Champions Dinner, Wimbledon

Because I know at least one or two of you NEEDS to see this picture of Rafa in a suit and bow tie (looking, my sister says, very "junior prom"):


Venus, of course, looks classy as heck. She almost always does. (For more on Wimbledon, go here.)

ESPN Classic is replaying yesterday's championship match right now. I've been watching while getting some other things done. I think they skipped a chunk of the third set. It was funny that the commentators were already calling it a "classic match!" and falling all over themselves in the first set! But the quality of play was consistently astonishing, from the first set all the way through the end of the fifth. I think that neither Federer nor Nadal is actually the same species of animal that I am. Either that, or they made some kind of deal to temporarily waive the laws of physics for a few hours. Because some of those shots they hit -- both players -- were just not humanly possible.

As much tennis as I watch, I've never really written poems using the imagery or language of tennis. I'd have to figure out how to do it without resorting to cliché, but it might be worth a try. Heck, I'm already writing poems about aging rock stars ... how much worse can tennis be? *grin*

Tennis is like free verse -- there's definitely a rhythm to it, but it's the rhythm that the player (poet) finds necessary at that particular moment, for that particular shot (line). You improvise, but it's not like you just do any old thing. Sometimes an overhead smash is just what is needed, and sometimes it's just a foolish risk. And sneaky dropshots are great, but if you do it all the time it gets really old.

(I have not yet, however, figured out a way to work the old "between the legs" desperation shot into that tennis/poetry metaphor. I'll leave that for somebody else, hehe.)