Oh well…

Both defending French Open champions were defeated today. When has this ever happened in history?

 

I’m gutted.

crying wolf

So the first line of attack against Sonia Sotomayor from The Right is that she’s a racist because she was quoted as saying that as a Latina woman she understands more how life really is than an over-privileged white male. See, real people-and I mean people who are capable of coherent thought understood what Judge Sotomayor was saying. As a woman and a minority who grew up without a silver coke spoon in her mouth, she was saying that she has a real understanding of racial discrimination, sexism, income disparity, etc. You know, all the things that The Right tend to ignore.

Well unless they can use it to their advantage. Let’s go back to a time when another Hispanic was nominated for a top position. Remember Alberto Gonzales and how The Right touted his ethnicity? Recall how they accused anyone of questioning Gonzales’ credentials as being racist? Ring some bells? Thought so. It’s the tried and true meme: Whatever works for us, doesn’t work for you. The problem is, times have changed. The Right has lost a lot of ground with the country’s Hispanic and Latino population because of its anti-immigrant stance. The  political games that worked three years ago just don’t work now, and it didn’t help that Gonzales’ turned out to be a disaster of Cloverfield proportions.

But as usual, the foot soldiers of divisive politics are making the rounds. Newt Gingrich twittering for Sotomayor’s withdrawal. Ann Coulter’s on GMA defending her whiteness. Rush Limbaugh is, well saying what he always does. Even Senate Republicans are taking swipes, like questioning her intellect and whatnot. Come again? Sotomayor has more Judicial experience than any SCOTUS candidate is YEARS.

It’s almost pitiful. Almost, but I’d rather save my sympathy for folks who truly deserve it. I do think that Sotomayor will be appointed, but no thanks will be given to the Conservatives who cried wolf.

un-empathetic

Today the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the state same sex marriage ban that passed in November. The court did declare that the 18,000 marriages conducted before the ban remain legally intact but how much does this suck?

With their decision, the court basically has given over to the rule of the majority, but what if the majority is inspired by hate? What if that was the prevailing thought during the Civil Rights era? Hell, I’d still be sitting in the back of the bus. Today was just a shining example of the State Supreme Court lacking the courage to make the law work for everyone.

It’s interesting that this decision was passed down on the same day that President Obama chose his SCOTUS nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. The President had expressed his desire to have someone on the court who exhibited in his words, “empathy”. I suppose Judge Sotomayor fit that part of his criteria. Wouldn’t it be nice if all judges possessed that trait? Seems like it’s truly lacking in the California courts.

Happy Memorial Day

Just taking some time out to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Bagels and Breadsticks

It’s French Open Time! And it’s time for me to make so observations (NOT predictions. I suck at them)

The Men:

-As much as he might not like to admit it, Rafael Nadal is coming into this year’s French Open with more pressure than he has ever faced before. He’s the top seed for the first time ever and he has a chance to make even more clay court history by winning a 5th consecutive title. So far he’s handled the pre-tournament hype with a lot of grace. I don’t forsee the complete demolition he exhibited last year, but I think he will make it to the finals. Will he win? Ha! Do you even need to ask? The key is to get Nadal in the early rounds. He’s has some potentially tough matches with David Ferrer and/or Fernando Verdasco. His semi-final opponent could be Andy Murray from Great Britain. However, if he passes through those guys without spending too much time on the court, the title will be his once again.

-Roger Federer’s draw looks pretty straightforward until he reaches the semifinals where he could meet Novak Djokovic. Unless Federer plays the way he did during the Madrid final last week, Djokovic is a big favorite to win that match. Should Federer make his 4th straight final at Roland Garros, what will his mindset be? Does he still think his 14th Grand Slam title could be won on the French Clay? Will he be up for the fight or will he accept the inevitable? Let’s face it, Nadal has owned Federer on the center court on championship Sunday and after facing each other 20 times, I doubt Federer has anything new to show Nadal.

