Days of Being LJ

okay, so I completely lied when I said I was going to retrospectively blog about the Australian Open, I’ve just managed to go through ALL 5205 photos I took and turned them into jpegs. I still am planning on listening to the podcasts, however only when I don’t get sick at the sound of my own voice…ahem

So why haven’t I been blogging? Well, there’s nothing really to blog about really, Twitter is taking care of all my tennis needs, work has been brilliant thus far, and I haven’t really had anything to really bitch about.

Of course I say that and by tomorrow something will have gone catastrophically wrong which will make me eat my words.

Life is currently devoid of any long term goals, short term goals are to get fitter, lose some weight so I can lose the joint issues and improve at tennis.

All in all I’m quite content, not resoundingly happy but very comfortable. Currently I’m in my TV rotation, working on a little video game show which is somewhat satiating my creativity and thus I haven’t found the necessary angst to go out and seek some masochistic activity (i.e updating this blog). I adore the people I work with and most of the work I do but knowing that my rotation ends in about 3 weeks will probably kill all this latent joy and send me screaming back to this blog.

But before then, I think I may enjoy what little solace I have left, grab some more sleep and you may not hear from me till mid-year

depending on how my next rotation goes I guess.

Leave you guys with a photo from the Aussie Open:

The crowd at any Federer practise is amazing, amassed 5-7 deep alongside the entire court, with spectators also peering from the top of the stands of nearby courts.  People forget about personal space, courtesy or shame just for a glimpse of a living legend. I’ve been at the back of the throng, I’ve also been lucky to be at the front, leaning into the fence, close enough to lean in and almost feel the whoosh of the racquet.

This shot was taken during a warmup hit before his 4th round encounter with Lleyton Hewitt.  I was sandwiched within the throng, finding a precarious balance behind a young boy who was too short to see anything and in between two tall guys. Because Federer was practising on the other side of the court he usually was on, photos had to be carefully taken between a smattering of head, hair, shoulders and armpits all smushed up against the fence in front. But even under the fading afternoon light, framed by the seething mass of humanity, Roger Federer seemed to look into the soul of my camera, almost as if to ask;

“I mean really? Do you think you have a big enough lens? Yeesh, can you leave me alone to practise?”

LJK life blogging, life, musings, photography, roger federer, sport, tennis, work

If the Olympic motto is “Swifter, Higher, Stronger” than surely the motto for IOC broadcasting standards is “Slower, Lower, Weaker”. If the digital age has taught us anything, it’s that technological freedom has allowed individuals to shun the paternalistic attitudes of global media conglomerates, that is, until Uncle Media decides to enact a totalitarian broadcasting regime worthy of Kim Jung Il upon the masses.

The IOC has a shitload of power, frankly in Olympic sports Jacque Rogge has more control than the Pope over Catholics and only Sepp Blatter can compete. So why am I not surprised that every 4 years, even with the changes in social culture, advancements in digital technology, social networking etc, the IOC still comes out guns a blazing with a policy of CONTAINMENT. Selling geo-protected broadcast rights and bloody well making sure that they are adhered to, under the threat of pain, death and the likelihood that should broadcasters not toe the line, they can say goodbye to ever holding the rights again.

NBC paid $820 million for the Vancouver games, and frankly they are set to lose $250 million, because no matter how much we think the Olympics are still important, professional & amateur sports have evolved to such an extent as to mitigate the absolute importance of this one event every 4 years. Therefore yearly events such as the Super Bowl, US Open etc, have probably far more advertising revenue attached than the Olympics. So NBC, how the fuck do you earn all that money back? Frankly the IOC is ripping you off honey, time to rethink your Olympics strategy.

So all these media broadcasters pay so much yet are reaping less and less rewards. So instead of saying, fuck it, let’s just share everything, they become even MORE protectionist, more concerned about their assets. Basically they’re going about it the wrong way, if no one sees the actual footage, how do you expect to make money?

Which brings me to my actual qualms about the broadcasts themselves: I’m in fulltime work at the moment which means the luxury of staying at home watching sports live across the globe is gone, gone like the health of my and Rafa’s knees. But instead of coming home nightly and sitting through 4 hours of Eddie Maguire talking to me, in between showing me Aussies skiing in the heats of some event and 2 hours of ads, I would like to see highlights or replays of events I actually care about, you know watch the best in the world? Shit, I even want to see the bad stuff as well; I want to see figure skating to ridiculous music choices like an instrumental version of Numb by Linkin Park.

