![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/metennis.jpg\")
ROME
\n – The monkey on Roger Federer’s back – Rafael ”Raffa" Nadal –
\n has grown into a gorilla.<\/p>\n
You expected the playful kid, 19-year-old Nadal, to finish the day swinging
\n through the trees of the Borghese Gardens. And why not. This is his town,
\n even if he comes from the Spanish isle of Mallorca: championships on both
\n visits. He was so bouncy after Kong-ing Federer – for the fourth straight
\n time — that 5 hours 6 minutes of heavy hitting and incessant running seemed
\n a twinkling as he retained his Rome Masters title yesterday.<\/p>\n
by Bud Collins in the Boston Globe<\/a><\/p>\n Although we Of course, as a writer we would prefer to note his feline But the on-court savagery of the teenaged Spaniard seems The travesty was not on the court – it was in our inability Is this evidence of the short-sighted neglect of a popular Oh, cursed dregs of the New England cavalcade of atmospheric This week Federer and Nadal are both playing a tournament ROME – The monkey on Roger Federer’s back – Rafael ”Raffa" Nadal – has grown into a gorilla. You expected the playful kid, 19-year-old Nadal, to finish the day swinging through the trees of the Borghese Gardens. And why not. … Continue reading
\n will be surprised if Collins doesn’t take some heat for his unfortunate
\n simian simile, we have to agree with the
\n basic idea behind his analogy. Nadal is an absolute animal on
\n the court. In 40 years of playing and watching tennis we have never
\n seen
\n another player hit each and every shot with as much pure exuberant viciousness
\n as Rafael Nadal.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n reflexes and lion-like killer instincts as he sprang after and pounced
\n upon his bouncing yellow prey. The gorilla analogy, and that swinging
\n through trees stuff, smacks of, well, racism. Imagine if Collins had
\n said the same thing about James Blake or Serena Williams! We guess our
\n Simian relatives are a bit too close to us on the evolutionary family
\n tree for sportswriters to freely bandy such images about.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n to be the only antidote to the 4-year dominance of the world #1, Roger
\n Federer of Switzerland. Federer, widely acknowledged as the best player
\n of the current generation, is something sick like 183-8 over the last
\n three years. The only player on the planet he can’t beat is Nadal, on
\n clay, responsible for four of those 8 losses.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n to view the match, either live or on tape. This had to be one of the
\n most exciting and closely contested sporting events
\n of
\n the
\n season,
\n world #1 vs. world #2, in the finals of a national tournament, and
\n yet
\n it was not
\n to
\n be found
\n on any of the 111 channels of our sports-skewed cable service or
\n on any of the 47 sports-exclusive high-definition screens at our local,
\n award-winning
\n sports bar<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n and upscale sport by the network programmers, or of the tragic US-centric
\n scope of public popularity, at least as far as those same network programmers
\n perceive it. A match between a Swiss and a Spaniard for the Championship
\n of Italy, just doesn’t make the grade.<\/em><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/Rafadal.jpg\")
Or is it more insidious still, a psychic slap directly
\n at the Dowbrigade, devaluing the only sporting activity at which he does
\n not abjectly suck. Dark, paranoid thoughts on a dismal gray rain-soaked
\n Sunday. No tennis for weeks, it seems, either in real life or on television.
\n Indoor season finally ended, and they’ve deflated the MIT bubble. Yellow-ball withdrawal.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n conditions! We feel the siren call of Southern California, or sun-struck
\n South America, where tennis is respected, and playable year-round.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n in Hamburg. No one is willing to bet they won’t again end up in the finals,
\n next Sunday. Any chance we could get this one on the tube, guys?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"