-Someone who could show Nadal a thing or two is the fourth seed and in my opinion, the second best player on clay this season-Novak Djokovic. Instead of being discouraged by his heartbreaking loss to Nadal in Madrid, I think he will in fact be emboldened to prove himself at Roland Garros. He has a really good chance to make it to the final if he isn’t too tired or gets to frustrated. Looking into my crystal ball I’m seeing a Djokovic Nadal faceoff two Sundays from now.

-Where does that leave Andy Murray? I say a decent showing until the semifinals. He’s improved somewhat on clay but there are still too many guys out there who can outmaneuver him on clay. The chatter about his prowess has dampened a bit but that’s due to his own so so results as of late. If he wants to be part of the conversation again, he’ll have to step it up. This means he will have to step up the aggression and not be too passive to even stand a chance of making it.

As for the other men, I don’t really see any dark horses or surprises. The top men have been so consistent, I expect the draw to play out according to seeding. I will be interested to see how the French players perform on their home soil. I’ll also be looking out for the American men. Will Andy Roddick do any damage? He was the only player to take a set off of Federer at the Madrid tournament so who knows?

The Women:

The field is wide open and the title is up for grabs. The Paper Number One, Dinara Safina has a chance to silence the critics by finally winning a major title. Ana Ivanovic is trying to make a comeback from injury and so is Maria Sharapova but I don’t see either one of them making it past the second week. Venus and Serena are now ranked number 2 and number 3 which means they will be on  opposite sides of the draw. Does that mean we’ll see an all Williams final in Paris? No. Serena is still nursing a knee injury and Venus has gone all “Miss Inconsistent” on me.

Jelena Jankovic is much ado about nothing. The other Russian players are all a big smelly pot of MEH so I’m going to focus my attention on Victoria Azarenka of Belarus. I think she’s going to go pretty far IF she has completely healed from her shoulder injury. If she hasn’t and loses early, I’ll deny everything that I’ve just written.

Sorry, I just can’t get too worked up about the women right now. Ask me if I feel any different once Wimbledon starts and Kim Clijsters returns.

clay confidence

You didn’t think I was going to say anything about the men’s final in Madrid? That momentous occasion when Roger Federer defeated Rafael Nadal for the first time since November2007? On clay? What else is there to say? Everything lined up perfectly for Federer and he scored a win over his biggest rival. Good for him.

Sorry I can’t celebrate more. I am a Nadal fan naturally and tennis fans have been through this before. Remember Hamburg 2007 when Federer defeated Nadal for the first time on clay breaking Nadal’s incredible 81 match winning streak? A lot of experts predicted then that Federerhad turned the tide withhis rivalry with Nadal and it was his time to finally win the title at Roland Garros. We all saw what happened with that. Nadal shrugged off the loss and defeated Federer in 4 sets that year. In 2008, Nadal did one better and beat Roger in straight sets. So conventional wisdom says that there’s very little reason to believe that Federer’s victory over Nadal last Sunday will mean that he will finally win in Paris.

For one, Roger’s appearance in a 4th straight French Open final isn’t necessarily guaranteed. Between his clay court triumphs over Nadal, Federer has suffered losses from the likes of Andy Roddick, James Blake,  Radek Stepanek, Ivo Karlovic, Stanislaw Wawrinka, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray. In fact, Murray like Nadal has a winning record against Federer.  Any one of these guys, especially Djokovic and Murray could score an upset so Federer would be wise to keep his focus on the guys in his draw. The Mighty Federer is a thing of the past for most players and any slip in concentration-any loose games could mean that the Not So Mighty Fed could be shown the door early.

Secondly, meeting a tired Nadal at the tail end of the clay masters series is very different from meeting a motivated Nadal in a Grand Slam final. If he makes it, Federer will know that Nadalwill stop at nothing short of ripping his flesh off with his teeth to remain the “El Rey of Clay”. Sure, making sure his first serve percentage is above 60% could help. Oh, and running around his backhand to slam a forehand down the line could come in handy. But come on, he’s already shown his hand during the Madrid final. You don’t think that Nadal will be looking for those things?

But wait! Federer says he’s rested and confident!

