nadal, engaged in the now compulsory act of tossing his sweatbands into the crowd. in benidorm, spain. march 7, 2009.
nadal defeated janko tipsarevic, 6-1, 6-0, 6-2, giving spain a 2-0 lead over serbia in the davis cup first round tie.
photo by jasper juinen/getty images, via yahoo sports.
tennis channel is the exclusive US television home of the davis cup--or rather, all US davis cup ties. which means if you care about the US team (roddick, blake, and the bryan brothers) vs a federer-free swiss team, then you are "golden," as they say. because all of those matches will be televised live from birmingham, alabama, and then replayed and replayed and replayed for the next, oh, let's say several weeks.
if you live in the US and happen to care about other cup ties (in my case spain v. serbia), don't look too long or hard anywhere on tv for any kind of coverage. (and if i'm wrong about that, please let me know.)
luckily, a friend told me about a site where i can watch the matches live on my computer.
unluckily for me, watching matches live on my fossil of a computer is rather like watching the players do "the robot." everyone moves in fits and starts, and there is a 45-second delay.
i wasn't psychotic enough to get up at 4am (at least not this morning) to watch the matches under these circumstances, but i am content to sit here now on my couch with my laptop, ignore the sunny spring fling outside, and listen to the broadcast of the doubles match ("team guapo"--lopez/robredo-- v. troicki /zimonjic). i suppose that is another kind of crazy.
but the commentary is surprisingly engaging. this doubles match is turning out to be a hot contest, with the serbs up 2 sets. i love hearing the crowd cheer (o-leee, oleole, o-leee), the thwack of the ball, and the sweet rhythm of their sneakers sliding on the clay...
earlier today, ferrer defeated djokovic in straight sets, which surprised me, but i only had in mind djokovic's recent victory over ferrer in dubai, not ferrer's undefeated record (now 3-0) against the serb on clay.
i love jasper juinen's photo from today's match. i was hoping a site or paper would pick it up so i could present it here, sans watermark. but you get the idea.
a focused ferrer. may 7, 2009. benidorm, spain. photo by jasper juinen/getty images, via gettyimages.com
i'll be checking out the coverage of the US team this afternoon at 2pm est.
my friend, jason, is covering the festivities from down south, check out his report from day 1 here.
and since it looks like i'll be trying to get up at 4am tommorrow to listen in on nadal v. djokovic, i'm about to take a power nap.
happy saturday.
