Life Under Covid, Year 3

Unpacking Domicron Perrottet's Fateful Decision 

The conservative (small c here) thing to have done  with respect to the pandemic as it stood, coming out of lockdown in NSW would have been to maintain some of the controls in place. This isn't a controversial thing to say. After all, the whole point of the response to the pandemic carried out by governments has been to mitigate risks of infections spreading. All this talk of needing to "flatten the curve" back in 2020 as well as the QR codes used to track the comings and goings of citizens (and in the process the citizens giving up their privacy in exchange) as well as restricting numbers of people at indoor events and so on was to ensure the pandemic did not go out of control. It seems crazy to have to write this out, but the reason I have to say small-c conservative is because the capital-C Conservative leaders of NSW then let go of controls.

Ever since the fateful decision on15 December 2021, the pandemic has been out of control. Having no controls in place immediately led to the explosion of numbers as well as long queues at PCR testing sites. By the end of the week Rapid Antigen Testing kits were sold out everywhere. Just about every place anybody went to for food pharmaceuticals would lead to a belated alert days later that they might have been exposed to COVID-19. For 8 days the NSW government let the virus have its way with its population.

And the mind boggles as to why people claiming to be conservative in nature and practice would want to do such a thing. The only explanation is that they were not conservative at all, and were in fact libertarians. Perhaps they may even be capital-l Libertarians of the variety we might abhor - for it is hard to recall an election whereby we voted in a Libertarian government. This then, was the moment the nut job far right libertarians of NSW had finally obtained controls to the levers of government. What they did with it was tear a gaping hole in the fabric of society and then pretend this was some kind of state of natural law. 

It is deplorable and abhorrent - but it seems to be what we are living with. As such I wish to exercise my libertarian choices right back at them and no longer pay any taxes. What's the point of paying into a government that doesn't look after you in a time of crisis at all? 

How My Christmas And New Years Went Down

Thanks to Perrotet and Hazzard-the-Buzzard I was too leery to go watch the one movie I had been waiting for all year, 'Spider-Man: No Way Home'. I still haven't watched it. I hear the cinemas are still packed - which sounds like infection clusters waiting to explode. 

At close to midnight on Christmas my better half got a notification that she was in contact with somebody who was positive, only 3 days before. So on early Boxing Day we decided to go get a PCR test even though we were asymptomatic, only to find the queue to the local testing clinic a mile long. Sensibly - I must say - we decided we shouldn't wait for a PCR test when we were likely not going to test positive, which was a call I made based on common sense and the dread of sitting in a car inching towards a PCR test for 3-4 hours. Instead, we opted to go to the local pharmacy to see if they had RAT kits and of course, they were sold out. In the 1 minute I was there to ascertain they didn't have them and everybody was sold out, I would get a notification 3 days later. 

Naturally as the regulations would have it, we sat in self isolation monitoring our non-existent symptoms for 7 days, and watched a lot of TV. I think we got to the end of Season 6 of 'Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.',  a show we had been watching on and off for some months. We even got through the final 10 episodes of Vikings Season 6 and then New Years came rolling in. 

We only staggered out on the 3rd January to get some meat at the butchers - because hey supermarkets have run out. I did manage to get my Moderna booster shot that day, with was a highlight. No side effects, so that was good. On the 4th I visited my sister's place to learn about managing quails. Later that night we got pinged with a notification again for that visit to the butcher. That meant we were still monitoring symptoms until the 10th and really only got out that night. I fed some quails that night. 

It's been real, y'all.  

'Personal Responsibility' Says The Guy Who Takes None

Amid this turmoil in NSW which has now led to the turmoil of all Australia, we had the personally irresponsible Prime Minister Scomo the Lame-o declare it was all a matter of personal responsibility now. It sounds good, but it would have helped to have made taking that responsibility a feasible thing. As it is, the RAT kits are nowhere to be found and when you can get them, the price gouging is pretty steep. 

The way taking personal responsibility has worked out for me is to essentially go back into lockdown on my own account to the extent that is permissible and sustainable. I feel sorry for people who cannot avoid going out to work, and I'm completely basking the luxury of being able to self isolate as much as I can. Yet, to be told by this incompetent Prime Minister that it's all on my responsibility ledger now is a bit rich. 

This is the same Prime Minister who ran off to Hawaii during the 2019 bushfire crisis. 

I don't see these coalition governments - Federal and NSW - surviving the next election, but I felt the same way in 2019, so I don't know what to think any more. Clearly I live in a country with an idiot electorate. We've got to vote out these jokers. 

Speaking of Jokers

This business of Novak Djokovic and his no-vax ways is to put it mildly, a sick joke. 