Look I do understand that it’s important to support “our” athletes no matter what level but at least give the rest of us workers a choice to view highlights online, I’m not even asking for full replays (that’s way too much to ask of ninemsn) but instead what do we get? Inane interviews with half drunk Aussies, reviews of après hangouts and 1000 highlight reels of Canadian Dale Begg-Smith winning silver.

Ch9 can’t even be bothered with “real” highlights; it’s sad and indicative of the shite broadcasting we have to deal with in this country. But LJ, some annoying people may ask, why not subscribe to Foxtel? They’re showing everything, they have a significant amount of digital online stuff. Yes indeed, they do, and I can probably pay for a similar thoroughly comprehensive online service as well.

But the argument is, I shouldn’t have to. It’s the Olympics, a huge monolithic event which happens every 4 years. It’s not some random tennis tournament in Dubai. I shouldn’t have to subscribe to watch it; FTA broadcasters should be throwing the material at me, as well as the copious amounts of ads and trying to sell me everything from jeeps to Nike shoes. The question is, why aren’t they?

I can live with ads, shit if you had the online coverage NBC had for the 2008 Olympics, I would gladly sit through 30sec ads for every 10min of footage I watched. I will gladly let you sell me anything, sham wow, Nike, Coca Cola, I’m addicted to the last 2 anyhow.

But what I don’t want and frankly the majority of people, wealthy and smart enough to use the internet (those are the people you’re targeting your ads to) is to be fed random tidbits of events and extended interviews with people we don’t care about.

See back in 2008, online flash streaming was still getting started, but now ubiquitous services such as Justintv & Ustream are in total cohorts with TPTB. The minute a stream is put up, bang, gets taken down. SO much for the internet breaking down geographical barriers, as long as you’re NBC/IOC you’re still allowed to erect the walls.

NBC made a HUGE leap with its Beijing 2008 coverage. Unprecedented live streaming of something like 90% of events. It was revolutionary, extraordinary, and frankly I was lucky enough to be technologically adept enough to experience some of it first-hand.

But now (perhaps with the lack of time difference) NBC has restricted 95% of streaming and full replays to US Cable subscribers. For fucks sakes, it’s hard enough to find a working US VPN, but now you’re asking me to find a username and password for a cable service? Well fuck you very much.

It’s like we’ve taken 10 steps back since 2005 (the year which heralded YouTube) instead of fucking awesome digital broadcasting, watching stuff when we want and choosing how we want it, broadcasters and the IOC in particular still want to tell us what to do and how to do it.

It seems that Europe is still the place to be for good all round sports coverage without the crap and pomp. Frankly I do envy you, Europe but I don’t envy your VAT. Whilst Eurosport gives great online and traditional coverage (In superb HD as well), we in Australia are left with he most dismal excuse for a television broadcaster. You know people actually hoped this time Ch 9 would be slightly better than the often lacklustre Ch 7. No, instead Olympic coverage in this country just got 10 times worse with Eddie the Eagle Maguire spending way too much time talking, crap highlights of even crappier Aussies coming 40th in the downhill, daily live coverage only from 9-2pm. On Sunday, the coverage stopped at 2pm which meant they missed out on the men’s 1500m short track final, which was fucking ace btw, thank god for Sopcast and Eurosport in Czech.

Along similar protectionist media strategies, claiming YouTube videos is another strategy which pisses me off as much as it boggles my logic. Tennis Australia the latest culprit in a myriad of media corporations who don’t have a fucking clue about digital business. Anything remotely related to the Australian Open 2010 has been removed from the Tube. Interviews, matches, ceremonies, every last fucking titbit. And for what? Are they going to sell me all the matches (other than the final) including interviews with Jim Courier? On DVD or on iTunes?

So obviously it’s not to protect their vested material interests, since they’re not selling me any of that material they’re pulling. Okay well, perhaps they are trying to protect Ch7’s broadcast interests. Okay so will ch7 ever repeat any of those matches, interviews or ceremonies? Nup!

