Ping, pong, Ping, pong

Tennis eh? It doesn't excite me. I can watch it, but not for more than a few minutes at a time. Just like Australian Idol. What gets me, though, are the people who become MASSIVE tennis fans for two weeks a year but don't really know what's going on. They know who little Lleyton is, and they love the Scud. But ask them to name a female player from Australia and they're going "Ummm, is that Dokic girl still around?" Of course she's a Serb now, and is too scared to tour Australia lest we lock her up and force her to play for us at gunpoint. My chosen sport with these people is to pick one of the top seeds who I've never heard of and ask them what his/her chances are this year and watch the poor person go to pieces trying to think of a response.

My favourite moment in tennis history - even better than McEnroe calling the umpire something that closely resembles the word "crunt" and getting kicked out - was the picture in the paper about four years ago that showed perennial Aussie struggler Rachel McQuillan doing something on court with a tennis racquet that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Bangkok bar. I swear I've never seen a funnier picture in my life - and one day I'll go to the State Library and hunt it down just to post on here.

And while we're on the subject of tennis has anyone else ever been baffled by the concept of calling it on radio? It's usually the ABC that do it, I think AW might jump on the bandwagon, and give Clinton Grybas something to do, for the finals and who knows what this new sports AM station are going to do? (And more about them later). It's just the most bizarre thing to hear because there's no time for variety or entertainment in the call - it's all so clinical and evil. Here's a sample, using the names of two allegedly seeded players that I just pinched from the Australian Open website

"Forehand to Fish
Backhand to Clement
Fish down the line
Clement lobs
Fish with the smash
15-0!"

Heh, his name is Fish. Erm, anyway - all of that is delivered in about 10 seconds of frantic screaming down the microphone/telephone line. Definately goes alongside swimming as a sport that does not fit well into the world of sportscasting.