First, he's a champion that not many people have warmed to because he's a Serbian asshole. To make things worse, while he's a great player but he is also an anti-vaxer. The second part sort of rules him out of visiting Australia during the pandemic - because that's the law. Then, he gets some kind of exemption because he's a tennis champ and really, the Australian Open really needs its drawcards right now. But Scomo and Border Force are natural born cunts so he gets pinged like some refugee (hilarious). He goes and stays in the quarantine facility with real refugees while his case is heard in court. The judge is a tennis fan and says he can stay, and that Border Force were out of line. And yet somehow the Minister in charge of border bullies Alex Hawke has the option to send him packing. Will he or won't he? Stay tuned. *gag*

The twists and turns are like a bad soap opera. Nobody except Serbian Anti-vaxers seem to like this guy - but people still want him to hit the ball at the Australian Open. It's a mystery who we're supposed to root for in this miserable story. That, in a nutshell is life during the pandemic in Australia, year 3.   

Maria Sharapova Tests Positive

Maria Sharapova's PED Infringement

Maria Sharapova got pinged for taking PEDs. The only catch with this one is that she was taking a medication that was legal until 1st of January this year, and then tested positive during the Australian Open.

The ITF said in a statement that "Sharapova will be provisionally suspended with effect from [March 12], pending determination of the case".

The five-times grand slam champion said: "For the past 10 years I have been given a medicine called Mildronate by my doctor, my family doctor and a few days ago after I received the letter I found out that it also has another name of Meldonium which I did not know". 

Sharapova said she received an email from the World Anti-Doping Agency in December that noted changes to tennis' program for 2016. She said that the email including a link to a list of banned substances, but that she did not look at it.

Meldonium is used to treat diabetes and low magnesium and improve blood flow, among other things. 

"It's very important for you to understand that for 10 years this medicine was not on WADA's banned list and I had been legally taking the medicine for the past 10 years," Sharapova said. 

"But on January 1st the rules had changed and Meldonium became a prohibited substance which I had not known."

So now, there's speculation that she can't continue playing if she has to be on this drug, thus spelling the end of her career.  Nike, Porsche, and TAG Heuer promptly dumped her.  Very classy... not. It's not as if she's suddenly turned out to be a big white Russian female Tiger Woods type sex fiend; and last I checked owning a Porsche and a TAG Heuer were great performance enhancers for pulling chicks so I don't see how they have the moral high ground here. After all, Porsche and TAG Heuer stuck photos of Maria Sharapova on their ads with the intent of subliminally telling their target market that if they buy their product, they might have a chance with Maria Sharapova. Yeah, real classy, right there.

Jokes aside, there are some really grey areas developing in the world of sport and drug testing, and this case would be one of those. Tennis is a fully professional sport. The big break with amateurism that happened in the 1960s left great scars on the sport, but in a nutshell, it is one of the sports where the players make money in direct proportion to their performance. While it is customary to argue taking PEDs is cheating, there's an aspect to tennis that indicates the effect of PEDs might not be so dramatic.

For instance if a male player took PEDs for better endurance, there would be an advantage in the fifth set at a grand slam tournament, which happens about 1 in 6 matches across 4 tournaments a year with 127 matches each. Even if the PEDs added a 10% boost performance, its arguable it is not going to be reflected in a 10% winning rate. It is totally unlike Olympic running or sprinting where by a 1%boost in endurance could reflect itself as 10% more chance of winning. In women's tennis, they don't play these 5 set matches at all - ALL of these female tennis athletes have enough endurance to play the 2hours on court through a 3 set match that goes deep into the third set.

This is from the same sport that allowed their racquets to develop, grow, and become totally unlike the wooden racquets that were standard in the 1960s. They've been perfectly happy to let these modern racquets completely change the sport (and in the process make it rather boring) and suddenly they're worried about Maria Sharapova's meds.

As for Meldonium, it is highly suspect as to whether taking it would enhance performance enough to make an ordinary Top 50 player into a player with Maria Sharapova's record. This also goes without saying but the results of tennis matches are more likely to be manipulated by match fixing than PEDs At least the player on PEDs is trying to win. The player tanking sets and matches because of match fixing are far more detrimental than the incremental advantage of PEDs.

I get it that PEDs are open to abuse and might have terrible side effects. Especially steroids of all kinds. And if Maria Sharapova were forced into retirement because of this drug, I probably won't be one to miss her al that much. But it does seem to me that people are overestimating the impact of PEDs on a professional sport where other influences are far more likely to impact on the fairness or legitimacy of match outcomes. You'd have to be blind Freddy not to see that PEDs like this one, pertaining to tennis is firmly in the middle of the 18% grey card.