Then why the fuck would you be pulling off those videos? Isn’t it more of an incentive to claim ownership and reap the ad revenue instead of ripping everything off the interzwebz and actually making no money off it? Oh and instead of using an outlet such as YouTube to further the cause of Tennis Australia itself and the Australian Open, it takes the hardline of, I’m going to PROTECT ALL my ass(ets), well, that’s your extra revenue going down the drain. People (especially those hardcore fans) will continue downloading and sharing in the crevasses of the internet where you’re too fucking stupid to look.

I just find this entire situation demoralising, as a teen the internet was like the saviour of mankind, finally something to bring us all closer together, the ability to share, to create, an open discussion forum, no longer did I have to wait 8 months for the latest X files season, I can watch and discuss with my fellow fans the day after the episode went to air in the US.

What Facebook, twitter, YouTube had achieved to bring us closer together, a community of humans gathering, watching and discussing and in this case the achievements of some of the best winter sportsmen and women is now frequently overshadowed by a mob of greedy protectionist white middle aged businessmen, keen to protect their own vested interests, to the detriment and development of global culture and in essence the human race.

Shame…real utter, fucking shame.

—

P.S.

Roger Mosey has written a brilliant piece on how the BBC plans to tackle digital broadcasting through creative & innovative measures for the 2012 Olympics. It seems so hopeful on paper, but I can’t help but think in 2 years time we’ll be back again, hands tied by the IOC and sitting through another abysmally broadcasted Olympics.

So we really have 2 choices if we want to watch good coverage for London 2012:

1. Move to the UK
2. Introduce a TV tax in Australia, give all the money to the ABC, let them have 6 channels and give them the broadcasting rights and let the TV Multiplatform people go crazy online.

LJK television Channel 9, digital broadcasting, digital business, IOC, Media Strategy, olympics, online broadcasting, sport, tv

So yes I have been neglecting this blog, so often is happens when I’ve got nothing on in my life, or I’ve got too much on in my life. Thankfully this time it’s the latter.

I’ve come back from 2 weeks at the Australian Open 2010, experiencing many firsts in the process, first time in Melbourne, first time watching live tennis and of course first time watching the GOAT in action.

Just a little over a year ago, I was drowning my sorrows in ethanol as Federer lost another final to Nadal. Little did I believe I would be at a Grand Slam final a year later, watching him actually win it.

I’ll be retrospectively blogging for the next few weeks or so, all my experiences at AO2010. Lam and I podcasted most days so I may actually remember stuff. I’m hoping to also put snippets of the podcasts up (well the non-defamatory parts anyway).  It’s the first time I’ve podcasted and I think it beats writing a diary on my laptop, takes less time and less energy and I can multitask during it. So look for more podcasts in the future i guess.

So the major planned goals accomplished this trip were:

• watch Roger Federer dance across a tennis court
• watch RF practise
• obtain RF’s autograph
• watch a Grand Slam Final
• Watch RF WIN a Grand Slam Final (On my birthday to boot)
• Watch heaps of other awesome players playing the glorious sport of tennis LIVE

Of course there were a few unexpected events which also made the 2 weeks unforgettable:

• Hit For Haiti Charity Event
• Justine Henin’s run to the final
• Prince William’s mid-match visit
• Gasquet vs Youzhny 5 setter
• Feliciano Lopez’s rear end

I will also cover the impact of having the iphone whilst travelling as well as professing my undying love for my Canon 40D + 70-200mm f4/L Combo.

LJK Australian Open 2010, sport Australian Open 2010, canon, photography, roger federer, sport, tennis, travel

There’s a lot that could be written about Roger Federer and not a lot that hasn’t been written already. I’ve been wanting to do a longer piece on this piece of tennis genius DNA since the French Open this year but ran into brick walls with inspiration and simply because I didn’t want to Jinx the man going into Wimbledon and the US Open. Now that the US Open is finally done I don’t really have that jinx excuse so therefore here goes:

Federer is a tennis genius, no qualms; you can list the never-ending qualities; pure technical stroke production, all court game, mental fortitude, master tactician etc. There are far more writers out there who can wax lyrical on his achievements with a higher level of eloquence and finesse however I’m not one of them. Really I’m here to bring some entertainment not some divine level of analysis.

