| I Like S****, And I'm Not Ashamed. |
| Written by Brendon Green |
| Saturday, 14 November 2009 05:54 |
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Hold the phone; I’m going to push an envelope here. It’s time to break a Coup De Main taboo. Let’s talk about Sport. (OMG! No you didn’t just go and do that! Yeah I did.) [ ED: Is this your way of revenging on me for making you listen to Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus once upon a time? ] More specifically, I’m going to talk about Tennis. That’s the sport where they use racquets to hit a small ball back and forth over a net. If you don’t know what a tennis ball is, you will probably recognise it as the kind of fuzzy ball you used to play handball with back at school, or the thing you used to bounce off your friends forehead when they had passed out in the batch on New Years. And the racquets are the piece of sporting equipment that make the best Air Guitars (it is physically impossible not to give it a few strums when you pick one up: forehand, backhand, kick ass solo). [ ED: Racquets are also handy for when you don't have a bottle; to play spin the racquet... and/or beating mean people up with. They are cheaper than hockey sticks to purchase? I do not condone violence; of course. ] At the moment there is a fairly big Tennis tournament happening in Paris, the BNP Paribas Paris Masters. It’s a pretty big deal and all the major Tennis stars are playing. And thanks to a Twitter friend who works for the French Federation of Tennis, I got two free tickets to a night session! (We mutually followed each other earlier this year during the French Open, and she is awesome, and French... and I love the day and age we are living in right now.) I gave the other ticket to my fantastically named French friend Baptiste, which was a great idea because he sweet talked a security guard into letting us go straight in to the stadium, bypassing the huge lines. We found our seats (which were great, quite low down, behind the players on a bit of an angle, my favourite place to watch Tennis), and settled in to absorb the atmosphere and hopefully some tennis skills. The night session was only meant to have 2 matches, but the day games all over-ran, so we got to see most of the match between Gael Monfils and David Guez (Google Image search Gael Monfils right now; do it, he is very entertaining to watch). After that match the night session really started, and we were in for a treat. The match we watched with the near capacity 10,000 plus crowd was between world number 1 Roger Federer and unseeded French player Julien Benneteau. I got to see Roger Federer play live! And I don’t care if I’m the only one excited by this. Federer is arguably the greatest Tennis player in history, and the only person to rival Tiger Woods in the debate about the best sportsman alive today. The guy is a living legend and it was a huge buzz to see him play live. Seriously, the guy is almost a God. If he asked people to swear an oath to follow him, I would be tempted (topical. Speaking of topical, no I didn’t see Hone in Paris, but I do love the fact that Winston Peters thinks he is racist; that‘s a stamp of approval if ever I‘ve seen one). [ ED: Federer is better at colour-co-ordinating his Tennis outfit. This is important. ] Anyway, I watched the greatest living Tennis player play tennis. He lost, but that’s not the point. Actually that kind of is the point. The match was great, both players were playing quality tennis and Benneteau was giving his all. It went to 3 sets and near the end Benneteau was invoking the support of the local crowd, which responded with huge cheers of inspiration. It was a huge upset, and Benneteau knew this because after collapsing with disbelief upon winning, he sat on his courtside chair and openly wept. (That’s how much it means to beat Federer, plus the French are quite emotional anyway.) The entire stadium gave him a standing ovation and then there was a laser light show before the next match. But by then it was almost midnight and we were all atmosphered out by the time the match started between James ‘baggy shorts’ Blake from the USA and Andy ‘nobody likes me’ Murray from Britain/Scotland. We stayed for the first set, but it wasn’t the same; so we caught the last train home. The moral of the story is that the emotion inspired by unpredictability, is what makes sport so great. Also, I got to see one of my heroes play live, which is a tick off my life list. Also, laser light shows are awesome and should occur more in life. (I hope I don’t get blacklisted for writing about sport... if it’s a problem I could maybe critique their fashion choices? And I will freely admit that Federer does have lovely hair.) [ ED: You have forgotten the most important thing of all; 80'S TENNIS HEADBANDS. ] |