Of course, Jennifer Capriati doesn't see it that way.

"I had to lose my career and never opted to cheat no matter what. I had to throw in the towel and suffer," she wrote. 

"I didn't have the high priced team of [doctors] that found a way for me to cheat and get around the system and wait for science to catch up".

"What's the point of someone taking a heart medicine that helps your heart recover faster unless you have a heart condition? Is that accurate," she asked. 

"In my opinion [if] its all true every title should be stripped. This is other people's lives as well."

Well yeah, but as Navratilova pointed out somewhere, what Sharapova took was legal until 1st of January this year. Besides, this stripping offenders of medals and trophies is starting to look crazy after Lance Armstrong had his 7 Tour de France titles taken from him. Sports organisations can do that to humiliate the offender but it hardly changes what happened - somebody on PEDs beat the field. It's not like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds didn't hit all those homers during the years when MLB didn't look too deeply into PEDs. It's not like Sharapova didn't win those 5 Grand Slam tournaments. In the context of professional sport, it's actually hard to argue against an athlete who tries to get better by taking PEDs, especially when his pay is dependent on the outcome. 

So here we are again, in this moral purgatory of Performance Enhancing Drugs. We're none the wiser, none the better and probably more huffed up with self-righteous indignation over something oh so grey.

Body Without Organs Part 2

Thunderous Objections Continue

You know a document has hit some kind of mark if the people against it are lining up to make their views heard. One gets the feeling the journalists covering this document were all pretty aghast at what was being presented, straight-faced and brazen, to a greatly sceptical audience.

Peter Martin slammed it saying the underlying assumption is that the only way Australia can get back to surplus was through cuts while leaving the current tax system untouched, while it even answered questions it was not asked like drastically cutting the minimum wage.

Michael Pascoe was just as pointed describing its approach as "casual brutality". He also pointed out the notion that if the states ought to compete with one another, it would result in putting the states falling behind now in a worse position, not better; and that those states would end up having to pay more. Australia is - last we checked - still a 'commonwealth' and not a 'competition of states'.

Steve Keen was more in a demolition derby mood as he pointed out the fundamental stupidity of Australia worrying about getting back to a surplus now, given the context of the world economy. The fundamental assumptions underlying the very exercise seems to be dodgy, while the preconceptions going in were just as misguided.

I know from Pleiades that the AFR s not happy either calling it 'illogical hostility' and decidedly critical of the notion of abolishing key industry support programs. The AFR is also reporting that customers are taking action, protesting the four major banks for their support of fossil fuel investments. Some of these are major funds looking to allocate funds to companies and projects that are genuinely eco friendly. The Federal Government is flying into a storm with its contrarian position on Climate Change, and its stated desire to shut down all these green initiatives.

Basically there has been a loud chorus of boos from the press gallery, which probably doesn't mean much to the man in the high office.  But it's interesting to note some of this is spreading out to the world and will have consequences for Australia's economy. If you look at the document it appears it is not that different to the sort of position statement that might come from the US Tea Party, and it would certainly be interesting to see how this document looks when lined up with the Tea Party's position statement. After all, as Michael Pascoe points out, it appears Tony Abbott really wants to turn Australia in to a facsimile of America.

Gen-X Will Retire At 70

In amidst all the brouhaha about the Commission of Audit and its audaciously hostile report, was the gem that Joe Hockey announced that the pension eligibility will be raised to 70.

The line he drew in the sand?People born after 1965. That's pretty much saying Gen-X onwards. I was going to lambast him for being born in 1964, but it turns out he was born 1965. So if you're an old school mate of Joe's you can thank him for that gift. He'll be drawing on his generous Parliamentarian superannuation as soon as he leaves Parliament while some of his mates might never reach the age of drawing a pension. If there is such a thing as poetic injustice, it might just be in there somewhere.

If you thought demographics was crap, and that distinctions like Baby Boomers and Generation X and Generation Y and Millennials were just marketing brackets then the line in the sand drawn by the Treasurer might just give you pause. I've pointed out before that Generation-X were the first to get hit with HECS after the Baby Boomer generation went by on free Tertiary Education. It's really no mistake that the boom is falling on the queue just in front of Generation X, because the Baby Boomers are fitting up the social cost of their lives and their education and their retirement on to Generation X.

I don't know if this is going to work. 2035 is 21 years away, and there's a lot of politics to be played out between then and now. It's long enough for another generation to grow into maturity and look at all the social costs being passed on to the latter generations and tip the balance the other way. I've pointed this out before but the ALP is already coming into the next Federal election with a front bench dominated by Generation X, headed up by Bill Shorten. The script might be written, but this movie is far from shot, cut and mixed. :)

Oh, Let's Cut All of It!

