TENNIS IN THE ETERNAL CITY

TiVo and Rain Delays are not friends.  Not one but two rain delays caused my TiVo (technically, it's a DVR, but I prefer to call all DVRs TiVos) to miss most of the second set of yesterday's final in Rome between Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer.  Residing on the West Coast of the United States, for me the matches were aired live on Tennis Channel in the middle of the night.  No worries.  TiVo recorded the tournament on a daily basis, and I was able to watch all or part of almost every singles match played.  Sure, there were a couple of rain delays here and there, but they never caused me to miss any tennis.  That is, of course, until the last half of the last set of the final.  I was lucky enough to see the two Spaniards slug it out in a grueling first set, won by Nadal, 7-5.  I was rather unlucky that the recording ended with my favorite Mallorcan up 3-1 in the second set.  Though he cruised the rest of the way, taking the set 6-2, I wanted the satisfaction of seeing him close it out, celebrate, and hoist the trophy in the air.

Sure, it's nice to see a still image of Nadal with a victorious smile and another title in his hands, but it's not the same.  And apparently, I missed the man cutting up a bit, uncorking a bottle of Champagne -- excuse me, Italian sparkling wine -- during his on-court celebration.

Despite the technological gaffe, I'm ecstatic that Rafa is playing electrifying tennis again.  After a rough year of injuries and recoveries following the shocking loss to Soderling at the French, Nadal finally looks like he's back to his true self on the court.  I could continue to gush, but Steve Tignor does a perfect job of it over at Tennis.com.  Oh, and I stole the following picture of Rafa from his site, too.  Love it.

I'm not claiming any kind of clairvoyance, but I did pick Nadal to win the Masters 1000 event in Rome before it started.  Obviously, I wasn't going out on a limb with that pick.  But I made it official for the first time, entering the ATP World Tour Draw Challenge, essentially a fantasy tennis league.  Keeping in mind that it was my first time playing, I think I did fairly well.  I mean, it may not seem that way when you consider I finished in 6431st place.  But that was out of 15029 entrants, and I was pleased to at least crack the upper half of the competition.  I had both Nadal and Ferrer in the semis, but I had Ferrer losing to Djokovic (Ferrer beat Verdasco) and Nadal beating Federer (Nadal beat Gulbis instead).  The person who filled out the winning bracket correctly picked Nadal to win it all, and Ferrer over Verdasco, but had Nadal beating Almagro to reach the final.  In fact, Almagro was the only player to let the eventual winner down, as the bracket nailed 7 out of the 8 quarterfinalists. Those quarterfinal picks included Ernests Gulbis from Latvia, who upset Federer in the second round and continued to play fantastic tennis before finally faltering late in the third set against Nadal in the semifinals.  Besides the extra "s" at the end of his first name, Ernests Gulbis was thoroughly impressive in this tournament.  He has always been regarded as a young player with tremendous talent and upside, but until now he never quite fulfilled his potential.  As a Jew with some Latvian ancestry, I sincerely hope the win over Federer and stellar play gives Gulbis the confidence to believe he can be one of the best in the world.  Because if Ernests consistently plays like he did in Rome, there's no doubt he will be.

One last side note on the fantasy tennis game... The person who finished with the third place bracket correctly predicted all four semifinalists, including Gulbis, but still lost to two other fantasy players.  That tells you how hard it is to win on the circuit.  The only thing I can do is continue to improve my game from week to week, and hope with a few breaks and a little luck, I too can climb the tennis ladder and reach #1. Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?