BAMFing Tennis

WHATAMATCHWHATAMATCH, WHATAFUCKINGMATCH. Delpo with those howitzeringbazookafiedpiledriving groundstrokes and our good old whiplashingbuccaneergunslinger Rafa. Yes there were a lot of errors but they were playing 'space-shuttle level'(Hova in Nadal's box would have approved) tennis, going for broke, raping those tennis balls and giving each other no quarter. This was THE match as far as the 4th round matches were concerned, and it more than lived up to its billing. Heck, it probably is the best match Wimbledon is going to see in the second week of the tournament. It was the meanest and baddest and dopest and illest match so far in this year's Championships.

Images from that 6-2,6-2,6-2 banging of Rafa at Flushing Meadows 09 were repeatedly forcing itself into my head when Delpo was mothering those balls but Rafa responded decently, especially in the tiebreaks.

And apart from the tennis there was some good drama, with those 2 injury scares, Delpo gentripping on a ballkid, Rafa raging, Spanish soap-opera style at Carlos Ramos for that time violation etc etc.

I hope Nadal's not hampered by that ankle injury. That would be a pity. I mean, Mardy Fish would get to the semis then! If Rafa was in that much pain, he should have forfeited the match. Del Potro might have gone far.

BLOCKBUSTER STUFF. Give me more I say.

Medley I

Aaiye dukaan kholta hoon:

1. Re-vive: Coming along pretty nicely. I’ve now sort of realized what I had been missing for quite some time. The ubiquitous adda session that happens every day from sunset till 11 o’ clock has become very, very essential to my daily existence. Pausing to think, I also realize that earlier, we never ever had to call each other to a specific place just so we can have this – we had the tuitions which served the purpose. Commendably. And Mukherjee hasn’t changed. Not. One. Bit. And that keeps things jazzed up all the time, although we sometimes go a little overboard! The Polo Ground is perfect for this kind of timepass. Made my second trip to school with Babai, Souvik and Roy. And we ended up singing a plaintive - and pathetic - rendition of ‘Winds of Change’(Or...did we?). School school naa raha(sob). Siddhant ‘Choos-Lee’ Bhartia came down all the way from Calcutta to meet up with us. We appreciate it, Sidd – it’s a pity our plans to get smashed together in Bangalore never really materialized, and now you're no longer in Bangalore. Now it’s Calcutta for the next 3 years, pucca. Right then. We’ll get smashed in Calcutta one of these days :D
And I still can't decide whether I want to go for that reunion party in school. Most of us are undecided - we're unsure of the crowd... what if the grand old men of SPS Alumni take centrestage and we newbies are summarily ignored? Wisely, the organisers are dangling the bait of having ex-students from AG Church and Loreto on board for the '3 day extravaganza' :D We shall see!

2. Brit GP, Silverstone: So the Brawns finally came unstuck. Low temperatures weren’t letting their tyres warm up properly, and Button was undone (*smirks*) and Barrichello wasn’t exactly giving a great account of himself (Massa and Rosberg almost jumped him). But I’m dribbling on about a mere bagatelle. Why don’t we sidestep this issue and yell ‘SEBASTIAN!!’ - What a performance. What a thundering performance. Granted that the Red Bull car was flattered a little by the nature of the circuit and the air and track temperatures, but you simply can’t gloss over the fact that Vettel, on a heavier fuel load, first put in a stonker of a qualifying lap to take pole, and then pulled away from the two old goats on the grid at over a second a lap consistently during the first stint of the race. That was the day he did a Schumacher. Fab job!

3. Wimbledon: It’s no secret which camp I belong to. And yes, Wimbledon without its defending champion feels a bit like showing up for a college prom night and having to dance with Bablu the channawallah. OK, that was monumentally asinine of me, but you shall, at this juncture, have mercy on this mentally challenged individual and get the drift. And, much as I don’t mind Roger Effing Federer and really, really respect him, the Savile-Row bedecked tennis-racket swinging Rolex commercial really gets on my nerves. The other one with footage from his matches is OK – I mean, Rolex has being doing that sort of ads for years, but this one is, well, phhbbbt.

4. Shantaram(the book): I won't say anything except describing it in one word : 'staggering'.

More later. Run along.