He won Roland Garros which I think is probably still one of his best career achievements thus far, even the photos and video footage attest to that, I mean has tennis looked ever so glorious? the red clay, the BBC slow motion footage, the light drops of rain splashing on Coupe des Mousquetaires as Rog kisses it. I mean shit it was like tennis porn. And then he broke Randy’s heart at Wimbledon. More than broke it I guess, rather tore it out, smashed it with his Wilson K-Factor K-six one Tour 90 and stomped on it with his Nike Vapor VIs (oh yeah did I mention I will be doing product placements in my blog posts now? Nike you can just pay me with free merchandise thanks).

I gather that in the months after the devastation that was the Australian Open 2009, in the midst of the racquet abuse, AWOL serve and the escaped forehand, most fed fans would have probably made this pact with the tennis gods:

“Please let Rog win Roland Garros and regain his Wimbledon crown for his 15th and beat Pete’s record and I will never ask anything more, EVER, as long as Rog plays.”

And if you didn’t, you either had given up on fed entirely or had a much stronger belief in him than the rest of us, or otherwise actually had better things to do than pray to the tennis gods.

So it’s with this pact that we fed fans move into the last slam of the season, where our Rog was gunning for a 6th straight US Open title. Supposedly he was handed a cupcake draw, I’m sure neither Hewitt nor Soderling necessarily agreed to that notion but when Rog hit that “tweener” against Djokovic in the 2nd last point of his semi, viewers went wild, he IS the greatest they all chanted.

But what was not mentioned was that “what the tennis gods giveth, the tennis gods taketh away.” Perhaps us fed fans did get a tad greedy after the Channel Slam and the birth of his twin mangoes. It seemed our man couldn’t lose and couldn’t do anything wrong in life. With what was a pure dismantling of both Murray and Djokovic in Cincinnati with only a hiccup loss to Tsonga at Montreal to cast doubt over his form, most through it would take a complete miracle effort to dethrone the king of tennis.

Well considering the humiliation of Del Potro at the AO 09 by Rog, a few months back Delpo was possibly the last person people would have picked to complete the Regicide at the US Open. But after THAT semi at the French this year, I was always going to frazzle with Del Potro in the Final. The Ent, the Elf, whatever you want to call him, has a cannon for a forehand, a mortar for a backhand and a couple of grenades for serves. The guy is giant, his return of serve is formidable and when on song, you’d wonder if any one in the world could take him. Yes even a player with the 100% mental fortitude of Nadal and the stroke variety of the Fedster.

But Delpo wasn’t entirely on song today. He gutted it out, and his win was well deserved. The less said about Fed’s serving the better but Delpo’s return game probably impacted on the complete and utter failure of fed’s 1st serve to appear in the game. From my observation, Fed looked tired today, and when it got to the nuts and bolts of the match you could sense the frustration and inability to deal with Delpo’s ground game. Maybe the less than 24 hour turn around from yesterday’s hard fought 3 setter did impact him but more or less how do you deal gracefully when someone is firing cannonballs at you off a 1st serve? Rog was probably thinking, “Shit, why am I still playing when I can be at home watching a Patrick Swayze movie marathon with Mirka and my twin mangoes?”.

Anyhoo my pain and frustration have all but dissipated now, 6 hours after the match was done, 1 bowl of pork spare rib ramen and 1 piece of chocolate mud cake later I was clean through the stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and well on my way to acceptance. I think this is a new record in dealing with the emotional fallout from fed losing. Obviously I’m not liking it but at least it wasn’t as completely devastating and painful as AO 2009 (when I had to break out the vodka to cope). (Freakyfrites has a hilarious and oh so true post of the stages of grief which grips fedophiles after a loss)

And you know, when you look at Delpo’s scruffy humble frame crying tears of joy and thanking his parents, friends and supporters in Spanish (after Dick Enberg’s rude palming off), you can’t help but tear up a bit. He’s a good kid, with a good head screwed on and I’m happy for him. At least he kisses the trophy right?

I think I’ve also found an upside to fed losing to certain Spanish speaking beasts of men in sleeveless Nike shirts and bright bandanas:

“Hawkeye”

It’s funny that for a man so instilled with tennis perfection it’s this piece of technology which has become his complete and utter downfall on the court. He hates it, it hates him and it conspires with umpires and linesmen to humiliate him. And Rog, he doesn’t like that one bit, no, instead it instigates some of the funniest and petulant meltdowns from feddy.

