WIN-dledon

A one and half hour lunch break bang in the middle of a working day is good, no matter what, but when it is taken so that you can catch the most of the Wimbledon men's quarterfinals, it doesn't get any better than that. So what if the protein you are supposed to make before you graduate is sitting in the cold room without protease inhibitors, this is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Federrer and Roddick are up on the cards and did they deliver!

Even when I diligently watched Pete Sampras play during those stunning ten years, with every shot sending my heart beat jus a little higher, I didn't realize the full potential of a rocket powered ace. But today, watching Andy Roddick tackle who is probably one of the most under-rated tennis players in this decade (IMHO Schalken comes second only to David Nalbandian in that category) I realized just what an ace can do in a game. Schalken was clearly not lacking in any aspect of the game but the serve. Little wonder then that the first two sets ended in tough tie-breakers, with the second one actually goin upto an incredible 10-8 in favor of the american heart-throb. Not to mention the rallies that kept the crowds breathless for minutes on end.

And while we're on the subject of under-rated stars, while some players return year after year to write tennis history and leave indelible marks on the diaries of grandslam tournaments (Krajicek beating Sampras in '96, Ivanisevic winning wimbledon in 2001 as a qualifier), there are some that get noticed for reasons other than the game itself (Anna Kournikova has single-handedly headed that list for a decade now).

Good luck to Schalken---he just has to learn to tackle that serve better and I'm putting my money on him winning a championship. Not to belittle the power and talent that goes into concocting a shot as unanswerable as an impossible ace, you only have to look to taylor dent for testimony. His game screams---"Tennis is more than just whipping up a 145 mph serve"--no wonder the guy has not made an appearance past round four in a grand slam tournament.

Talking of aces-- or rather the lack of them--that was precisely the reason why Hewitt was fighting a losing battle against defending champion Roger Federrer on Center Court today. I am yet to find an aspect of the game that the Swiss player hasn't perfected yet, but Lleyton still could have given people a little more for their money.

And as for Henman, it was a bad day. If it helped him, so was it for ten thousand others. The Henmania that religiously returns to Center Court year after year is testimony to a more reasonable kind of popularity (read: it is not based on short skirts and blond hair).Henman is no doubt a player of great class and other than the forces of destiny and a certain Pete Sampras, I am lost as to why he is yet to a win a grandslam; the one person that stopped him in his tracks all these years retired in 2002, giving fans at the Henman hill renewed hope. He even hired his idol's coach to try to shift his stars a little bit. But unfortunately, three years and Ivanisevic, Hewitt and Federrer later, Henman still looks on at the cup from a distance.

And this year the one to defy that roar from Henman hill was a 6-foot-plus---incredibly good-looking, I must add-- novice to the game, an unheard-of Mario Ancic. I would have let that "unheard-of" be, if I hadn't chanced upon his picture on the site! Roddick thinks the waters in Croatia breed tall giants, but I would attribute more to the water than mere inches.*Sigh* Step aside, Kournikova, here's someone that knows how to look good AND play tennis!

For all my Ancic-mania, unless the 20-year old pulls off a magic act on Friday, the stage seems all set for a Roddick - Federrer final. And that means a good July 4 weekend for tennis fans.

When the going gets tough, the tough make it tougher

[Ever seen that kid hunched over like a Neanderthal, carrying an all-important bag of books? That is one of the reasons why –to borrow from Ross Geller of Friends---evolution is still just a theory. Here’s unleashing one of the Katrician pearls of philo….]


'There has been no play so far on Day 3 of The Championships due to rain. It is hoped that some play will be possible today'.

That's what the Wimbledon site said. If I had had the luxury of staying home and watching it on TV like last year (thank god for qualifying exams), I would have seen a bunch of people running across the court with tarpaulin sheets in the desperate hope that human speed can actually counter the relentlessly falling droplets of rain sent from high above.

After much thought, I have hit upon this theory that man does like to make life tougher for himself (like it needs any toughening) and then he hopes that things came easier; masochism and hope are the two half brothers of man's constant struggle for existence and sustenance.