One of things that got put on the table for cuts was Screen Australia. Naturally there was an outcry from the usual voices.

"Culturally it would put us back in the stone age," said John L Simpson, producer and founder of the film distribution company Titan View of the Commission of Audit's recommendation. "I thought that Australians had got over the cultural cringe, the idea that the only culture engaging with is the culture imported into this country, but that's what's going to happen. We'll be a cultural backwater if we don't invest."

"It would have a devastating effect on the Australian film industry," said film producer and director Sophie Hyde. "It's already a very underfunded industry. We do so much with the small amount that we get, but I think that would effectively decapitate it."

Robert Connolly, a filmmaker and former board member of Screen Australia described the recommendation as "catastrophic". He said that Screen Australia receives around $100m a year and has funded some of the most successful homegrown television of recent times. On 9 February, he said, "there was the INXS biopic and the Schappelle Corby one and there were almost five million Australians watching drama that Screen Australia had invested in.

You mean it would upset your gravy train perhaps?.

The people most vocal about it are the people who have received the most support from the funding bodies over their careers. Honestly I'd like to see all of it abolished just to see what would happen. I've got no love for film making in Australia any more, so I really don't care if it goes to the dogs. Heck, if I can't have it, let them not have it, is how I feel. Screw the bastards with their mouths firmly attached to the government teat and above all, screw the film bureaucrats. They can go find a job in another industry and work until they're 70.

Yeah, don't cut it in half, cut the whole damn lot.

Cultural Differences

No Leaks

It's been a weird week in Australian sport, what with the big press conference saying 'This is The Blackest Day in Australian Sport'.

AUSTRALIA'S top sporting codes have been rocked by revelations that organised crime is behind the increasing use of banned performance-enhancing drugs by ''multiple athletes'' across sporting codes and possible attempts to fix matches and manipulate betting markets.

The heads of all the main professional and participation sports expressed shock after being briefed on a 12-month investigation by the Australian Crime Commission that found professional sport in Australia was ''highly vulnerable to organised crime infiltration''

The article goes on to say that all of our codes of sport probably have had doping going on. Lance Armstrong's name came up and some anonymous football player in some code even piped up during the week with an article saying what an edge it was to have the injection.
The declaration sent all these bodies scurrying for cover (how else do you explain the rush to declare "We're clear!"); and swimmers saying they refused injection in fear it was contaminated with banned substances.

It's interesting how the sport bodies have responded. the NRL has put together an 'Integrity Commission', which suggests, they're up to their eyeballs in the doping problem. The Minister for Sport says it's 'game over' for the cheats, but again you'd expect her to say it without any follow through - what else would we expect a Minister for Sport to say? "We give up?"

The strangest call of them all may be the call to name names mentioned in this one:

The Australian Crime Commission's chief executive John Lawler hit back on Saturday at critics to clear up ''confusion'' as to why he did not name names, given the explosive nature of the allegations.

Mr Lawler said classified strategic assessments had been sent to all police agencies around the country and Commonwealth agencies, which were now responsible for pursuing action.

''Very detailed information, the names of the clubs, the names of all the persons, the details of how, when and why and where, based on the intelligence, the persons suspected, has been provided to the anti-doping agency ASADA and to the police. Particularly the NSW and Victorian police,'' he told Fairfax Media.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare echoed Mr Lawler's comments as a number of sporting identities and commentators questioned the investigation and motives behind the report's release along with its veracity.

Given the nature of the witch hunt that is about to ensue it seems entirely understandable that some people want the messenger shot. But really, with Australia's insane libel laws, it would a brave ACC CEO who would start naming names. The way this normally goes is through leaks, starting at the biggest names in the various sports.

If this were America, somebody somewhere in the chain of information would leak to the press. After all, tat is how we found out about Barry Bonds and the clear and the cream; Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte using HGH; A-Rod being on some PEDs in his peak years in Texas; and ultimately Lance Armstrong as well. The cross-hairs a re firmly on performance-enhanced athletes now and the witch hunt is in full swing over there.

That such leaks have not happened seems to indicate that the ACC investigation was pretty subtle and went very deep. There also seems to be a cultural difference here as opposed America that the press are not willing to tarnish the names of the stars just yet. It maybe the case that the culture is about to change and professional sport will never again have the cozy relationship with the media as it does now.

Fed's 15th

An Epic Match

Roger Federer made history at long last. It sure didn't look like it was going to happen along the road this year, but he dug deep and got it done against his favorite whipping post, Andy Roddick. Of course it wouldn't have been so epic had Roddick not put up a good fight, but in the end, the man of destiny beat it out to the promised land.