“No no no, it’s too late…come on…I wasn’t allowed to challenge after two seconds, the guy takes like ten everytime. How can you allow that stuff to happen? You have any rules in there or what? Stop showing me the hand okay? Don’t tell me to be quiet okay? When I want to talk I talk. I don’t give a shit what he said, I’m just saying he took way too long. Don’t fucking tell me the rules, I was not allowed to challenge like fuck 2 matches ago after one second while he takes 10 seconds and gets 2 of them….Don’t fucking talk to me.

And this beauty from the Wimby final 2007 against Nadal (which Rog actually won but it still brings in the LOLs)

I was sure I was happy at the point where I was like, I’m happy he challenged. Cause I knew he was going to burn me. How in the world was that ball in? I mean….SHIT! Look at the score now! I mean it’s just killing me today. What’s this system for? *sniff*

I’m glad that even the “Perfect (Beautiful) People” have a perchance for silly petulance. And it’s completely endearing, I mean he even makes swearing sound almost gentlemanly. How can people say that fed is a robot? The guy’s hawkeye meltdowns are like, on the Safin level of entertainment.

—

During my tennis lesson on Sunday I came to the cold, harsh and bitter realisation that nothing in my game will ever be as pretty or technically brilliant as anything in Rog’s tennis arsenal, no matter how hard I work at it. And you realise after you play tennis just how much of a special entity Rog is. I’m glad I can witness such a player in my lifetime and he better bring it live at AO 2010, when I’m in the stands screaming for Mirka to unveil the twins on court in the player’s box.

LJK sport roger federer, sport, tennis

When I was around 7-8, I received my first set of tennis racquets. During that time my family weren’t as well off as we are now, in fact my parents keep harping on about how I currently make more money a week then they did combined when they first came to Australia. However one of the core values my parents held was that lack of funds should never restrict one’s ability to enjoy the perks in life; holidays, music,  sport, toys etc. Therefore most of the stuff I had as a kid from electronic keyboard, sneakers, toys and the fore mentioned tennis racquets were 2nd hand, acquired by my parents at weekend garage sales. They didn’t have much money but they made sure that I had everything I needed to be a kid, to be able to learn, discover and explore the world around me. Even though the equipment wasn’t new or flash or perhaps even very good, I am still grateful for their efforts.

I used a wooden racquet (very old school) to practise hitting a tennis ball against the living room wall and drive the old man downstairs absolutely mad. We rented in an old block of flats with fibro walls and wooden floorboards in North Sydney. Before the property and office booms of the mid-late 1990s, it was a quiet suburb populated by churches and nursing homes.

The windows of the flat opened to a grey depressing concrete wall which partitioned the block from the car park of the office building next door. I guess for most Aussie kids, living in apartments in the early 1990s might have been slightly depressing. But I didn’t know any better, I came from greyer and much smaller apartment in Shanghai, I thought it was absolute luxury just to be able to hit tennis balls in the living room, the idea of having a backyard was completely foreign. Although the flats did have a backyard with a couple of hills hoists to swing on. Beyond its wild bushes lay the constant rumble of the train station, the back of which became a frequent hangout for me and my comrades, where we would build our tree houses and reenact scenes from films we saw.

At school on Thursday afternoons I used to watch with great envy as kids, shouldering their Prince Junior racquets, hopped onto the bus headed to River Road Tennis Centre. It was a program run in conjunction with the school. The mini bus would pick you up after school, you’d have a 40min tennis lesson, hop back on the bus and be dropped back at school.  I begged my parents to let me join and, I guess boyed by my prodigious talent on show at home, they relented.

Of course I couldn’t take my daggy wooden racquet. Pity as I hadn’t heard of John McEnroe back then. My idol was Michael Chang and I hated Pete Sampras with a passion because he used to be one of the unmovable obstacles between Michael and Grand Slam wins. Luckily the wooden racquet came with an old school Wilson Graphite racquet. I think one of the first series of graphite/ non wood racquets to come out, it was deathly heavy for an 8 year old to weld but at least it was cooler than the wooden racquet.

I wasn’t prolific at lessons, I progressed adequately. As a kid I made constant faux pas with coarse language learnt from some of my Dad’s favourite action films. Seemingly unable to keep my mouth shut, perhaps this was a habit of having to learn a 2nd language at a young age when you’re still figuring out the semantics of language itself. As punishment for doing anything wrong at River Road (e.g. calling your Tennis Coach an “Arsehole”) you were made to run around the entire centre (10-15 courts or so) until you get to a random letterbox on the other side near the golf course, through the bushes and obscene amounts of spiders webs. You touched the letterbox and then had to run back. I was always a shit runner, hence I started to learn to keep my mouth shut.

