Mettle (Testing Thereof)

Look! Writing! I am doing it today, I promise! I wouldn't say I'm properly back yet - I cannot communicate how madly, insanely busy I am at the moment, what with the whole being about to quit my job thing - but I have found a few spare seconds today to write about tennis.

If Roger Federer had found a few spare seconds to, oh, I don't know, beat Feliciano Lopez without it taking a hundred hours, it might have been significantly better for my blood pressure. As always, the fact that it took him more than twelve games to beat someone means that it is the End of his Career and He Will Never Win Anything Again Ever Because He Is Old And Irrelevant So There. It seems perfectly obvious... to a bunch of strange tennis critics who could look at a cloud and somehow see in it a sign of Federer's demise.

Personally - although it was a stress-y, stress-y match from a fan perspective - I don't mind the Rog having to spend a while on court. He hasn't played since Monte Carlo, but you can bet he's all match tough now. Besides, F-Lo was playing awesome tennis. I know he's the Spaniard What Prefers Grass and stuff, but come on, he's Spanish. Clay is his thing. I find the fact that Federer can fight through a left handed Spanish dude on clay very satisfying.

And while I like it better when Federer just comes out and wins, it's good for him to have to fight. You never know your mettle until you're tested, and a good test every now and again does any player the world of good. Having to tough out a match like this one is character-building. And hey, instead of being match point up and losing, he was match point down and won. I know which I'd prefer.

The Djokovic train keeps rolling on, but either the Djokovic train or the Nadal train have to stop rolling this week, and I'm team Rafa on this one. (Actually, I'm team Roger, but his narrative appears to be subaltern at the moment.) I don't have my money on a finals clash - I just have a feeling that someone's a-gonna get upset before the final. Couldn't tell you who, couldn't tell you when, just a feeling.

...and that's all I have time for. Figures that the one day I get time to write, all I really write about is Federer...