YEAH!

ROGER WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS! 6-3 6-4 7-6 (11).

It's 6:30 in the morning, this sun is not up yet so I'm going to see if I can go back to sleep. 

YAY ROGER! WHOOOHOOOOOOOO!

Will return for hockey in.... 6 or so hours. WHOO!

Roger's baaaaack

And apparently this is tennis' version of the barberpole jersey too.. (I personally thought it sort of resembled the Ottawa 67s jerseys a little bit. You know.. ugly and stripey?).

Picture comes from here.

Tennis has actually be underway for about a month now, but I just came to the conclusion this morning that the Habs have decided to suck right now so I can pay more attention to Roger and the Australian  Open! Such considerate Habs! Anyway, I don't intend on blogging too much about Roger this year, but it's a slow hockey day so just enjoy making fun of  Roger in his barberpole shirt :D

Oh no, Roger Federer can NOT sing

The man may be perfect in tennis but oh my god, can he NOT sing. Not at all.

So excuse me while I just sit here and die LAUGHING at him.

The Shot

Behold. Roger Federer with the point of the tournament. Heck with that, let's just call it the point of the year even.



And now you know why he's The TMF.

Um wow

What. A. Day.

In terms of sports.

In order:

• 12:00 Sox begin their first game against the Rays
• 2:00 EP participates in her first ever fantasy hockey draft. Somehow I ended up with Chara. Don't ask how. I just traded for him. Yeah, I probably was on the losing end of the deal. Whatever. My goal is to finish last anyway.
  3:00ish Sox win against the Rays
  
• 3:30 EP learns that Delpo has beaten Rafa and will be in the US Open final
• 4:00 Juniors take on... Whatever the name of the team is in Victoriaville. EP forgets that they are playing because she's screaming at Roger.
• 5:00 Sox take to Fenway again for their second game against the Rays
• 6:30 EP remembers that the Juniors were playing and runs to find out what happened. Juniors won 4-1. YEAH!
  
• 7:00 Roger gets the point of the flipping match (highlights to come soon) which happened to bring him to match point on Nole's serve. Roger wins. HUZZAH!
• 8 something: EP learns that the Sox have swept the Rays. HAH!

Somewhere in there I also bought another set of Juniors tickets as a very,very,very,very,very,very,very early birthday present (they're playing in Verdun on my birthday). YEAH!

Roger played amazingly. Nole was reduced to begging at several points during the match. Which was probably more due to the fact that Nole just felt like being theatrical than the fact that he was playing badly. Because this was the best he's played this year in a Grand Slam. Heck, it's probably the best he's played all summer. When push came to shove, Roger came up with the points that he needed to get and he came up with the drop dead amazing shots to do it.

Too awesome.

Oh Roger... how could you?

No. He hasn't lost. We're several hours away before he gets onto Arthur Ashe at the US Open and if he loses in the first round then... well, then he probably deserves it.

I'm talking about this:

Photo from here.

Not. Not Roger smiling. Look at the shirt. LOOK AT THE SHIRT. Oh Roger... you injure me with that shirt. INJURE ME, I SAY!

Rooogeeer!

After a tough game which saw some great shots, Roger finally made an error and sent the ball into the net. Game, Novak Djokovic. Raising his hands up to the sky, Nole thanked the tennis gods for handing him a win. With this victory, Nole had now won....

photo from here.

..................his first - and only - game of the first set. HUZZAH!

Yeah.

Roger just had to play really good tennis in the first set, which, coupled with Nole playing like crap, equaled an easy 6-1 first set win. Nole fought back in the second set - including breaking Roger's serve. But ultimately it didn't do much and Roger broke back, leveled the set, broke again and won the match 6-1, 7-5.

So way to go Roger. It's your first title as a new daddy. I'm sure the twins are over the moon. Well, actually, the one over the moon was Roger who was all smiles as he got talking about the twinsies. Anyway....You're now just one Master Series win away from tying Agassi's record of 17 MS' wins. Yay!

Photo from: AP

Roger: Hey, Nole, that's a nice flower vase you got there...

Nole: Wanna swtich? I've always wanted a pretty punch bowl. Please?

Roger: Hmmm....no thanks. I think I'll store the twins bottles in this one.

Roundup of EP's Saturday

Today didn't promise to be a good sports day. After the major Soxfail last night (which we are now denying happened) and the prospect of Muzzy taking down Roger, I was ready to skip this sports thing and just entertain the guests who were coming.

Apparently sports thought otherwise.