Federer's 5-7 7-6 (8-6) 7-6 (7-5) 3-6 16-14 victory in four hours and 18 minutes came 12 months after he had suffered a heartbreaking defeat here in another epic five-set battle with Rafael Nadal.

This time, however, with a collection of the game's all-time greats looking over his shoulder from the royal box anticipating the Swiss would win the unprecedented 15th major title, Federer finally endured, breaking Roddick's serve for the only time in the match on the American's 38th service game to seize victory.

Clearly exhausted by his toil, and perhaps stunned by the opposition he had been forced to endure from an opponent over whom he had held a 18-2 career record, the often emotional Federer was more relieved than elated as he received the Wimbledon trophy for the sixth time.

"It's a crazy match, my head is still spinning," Federer told the crowd.

Pete Sampras, who had flown in for the match at the last minute to see Federer move ahead of him on the all-time grand slam winners list, paid the Swiss the ultimate accolade saying he considered him the greatest player of all time.

"I have to give it to him," said Sampras. "The critics say Laver, and Nadal's beaten him a few times ... in my book he is."

The man is a great player and nobody is going to quibble with him being called the greatest until somebody comes along and wins more. Roddick had these interesting words at the end:

Roddick said Federer had, for the first time, been unable to read his serve.

"But you didn't even get a sense that he was even really frustrated by it," said Roddick.

"He kind of stayed the course and just toughed it out. He gets a lot of credit for a lot of things, but not a lot of the time is how many matches he kind of digs deep and toughs out. He doesn't get a lot of credit for that because it looks easy to him a lot of the times. But he definitely stuck in there today."

If you go 2-19 against the best player of all time, how disappointed can you be at:

• a) winning twice?


• b) getting to play the man 21 times?


• c) your surname has 2 euphemisms for 'penis' while the greatest player has none?

Roddick's a cool dude.

Fedex The French

Roger Federer Wins Slam No.14

After the way Nadal demolished Federer on the slow rebound ace at the Australian Open earlier this year, it seemed highly unlikely that Federer would win the French Open played on clay. He sure didn't look like he had the game to get past Rafael Nadal. In fact, everybody could see that he could beat everybody else except the lefthander who to all intents and purposes played with the advantage of a righthander on his backhand side.

It just seemed highly unlikely that Federer would get his Slam No.14 if he had to go through Nadal to do it.

Luckily Nadal lost in the earlier orunds and so Federer was able to sneak into the final and demolish Robin Soderling in 3 sets.As a result of lining himself up with Pete Sampas, Pistol Pete has pronounced Federer is the best ever.

"Regardless if he won there or not, he goes down as the greatest ever. This just confirms it," Sampras told the Guardian newspaper.

"I'm obviously happy for Roger. If there's anyone that deserves it, it's Roger. He's come so close (previously)," Sampras said of the new champion and world number two, who lost the last three consecutive French Open finals to Spain's Rafael Nadal.

Well, I dunno about that Pete. Seems to me Pistol Pete was a pretty good player with a good claim to having been the best ever except he didn't win the French. The only other guy who has won on all four surfaces since Rod Laver happens to be Andre Agassi who also has a good claim for being the best all-round player, but I guess Federer's French Open win sort of cements his place at the top of the tree. After all, he's won on all the others as well.

The only knock on Federer's win here is that he didn't have to face his current nemesis Nadal to do it. Then again, surely there was a cheap final for Sampras and Agassi and Connors and McEnroe and Borg. I can remember McEnroe playing one Chris Lewis in a Wimbledon final once. That was pretty one-sided and it wasn't exactly McEnroe's fault that the top seed from the other side of the draw didn't get through. Similarly, it's not Fed's fault Nadal wasn't there to contest it.

When it's all said and done, it's hard to think of a champion who has loved the game as much as Federer has over the years. It's like he is up against the record books because it means so much to him. It's a rare quality in a champ.

Just A Quick Note

Binfield For Bankers

I've been meaning to post this one up from Pleiades.

Announcing the hearings last week, Barney Frank, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, said that public patience with Wall Street bailouts had worn thin.

"As I've said to a couple of the bankers, 'Here's this problem: People really hate you, and they're starting to hate us because we're hanging out with you,'" Mr Frank said.

Yesterday, he urged them to be "cooperative, not grudgingly, not doing the minimum" as the US government seeks to impose a new culture of responsibility on an industry that has become known for its enormous pay packets, corporate jets and lavish junkets.

"Understating that there is substantial public anger and alleviating that public anger not with mumbo jumbo but with reality is essential if we're going to have the support in the country to take the right steps," Mr Frank said.

