Still Love Safin

This Sunday was the epic Wimbledon final between Roger Federer, the Swiss superstar I dislike for no reason, and Rafael Nadal, the youthful genetic beast. It was a pretty tremendous match and I admit I was awfully nervous that last set-plus, wondering if Federer was going to pull it out. R-Fed is amazing, no doubt, and I am going to try to stop hating him, but it's going to be tough. I think it's not just the dominance, but the cool dominance. I just want a little more emotion is all I think. After his victory, Nadal crawled into the stands. Chances Federer does that? I'll go with a number rapidly approaching zero.

I am a Nadal fan, no doubt, but he will be no higher than second fiddle on my list of favorite players as long as Marat Safin stays on the courts. And why? Again, no good reason. Like so many other things in life, I just go with the vibe of the thing, and I love the vibe Safin gives off. He talks about quitting, he drops out of the Top 100, he beats the world's number three ranked player (and only other winner of a Grand Slam final this calendar year), Novak Djokovic aka Dontchawanna Chokdabitch. To be fair to Federer, I don't like Djokovic either, and I vastly prefer Federer. Heck, maybe it was just a couple of minor dents in his armor for me to start liking him.

No matter, it was a great weekend of sport, even if I had to watch Safin go down on a Friday and Alan Webb fail to qualify for the Olympics. I still love you Alan, and I have no doubt you'll pull your shit together and prove all the haters wrong. There will always be haters (see also my feelings towards Federer and, moreso, Djokovic) but I hope Alan knows he's still got bigtime fans. Dude's an absolute beast.

I'm also still riding the high of Spain and my man Fernando Torres winning Eurocup. Considering my native England didn't qualify, Spain was my desired champion, although for the sake of the Dutch, I was hoping they'd put it together a bit more.

We're also at exactly the one month mark to the Beijing Olympics. 8/8/08...some marketer probably rode that one to retirement. I have to say I am pretty stoked as there almost isn't a sport I don't enjoy watching during the Summer Olympics, and with modern technology (which I often bitch about), I could spend the couple of months after the Olympics watching shit I missed. And you've gotta love the Asian touch on the Olympic mascots (which are historically awful). So let's rejoice in the beauty of athletic competition and pray everyone's not on drugs.