none of my friends care about tennis but that doesn’t mean they lose out on experiencing the highs and lows with me. if that sounds vaguely threatening, well. it should. this is what they have to put up with.
(minimally edited for typos, a couple of wilder assertions made in the moment, and also the dull bits.)
Daniil Medvedev I like you but you gotta have a little mercy. or get distracted or something. he’s an old man and you shouldn’t bully him.
oh what is happening is it the final
where we at
it is the final and the old man is being bullied by the octopus
I don’t like. mind him losing. because it’s inevitable???
but I want it competitive.
he’s afraid that if he relents just a little he’ll get beat up by the old man
oho.
the old man has said. not so easy.
god I need to get out of bed and stop watching it on my phone there is a whole big tv upstairs. I deserve that experience. but also it’s warm here.
you deserve to be warm.
ladies and gentlemen we have a match
is it over???
no. wait. i’m still shit at deciphering tennis points but
this is the deciding set right
no it’s only the second
this is like having needles stuck into me in a completely not at all acupuncture way.
this game has been going on forever and if Rafa doesn’t win it and therefore the second set I think it’s going to end pretty fast.
I’m ill. mentally. also experiencing nausea.
absolutely brutal. Medvedev two sets. but holy god this is, well, it’s pretty much exactly what I expected?
babe you’re doing it wrong. I mean. clearly it’s working. but this isn’t. you’re not supposed to. that.
also this is really, it’s an interesting one for me? because usually watching Rafa down in a final makes me very very sad and particularly when it’s like this, and pretty much the only person who ever plays him like this in a final is Djokovic, and I’m like I guess, regular amounts of disappointed here and mostly happy by the match being good quality even if it’s Quite Painful? interesting to consider whether this is because a) I’ve grown up and developed a bit of perspective skfjs b) I’m so amazed Rafa is even in the final that every point he wins is a bonus or c) he’s not playing Djokovic.
I don’t understand I DON’T understand. Rafa you are 35 years old. you had foot surgery at the start of the winter. you can’t buy a first serve right now. your forehand isn’t having the effect it has on basically every other player. you are two sets down against an in-form, peak fitness player a decade younger than you. this match has taken three hours for two and a half sets (this is ridiculous). you lost the second in a tiebreak having had set point. HOW are you saving break points with thirty-shot rallies.
i love your commentary so.
this is the thing that sets him apart from the others. Federer and Djokovic both have more complete games, there’s no denying that. Federer is a more beautiful player. Djokovic’s psychology is inhuman (which is why it’s so funny when he loses it). but the absolute reserves of fight in Rafa, I don’t know, the determination, the belief that he needs to play every single point as if it’s the only point that has ever mattered or will ever mattered, it’s really something else.
not to be one of those people about a sports celebrity but I find it very. it means something to me. he is losing this match by a lot but you would not know that from any single point. there’s nothing in how he’s playing there’s nothing in his body language. there’s not a single grain of defeat in him.
also they’re now both so sweaty and it’s aesthetically hilarious Medvedev’s shirt is hanging off him like a wet shower curtain and Rafa’s is vacuum-sealed to every muscle in his back.
hold here you absolute fuck. I love you. do not I repeat do not get fucking broken.
(he’s gonna get broken)
i can’t say anything i can’t say anything don’t let me say anything i can’t say anything i can’t say anything i’m not saying anything
I AM SAYING SOMETHING.
honey there are two V-sounds in your name, why in English do you W-ify them? I love it.
Rafa you are destroying me I don’t want hope I can’t take it
I lied I do. bring it back being back the hope hope is cool.
like rationally I know [Rafa haters] exist I have been watching this sport and this man for wow over half my life, but I find it, idk, genuinely impossible to comprehend how you can watch this level of relentless drive and energy and perseverance and not find something admirable in it.
