David Does Australia

(Chill out, it’s not what you think, perv.)

Thanks a lot, Roger Federer. I don’t care if you are the classiest, most professional professional (redundant? Maybe, or maybe not…just think about it for a second. Trippy, huh?) athlete on the entire planet, what happened the other night was absolutely unacceptable. Admittedly, I am a night owl, but I had to stay up until 3:30 a.m. in order to begin watching your match against uber-dick head, Novak Djokovic. Essentially, I stayed up until daybreak for the second night in a row (see: “Rafael Nadal: Portrait of an Ass-Taster) hoping to see you lay a tennis smackdown…again. But lo and behold, what did I see? You getting severely outplayed, that is what.

I do not watch a lot of tennis, but this was the first time I had ever seen a match of yours in which you were not the aggressor. You looked timid and Djokovic was able to take advantage of this. But don’t worry, I’m not mad. I realize that you just had an off day. I mean, only a moron would think that this is an ominous sign of things to come. So, with that being said, I look forward to you kicking ass and taking names later this year at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Hell, while you are at it, why don’t you just go ahead and surprise everyone at the French as well.

Aussie Observations:
--I went into this match knowing only that Novak Djokovic was an underdog who had actually had some past success against Federer. Roughly 47 seconds into the telecast, he officially joined my “Shit List.” The list, of course, is made up of sports personalities who just plain irk me, for some reason or another.

--Why exactly did Djokovic make the list? Three reasons:

1) An apparently well-known (in tennis circles, at least) sound-byte exists of Djokovic essentially calling Roger Federer a cheater. Novak’s claim is that Roger fakes or exaggerates injuries to deceive his opponent, only to play at 100 percent during the match. To the Surly Serb (see below for explanation), this constitutes cheating. To me, this constitutes having a strategic mind.

2) His nickname is Nole (which is more infuriating than Rafa). How did he go about earning this pet name? I have no idea. Will this stop me from writing some baseless speculation? Of course not. My guess is that ol’ “Nole” was trying to sing a certain, classic Christmas carol, only to screw up in a fit of embarrassing dyslexia. As a result, Novak became Nole. (I really hope that this joke was as easy to pick up as I think it was.) (Oh, and if you are looking at this paragraph trying to find an explanation for “Surly Serb,” I just decided by myself that this would be Djokovic’s nickname from here on it. Think about it, he is an asshole from Serbia, ergo, he is the Surly Serb.)

3) He as an annoying Sergio Garcia-esque tick. Much like the Spanish golfer likes to waddle his hips multiple times prior to swinging the golf club, the Surly Serb (I’m making this thing stick, dammit) bounces the ball…so…many…times. How much of a problem is the bouncing? Djokovic was warned by an official to speed up his pre-serve routine (a warning he failed to heed, by the way).

--The pre-match intro featured a camera pan across all of the tennis fans who decided that the best way to watch the television broadcast of the match was to sit in lawn chairs just outside of the building. One particular group who jumped out at me during the crowd scan: a crew of about a dozen Asian Roger Federer fans holding up a sign that read “Federer Express,” all the while chanting its simple message. Why did this pop out at me? Well, stereotypically speaking, Asians have trouble pronouncing their L’s, usually resulting in an “R” sound. Why is this noteworthy? Because, in a world that cared nothing about political correctness, these enthusiastic tennis fans would have potentially created a memorable advertisement for Federal Express.

--In tonight’s (or I guess, this morning’s) Men’s Final, I like Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to capture his first grand slam title over Novak Djokovic. My reasoning? I like Tsonga and I do not like Djokovic. Could it be any more black and white than that? I think not.