In case you missed it

And you did.  Last night I came home from the movies and turned on the tennis.  That would be the Australian Open for you Cro Magnons who feel sports begin and end with the NFL.  James Blake, one of the few top Americans on the tour was meekly getting blasted off the court by likable Frenchman Sebastian Grosjean.  Blake was down two sets to one and down two breaks 4-1 in the fourth set.  It looked like it was going to be a  quick beer and an early night for me.  While I was fucking around with my mini bottle of Patron silver (did I say beer?) Blake broke Grosjean, showing a little life.  As the ice cube melted in my tequila, Blake held serve with ease and broke back to get on serve.  The fourth set surprisingly went to a tie breaker which Blake won 7-5 after falling behind again.  Well shit.  Blake had never beaten Grosjean, and won the first five set match of his career in 11 tries at last year's US Open.  Let's just say things were not exactly going his way when he was down 2 sets.  But the elder Frenchman just didn't have the legs in the fifth set and Blake won going away.

Up next on the main court was world #1, and quite possibly the greatest tennis player of all time, Roger Federer against an unseeded Serbian Janko Tipsarevic.  I watched the beginning of the match, which was around 1 AM my time, and while it was on serve, it looked like Federer was predictably playing nearly perfect tennis.  Imagine my surprise 9 hours later when I awoke to live coverage of the incredibly entertaining Hewitt versus Baghdatis match.  We'll get to that.  The reason ESPN 2 was still live in Australia was Federer was taken to 10-8 in the fifth set.  This is a guy who dominates people.  A typical bad set for Federer means he only broke his opponent once.  This Tipsarevic character nearly beat him!  Hopefully this is a sign that there may be some young players out there besides Spaniard Rafael Nadal who can actually challenge Federer.  Hopefully Tipsarevic isn't a douche bag.  I mean for an athlete.

Since the match went so long, Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis did not take the court until nearly midnight.  I lazily ambled downstairs and made some coffee while I called my mom to talk to her about the tennis she missed.  Federer almost losing is always news, and with the match starting after 1 in the morning, there's always a chance the crazy bi...er lovely lady was actually up in time to catch the end of it.  She had not heard, and I was regaling her with tales of the entertaining Hewitt and Baghdatis match.  Marcos fell apart at the end of the third set, serving for a two sets to one lead at 5-3 but losing 7 straight games to not only drop the third set fall behind two breaks of serve in the fourth set.  Oh well, it's always entertaining.  While I'm on the phone with mom Baghdatis pulls out a service game down 0-4, 0-40. No sweat for Hewitt who merely needs to hold serve to close out the match which he does to 5-1.  Baghdatis holds and the match is on Hewitt's racket.  And he's broken.  Baghdatis holds and the match is on Hewitt's racket.  And he's broken.  With the pressure of an epic collapse suddenly on Hewitt's shoulders, the fourth set goes to a tiebreaker.  Surprising even himself, Baghadatis wins the fourth set tiebreaker and as the clock winds past 4 AM in Australia, the adopted favorite from Cyprus found himself in an unlikely fifth set with the local favorite.  The two traded heavy blows before Baghdatis' legs abandoned him and Hewitt took it in fifth set.

Just an amazing series of matches.  I may not be refined enough to consistently keep my penis hidden at weddings, but at least I have better taste in sports than most Americans.  Fuck football.  This shit was genuinely exciting, and likely that none of its competitors was on steroids, as opposed to whatever percentage of the NFL consists of all players not named Eli Manning.