Are You Serious? (A Tennis Post)

Flushing, Queens is not just the home of the super classy (and currently 1st place) New York Metropolitans. It is also home to the usually classy US Open of Tennis. As of late i have had an increasing interest in this old world sport. I played a lot at work this summer, usually being humiliated by 7-12 year olds. But nonetheless, playing  so often gave me a new found respect for the game. I was also given a spirited argument by the resident Pro on why tennis is the perfect one on one competition. How the dimensions of the court make it possible for a good player to get to EVERY ball in play. And when two evenly matched players play, it becomes more a chess match then a physical game. And so on.

So yeah, Tennis is cool. I was recently watching Andy Roddick in what i believe was a 1st round match against Frenchman Fabrice Santoro. At the tail end of the match (the other) A-Rod blistered another 140+ mph serve that just so happened to almost hit his opponent. This upset Santoro so much that he pouted, stood in the box, and let the ensuing match-winning point sail by him. "The match was over. I was disappointed by the way he served the point before. That's a great strategy  during the match, but it was almost over", Santoro said afterwards. 

Are you serious? The match was not over. Pardon my cliche', but it ain't over till it's over. This was a terrible display of sportsmanship and i am honestly annoyed that Roddick felt he needed to apologize after the match. Is he supposed to ease up on his serve and allow his opponent to possibly mount a comeback? Any good competitor knows you play hard for the entirety of a game. It's one thing when a team doesn't want to run up the score. It is common practice to play subs when the opposing team has no shot at getting back in the game. But in an individual sport at the professional level, there is no reason to think that your opponent is going to ease up. Santoro is a whiny loser and it's moments like this that show why he is ranked 60th in the ATP, has never won a major tournament, and never will.