Public anger boiled over last month when it was revealed that the total amount of bonuses paid out to staff for 2008 was $18.4bn – a figure that prompted President Barack Obama to describe the pay-outs as "shameful" while banks were being propped up by taxpayer money, and led him to impose a pay cap of $500,000 on executives of banks that need more emergency cash.

"It is abundantly clear that we are here amidst broad public anger at our industry," Lloyd Blankfein, the head of Goldman Sachs, said.

The chief executives before Congress included Vikram Pandit, the head of Citigroup, which received government guarantees of more than $300bn after coming close to collapse in December.

Mr Pandit made $216m when Citigroup bought his hedge fund business to lure him to a top job at the company and paid him bonuses to sign on as chief executive in 2007.

Yesterday, he took the lead in promising that Wall Street understands the new realities of life with the government as a significant investor. "I've told my board of directors that my salary should be $1 per year with no bonus until we return to profitability," he said. "We will hold ourselves accountable and that starts with me," he said.

Outside the House of Representatives office building where the hearing took place, about a dozen protesters taunted Bank of America's Ken Lewis. "Hey, Ken Lewis, feel our pain," they chanted.

"I feel more like corporal of the universe, not captain of the universe at this moment," Mr Lewis said inside, after coming under intense questioning from the California Democrat Maxine Waters.

Yep. Blinfields for Blankfein!

Look Back At Mr Anger
Heres' something I missed too. It's a little old, but it has a nice mention of our man, Mr. Angry Mac.

I could point to the artistry of his game as a get-out clause, as a way of justifying my admiration for someone whose behaviour I've deemed not good enough in others.

If an overpaid soccer player carried on the way McEnroe did at times, this column would be outraged.

I don't have a decent excuse for this double standard, except that no one is perfect. And I'm not talking McEnroe here.

In truth McEnroe was so bad at times that there is no way of justifying any worship of him. It is what it is, and I even found, and still find, the McEnroe the world sees as likeable.

I suppose it is like life itself, that people's attraction to others is not always completely rational, and can be irrational.

McEnroe will always be up there, alongside other personal favourites like the English cricket batsman David Gower, our own cricket maestro Richard Hadlee, Christian Cullen, Bryan Williams, film clips of George Best and Muhammad Ali, the Swiss Miss Martina Hingis, and the anticipation I feel whenever Wayne Rooney gets near the ball, as providing my most cherished viewing of sport.

Those aforementioned favourites are easily explainable of course. I beg forgiveness on this one though, because I could watch McEnroe - bonus tantrums included - for hours.

It's a pretty cute column worth the read.

The Weirdness Of World Interest

I'm not berating you the reader, but it is somewhat disturbing that the interest in a 13 year old dad outweighs the interest in Paul Kanjorsky telling how we came 3 hours from the total meltdown of our economic system. I mean, for every person interested in what Kanjorsky said, there are 7 people who wanted to know about Alfie Patten. I mean, that's a little nuts folks. :)

Nadal-Federer

5 Set Epic

Grand Slam tennis finals should be like this more often. Surprisingly they rarely meet the hype and expectations. This match had the No.1 and No.2 in the world squaring off against one another; one was trying to win in Australia for the first time, the other was going for a record of Grand Slam wins; The No.2 was the recently dethroned No.1, the No.1 was the recently crowned former No.2. It was all drama, and lived up to the hype.

Federer came into the match looking to extend his Grand Slam tally and equal Pete Sampras. He showed all his style and form in arriving to the finals, looking like he was peaking at the right time. Nadal on the other hand had just played a punishing 5 set Semi-final that went for 5 hours, only 48 hours before.

They traded  blow for blow, game for game, break for break and crashed into the fifth set. In the end, Federer faltered just that little bit, allowing Nadal to get the early break, and Federer never found his way back into the match. After a match that lasted 4hours and 20 minutes, the last man standing was Nadal. It wasn't easy work.

Federer's Game

After years of dominance, it is easy to see where Roger Federer has lot his zip. He's less precise off the backhand side, and he has less speed. It's not by much and he still has enough court coverage to beat almost anybody else but Nadal. Nadal's footspeed was such that it neutralised Federer's great shot-making ability while giving himself plenty of opportunities to pick off winners.

Ferderer's serve has also lost something off his peak peiod. The command of both corners in the  deuce court is less dominant, and the one looking to go wide in the deuce court didn't look quite as his salad days. Worse still, the kinds of points Federer could construct with his game found counterpoints from Nadal.

It seemed harder and harder to see how Federer could break Nadal. Nadal's lefty game essentially turns Federer's game inside out to a point that one of Federer's big weapons, the forehand cross court, plays into Nadal's great strength, the double-handed back hand. The other strength, the off-forehand, requires Federer to find a way to get Nadal to open the deuce court, but all too often Nadal simply beat the ball.

