Federer Rules; Replay on Deck

I just read on the tennis-x site that they will be having a blogging competition, with the winner earning a spot – read my spot! – on this site as a blogger.

I must say a novel idea, and good luck to whomever takes the crown. Hopefully the tennis-x crew will keep me around but who knows.ADHEREL

Reading of the news the last few days – I’ve been in NCAA March Madness heaven the last week – we got James Blake reaching a TMS final. Instant replay firing up on Wednesday and Martina Hingis still looks strong. That said, Mr. Federer cleaned house in the desert.

When I saw the final James was serving for the first set. Fed broke at love I think and then went on to win the set as Blake flat out imploded. Nothing like serving for the first set in one of your biggest matches of your life and then implode. And that’s putting it kindly. If you saw the implosion it was awful. Blake ultimately double faulted twice to give Rog the first set, and the match was over.

An hour later, when I flipped back from the NCAA game to the match, Roger was on the mic doing his thing. I thought there may have been a retirement until I saw the scoreline. Ouch.

As for the Madness that is March, anyone catch Yannick Noah’s son, Joakim, lead his Florida Gators into the Sweet 16 where they now meet Georgetown. Noah is 6’10” and he plays like a jitterbug. Always on the move, running, jumping, dunking, swatting. Very impressive player, very athletic (wonder where he got that from?), though I didn’t see much of a jump shot from my limited viewing of him.

Back on the real courts. Play begins tomorrow in Miami, which many players call the windiest tournament on the circuit. That’s why Andre Agassi has played so well there and a guy like Roger Federer has struggled (only one title = struggle, ha!). What will be interesting to see is of course what happens with Andy Roddick. After all, Roddick’s second home is basically that area and that where he made his big breakthrough a few years back beating Pete Sampras and Marcelo Rios on center court.

As I said last week, if he doesn’t get it back together in Miami, he may not get another look at a title until June at Queen’s. That’s a long time…

Regarding replay, it will be interesting to see how this pans out as the players now get two built-in timeouts per set. Fun fun…

Enjoy the madness…I am.

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