The Sox were clearly didn't want to get killed by their own crowd by losing again to the Yankees so instead they decided to win. And minus some major Ellsfail, it was a great win at 14-1. Yeah. I'm kind of afraid of tomorrow's game. It'll end up like 30-29 or something. So, thank you Sox for being angry enough to want to win. And thank you, Yankees, for leaving your brains at the hotel. It was nice.

Anyway... Back in Cincy where the Fab Four (which is really only comprised of two fab guys, one almost fab guy and one guy who gets called "toothface" at times) were going at it in the semis, we had some interesting results.

Last year, we saw Rafa's awesome summer come to a halt as Nole beat him and then promptly... .blew it completely to the-yet-great-Muzzy. Roger had long since disappeared into oblivion.

THIS YEAR everyone was touting Muzzy to win again as he had pretty much blown everyone else out of the water last week in Montreal (and Roger blew himself out of the water). Yeah well, Roger decided that after that little backhanded compliment he gave to Muzzy at the beginning of the week ("He’s [Muz] almost won everything there is to win except, let’s say US Open and the Masters") it was time to back up said "compliment" by actually beating Muz. Shocker, I know. It was a pretty nice win too at 6-2 7-6(8). THANK YOU ROGER! Finally.

Roger is going to get Nole in the finals after the latter decided he too would like to snap an ugly losing streak. Oddly enough, the last time that Nole won a match against Rafa was at... well, Cincy last year. Oops. It was a really solid win at 6-1 6-4. Ow, Rafa...

Do you think Rafa means it when he says

I’m very happy today, more than yesterday. No. 3 is a very good number too.

I get the odd feeling that he really doesn't mind being no. 3 all that much....

Well... the good news is I saw Roger...

...the bad news is that he choked like someone stuffed one of those oversized tennis balls down his throat and lost the 3rd set after being up BY TWO BREAKS.

*sobs*

Clearly, I am not allowed to watch Roger live anymore. Which is a real pity because he's just so much more awesome when you see him in person.

*sobs more*

How could you, Roger? How could you? You are breaking my heart.... And I can't even stare at my favorite Soxie tonight as he decided to take the night off. Bah!

Oh well. At least I have PICTURES of ROGER though. There really no such thing as a bad picture of Roger. He is just so... photogenic. Go look! XD

Rogers Cup

So.... yeah... GO ANYBODY BUT MUZZY! Hopefully Rafa. But I'll take the Real Andy or Nole or even Delpo. Or heck, I'll cheer on the Chubby French Dude too. Just not Muzzy.

What is almost as cool as live hockey?!

LIVE TENNIS!

Yup. So for anyone who cares, the Rogers Cup is in town for the week. This means BIG tennis names come to my hockey city at a time when us hockey fans are ready to check ourselves into the insane asylum because there is no hockey. Because all the big names are so cool, they got a bye into the second round which meant us people watching the first round didn't get to see them on Monday. HOWEVER! All was not lost! Nope. Mr. Marat "I have Anger Management Issues" Safin saved the night by blowing up when he lost to the Monfils dude. Not the highest quality match ever but totally fun just the same. I loved it when Safin blew up and tried to homer one of the balls. He should've takened up baseball instead *g*

Monfils vs Safin

My session was supposed to include Gilles "EP still hates you for knocking out Roger last year" Simon and Frank "Umm I'm the top ranked Canadian guy at 105th in the world. Yay?" Dancevic but the weather didn't cooperate so we left after the match being delayed TWICE.

I'm was a little mopey because STAN was playing in the earlier part of the day on Monday while ROGER was going to be playing on Tueday NIGHT when I had tix for the afternoon.... but as it happened, I was supposed to end up with Muz and Nole instead. Of course I was really worried about the weather and how that would screw up my plans to see these guys but I worried pretty much for naught.

Today started off with Hewitt and Ferrero. I was hoping for a bit more from Hewitt but it was not to be and he lost to Ferrero. No worries! Muz was next! Oh wait, I don't like Muz... But Muz is a talented player and now I can say I've seen (and quietly) booed Muz. It's nothing personal Muz. It's just you know.... you're not nice to Roger. ANYWAY. Muzzy smushed Chardy and the hot weather smushed me... And I wanted to smush those annoying group of kids across the court who kept screaming "ANDY MURRAY". Poop. At there were long rallies! And no more fail dropshots of last night. And no more failsmashes from earlier.

Chardy and Muz at the coin toss

Because the weather stopped working after Muz won, we had to wait an HOUR before Nole could come back onto the court and win.

I am the weather. I suck.

So after wondering if the weather would clear up... It did! So they dried the court up...

They dry the courts with a billion of these things!

And play got underway!

I am Super Novak! POW!

Umm excuse me? Umm over here! Yeah. I exist you know *pouts*

Anyway... despite actually liking Nole, I had a problem. Because Nole was playing a canuck. Never heard of poor Peter Polansky before today (and apparently neither had the umpire as he kept on forgetting his name *G*). I didn't really know who to cheer for. It wasn't easy. Mind you...we Canadians are NOT patriotic about our tennis. Mainly because we suck at tennis. But we tried to back our guys a bit. Even if they were getting beat up. Simon ended up decimating Dancevic after I left yesterday, Polansky put up a good fight - probably the best out of the three Canucks even if I missed most of Roger/Niemeyer match - but lost in straight sets... and Niemeyer? Well, he was killed tonight by the Fed. Speaking of which....

While I was trying to cheer for Polansky while hoping that Nole would win so I could go home and eat dinner (it was 6:00 by this time), guess who showed up in the box seats not that far from me? ROGER! HE WAS THERE. Probably like... 50 feet from me. I was going to be content with being in the same city as him but NO. He just had to SHOW UP! I guess he was wondering how long Nole was going to take... While the stupid rules said I wasn't allowed to use my awesome camera during the match, I just ignored it and took a pic of Roger anyway. It's Roger. I may not get a chance to take a pic of the TMF (the Mighty Fed) this close again. Behold:

I am Roger. I am reading something. You can see my perfect hair through the glass even

So really, spent a good part of Nole's match looking at Roger. Didn't want to get into any trouble (the dudes are seriously strict at this stupid event) so I didn't take any more pics of the TMF. So sorry to my Canuck and to Nole. You're just not in the same level of awesomness as the TMF.

CONLUSION: I LOVE LIVE TENNIS! Even if it follow no time frame whatsoever. And even though the weather can screw you over. And even if they hire dumbos. I will be back Friday with a final assement =)

Two random things:

• There were WAAAAAAAAY too many people in Yankees stuff. There was a kid in a Crysob shirt. And there was a guy in a Leafs hat. I went insane.
• However, I did see this among the items that they were randomly auctioning off:

OVIE!!!! There was some Crysob failthing too but Ovie was cooler. Obviously.

Congrats to Roger and Mirka!

LOOK!

I have some exciting news to share with you: Late last night, in Switzerland, Mirka and I became proud parents of twin girls! We named them Myla Rose and Charlene Riva and they are both healthy and along with their mother, they are doing great. This is the best day of our lives!

Three thoughts:

1. TWIN GIRLS?! I thought it was just one!
2. I guess this means he's skipping Montreal....
3. How long before one of them wins Wimby?

(insert sappy title about Roger here)

©AELTC / B. Martin

Pete's taking this awfully well. Not that he has a choice *g*

Well, that certainly wasn't one of the prettier matches Roger has played in despite Roddick's very strong performance and the sheer length of the match (particularly set 5). I still didn't think it had the same drama as last year's final. But it would've been impossible to repeat that sort of drama from that match. So this year was a good match. A better match than anyone had anticipated. And I'm glad that Roger was made to work for his 15th title.

I also want to say I have huge amount of respect for Roddick right now. I admit he wasn't my favorite player but he's earned a lot of my respect during this tournament. My heart just broke for him after coming *this* close to winning it. That's definitely a heartbreaker. But I hope to see Andy around for a while yet. Keep it up, Andy =)

Love this video here that the ATP did. And Roger looks so cuuute as a little kid!

OH! And let's not forget a CANADIAN guy won something in tennis this weekend. Lost in the Roger drama was the men's doubels final on Saturday which pitted the creepy Bryan twins against the way cooler Canadian Daniel Nestor and Serbian Nenad Zimonjic. So big congrats to Danial and Nenad for winning =) I liked Nenad's little scream when he served up an ace after dumping the ball in the net repeatedly during the last game. Way to go guys!

15

Rafa germs? What Rafa germs?

(photo from here)

I missed the whole damn thing because I was at work, but Roger now has his record breaking 15th Grand Slam.

More sappyness to come soon =)

Roger vs Andy for the finals!

Whoo! Amid all this gloomy Habs stuff, I'm very happy to say that Roger is doing JUST what I wanted him to do. He's made it to the finals once again (7th straight!) with minimal stress. I've been a little underwhelmed by Wimbly this year if only because Roger was behaving like Good Roger instead of like Sick Roger for the most part. But Wimbly semi-finals are special because I first got into tennis during Nadal's semi-final match last year against.... Schuttler I think. Anyway, it's great to see Roger back in another final =)

Also in really good news, there will be no Andy Murray in the finals. Nope. Andy Roddick smashed him in 4 sets (and two tight tie-breaks). Still not sure if it was because Roddick has been playing some of his best tennis in a long time or if it was because Muz wasn't up to par. Maybe a mix of both? I think all the pressure was getting to Muz.

"*sighs* I'm getting bored hitting this..."

"Okay, how about a lovely Roger smash?"

"Load the ball on my racket, slave, and don't screw it up"

"Oh god... I'm actually breaking out into a sweat."

"I FLY!"

Haas: "ROGER! ROGER! Can I have one point? Please? Just one? I mean really, what do I have to do, imitate Sean Avery here?"
Roger: "Aww, alright, fine. But just one, okay?"

Mirka: "My boy is so much more awesome than your boy".

Meanwhile... Roddick finishes a tight 4 set win over Muz only to find out that he will be playing Roger.

"Ohmygod. Ohmygod!"

Nobody beats Robin Soderling 11 times in a row...

...good thing Roger Federer isn't a nobody.

Sorry, Robin.

Okay, this probably only makes sense if you know that Robin Soderling said after Roger beat him at Roland Garros that "nobody beats Robin Soderling 11 times in a row" after Roger beat him for the 10thtime in a row at Paris. He was half joking of course but still...Better make that "Nobody beats Robin Soderling 12 times in a row" now...

Not ignoring you, Roger

I noticed a complete lack of Wimby updates here. Oops. Well, there's two main reasons for this.

1. it's early in the week. That means boring matches
   
2. I have no desire to talk about Roger's weird getup for Wimby. It is strange. I think Nike has lost it.
   
3. Roger has been boring lately. Which is good. Because he's just flattened the opposition so far. Keep being boring in a good way, Roger.
   
4. No Nadal means nobody cool plays on the days that Roger isn't playing which means I"m not watching tennis too much on those days

(okay so that's more than 2 =p)

So a quick note to Roger for tomorrow

Thanks for playing first thing. Please win quickly so I don't have to agonize about you when I'm off to the tweetup. Kolschrwhatsits isn't anything too scary. You can SO win in straight sets.

And... Soxies... I can't believe I bought MLB tv for a month to watch you play...... Oh well. Please forget tonight happened and win tomorrow. Even if I'm not watching you.

On the eve of Wimbledon, the biggest tournament of the year...

....EP is thinking about getting NHL Center Ice.

Oops.

But really, I've been thinking I need to find a way to watch my Caps and the Peachhawks next season so I'm thinking of getting it. It seems to be something like $169 or the year (I'm guessing that's American too) which sounds reasonable. Now, if I could just figure out this blackout crap thing and know for sure which teams would be blacked out, I wouldn't have to angst about this. I mean... there really isn't any such thing as TOO much hockey is there? No. There isn't. I think I shall have to get my hands on this.

Speaking of blackouts, I was also looking at MLB tv (I know, I know) and apparently ALL Jays games are blacked out in Canada. Contrary to popular belief, this is the greatest thing ever. Now, if only they could blackout all Leafs games too.. Canada would be so better off.

Anyway... Wimby.....

I will offer no predictions whatsoever. I refuse. But I will say this to Roger: I know in theory the pressure is off of you to win another Slam and all that jazz... In terms of that whole record thing, you've matched it. You've got a while to break it a few times over. BUT! it would be NICE if you won this. Who knows how distracted you'll be once Mini Roger comes along. It would be nice if you won this before you're up to your head in dipers...

Random info day =p

In hockey news....

Well, I can say for sure that was the least amount of fun I've had "watching" the NHL awards thing. I blame CBC for airing the thing an hour after it started. So I already knew who won via twitter before hand. Whoever was responsible for that messup should be waterbottled. Just saying. Also I predicted this over at A View From the Cheap Seats:

Hart - I’ll say Malkin… But I’d like to see Ovie get it. Obviously.

Pearson - Ovie! Ovie! Ovie!

Norris - Chara…..*sigh* (my Markov should be there)

Calder - Mason

Vezina - Thomas *sighs some more*

Adams - it should be Andy Murray but Julien is walking out with it *sighs even more*

Selke - Datsyuk although I’d take Richards winning the thing….

Lady Byng - Shorty Marty…. poor guy

......And was only wrong twice. In all honesty, I didn't actually see Shorty Marty getting the Byng thing over Turnip because... well, it's Turnip here (lesson learned: don't go against your gut feeling in this case). Not sure why I went with Eggplant over Ovie for the Hart though... That was just stupid. Probably to set myself up in the weird event that he actually did win it. So all in all, I was bored and annoyed with this whole thing last night. Mind you...some nice pictures came out of it.... I'm a sucker for pictures....ANYWAY... Congrats to Ovie for winning the Hart thingy and the Pearson thing and we already knew you were walking out with the Maurice Richard thing (how about we work on the assists and/or goals for next year so you can get the Ross again? *G*). And congrats to everyone else too (and someone please tell Chara that it's okay to deliver a short speech in the event that he wins something next time. I know the guy doesn't do anything short but really... I almost fell asleep!).

Two random things about the awards:

1. I loved Ovie's "it's too hot to touch" thing when he got the Hart
2. "I could really use two Stanley Cup rings to block out Roenick..." <-- Number31 last night on Twitter while Roenick was attempting to talk last night. She is a genius.

Not too much in the way of rumors in general and pretty much nada about the Habs. I'm not sure if I should be worried that there's nothing coming out of Habsland or if I should just be thankful that I don't have to think about insane rumors. The closest thing to a rumor I've heard from Habsland is that they're close to coming to a deal with Komi and there appears to be a big chance that Koivu's headed to the Wild. Meh. Heard that one about Koivu. Let me know if it actually happens (which I hope it doesn't).

The only other interesting thing I've heard is that those creepy Sedin twins want matching 12 year contracts worth 63 million.... Not that I care about where they end up or anything, but to me, 12 years is a long time and unless you front load the contract, you could end up with a b*tch of a time trying to get rid of them if you don't want them down the road.... I get that players want the security but as a GM, I'd be hesitant to do it.

In tennis news....

The biggest news is whether or not Rafa will be playing in Wimby on Monday. Apparently his knees are still acting up. I'm a bit torn on this. I'm ready to believe that Rafa is indeed in a lot of pain. I'm not making light of his injuries. I just wonder how it is that he didn't appear to be playing with a lot of pain a the French Open, still lost, and now we're hearing about this? Maybe he really was in pain throughout the French Open. Maybe it started afterwords. It's entirely possible. Honestly, I almost hope that he really is in pain and this isn't an attempt at trying to 1) soften the blow of his Roland Garros loss and 2) lessen the expectations for Wimbledon. I've heard before that Rafa is supposedly injured and then he plays and blows everyone out of the water for the most part. All this being said, I want Rafa to recover and play. I want him and Roger to play in the finals the way it's been for the past.... however many years *g* It wouldn't be a Wimby final without Rafa and Roger. I don't want Muzz and Roger. I don't want Nole and Roger. And I definitely do NOT want Muzz and Nole. GIMME A ROGER VS RAFA FINAL!

EDIT: He pulled out. *sighs* no Rafa. Messed up draw now.... I'm not very pleased with this. Not at all.

And in football/soccer and yes, baseball news....

I hate Toronto. I hate Toronto. I hate Toronto. I hate Toronto. I hate Toronto. I hate Toronto. I hate Toronto.

Perky Roger time!

Yeah, back to tennis. I hate hockey right now. But anyway, I found this really awesome interview with Roger when he was just starting out as a pro. He must've been like, 19 or something.



With the wonderful benefit of hindsight, it's kind of funny to watch this actually. Of particular interest to me where the bits were he said he got compared to Anna Kournikova because he hadn't won a title, he didn't think it was possible for another player to come along and dominate the game like Sampras did, he hoped to be number one one day and where he said he wanted to win a Grand Slam. "Maybe Wimbledon because it's my favorite one or maybe the US Open once".

Once? ONCE? How about FIVE times? Oh and let's throw in five Wimbledon titles, three Australian Open titles and the French Open too. As for that number one bit... yeah.... you were only number one for 237 CONSECUTIVE weeks. Now maybe I'm wrong here but to me, that sounds like a guy who's completely dominated the tour. But of course itty bitty 19 year old Roger wouldn't known that =p At least he's not being compared to Anna Kournikova anymore....

Roger is better on clay than Rafa?!

Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

Technically speaking, yes, he is. Here are the points that both have accumulated during the clay season:

Roger

Monte Carlo (RD16) - 90 points
Rome (S) - 360 points
Madrid (W)- 1000 points
Roland Garros (W)- 2000 points

Total: 3450

Rafa

Monte Carlo (W) - 1000 points
Barcelona (W) - 500 points
Rome (W) - 1000 points
Madrid (F) - 600 points
Roland Garros (RD16) - 180 points

Total: 3280

Okay, so really Rafa really is better than Roger on clay. He's won more tournaments this year (mind you, he did play one more than Roger and he beat Ferrer in Barcelona). But Roger did beat him at Madrid and Roger won the most important event on clay. But for this year, by virtue of his win at Roland Garros, he is the better one on clay. Sorry Rafa....