At the net, Federer just wasn't himself. He looked uncertain in a lot of his volleys.

Nadal's Game

If one thing has changed in Nadal's technique, it is his groundstrokes. Gone are the big loopy back swings. His take-back on both sides are far more compact than they used to be. Combined with the astounding foot-speed, Nadal seemed to be able to make all sorts of unlikely shots work.

The double-handed backhand cross court won Nadal a lot of points off the baseline, and even though Federer was trying to work it in a way as to deny Nadal the angle, he would stil find the angles. It was almost as if Federer was playing somebody with a double-handed forehand on the right side, and a forehand on the left.

Nadal may have found an entirely new plateau of 'greatness'. There has never been anything like this kind of game. The last dominant left hander was  probably Goran Ivanisevic, and before that you have to go back to John McEnroe and before that Rod Laver himself. None of those guys had quite the all-round power game displayed by Nadal.

It's that seldom that a left hander comes along and dominates the game. It is possible that because of that very rareness, it is hard to find many players who have a game plan against one.

The Mettle of being No.1

When Federer first came along, I thought he had a great all-round game with fantastic technique and no head at all. Then he got his head together and dominated like crazy. But all the while I've felt that if there was one suspect part of his game, it was actually his head space. He's always been a little brittle, but nobody managed to stick it to him during his dominant years.

Nadal on the other hand must be one of the toughest mongrels I've seen on court. The guy just does not concede or 'give'. He doesn't stop, he doesn't let up, he just keeps hammering away at his shots. Jim Courier who used to be quite a gutsy bulldog himself, marveled at the stamina and mental fortitude of Nadal.

Federer And No.14


Pete Sampras probably had a good chuckle last night.

The Australian Open's surface plays slower than the US hard court. It seems to be fast enough to trouble clay court specialists, but bounces high enough to trouble grass court players.Of the four grand slam tourneys, it's probably the second hardest surface for Federer's style of play. In a way, if you thought about how much Nadal had to stretch his game to play well here and how much Federer has to stretch his game to play well here, it seems that the Australian Open i actually a harder place for Federer

It's going to be very hard for Federer to win No.14. He's got 2 shots this year: Wimbledon and the US this year, because I don't see him beating Nadal on clay in Roland Garros.

The Single-Handed Backhand

The single-handed backhand has gone the way of the dodo in women's tennis. It's a rare player who hits it with authority these days. Justine Henin would be a recent example. Martina Hingis had a reasonably crafty one, but she didn't have a power game that fed off it. Amelie Mauresmo had a good singlehander from memory. Then it's all the way back to Steffi Graf, then Martina Navratilova. It's not a big list.

At one point it seemed they just stamped out these tennis prodigies with doubles-fisters from the same mold. They probably did at Nick Bollotieri's tennis camp.

The list of dominant double-fisters starts at Chris Evert and goes:

• Chirs Evert


• Tracy Austin


• Andrea Yeager


• Mary Pierce


• Monica Seles


• Arantxa Sanchez


• Lindsay Davenport


• Jennifer Capriati


• Venus Wiliams


• Serena Williams


• Maria Sharapova

The men's tour has been quite different. The single-handed backhand seems to have been a vital part of many a champion. dating back to when they started to rank players, theres;

• John Newcombe (crap backhand but single handed;  8weeks)


• Ilie Nastase


• John McEnroe (lefty)


• Ivan Lendl


• Stefan Edberg


• Boris Becker


• Tomas Muster (6weeks!)


• Pete Sampras


• Gustavo Kuerten


• Juan Carlos Ferrero


• Roger Federer


• Pat Rafter (1 week!)

Even if you discount the short tenures of the Aussies and Muster, Most of these guys were dominant for quite long time in ther respective epochs. The double-hander lists goes:

• Jimmy Connors (the original!)


• Bjorn Borg


• Mats Wilander


• Jim Courier


• Andre Agassi


• Mara Safin


• Leyton Hewitt


• Andy Roddick (a shortlived stint at the no.1 spot, but a pretty good player)


• Rafael Nadal (lefty)

If you count out the 2 seventies guys at the top, it's a much, much shorter list. I always put this down to range. The guys who have good single-handed backhands can cover the court more and have more options for their shots.

Watching Nadal last night, I thought it might be the end of the single-handed backhand. It's unlikely, given the trends, but he was so good it shook my faith. :)

Today's List

I Used To Do Top 10 Lists
As some of you may remember they were on really obscure topics. Well,
Today, we're talking hitting technique because my sister quizzed me about what I remembered about Boris 'boom boom' Becker and his single-handed backhand and where I placed it in the long history of single-handed backhands.