Taking my Wimbledon example to a point where it becomes just short of excruciatingly, painstakingly long-drawn, all the authorities at the all-England lawn tennis club need have done is have a retractable roof. In this day and age of supercomputers and microchips and micro micro micro chips (for want of a more techno savvy term), surely it is possible to have a roof over a center court that harbors ten thousand people for three weeks (or twenty five weeks depending on each year's respective rain delay) every June?

But we should give Center Court due credit. It seems pretty far advanced in comparison to Flushing Meadows, where they have two-dozen workers on their hands and knees wiping the courts with towels and blowers. Quite ironical in a land where people spend hours picking out the best fitting covers for their cell phones, I must say.

But I have a theory for that as well: I think Americans have a serious problem with tarpaulin (believe me, I don’t think the French or bin Laden even come close). Tell me, ingenious devices as snow scrapers are, wouldn't you rather just cover your car with a tarpaulin sheet and remove it the next time you resumed driving (not that in the blinding snow shower it makes a whole lot of difference whether you actually remove it)? If the concept of tarpaulins had hit this country, my room mate and I wouldn't have been perilously close to losing our fingers to frost bite during those famed Colorado blizzards. No, I wasn't here for the BIG one ---I can still count up to ten on my hands. (In case you are wondering, my brain simply doesn't work beyond two).

Then there are the vegetarians. I think they spend more time looking at the menu card than eating the one item that they ultimately hit upon with vindication comparable to the look on Bush's face the day Saddam was captured. I have tried telling them that the chickens and the cows are going to get killed anyway; if not, man would die of starvation. Don't the principles of statistics and probability mean squat to these people? The little I have retained from high school probability is sufficient to surmise that the option of one item out of ten thousand in 1000000000000000000 days of your life is a surefire route to insanity.

Oh, and yes-- the religious zealots. These are perhaps the most creative masochists. They range from people that stay without a morsel of food or a drop of water for days on end to those that camp outside the Alabama State judicial building to protest a piece of stone being wheeled out to those that demolish the Babri Masjid. Then there are, of course, the ones that fly planes into skyscrapers. Not to mention the opposite end of the spectrum that spends millions of hours and bucks contesting court cases because their kids have to listen to other kids say "Under God".

And all this in the name of 'He' who either doesn't exist, or if he does, is himself wondering how your cutting down on carbs might fetch you that all important grade. Now, about those inches around your waist, neither man nor God is really sure. But you might wanna ask Atkins.

A group of very interesting characters in the subset of human masochists I think are students. They, by far, take the most circuitous routes to reach seemingly straightforward goals (not literally of course--that's my area of expertise). For instance, they insist on carrying ten tons in their backpacks when the school has so thoughtfully provided metal lockers for the purpose (and they will dutifully carry their baggage WHEREever they go); their favorite place to crack math problems is a coffee bar that plays music at decibel levels at least two times more than that recommended for the human ear. And any amount of explanation that music distracts the brain falls on deaf ears (and for good reason).

And I am not even going to go into details of those that vacuum the same area of the carpet for two hours, seemingly seeing a grain of dirt that is not visible under the electron microscope, those that hand wash and air dry their clothes because of longevity (I wonder if the longevity of clothes matters when your own longevity is fast decreasing) and then those others that insist on going well under 50 mph on the highway because about ten years ago someone they knew got a speeding ticket (the idea that speed limits in the last decade might have been different does not even occur). Not to leave out the ones that stand at the crossing for an hour waiting for the “walk” sign to appear. The last time I read about it, walking was a voluntary action. And I certainly have to mention the hypochondriacs that clench their stomach and their fists in agony but wouldn't take that all-important pill because their great grand fathers predicted two hundred thousand years ago that medicine invented in the 20th century is 'bad' for you.

The most interesting group of masochists IMHO are the environmentalists; yeah, these are the ones that blow up tons of concrete in the name of saving a few trees from destruction. And then they go and destroy research labs (here, I am with them--it's not just the experimental animals they are saving, believe me); they are also the ones you'll see cutting the paper towel in half at that corner of the table, or to take it a little further, licking their hands (If it's the barbecue sauce on the spicy buffalo wings, however, I'd ditch the paper towel too--- not literally---cos then the green men will be after my life).