Better, by far, than we deserve

The tennis this past week has been stellar. Serena completes another solid run in Australia, winning as she did in the previous odd years to have 4 titles in 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2009. A few other good stories on the women's side, including Jelena Dokic's comeback and Carla Suarez Navarro's surprising run to the Quarterfinals, and the Venus-Serena doubles win.


The men's side was at least as good, with an amazing 5-set win by Rafael Nadal over countryman Fernando Verdasco, who beat expectations along with Andy Murray and last year's finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. With extra drama because his final opponent, Roger Federer, had 2 days of rest compared to his 1, Nadal got inside Roger's head once again and won in another 5-set match, solidifying not his but many others' claim that he is the best right now, perhaps better than Federer when it is all said and done. For my part, I love to see Nadal not worry about who is the best ever, who has more rest or a more fair draw, or any of the other things he can't do anything about, and just play tennis with all his heart and that is an extraordinary amount of heart.

This match wasn't as good as the 5-set Wimbledon final between the two, nor was it as good as the Verdasco-Nadal match. But it was amazing tennis. It's better than we, as tennis fans and players, deserve. Consider the poor football fans who have the Steelers and Cardinals to watch in the Super Bowl. That was exciting, at least at the end, but the winners could only do so by being thuggish and a bit lucky. The quality of the tennis and its players is very high right now, even if exceptionally concentrated at the top for both men and women, and I'm very grateful.