RAFA (plus ANDY and US Open updates)

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

He's playing right now, just a few miles away from me.

I wanna pet his furry critter.

 

[CaptainWacky]

C'MON ANDY (Andy's still in, right?)

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

Yes, he came from behind and pulled out a win yesterday.

He's scheduled to play Lopez tonight (or tomorrow? Not sure), who he has beaten more than once before.

 

[Cassie]

I HEARD that if you catch him, you can keep him forever.

 

[CaptainWacky]

ANDY'S STILL IN, HOPEFULLY HE WINS THEN DEVELOPS A PERSONALITY THEN TURNS INTO SUPERFLY JIMMY SNUKA AND GIVES RAFA THE BIG SPLASH BROTHA.

 

[Gagh]

Yes, he came from behind .

OH BEHAVE!*

*Copyright all forums, c.1998-2000

 

[Gagh]

Oh, and I hope Rafa's NASTY CRAMP gets better.

[youtube]ABY0BR8d_z0[/youtube]


(We all know Eggs was under the table!)

 

[CaptainWacky]

JEDWARD TO TAKE RAFA'S PLACE IN THE FINAL?

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

The amount of time that cramp lasted was amazing. I'd have passed out for sure. When my calf/hamstring cramps up it's like 30 seconds tops. Poor guy.

 

[Tisiphone]

I captioned the game between Ferrero and Tipso something or other. Ferrero is HAWT.

I'm not on the Rafa hotness bandwagon.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Andy's game keeps getting delayed, AS PART OF THE JEWISH CONSPIRACY?

 

[Gagh]

Andy's game keeps getting delayed, AS PART OF THE JEWISH CONSPIRACY?

I THINK TIM HENMAN HAS DAMAGED THE WEATHER CONTROLS ON RISA.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

Been raining for 2 days here -- no tennis is being played.

As everyone in the world says whenever this happens, "WHY DON'T THEY JUST PUT A ROOF ON THAT PLACE?"

Fun fact: The US Open Tennis Center is right across the street from Citi Field, home of my NY Mets. I could take a day off from work, see tennis all day, and then walk across the parking lot and see a Mets game at night. MAYBE I'LL JUST DO THAT (no I won't)

 

[Ilyanna]

DO IT!!!!
Preferrably when it's not raining, though.

 

[Cassie]

Unless it's raining MEN.

 

[Ilyanna]

Then, HALLELUJA, call me and we'll get ourselves soaking wet.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Will they play on 9/11?

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

Yup. The finals would have been then, but now they have 2 days of matches to make up so it may go later than that.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

ANDY'S FALLEN IN WITH A ROUGH CROWD! :shock:

U.S. Open: Andy Murray, Andy Roddick join Rafael Nadal in unified stand - for now - against USTA
Andy Roddick and Andy Murray back Rafael Nadal with concerns over the weather conditions at the U.S. Open, where rain is complicating the Grand Slam's schedule.

by Filip Bondy
Thursday, September 8th 2011, 4:00 AM

The revolutionary council of Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Andy Roddick marched together Wednesday into the office of U.S. Open tournament referee Brian Earley to present its demands. Nadal and Murray had instigated the rebellion, and invited Roddick to come along. They carried no arms, no rackets. Just three tennis players against the world.

Once inside, the mutineers told Earley they wanted safer, drier courts.

They had been forced to play on slightly damp hardcourts for about 15 minutes early in the afternoon, thereby risking life and ligaments. All three figured this unpleasant experience was mandated by the USTA mainly for the sake of a live ESPN2 broadcast, because organizers didn't want the network to show yet another rerun of Serena Williams' 2009 tantrum.

"It's the same old story. All you think about is money," Nadal told Earley when the referee came out on Ashe to see if the court was playable.

Nadal said this loud enough for the courtside mikes to pick up. By Nadal's standards, this amounted to a tirade. Later, after the insurrection, Nadal spoke with ESPN.

"We want to feel good when we are playing the tournament," Nadal told ESPN, offering the network alternative programming, real news. "For sure we cannot accept these things. I work all my life hard to be playing. ... We have to fight to have the power to say we don't want to go on the court when it's raining. I think it's not fair."

Television analysts, as bored as the rest of us, declared this a watershed moment in men's tennis, the sudden empowerment of multi-millionaire superstars. It wasn't so much that these athletes were seeking anything outrageous. It was just amazing that they were asking for anything at all, and even more shocking that three top-ranked tennis players were actually spotted walking and talking together anywhere.

Tennis is a mean, solitary activity, and don't let this unified action Wednesday fool you. There is a reason the men and women of this sport get pushed around by the computer and by every major tournament around the world. The top players are members of the Association of Tennis Professionals, but care almost exclusively about themselves, about their own careers, about their endorsements. It is the rarest superstar - and you can include Billie Jean King and John McEnroe in this group - who ever thinks in terms of a collective.

Anyway, this uprising Wednesday had some immediate effect. The USTA felt obligated to issue a statement defending itself. Then it did not force the men to play in the afternoon when the mist hung low and the skies were spitting. Their matches were suspended until Thursday.

"As of noon today, the best information available to us indicated the chance of a two-hour window without rain," the USTA stated. "Unfortunately, not all light rain and mist shows up on radar. We have experienced referees, and they decide if courts are fit for play.

"Conditions may be not ideal, but still can be safe. However, if a player or players feel that conditions are unsafe, we listen to them, as we have always done, and the referee uses that information as part of his/her assessment on whether to continue or halt play."

It is easy to dismiss the players' concerns as wimpy and whiny. A few miles away in the Bronx, the Yankees played an extra-inning baseball game with a hard, dangerous ball on slippery sod and churned-up dirt, at times in a downpour. Tennis is different, though. The court is slicker and the balls sop up too much moisture in damp conditions. It is one of two sports, along with NASCAR, that really can't be played in any rain on any surface other than clay.

So the schedule backed up some more. Already, 54 matches were lost to rain on Tuesday, and nobody wants a fourth straight men's final on Monday. Considering the lousy weather forecast, that Monday finish is a lot more likely than a true union of Nadal, Murray, Roddick, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.

In tennis, the stars never stay aligned for long.

 

[Ilyanna]

LOL, pussies.