I have eaten an entire box of breakfast bars that taste like syrup-dipped dust out of sheer nervous tension.
losing the ability to cope. such as it ever was.
your life is very difficult today.
my life is so good today. this is the kind of difficulty I take immense pleasure in.
all I wanted was a competitive final. I didn’t think I’d get it.
how! long! has! this! game! been! going! on!
RAFA??? I’M. KEEP FORGETTING TO BREATHE DURING POINTS.
also while there’s a change of ends and I have the opportunity to catch up on oxygenation I need to also comment on the fact that this is not necessarily the highest quality of tennis but that this is the kind that I find the best to watch. it is flawed; they are forcing the errors from one another, if not in the technical sense then in the sense that they are making it necessary to try things that they would typically not have to resort to, they are rushing one another, the pressure on both is immense and they are having to rise to it, they are both tense, the psychological warfare is as profound as the technical contest, there have been some hilarious errors and shanks and frankly embarrassing smashes, and all of this adds to it. this match is competing highly for the title of most enjoyable I have ever watched.
and probably this also explains why, despite loving Federer as much as I do, he’s never quite got under my skin in the same way: up against someone playing like this, he either mutes them or gets buried. it’s also why I dislike Djokovic so much (as a player of the sport, rather than all the peripheral aspects): because he’s able to return almost any shot, he’s uniquely capable of smothering this kind of assault. Medvedev has the reach and creativity and skill to equal Rafa like this, and absolutely the mental and technical strength and the fitness to beat him, but for some reason and I can’t quite put my finger on it, this is a completely different experience. complementary rather than adversarial strengths? I don’t know, they’ve both elevated their games over the course of the match even though neither is playing their best and both are making more errors than you would normally expect, so. it’s in the intangibles. it’s in the psychology, in the matchup of styles, it’s astonishing.
I am feeling emotions beyond what language can accommodate.
i am reading all of your posts with great love in my heart
you are a window into another world
I have transcended stress. I am feeling pure enlightenment. this isn’t going to last. but we are on serve in the final set and there is sunlight streaming through my window and I am at complete peace. I assume that in approximately three minutes’ time I will be swinging from the light fitting by my toes trying to chew a hole in the carpet from stress but right now. my mind is like still water in the mountains.
there’s a thing that happens to Rafa when he’s running on fumes late late in a match and it’s that he loses control of his facial expressions a bit and his left eyebrow just goes into this perpetual arc and my god I have missed it
this game, this one single game, which could have been as few as four points, has been going on for thirteen minutes. it is not the longest game of the match.
jesus fucking god. if he holds here he wins. every service game he’s had has been within the legal definition of torture. I don’t trust this at all. Medvedev has had the momentum the last couple of games despite the scoreline. I can’t feel my body. my brain is numb.
yeah he didn’t hold.
I am delighted that you have taken us with you on your journey here, may these two men torment each other and also you until all three of you pass out from tennis stress
oh my god.
oh my GOD.
oh my god oh my god he did it I’m losing it I am LOSING IT LIKE I DON’T KNOW. I DON’T KNOW. I CAN’T EXPLAIN. I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS. I DON’T. KNOW.
I’m like. I think I’m hysterical? laughing, but chokily?
dhskdhsjd so is he.
Rafa won?
what you need to understand is that Australia has been his nemesis. this is his sixth final here. the only one he’s won was 2009. he’s lost some absolute heartbreakers here. in 2012 as in exactly ten years ago he lost here to Djokovic in the longest final in history (5h53) and little 18yo me was in tears. so this is, there are so many fucking narrative layers here.
YEAH HE WON.
somebody get these men some electrolytes
HE WON!!!!
orange slices and a nice sit-down for everyone
Capri suns all round
this isn’t quite as bad as 2012 when Rafa and Djokovic were both so tired they were leaning on the net trying not to collapse and they had to bring out seats for them during the trophy ceremony
look how short he looks hahahaha
world’s smallest 6’1
also I love that these two are both just. weird looking dudes with bad hairlines.
yeah they got Rafa a chair.
he is old he is tired he is brilliant
fuzzy balls 