Chinese-American-Canadian economics nerd, haphazard writer, and Mozart fangirl who puts the 'u' in 'colour'. Quite literally.
General loves: classical music, piano, Mad Men, Europe, the University of Oxford, wanderlust, Roger Federer, photography, words, Cillian Murphy, tea/coffee, pretentious whimsy, Malcolm Tucker, Downton Abbey, politics, sentiment in the proper amount, econometrics jokes.
A Georgetown alumna and Washington, DC resident IRL. Her proper blog can be found at the story of m.
Day 8: Earliest Tennis Memory — Steffi Graf vs. Martina Hingis, tournament unknown
My mother is a long-time tennis fan, and, at some point when I was, er, five or six years old (?), I remember watching Steffi Graf playing teenage upstart Martina Hingis. Mom supported Graff, but, because Hingis was closer to me in age, I was cheering for her. I think I also named a stuffed animal “Martina” later.
I, of course, had no actual knowledge of tennis at the time.
Day 7: First Player You Became a Fan Of — Juan Carlos Ferrero
Finally, something not related to Roger Federer! While I vaguely remember hearing about some ponytail-touting Swiss upsetting Pete Sampras at Wimbledon, I definitely recall Ferrero winning the French Open in 2003 and being rather taken by his good looks in the process — cue serious tennis crush. And I also recall watching him lose the U.S. Open final that year to Andy Roddick, which I did not find very pleasing at the time. Of course, now that we know that’s almost certainly the only major title the American will ever have to his name, I feel rather bad about saying that.
Anyway, that’s beside the point. Ferrero’s star has undoubtedly diminished since that brief period of glory, but he was the ATP No. 1 for a time and won a Grand Slam, and it is nice to still see him playing in tournaments at this late stage of his career. That’s more than a lot of tennis players can say.
Day 6: Your Most Memorable Match — Roger Federer d. Andy Roddick, Wimbledon 2009
It really came down to either this or Roland Garros 2009. Winning the latter got him the career Grand Slam, this is true, but the match itself against Soderling wasn’t all that special. The Wimbledon final against Roddick, though, nearly sent me to a mental asylum. Let’s be honest here: I still develop an inexplicable case of nerves when, say, virtually nameless qualifiers get a break point on Fed’s serve, so you can imagine what a match like this would do to me. That Roger had just lost the “greatest match of all time” last year here at Wimbledon — incidentally, I have never seen it and doubt that I can ever bring myself to do so — made winning this one all the more important.
When he finally did, seeing the reaction on his face was so, so worth it.
Day 5: Least Favourite Women’s Player — Caroline Wozniacki
It’s probably unfair for me to say that I dislike Caro, per se: she obviously isn’t a bad tennis player and seems like a nice person. Also, she has really awesome taste in nail polish colours (I’m thinking of the time she sported yellow on her nails at the U.S. Open).
Having said that, there is one thing in particular about Wozniacki that has never sat well with me (though “Wozzilroy” makes me want to gag as well). That she never won a Grand Slam while number one bothered me less than her apparent inability to demonstrate any particular urgency to win one, as if it wasn’t important to her or she just regarded it as an eventual inevitability. In any case, given her tumble in rankings and form this season, her chances at the majors are slimmer than they’ve ever been.
Day 4: Least Favourite Men’s Player — Robin Soderling
As a Federer fan, I set aside a quantity of loathing for every player who has ever beaten him on the big stage. There’s Nadal, obviously, and Djokovic as well, but I respect each enough to exclude them from consideration. So then we have Tomas Berdych for Wimbledon 2010, Jo-Wilfred Tsonga for Wimbledon 2011, Juan Martin del Potro for the U.S. Open in 2009, and so forth, all of which make me gnash my teeth or curl up into a ball on the floor and cry, depending on my mood.
But nothing was quite as maddening or infuriating as Robin Soderling exacting revenge on Roger during the Roland Garros quarterfinals in 2010. Rob-Sod plays an ugly, brutal game — the stylistic antithesis of Federer’s, really — and it just absolutely kills me that he was the one to end that astounding streak of 23 consecutive Grand Slam semifinals.
Day 3: Favourite Doubles Team — Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka
Right, I don’t follow doubles at all, so this was the best I could do! The 2008 Beijing Olympics came in the middle of a somewhat difficult year for Roger — he had just lost to Nadal in Wimbledon, after all — and it was unbelievably sweet to see how much this meant to him. Plus, Fed and Stan’s post-match celebration was basically the most adorable thing ever.
Day 2: Favourite Women’s Player — Serena Williams
There used to be a time that I couldn’t stand Serena, finding her too brash and lacking in sportsmanship, and, in any case, as an older sister myself, my sympathies always lay with Venus. It was only after Justine Henin retired and the WTA hierarchy descended into chaos, giving us one weak number one after weak number one, that I came to appreciate and eventually love the qualities she brought to the game: the monster of a serve, the refusal to attribute blame for losses to anyone other than herself, and that indomitable competitive drive. It is notable that, even now, defeating her remains the litmus test on the women’s tour.
Day 1: Favourite Men’s Player — Roger Federer
I don’t know what’s more astonishing about Roger Federer: the aesthetic grace and technical near-perfection of his game, his unflappable self-belief under pressure that would demolish any normal human being, or, even after racking up sixteen major titles and being largely hailed as the greatest of all time, his limitless desire for improvement and simple love of the sport. I have no greater idol.
