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Roger Federer has beaten Andy Murray in the Australian Open quarters in four sets. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Remember when we used to take victory for granted? Bring back 2006!

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Juan is at a conference in Melbourne and his hosts took their group to the Rod Laver Arena for the Federer-Murray match. “Andy was very noisy,” he reports, “Roger so relaxed and calm. Andy was very powerful while Roger was very precise. Close fight.” He took these photos from the stands.

Not really, but tough to argue with success.

He bounces the ball a million times before he serves. His play is plasmatic. He seems to flow toward the corners of the court. He is an origami man, folding at the waist to dig up a drop shot, starfishing for a high forehand return, cocking his leg behind his head in an arabesque as he blasts a backhand down the line. He lunges, he dives, he beats his pecs. He once yelled—in Serbian—“Now you all will suck my dick!”

He is dominant, but he is not universally adored. His showy personality and subtle game are a niche taste. Haters call him Djokobitch. Jerzy Janowicz, the Polish player, said recently that he was “a fake.” But now, with the waning of the Federer-Nadal duopoly, which has fixated tennis for the past decade, the love he craves is within his reach. This week, at Flushing Meadows, where he was once booed, Novak Djokovic will attempt to assert his sovereignty.

Read a profile of the Djoker by Lauren Collins in the New Yorker.

Will Ree-shard Gasquet hold his nerve, or will Rafa Nadal crush him as usual? Will Stanislas Wawrinka ever emerge from the shadow of you-know-who? Is Juan Martin del Potro going to remain a one-slam wonder? Who is the world number one-in-waiting?

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Ooh, surprises! Not that surprising when you consider the talent behind them, but we like it when the narrative strays from the plot. We haven’t been following tennis since we released Roger Federer from his “obligations” (17 slams being an excellent return on our emotional investment), but if the US Open final is between Wawrinka and Gasquet, or Del Potro makes it to the Oz final, we’re going back to watching tennis.

The BBC presenter John Inverdale has apologised to the Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli for describing her as “not a looker” shortly before her win on Saturday, calling his remarks clumsy and ham-fisted.

The BBC was forced to apologise after Inverdale, speaking before Bartoli’s match against Sabine Lisicki, told listeners of Radio 5 Live: “Do you think Bartoli’s dad told her when she was little: ‘You’re never going to be a looker, you’ll never be a Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight’?”

Continue reading at the Guardian.

Tapos yung mga di kagandahan, sila pa ang malakas manlait sa anyo ng iba. (Self-loathing?) Sino nga ba ang madalas na nagmamaganda?

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From Cooper and Butler: A Wimbledon Love Story, at Vulture. Uuyyy, selfies. Below them, the President of Serbia.

Text exchange with two sportswriters

Us: And while Britain weeps for joy, Scotland declares independence and names Andy Murray president.

LeK: Wahaha! Ees about time. Sean Connery for prime minister!

Us: Dali! Sulsulan mo in exchange for a lifetime supply of single malt.

LeK: Good deal. Let’s all take the high road!

Us: Well you do have a personal stake in the fate of the Scotch, este Scots.

LeK: Of course. Noon pa, Scotland Forever. What Robert the Bruce started, Andy, Sean, Nessie and I will finish!

FireQ: Hahaha! What do you think of this small group pissed kasi hindi raw 77 years ang British drought because there are women who won during that period?

Us: Kuraz! Hindi ba Ingles si Virginia Wade?

FireQ: Yup, pero parang namimilosopo na sila hehe.

Us: Baka kasi sabi ng tatay nila hindi sila kagandahan kaya’t kailangang mamilosopo.

Double Fault by Lionel Shriver (We Need To Talk About Kevin) is one of the finest novels ever written about tennis. If you ever spot it, snap it up. We’re amazed that it’s not better-known, and that it hasn’t been adapted for film. It’s about two professional tennis players who fall in love and marry each other. A terrible idea. Extremely competitive people working in the same field should not marry each other. The dating period will probably be fun, but in the long term, when one of them realizes that the other is more successful at what they do, there will be trouble. (Especially if the less successful one is actually better, just less lucky.)

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The game may be as mental as it is physical, but playing it well entails making the brain shut up. At my worst, my head is crowded with imperatives—first and foremost, though you’d think this would go without saying, WATCH THE BALL! Then: Step into the shot! Hit the ball in front of you! Get your racket back! But these clamouring edicts are an impediment to obeying them; they so clutter my mind that I might as well have strewn a clatter of gardening tools on the court itself.

For tennis tantalisingly offers perfect inhabitation of the present tense, what drummers call playing “in the pocket.” During brief, intoxicating periods of hitting at the top of your game, the mental cacophony quiets, and there’s no longer any space between “telling yourself” to do something and doing it. This flow state seems like not thinking. In fact, it is perfect thinking.

Read My tennis obsession by Lionel Shriver at Prospect.

Novak Djokovic: World number 1 and king of donkey cheese, has just won his third straight Australian Open title.

Having released Roger Federer from the obligation to ensure our happiness by winning everything, we have been watching the Australian Open with unnatural calm. Walang manok, eh. It’s not half or even a quarter as much fun as rooting for a player, but there’s also no probability of a nervous breakdown or post-game depression. Until recently it would take us days to recover from a Federer loss; now we can watch him shank the ball at a crucial point without bursting a blood vessel.

We still haven’t found the next player we’re going to root for. Djoker is much nicer now that his results justify his kayabangan, but our loyalty fluctuates. Mike says Djokovic has budol-budol powers. For the definition of budol-budol, check out the PNP website. Presumably Mike means Djoker can hypnotize his opponents into thinking there’s more to his game than there really is.

Last year we rooted for Murray (unless he was playing the Fed) because we felt bad for Britain. Now that he’s won an Olympic gold and a major, he no longer has the kawawa factor. Raul says Murray is actually kind of hot now—winning is the best beauty treatment. Plus Lendl has been making him work out more, hence those thighs.

We enjoy watching Tsonga, especially when he dives for the ball. Is he ever going to win a major?

It’s a little worrisome that The Next Big Star hasn’t appeared; we’re not sold on Tomic or Raonic. The Top 4 (Djoko-Fed-Murray-Nadal) are so far ahead of the field, we wonder what will happen to men’s tennis when they stop playing. By this time we should know who our next bet is. When we “adopted” Roger Federer he was an 18-year-old in a ponytail and over-sized clothes; now he’s a 31-year-old with perfect hair and good suits. Where is the future? Who’s next?

Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany and their son Stellan at the US Open

So Andy Murray defeats Novak Djokovic in a five-set thriller to end Britain’s 76-year slam drought. Well done. We always thought Murray’s best chance would be at Melbourne or Flushing Meadows, and he finally locked it up. Now the British can stop going on about lost glory, the end of the empire, etc.

Interesting that Sir Sean Connery turned up at Murray’s press conference last week. Connery is the most high-profile supporter of Scottish independence. Murray of course is Scottish. So if Britain is broken up (though current polls say most Scots are opposed to independence), will Britain still have a grand slam?

With his US Open victory, Murray becomes the favorite at the Australian Open (also played on hardcourt). Ayyyy don’t buy the favorite label Andy! Then there will be talk of a calendar slam…don’t listen!

Interesting: The four slams in 2012 were won by the top 4. The first was won by Djokovic, who was then ranked number 1 in the world; the second by Nadal, then ranked number 2; the third by Federer, then number 3; the fourth by Murray, number 4. And they all won on their favorite surfaces, in the places where they (the first 3) bagged their first majors. Symmetry.

Meanwhile: Ampunin si Ampon! The Case for a Filipino Legend in the Tennis Hall of Fame.