Liveblogging Without Watching: Federer v Nadal at the Australian Open 2014
This is a match we have hoped for for over a year, it starts in a few minutes, and WE’RE NOT WATCHING. Too intense, makes us nuts. However, we will follow the scores and post updates from our friends Dorski (who named her son Kevin Roger) and Mike A (who may have to sedate himself).
Join our liveblog! Post your updates and observations in Comments.
The net! Win at the net!!
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Dorski: Federer serves first, gets the first point. Nadal drinking and fastidiously aligning his bottles before getting up to serve.
Rafa is wearing the coolest red Nikes with “Rafa” on them to match his red shirt. Oh, got it wrong. Rafa’s shirt is grey in front and red in back. 1-1. Fed is wearing a blue shirt with some thin red piping on the edges, white shorts and red sneakers with a white stripe. 2-1 Federer.
Game 4. Nadal serving. 40-40!!! Advantage Nadal…does his running/sliding from one end of the court to the other and gets the point. 2-2.
Federer holds serve. 3-2. Nike must be in heaven. Their shoes are blindingly red. Or is it my TV? 3-3. All calm.
Us: So we can discuss outfits. Andy Murray should’ve stuck with Fred Perry.
Dorski: Oh yeah. And didn’t Djokovic switch from Adidas to Uniqlo?
Us: Yup. Hmmm, we don’t notice Djoker’s outfits at Uniqlo stores.
Dorski: Federer on serve. Deuce! Advantage Federer. Oh crap…back to deuce. Advantage Fed again! Nadal misses…yey! Roger 4-3. Ohh, that’s madaya.
Us: What is?
Dorski: 4-4. 30-all. Oh crap, Fed misses that shot. Nadal 40 – Federer 30. I mean it’s madaya Djoker’s clothes are not available here. Then again, you see Fed’s shirts in Nike stores but they’re super mahal.
Advantage Federer…and he gets the point! 5-4. They show Mirka clapping and giving a slight smile. Whew!
Mike A: 5-4 Nadal serving. No breaks. Sampras in the house.
Dorski: The camera guys are getting artistic. They show Rafa’s aligned bottles of juice on the foreground while Nadal serves in the background.
Ok correction again, Fed’s shoes are red with a white swoosh, to match his white shorts. Nadal’s shoes are red with a grey swoosh, to match his grey shorts. Imagine having so many pairs with different colored swooshes to match all your shorts. 5-5. No sign of Anna Wintour.
Mike A: 6-5 Federer.
Dorski: Commercial break. I like watching the tennis WAGs. Did you watch Berdych’s game with Wawrinka? Berdych’s girlfriend (some model type) wore the same shirt as he did and kept fiddling with her hands when the camera focused on her.
Us: Roger was clever to marry his hitting partner. We’re so ancient, we remember when Pete Sampras was engaged to a TV actress. The one before the one he married. And Andre Agassi and Barbra Streisand. And John McEnroe and Tatum O’Neal, but that’s our childhood.
Mike A: Tie break! 1-1, back to back mini-breaks.
4-1 Nadal.
Dorski: Shoot I have to be home early. Tie break. 3-5 Federer. I’m finishing this damn tie break.
Mike A: Nadal first set 7-6. Roger’s serve not clicking.
Us: Okay, even typing this is stressful. Let’s try summarizing each set instead.
Mike A: First set matching shot for shot. Long rallies. Now trying to attack. Medical timeout. Rafa’s blister opening, but the guy’s a monster.
We’ve just had a fortifying snack: Colombian coffee, hard cheese, and an excellent baguette from that banh mi place in San Antonio Village. According to the AO website, the score in the second set is 2-1 Nadal, on serve.
Tough hold by Federer. 2-2. Apparently he’s been going to the net. Do that. You’ll get passed, but it’ll work. Just not yet. 2-3.
Oy, can’t match winners with errors. Nadal leads, 4-2. Now 5-2. Our attention begins to wander.
Dorski’s on the road and there are no messages from Mike A so he must have sedated himself. Nadal has taken the second set, 6-3. We love Roger, but we’re not blind. Let’s see how he opens the third set.
Takes first game, 40-love. Now do that twenty times.
Mike A: I can’t watch anymore. Down two sets and a break. Ayoko na.
Us: If Roger wins, we will mock you and take your RF jacket. (This is called laughing in the face of defeat. You get it from reading a lot.) And Roger just broke back, 2-2.
3-2. 3-3. 3-4. 3-5. Camus is not going to save this match, unless we drop the collected works—the individual volumes aren’t hefty enough— on Rafa, who is awesome, apparently. (We’re still not watching.) The bloody blister may actually be helping him.
This match calls to mind Noel’s question: Would you rather be the event of the month, or the non-event of the year?
And that is The End. 7-6, 6-3, 6-3, easy win for the world number 1 Rafael Nadal. Wait, what’s going on? Where is our urge to throw furniture and stomp on espadrilles? Why are we calm?
Oh right, we didn’t actually watch the blowout. We outsourced our anxiety. Thank you and sorry, Dorski and Mike A. Back to shredding the workshop submissions. Joke.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
January 24th, 2014 at 20:07
Haha probably bec we know, deep inside, that there’s a big chance Roger will lose. The vibe I got from reading articles (both from normal people and sports analysts) is that they’re saying Nadal has a big advantage… but they’re also secretly wishing Roger would win. Oh well.