Lessons continued for about a year. I can’t remember why I stopped, perhaps it was the feeling that I wasn’t getting anywhere. I wanted to play competition tennis, instead of playing Skittles and Tennis Handball every week. But I knew my parents couldn’t make that commitment to Saturday morning competitions, so I gave it up. The Wilson racquet was getting undeniably more tiring to use as everyone went on to lighter and newer racquets. Other than a few odd rallies in later primary, an abysmal inter-school round robin in year 6 and a couple of terms of tennis for High School Sport, I didn’t really think about tennis again, Basketball and soccer took over. The wooden racquet has since long disappeared and I don’t even know what happened to my Wilson racquet (I think my brother broke it in his Tennis Stage, yes he had one too, perhaps all Aussie kids go through their “tennis” faze.)

I quit tennis before I found a topspin forehand and I still can’t serve to save my life and after the Becker/Chang years I never did find another player to really support. Pat Rafter was a serial disappointment, Mark Philippoussis went AWOL so much and don’t even get me started on Lleyton Hewitt…

So I guess this is where I talk about Federer right? The saviour of my interest in tennis? The cause of my very strange and overwrought emotional attachment to his game the last few years.

I’ll keep it short. I hated Federer the first time I saw him play. A spotty 19 year old with a fugly pony tail. I didn’t bat an eyelid at tennis when the world was talking about how awesome and GOAT he was after 2004. I didn’t see him play again until the Australian Open 2006.

I finally understood what the deal was.

I’ve understood ever since.

Wimbledon starts tomorrow night Australian time. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the next 2 weeks but I’m sure I’ll work it out. My health and vitality may suffer. However come spring, when the awful damp weather ends I’ll be taking up tennis again. I’m finally going to learn how to serve, I’m going to finish what I started 15 years ago and hopefully I’ll play some competitions in the future.

LJK sport childhood, family, reflection, remininscence, roger federer, sport, tennis

So before I start photoblogging everything (oh man I can’t describe how giddy I am with my new Canon 40D DSLR), I’d like to finish the sporting note I started last post.

Thursday night, my team won our Women’s C Grade Basketball Final…WHOOT. I absolutely played my heart heart, a few Rambo layups and a three pointer in the first half put us with a good lead which slowly crumbed in the 2nd half (which was expected) but luckily we held on, 35-32 at the buzzer. The following trophy nicely compliments the Runners-Up one we got 2 seasons ago.

Playing that game, although leaving me the sorest I’ve been in a long time, reminded me just how much I love the competitive nature of sport. There’s that genuine feeling of triumph you get when you know you’ve given everything you have, that you’ve thrown the entire kitchen sink  at the opposition and ultimately come up trumps. I definitely would have been disappointed if we didn’t win however the way we played there was nothing to be upset about. You’ve done all you could and the rest is up to destiny and this time fortune was on our side.

LJK sport basketball, competition, sport

I’ve got my basketball grand final tomorrow, so I’ve been thinking about sport a bit lately. This in the last few days has made me a bit sad:

I don’t think Federer has fully recovered from last year’s wimbledon loss to Rafa (There’s doubt that he ever will in fact). And this years Australian Open just opened the floodgates in terms of his mental collapse.

It seems that sooner or later the mighty will fall, we’ve seen it with countless empires, corporations and sportsman alike, nothing lasts for eternity, not life and certainly not championships, scorelines or rankings.

It’s also been said that 26-28 is a tough time for a tennis player, a time when the new guards arrive at 22-23. Those who grew up watching you play and adapting their game against yours whilst you were flourishing against opponents the same age you’re now. But at 27 you’re still not old enough or sore enough to give it all up.

I hope for Federer’s sake, and I guess for my own enjoyment as a fan, that impending fatherhood will make him re-evaluate his goals and the role of tennis in his life and help him come back fighting as strong as ever. And perhaps help Fed lose a bit of his stubborness and change his game to fit that of his competitors today.

It might mean that FedExpress tennis may not be as pretty as before, but us fans will at least be spared the further anguish of watching him disintegrate loss after loss.

LJK sport roger federer, sport, tennis