FriendBurst Blog

Congratulations to NOVAK DJOKOVIC for winning the Wimbledon gentleman’s championship today!  I have been a big fan of Djokovic since I happened to watch him beat Federer, at the time, the best player in the world, back in 2007 in Montreal.  I was also experimenting with turning recorded TV events into YouTube videos, and this Jokovic…err..Djokovic character’s enthusiasm was perfect for a neat montage.  Click here to see my first tribute to Djokovic it in a new window.   Today, Djokovic beat Rafa Nadal, himself the best tennis player in the world.  Until today.

Another reason I’m a Djokovic fan is that he is comedian on the court.  Search YouTube for “Djokovic” and “funny” and you’ll see more of his antics like the one below.

Novak plays tennis a lot better than he sings.

Tennis itself is funny.  I don’t mean funny as in “ha ha” but as in “peculiar.”  Seriously.  There are so many weird things about this sport which should be pretty straightforward.  Two people hitting a ball back and forth with rackets.  Simple, eh?  No, the sport can’t even agree what it’s supposed to be played ON.. Grass, clay, concrete… It depends on where you are.

No sport has a stranger scoring system.  You start each game in “Love”… Love is generally a good place to be, right?  Not in tennis! If you’re still in Love at the end of the game it means that you’ve lost and have not scored.  It’s kind of like many romantic relationships: two people start off in Love, things go back from one side to the other and back again, until someone makes an unforced error and earns a point.

If things go badly, you may be facing a “break point” and risk being “broken”.  If things go as planned, you earn a “hold.”

Unlike other sports featuring hitting things over a net like ping pong and volleyball, in tennis, you don’t earn a point.  Do something good once and you get 15 points.  Why 15? Win another and you get another 15 points.  Then, I guess they aren’t worth as much because the 3rd time you win a point, you only get 10 points for a total of 40.  If your opponent also has 40 points at that point, you stop keeping track of the score.  You’re now at something called “deuce”.  Deuce?  What the deuce?

Tennis is the only sport I can think of where coaching is against the rules during a match.  Now, this may not be such a bad idea, but only in tennis is the player’s coach required to sit in the stands and cannot make even as much as a hand signal to the player whose paying him or her for his or her advice.  What the deuce?

At it’s highest level, no sport has a higher ratio of officials-to-players.  A chair judge, someone watching the net, numerous ballboys, and three linesmen whose sole job is to bend over, put their hands on their knees and watch a line.  They don’t even get to watch the game played out; they have to stare at a line. How does one get to be a professional linesman?   What goes on your resume?  What do you say at the interview?

“I’ve had lots of experience staring at lines.”

“Oh, and I’m really good at bending over for long periods of time!”

Tennis is the only sport where tens of thousands of people can be watching, and the players are usually louder than the crowd.  Grunts and shouts are part of the game; it helps the players gain more power in their shots, but sometimes, it can be terminally annoying.  I could not watch the women’s final yesterday because of Maria Sharapova.  Well, I suppose it is more accurate to say I could not listen to the women’s final.  Her “HHYYYAAGGHH!” with each shot is the ugliest sound I have ever heard come out of a beautiful woman.

Maria is not the only tennis player to do somewhat disgusting things on the court.  I only noticed this today, but Rafael Nadal has a real problem with butt-picking and butt-sniffing.  The man is constantly picking at his butt!! I suppose playing with a wedgie should reserved for golf, but nobody else does this!  I something wrong with his underwear?  Doesn’t he have major endorsement deals with sports clothing manufacturers?  Can’t he get some underwear that stays out of his crack?  What’s worse is that he is always putting his fingers up to his nose after he picks his butt.  I saw it like 5 times in the course of a 4 set match today.  What is happening here?  Is it just a bad habit, or does the stench of his own butt crack give Raffy a lift in his game?  Is he like Popeye and he has his own special ass-spinach? I did a little research on YouTube and found a couple commentaries on this butt-sniffing phenomenon.  These sock puppets comments were hilarious!  “Did he just do the pick and sniff?!?!”

So, once again, congratulations to Novak Djokovic, the newest #1 ranked men’s tennis player in the world.

By the way, the Serbian last name suffix -vic means “son of”… “Djoko” is the old way to spell “Joko”, so way to go “son!”