? Because I am not there? Why, yes. Those would be two reasons. And I'm sure there are more reasons. I was trying to write my way into understanding what some deeper, more esoteric reasons there could be, but I've come up with nothing. Maybe that is it, that "nothing" is the deeper more esoteric reason. There is something very, just, you know, living in a void of inactivity and mindlessness and the whole world is a speck of dust on the finger of a cold universe but if I pretend that tennis matters, that it really does matter who wins and how they play, and damn, look how good they are at this beautiful sport, than I can block out all that existential thought and yet, it also seems to be reinforcing the void of meaning of life because I'm sitting here doing nothing with my life but blogging, and oh wait, blogging IS something, blogging is reaching out to the world of tennistards and saying hi and aknowledging the existence of other human beings in the universe and touching them with words which could maybe lead to other kinds of touching! But I digress.

Also, I did go to the bookstore and pick up some stuff, so that is something. I just left the TV on because it's a lot of tennis to watch. In fact, I may do that special trick I do, which is to watch it on fast forward.

Anderson took the second set and now they are on serve in the third. I want Melzer to win for a few reasons- One, he is the old guy. Sometimes I root for the old guy, because he has less career time. Sometimes I root for the up and comer, because its exciting to have new blood in the game. Two- He's Austrian. I'm a full half Austrian. Go Austria. Sometimes I don't root for Austrians because, well, I'm sort of ashamed of being half Austrian because of WW2 and shit. And Three--he's waaaaay hotter than Anderson. That said, I would not have sex with Melzer, as it would be way too much like having sex with my Austrian cousin, who I did not have sex with when I was fifteen and he was seventeen and we got drunk and wrestled and it was totally erotic and I thought he might have been, um, aroused, and I think we were listening to Prince and Frank Zappa and chain smoking and talking about deep thoughts on our crazyass families.

Yours Truly,

Paula

Rockytoad Wins! And, More Feet

My son won a tennis tournament. We are watching Henin and Peer play tennis. Peer just slapped herself on the ass to motivate herself. I find that sort of alarming. It's so porno. Anyway, back to my son. He also won a trophy for "best sportsmanship". This made me so proud of him that I started to hyperventilate. I LOVE good manners. Cheesewad, on the right in full on Verdasco-wear, did not play well. His mind got in the way. That's OK, though, because at least he had awareness of his problem. Holy smokes Henin is soooooooooo good at tennis. Wierdo freak-like tennis genius.

The other photo here is of my feet. On my feet are JCrew espadrilles with tennis racquets on them. I love these shoes. They also lace up the calf which is almost as porno as slapping one's ass and basically saying, "giddyup!"

Soon we will be blogging on Ferrer v. Nadal. This will be more fun for me than watching these ladies. Not to be ungrateful to the tennis Gods. I love all tennis all the time, hence the name of the blog. Oh, Henin just won. I will say this about Peer- she seems to compete to the best of her ability at all times. She really gets the most out of her game. She also has really nice breasts. I liked her Reebok outfit. In fact, she has a cute body altogether- not scary strong, not skinny, either.

Yours Truly,

Paula

Gulbis & Nadal - Rome Semi - Nadal pulls it out

RR here -

Wow what a match. I am kind of rooting for Nadal, whilst P is for the young Latvian. The young gentleman from Latvia. The Lat-man. None of this is working.

Glubis is really impressive. Nadal just did something really rad - they talk about "holding" the ball sometimes - that time it looked like he literally caught the ball on his strings, held it there, and then flicked it.

I have been pretty convinced Gulbis would win this - even before he won the second set. But it's 4-5 0-30 and, Nadal may pull this out. Love-40 now. Triple match point. Of course, he came down from 0-40 just a few games ago.

It's a little odd I am for Nadal - because of the underdog thing. I think it must be because we are so similar in so many ways. Well, perhaps not superficially, or let's say in any perceptible way at all. But our tennis games are very similar. For example, once in a while he hits a ball into the net, which I do quite often.

Well there you go - Nadal did it. Gulbis just kind of fell apart in that last game. I really did think he was going to win. That was a really good match. Gulbis will someday be an accomplished tennis player, I believe.

We gotta go - Cheesewad and Rockytoad are playing in a tournament at the sports club near our house tomorrow, and we have to drive back. So, farewell then.

RR out

What the Hell is Going ON?

No, really. Tennis is wierd. Poor Verdasco. He's down a break in the second after having lost the first set- and he was up two breaks in the first set--and then the Italian crowd starts whistling when he almost goes down 3/0---and now they are cheering him as he finally gets some points. And now---can he break. I just- I just really want him to win this. His body language sucks right now. They talked about mental fatigue. I think more than the physicality of playing a 3 plus hour match yesterday, the mind gets exhausted. The concentration required to play at a high level day after day! It's like being an astronaut or a surgeon- you can't let your mind wander for one second--the focus has to be so intense, but instead of concentrating on the gooey insides of a human body and like, the bloody veins and flesh and organs and shiney, sharp intruments that cut people up, or like, the spaceship's little red and white blinking controls and the stars and comets and wierd dehydrated food stuff and their puffy outfits and floating and shit- you have to focus on a tennis ball.

OH MY GOD- he broke! On serve then in the second. Oops. Just got broken again. Sigh.

Well, Verdasco just has played waaay too much tennis. Cudos to Ferrer. I like Ferrer. I feel badly for Verdasco. It was hard to watch that second set. He looked miserable out there. But I'm not going to feel too badly for him, because now he gets to go have like, three supermodels rub their naked, oiled, insanely beautiful , perfectly tanned voluptuous bodies all over him while their long, luxurious hair caresses his abs like gentle butterflies fluttering wings, and his ears fill with the gentle moaning of their undying love for him..and..so on...

Yours Truly,

Paula