Usually, the comma gets left out

Read a nice article on how the comma is getting lost in the fast pace of our lives these days. I still remember the school question papers when we were asked to place the comma in the proper place in the sentence. But, seriously, in today's communication, especially the non-business ones, the comma is completely obscure !!!

5ederer

Oh Lord !!! Please make Federer and Nadal battle out many and many more title matches so that we humans get many more splendid tennis to watch.

The 5th straight Wimbeldon title for Federer, equalling the great Bjorn Borg, was nothing less than a war !!! A 5 setter lasting for more than 3 hours with the needle of success playing a free flow see-saw from the champ to the challenger was a great epic to watch.

The 2 sets that Federer won were decided by tie-breakers. The other 2 sets Nadal won by breaking Federer, 6-4 and 6-2. Federer had more unforced errors than Nadal. Federer had fewer winners at the net than Nadal. Nadal had broken Federer's service more number of times than Federer broke Nadal. Nadal won the fourth set 6-2 and was on a high when the match moved into the deciding set. Forget about winning 5 titles in a row, Federer was on the verge of losing this match !!!

So .. what does our hero do ?

5ederer had an ace up his sleeve, literally !!! The first game in the decider set, including the first point, he won with an "ace" :-) He knew that if he went for rallies, Nadal was coming to the net and winning those points. Ofcourse, this cant happen for each point, and we were lucky enough to see these guys fight it out again in the rallies. No drop balls, just plain placement. Make the opponent run from one corner to another, flirting with the base and side lines. An awesome game of tennis was on display on a bright sunny evening at the Center Court in Wimbledon. Nadal once, did come to the net and made Federer run from corner to corner, and the straight forehand return that Federer hit in reply to the net game of Nadal was just divine !!! It reminded me of Girish's forehand shorts straight down the TT table , when you expect him to be hitting it cross on the table. The only thing you can do for such beautiful forehand shots is just stand and admire. Thats precisely what Nadal did for this beauty from Federer.

Once 5ederer broke Nadal to lead 4-2, there was a sharp cry of joy, something rarely seen from Federer. Both the players knew that Bjorn Borg's dream of witnessing his record of 5 continuous Wimbledon titles being equalled would eventually come true today. You could see Nadal's shoulder sagging, and as if adding insult to injury, Federer showered more and more aces on Nadal, totalling 24 to Nadal's single ace, making sure that all doors for a Nadal comeback were cleanly shut.

The thrill and joy of watching this match can hardly be expressed in words. You got to watch it point by point and have yourself mesmerised in a beautiful game of lawn tennis.

Bartolli Roks !!!

******* Blogging this on 07-07-07 *******

Its a once in a century date !!! But then, isnt any other date a once in a century date ? ;-)

Watched a great fighting match of lawn tennis yesterday on center court. I so very badly wanted Bartoli to win and was very happy to see her win. The best thing about her game was her focus and composure. She didnt lose her composure even after winning the match. Ofcourse, may be she just didnt express her joy. After losing the first set to the world number 1, by 6-1, it was a complete uphill task for the humping and breathless Bartolli, who has a very strange style of serving from very close to her body. You could see her real game only in the second set when she was just focussing on getting just one point at a time and was very much helped with the numerous unforced errors from Henin. They had really long and very long rallies all throughtout the second set. It was Bartolli who was doing the running in the initial games, but later on she started playing on the weak forehand of Henin and started making her scamper all around on the court for every point. It was as if, she was taking a revenge on Henin for all the running she did earlier. There were really great classy strokes in the rallies where it wasnt much of luck that played, but the skills of the players that made watching the match even more interesting.

Once, Bartolli broke Henin in the second set to lead 6-5, there was no looking back for her. She had completely broken the confidence of Henin. Bartolli won 7 straight games from that point on to lead the penultimate set by 5 games to 0. Probably the fact that Henin has never made it to the Wimbeldon finals [ or is it just that she has never won the Wimbeldon finals ever ? ] started playing on her nerves and you could see her shoulders sag. From nowhere, Bartolli started finding her form playing some very beautiful forehands, pushing the ball to the far corners, reducing the match to a mere cat and mouse game, with Henin being the unlucky rat who was caught by the cat, knowing all the time that the cat was just playing with it and death was inevitable. Bartolli kinda made this evident, when she had some pity on the world number 1 and literally handed one game to Henin sparing her the embarrasment of losing the final set 6-0. Bartolli won the match 1-6, 7-5, 6-1. A phenomenal comeback I have witnessed for a long time now.

On a more personal front, I have been feeling on cloud nine since yesterday after being fascinated by the awesome MotoRokr E6. It truly rocks !!! A touch pad screen with clarity better than my laptop, sound clarity unheard of in Motorola phones [ well, its about 3 years back when i tried a Motorola mobile and was so very dissappointed by its sound clarity, the most basic part of a mobile. ] I have been hooked up to the FM Radio that comes with this handset all day long. Except for RealPlayer scrolling list being very very very slow, everything about this handset is just so very cool. The coolest thing being that its based on Linux ;-) and probably the main reason for *not* making a huge hole in my pocket. Great video recording with 2 Mega Pixel screen with 1.4X focus zoom, that comes with a 1GB storage space for mp3, pics, video and a business card recognizer, its centuries ahead of my first mobile, the Sony Ericsson T310.