So what?

In 2006, Federer won three major titles: The Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S Open. He lost in the French finals to Nadal. In 2007, he did the very same thing. He also lost in the final of the French Open to Nadal. These days, Rafa is the number #1 player in the world and he’s a much better player than he was in 2006 and 2007. Federer on the other hand is ranked #2 and he’s not. Throw in the fact that he benefited greatly from an easy draw and hard court like conditions in Madrid, and you can call me not convinced just yet that he will win the elusive French Open championship.

That’s not to say that Nadal has it in the bag. He’s facing new challengers as well. If he makes it to the final though, there’s no way I’m voting against him to hold up the trophy for the 5th time no matter how confident Roger may feel.

you can hate me now

 

Sean, Sean Sean. Really? You can’t even hide your contempt for the O Man, you “journalist/commentator” can you? Are you so filled with jealousy that simple things like facts become as foreign to you as sanskrit is to the rest of us? Trying to push that line that Barack Obama isn’t intelligent because he uses a teleprompter is weak as all get out. But then again, being  the college drop out you are, critical thinking skills might be somewhat lacking. I mean, you couldn’t even hold your own against Jesse Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota and ex-professional wrestler. He laid the smackdown on you and you had nothing. Nothing.

True, you do this all the time and I usually ignore you. But this time. For you to even suggest that the past President of the HARVARD LAW REVIEW, a best selling author, and a general all around brainiac doesn’t pass your smell test just irritates the crap out of me. You would rather hold the banner of George Bush and all things wrong with conservatism just because the new President is black and is trying his damnedest to correct all of the past wrongs done by your boy? Is it because he refuses to be your new pet coon like Jesse L. Peterson? Or is it because Faux News is paying you too much money for you to smarten up?

Enlighten me. I have to know how an ignoramus such as yourself can even pretend to have the cajones to say some stuff like that. It wasn’t enough that you had to be shamed on your own program by a man who made a living wearing spandex, but you had to take it FURTHER by proving you are a fool by questioning the President’s intelligence. You?  Someone who offered to be waterboarded for charity? Someone who got checked by a member of the Fake Black Panthers due to your ties to white supremacist Hal Turner? Someone who got taken to the woodshed by Gibbering Robert Gibbs after you had an avowed Anti-Semite smear Obama on your show?

But like a case of fingernail fungus, you just keep hanging around. As long as great intellectuals like Elisabeth Hasselbeck quote you, you will indeed stay but you’ve got to know that regular folks are getting hip to your game now. Thanks to the innernets, your foolishness is being exposed to the world. Since you want to be the real voice of the opposition, prepare to be hated.

love & envy

Leave it to Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic to provide the most compelling match of the Madrid Masters tennis tournament. It would have easy for either one of these guys to chuck it in; what with the wind, the bad bounces, and the wonky calls. However, they both brushed all of those things aside and fought to near death in an epic 4 hour match that will surely be mentioned for years to come.

Nadal once again prevailed after coming back from a disastrous first set where he had to call a trainer to tend to a sore knee. His was regularly overcooking his forehand and remained defensive during most of the match. But as the story always seems to go with him, he simply refused to quit. With 12,000 rabid Spanish fans cheering him on, he found the will to win against his most ardent challenger to date.

Djokovic for his part played brilliantly and pushed Nadal harder than anyone has on clay in a couple of years. No one can say after seeing him stretch Nadal to two tiebreaks, that he hasn’t proved himself to be the second best player on clay this year. Sure he will be disappointed that he couldn’t finally seal the deal, but he has nothing to be ashamed of in my eyes.

The only thing I can attribute the monumental effort of these two men to is, love. Love of the game, love of competition, and love of the home crowd. They just simply give a damn-no matter what gets thrown their way. It’s just awesome to witness. I hope that love never goes away because the sport of tennis will surely suffer if it happens.

As for the women, the paper #1 Dinara Safina made it to her second straight final. Good on her. When you are ranked number 1, you’re supposed to win matches. But when I read this:

“I guess they’re jealous that I am so young and number 1. I don’t know….To become number 1 it’s not just winning the Grand Slams, it’s how you compete the whole year.”