The Top 10 Best Single-handed backhands:
1. Pete Sampras
2. John McEnroe
3. Martina Navratilova
4. Roger Federer
5. Ivan Lendl
6. Boris Becker
7. Henri LeConte
8. Todd Woodbridge
9. Stefan Edberg
10. Ken Rosewall

And I'm sure I missed somebody. Like Elliot 'URGH!! Telcher.
In this day and age, you'd think more players would be hitting single-handed backhands with these modern racquets, but clearly it ain't so. When you see Marat Safin, a strapping 6'5" tonking back double-handers, you think, "what a limp-wristed sook".

A little more in the way of an explanation of this list...

Pete Sampras by far had the most clean technique of anybody I've ever seen. He modeled his stroke on Rod Laver's, who I did not get to see play in his prime (I ain't that old). He would line his shoulder and elbow and come right over the top of the ball, swinging in line, more with the vertical axis of the racquet rather than across it - A truly remarkable style of hitting backhands. It's not easy to do, because you have to see the ball early, get there, get your shoulder in line and crush the ball.


John McEnroe too emulated Rod Laver's technique and so he too comes through the axis of the racquet, more than he crosses the face. The interesting thing about McEnroe's take-back was how he dropped his wrist and gave himself the option of hitting across or down the line of the court, very late on the ball. He also had tremendous balance even when fielding the most unlikely of shots.



Martina Navratilova was one of those hitters who just banged, nudged and played the ball beautifully. Raised on wooden racquets, her technique applied to modern racquets yielded amazing results. Truly a gifted player all around. Okay, she was a dyke and a crazy Cold-War Era Czech and all that, but she knew what she was doing. One of the safest shots to watch was a Navratilova backhand.


Roger Federer: The best player since Pete Sampras; may be the best ever; except I don't know how he'd play with older racquets. Yet the facts are, Sampras never conquered clay, while this guy is fantastic on any surface, playing almost any style of player. Once again, great technique founded on good, solid balance and a sweet swing. Seems to see the ball and get to it very early, looking like he's got all the time in the world.


Ivan Lendl was a machine. He set match-length records playing US Open finals against Mats Wilander. In other words, he could keep hitting the same shots nearly all day. He was the man who turned tennis into an endurance sport through his ruthless application of repetition. He could hit winners off your shots easily, but he made a point of making you hit more shots to wear you out. Did tennis a big favour y staying away after retirement.


Boris Becker had a great swashbuckling backhand. It's hardly remembered because he preferred to go around and use his cannon of a forehand over his swashbuckling backhand, but all the same he had great technique with his backhand. He could hit all the angles and hit over, flat and under with equal control. He beat Lendl with his ground-strokes from the back of the court and was happy to do it that way. He stopped the machine dead in its tracks. 'nuff said. A lesser known fact is he had great disguise as to whether he was going to come over or under the ball. You couldn't tell from the take-back.


Henri LeConte: This is the first contentious name on the list. Why this guy who never won a Grand Slam? Because he was one of the best flat-ball hitters I've ever seen. On his best days, you dreamed of hitting the ball as cleanly as this guy hit them. He didn't have too many of those days in a row, but in his prime, he dismembered Bjorn Borg and Ivan Lendl, all on the back of his great eye-hand coordination. the man had no mental game, but he had immense touch. And he was irrational and crazy (as all the French players seem to be), which made him totally unpredictable, probably even to himself.


Todd Woodbridge: McEnroe once said his technique was 'almost too cute'. Well, kinda'. That Australian orthodox technique with the right-angled wrist isn't easy to do, but this guy just did it, picture perfect, over and over again and made it look so easy. In fact, of all the Aussie players of the last 30 years, his single-handed backhand technique is the best by a country mile - beats Rafter, Cash, Fitzgerald, Edmonson and Warwick, all of them.


Stefan Edberg: Bucking the trend at the time, he was the lone Swede with a single-hander, who won and won and won. Had a great rivalry with Boris Becker which were magical matches to watch. Great slice and approach thing he had going as well as a cross-court topspin thing he used to uncork. Probably the last grass court player to really work the angles in the old way.


Ken Rosewall: The other single great Aussie backhand that I actually saw. The man was born to hit backhands. Even when he was well past it, he'd find the perfect line to line up a shot and unleash this picture-perfect swing. He was the text book.

WORST PROFESSIONAL BACKHAND EVER: Belongs to Mark Woodforde.
His two hander was so bad that Goran Ivanisevic once remarked that he and his son would sit around watching tennis, "laughing at Woodforde's shitty backhand". Now that might sound cruel, until you actually see it: