Some random thoughts about the match

(Image from here)

Because...I'm still incapable of writing something epically awesome.

The match

The match itself wasn't much to write home about. Soderling did what I thought and hoped he would do: which was crumble under the pressure of being in his first ever Grand Slam Final. Kudos to the guy for not only setting a personal best at any Grand Slam event but for also playing some superb tennis in the process. But today it was the Roger Federer's day and he came out like it from the beginning. While Roger played solid tennis in the first set, he was helped out a bit by Soderling who's dangerous serving had completely left him. I figured some semblance of the Soderling I had seen before would show up and sure enough he did. It went all the way to a tiebreak. And wow. What a tiebreaker for Roger. 4 aces?! Jeez. He didn't give Soderling any chances whatsoever.

After that, you had to figure it was only going to be a matter of time before Roger won. Well, at least that's what I hoped. I was still thinking that in a best of five sets, we could still be in for a lot of tennis. Roger immediately broke serve and pretty much didn't look back until he had to serve for the match. Ah. The moment of truth. Would he choke? He already looked in tears before he had to start serving. Not a good sign. Then he faced break point for only the second or third time in the entire match. Some good serving put him back to match point and then... Sodering put it into the net to finish off the match. Game. Set. Match. And Roger wins his first ever Roland Garros title.

(credit goes to AFP/AFP/Getty Images)

What this means

So it took a little longer than expected, but he got his 14th title.

After what had to be a fairly bad year for Federer, there were questions about whether his time was up. In all honesty, the questions were fair. No, they didn't need to be talked about to the enth degree, but they were legitimate to some degree. Federer set a very high standard for men's tennis, and when he fell sort of his standards, it had the people up in arms.

But just like he did back at the US Open last year, this year Federer silenced his critics - critics who, especially since the Australian Open, had gotten very loud. He's now tied with Pete Sampras for the most Grand Slams won. He's now in a small list of people which doesn't include Sampras and Bjorn Borg, who have won all four titles in their career. This is pretty massive. Even Roger was having trouble concentrating:

But it was very hard mentally for me to stay within the match during the match, because my mind was always wondering, what if? What if I win this tournament? What does that mean? What will I possibly say? I don't know.

You can'thelp it but to tell yourself, you know, once you win you'll get all the time tothink about all these things, but they keep on coming back.

I was verynervous at the beginning of the third set because I realized how close I was. The last game, obviously you can imagine how difficult that game was. It was almost unplayable for me because I was just hoping to serve some good serves and hoping that he was going to make four errors. It was that bad.

So, yeah,it was an emotional roller coaster for me.

Why this win still counts

For some people, this win will mean less because he didn't beat Nadal. I think there's a few things here. For me, I dont believe that it would've be the same if Rafa hadn't participated in the tournament. If Rafa had pulled out and Roger had won, then there would be a legitimate case to say "well, yes, he won, but Nadal wasn't in the tournament so can we truly rank this win up there with say, his fifth Wimbledon win?". But the thing here is, Nadal was in this tournament. He did participate. And he lost. Federer didn't poison him. Federer didn't bully him into pulling out. Nadal lost to an opponent who played a hell of a lot better than he did in that match. Federer had no control over that match. So if the defending champ is going to play badly and goes out, then that leaves the door wide open for other players to take the title. This title doesn't mean less because he didn't beat Nadal. This win wasn't handed to him. He had to work for it. And he earned it.

(Image from here)

ROGER WINS THE FRENCH OPEN!!!!!!

(image from here)

Oh. My. God. He won. He actually won. He effing did it. HE WOOOOOOOOOON!

I'll be back with more thoughts later once I can actually stop running around like an idiot and actually calm down.

Blah, blah, blah, Stanley Cup finals, blah, blah, blah

Myeh, not in the mood for hockey. Let's talk tennis. In about 12 hours, Roger Federer will be making his 4th consecutive final appearance at Roland Garros. This time however, there will be no Clay Monster to stomp all over him. Instead, he will get the guy who beat Nadal.

Moving away from the whole pre-game analysis which I won't be able to do very well anyway.... I want to talk about what a big deal this victory would be.

First off, he has never won here. Winning this tournament would be great for that reason alone. When you've gone to the finals so many times it would be nice to just win the darn thing for once, right? Right.

Second, winning this would also put Federer into a small group of people who have won all four Grand Slams in their careers. That would cement his place in the history books as one of the best players ever (mind you, I still think Roger is the best player ever. But this would just be the final proof).

Third, winning this tournament would finally tie Roger's number of Grand Slam victories with those of Pete Sampras who has the most. Roger tried to tie the record back in at the Australian Open which as you might recall... didn't go so well. Roger had a meltdown and I had a metldown afterwards too (The Battle of the Cursed Barberpole Jerseys followed Roger's 4 o'clock in the morning match).

Fourth, should Roger win this, I think he'll be riding a huge confidence boost throughout the rest of the year. I think the Slams are what are important to Roger now and this win would give him a lot of confidence going into Wimbledon (there is also a chance that Rafa won't be making Wimbledon but I'm not too ready to fully believe that he won't be there). Yes, it's a different surface, blah, blah, blah, but winning this one is huge for the reasons I listed above and mentally, I think Roger will be good.

Allez Roger!

Roger gives me Halak-attacks...

There's nothing like eating a Roland Garros towel after you win a match =)

Seriously, I was ready to have a mental breakdown after the Fed went down 2 sets to 1 while looking absolutely horrendous doing so. I saw his poor father in the stands. He kept walking around nervously. Poor Mr. Federer...

Anyway... I was pretty surprised at how Stripey was handling himself. For his first semi-final ever he did well - and looked a lot better thanks to Roger's miss-hits. Early on he played strong and didn't seem like he was going to choke. I'll be honest though, I wasn't looking so much at Stripey. I was paying more attention to Roger's shots which seemed to not want to stay in the court lines. Finally the Roger woke up and Stripey started to make errors and after 3 hours of pulling out my hair, we had a Roger victory.

YAY!

For the... what... fourth time in a row now we'll see Roger in the finals of Roland Garros. The good news is that he won't have to face Rafa. The bad news is, he'll be playing the guy who beat Rafa and looked pretty darn good while demolishing Gonzalez. Okay. Back to chewing my fingers....At least he'll have the crowd backing him. Right people Paris-people? RIGHT.

"Yay! I WIIIIIN!"

"Wait... I didn't do that right... Let me try again...Wait for it......."

"HOLY COW! I'M GOING TO THE FINALS BABY! YAAAAAAY"

"C'moooon Roger...."

All images come from here.

Off season braindead-ness sets in....

It's almost the off season and with any luck the season wil be over by Saturday (right Wings? Right). To honor the braindeadness that comes with the off season I drew - and coloured! - another stick figure drawing. Of the Flyers.... err yeah....

To explain: I was talking to someone about their jersey colours. And we agreed that that orange is the same colour that you'd wear if you went hunting... But then I said that Itty Bitty couldn't possibly go hunting because he'd get hurt. He'd have to go butterfly hunting instead....

Click for bigger picture.

Of Roger, useless info and.... baseball?

So Roger will make his 20th consecutive Grand Slam semi-final appearance after downing Gael Monfils this morning. This makes him just 6 sets away from winning his first ever French Open title. I'm just hoping that's not the same thing as saying the Pens are only 3 wins away from winning the Stanley Cup (ie. not going to happen). He'll meet Stripey (Del Potro) who's never been this far in a Grand Slam before. Sadly Soderling the Rafa Killer is still kicking and will face Gonzalez. So yeah. I hope Roger is focusing on making sure HE can play well and not "omfg, I'm SO close to winning it and I MUST win it!". This is the problem without Rafa, Nole and Muz (Murray). Now Roger's the favorite and I'm worried it'll go to his head and he'll choke.

Speaking of Roger, Monfils and the French Open.... the first time I ever watched tennis was on a replay of the French Open semi-finals between Roger and Monfils. There was no hockey on and so I decided to watch it. All I knew was that the guy with funny name was the world number one. Oh yes, I was so stupid..

And yeah... I've got baseball on. Don't get how this thing works and really wishing I could watch hockey instead. I do not get this sport. Other than the obvious. Which is you try to hit the ball. But that's like saying the objective of tennis is to hit the ball. It's just a tad bit more complicated than that. And what's worse is that I have to watch the Toronto Blue Jays and the LA whatevers.... I kinda wanted to see the Red Soxs... *pouts* Stupid baseball.... stupid Toronto. I WANT MY HABS!!!!

So where's the fanfare?

I'm not talking about the royal treatment I didn't get when I got back from Sensland, I'm talking about the whole frenzy with the Habs new headcoach. Maybe I missed it. I mean, it's not like Sensland is big on hockey right now or anything... And I was going to mention this earlier but 1) I heard about the news JUST as I was leaving yesterday (thanks Bob for scheduling your presser at the most inconvenient times) and 2) I left my comp here. ANYWAY.

Jacques Martin.

Didn't know anything about the guy and after doing a quick Google search, I'm not sure I'm jumping up and down. Granted, what do you expect me to do when the guy apparently is has a personality that seems more boring than Bob's. If that's possible. No offense to Bob or anything... But oh well... a defense first type of mentality is a good thing. Especially for a team that really didn't seem to have any defense on most nights. And the guy technically has experience coaching. Unlike Tremblay, Vigneault, Therrien, Julien and Carbonneau did when they came in.

But I still can't shake the thought that "was he really hired because of his experience or because of the way his name sounded?" thought. Maybe I'm just really skeptical, but I still can't deny that was the first thing that came to my mind when I read the guy's name was "Jacques Martin". Especially with Boivin going around saying "we must have a French coach". I'm trying not to think that Martin was hired because he was the best option available under the Habs number one rule for hiring a coach "he has to be speak French" instead of the what should be rule number one "does he fit with the direction we want to take the team in? Regardless of where he was born, what he looks like, what language he speaks, what suits he wears, what he eats for breakfast, etc, etc".

We'll see. As long as he doesn't turn the team into the Devils I guess I can't complain too much (unless we get turned into the Islanders). And even if the Habs do get boring... I've got Mr. Exciting Goal Scorer to watch and Peach Fuzz. So I'm all set.

Oh yeah and we have no goalie coach... or strength and conditioning dude... Rollie got fired and the other dude who's name escapes my braindead brain is leaving......

Oh and... I have this crazy tradition of buying Habs stuff in other cities like Toronto, Quebec City and Ottawa. So naturally I had to go looking for stuff in Ottawa. You'd think that they didn't even have an NHL team there....there's like zero hockey stuff. I know their team is out but still... Quebec City puts Ottawa to shame in the department of selling useless hockey paraphernalia. But after hours of looking, I did find something!

You thought you could hide the Habs stickers behind all the Leafs and Sens crap, eh?! Well, I found them! And yes, I screamed like a little kid when I found them. The guy behind the cash looked so annoyed that I was buying a Habs thing. I'm starting to like these annoyed looks I get from people when I buy Habs stuff. It's fun. Anyway, I'm going to have fun trying to find places to stick my beautiful new stickers. I WIN MAJORLY TODAY! *walks away*

Stripes!

Hey guess what? Not only did a team I wanted to win actually win tonight, but I got to wake up to Roger winning in... well... 5 sets. That makes me 2 for 2 for once! Anyway, after watching Roger Del Potro came around and uh.. wow.. you thought the barberpole jerseys were ugly......?

(image from yahoo sports)

Just in case you want to compare to the barberpole jerseys...