“Yes, I didn’t win a Grand Slam but I was in two finals and in one semifinal in one year. Many people can’t achieve that in their career.”

Methinks she doth protest too much.  No point getting into the fact that most of the women who have held the number 1 ranking have done just that and more. Also, 23 aint that damn young in tennis terms. Venus and Serena both held the top rank before they were 23.  But what sticks in my craw is her assertion that everybody’s just hating on her. Yeah right. We’re just “jeliss”.

To that I say, “Girl, BYE!”

The Masters of Mess

I hadn’t planned on writing anything about the Madrid Masters tournament happening this week. I should be excited because it’s a combined event with the top men and women competing before the French Open. A new venue with a retractable roof should make the tennis freak in me feel all giddy. But I’m not.

First, because of the high altitude in Madrid, the conditions are remarkably different from any clay court tournament this season. Players are having to adjust to  higher bounces, faster trajectories, and thinner air. Then, they will only have a week before the French Open starts before they have to readjust to the conditions in Paris. I just don’t think it’s fair and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was some plot to take the shine away from The French Open, the premier clay court tournament.

Second, Madrid is the the third Master’s event scheduled since early April and the second WTA Top Tier event in as many weeks.  Since Masters and Top Tier tournaments are mandatory events for the top 50 male and female players, that means a lot of  tennis is going to be played before the real major event. The chance of burnout is extremely high. Why risk forcing players to compete when there’s a chance they won’t or can’t play their best? So far, Serena had to default do to injury. Venus was upset in her first match to a chick who resembles Roger Clemens. Thomas Berdych who just won a clay court tournament last week got injured. David Ferrer who was a finalist in Barcelona a few weeks ago was bounced, and Richard Gasquet…well, his ouster has nothing to do with Madrid nor clay so I’m moving on. 

Third, the reason why the Madrid clay court tournament even exists is because the ATP won a lawsuit filed against them by the tournament directors of the Hamburg, Germany Masters event. See up until last year, Hamburg was the tournament to play before the French Open. Thanks to the wide eyed greed of the powers that be of the the ATP/WTA and a guy willing to shell out millions to satisfy that greed and his own ego–Mr. Ion Tiriac, Hamburg lost their lawsuit to remain, had their status stripped, and Madrid was installed as the big lead up tournament to Roland Garros. According to Tirac, his goal is to create a “5th slam”. To say players and fans alike were shell shocked would be an understatement. It was more like, “We made a deal. You have to play. There’s nothing you can say about it. Boom”! How about, “Damn!”

Fourth, these dolts thought it would be a good idea to change the color of the clay to blue. WTF? European clay is red. Period.

Naturally a lot of the players have been grumbling. Rafael Nadal was the most vocal. He complained about everything from the altitude to the condition of the courts. American player Vania King blogged about mini tornadoes and swarms of bees afflicting the players and spectators. The venue dubbed the “Magic Box” sounds more like Pandora’s box if you ask me.

At this point it’s too late to change anything but at least there is talk of switching the time of the tournament with the Rome Masters (the surface that most closely resembles that of Paris). The damage has probably already been done though.  Another mandatory tournament tacked on to an already crowded clay court schedule. Unhappy players. Empty seats. And worst of all, pure boredom.

Can’t take a joke?

Wanda Sykes tore the house down during the White House Correspondent’s dinner this weekend. She took pot shots at everyone but The Right are up in arms about her joke about Rush Limbaugh being the 20th hijacker. You mean to tell me that fat slab of humanity can joke about Michael J. Fox having Parkinson’s disease but no one can say anything about him? GTFOH!

The White House and even Keith Olbermann poo pooed the joke but did they forget that Wanda is a comedian? A left leaning lesbian comedienne?  That means she doesn’t give a fuck and neither should we. Limbaugh and his ilk thrive in the mud of racism, classism, and sexism so throwing a bit more mud aint going to hurt.