The Minutiae of Life as a Militant Squirrel

So Friday morning was the Wimbledon semifinal between Djokovic and Federer, which I expected Novak to win, if not easily, then at least successfully.

And he didn't.

Losing in the semis was bad enough, but losing to Federer? Just added insult to injury.

I was more puzzled than anything else, because honestly? Djokovic was not playing anything like what I've become accustomed to seeing at all. I wanted to reach through the computer monitor and shake him and demand, "What is WRONG with you?"

One of the things that has always most impressed me about Djokovic is his movement on the tennis court. He's speedy and sneaky and it surprises me every time, probably because he doesn't look like he should be able to move that quickly. Those long limbs of his aren't graceful, just lanky, and it gives the impression of sloth as well as awkwardness. He's skinny, yes, but every inch of his body is roped with solid muscle, and he is astonishingly flexible even so. He can slide into a point that makes my knees twinge in sympathetic pain just to watch, and make the most impossible shots by doing so, yet on Friday, it looked like his feet were nailed to the grass.

One of the fundamental rules of tennis is, "Go for every shot." Now, granted, at the professional level, that's just not practical. There just really isn't going to be enough energy available to chase down every ball, especially a clear winner. "Know your limits" might be a better interpretation. Still, on Friday Djokovic was watching balls sail by him that he would've gone for on many other occasions that I'd seen him play.

I don't think Federer's ace count would've been as high if Djokovic hadn't been so clearly off his game.

Which brings me back to the question: WHY?!?!?

I kind of feel like I'm the only one asking it.

The sportswriters seem to have universally decided that Djokovic was nothing more that a flash-in-the-pan anyway, and this is his natural fall back into the bottom of the pack.

The commentators are pretty much united in the belief that Djokovic hasn't been able to handle the pressure, both internal and external, of being Number One in the world, of trying to capture and hold all these titles and break or set records, of upholding the faith not only of his family and loved ones but of an entire country.

I'm sure that's part of it.

But pressure is generally the kind of thing that gets you underestimating your opponents, that gets you losing Miami in a surprise attack from John Isner and bouncing back to win Indian Wells, not necessarily the kind of thing that upends your entire mindset and throws your entire game out of whack for months on end.

I'm wondering if the problem, while still mental, might be something a bit more prosaic.

Djokovic's beloved grandfather died while Novak was playing the Monte Carlo tournament.

He hasn't played the same since.

When my maternal grandfather died suddenly, I was a freshman in high school and we were on vacation in North Carolina. I remember that my mom was absolutely DEVASTATED. For months after, maybe as much as a year, she was just barely functioning. I used to come home from school sometimes and find her in bed, and let me tell you, that was not something my mother EVER did.

It was decades before she told me that the reason for her excessive distress was guilt: the night before we were to leave for the trip, she had taken me and my brother up to visit her parents and say goodbye, like we always did. We'd been late, of course, as always, and apparently Grandpop had been annoyed and left for his Knights of Columbus meeting without waiting for us. Mom had been mad at him for not waiting, so we'd visited with Grandmom and then gone home. The next day, we'd left for North Carolina.

A week later, her father was dead, and not only had she had never said goodbye, but she'd parted ways in anger.

Of course, it didn't have to be anything quite that drastic for Djokovic. Losing a close family member as an adult is different that having it happen as a child. And everything for his family is colored by the war, and what they went through during the bombing of Belgrade. I can't even imagine what a difference that makes: it must draw an already close-knit family even closer, and make it that much worse to lose a member of that family.

For Djokovic to be away from his family when he got the news, and even worse, to miss the funeral, must be a very difficult thing indeed. I wonder if he's even really had the time to grieve properly.

And that, I think, is the kind of thing that weighs on the mind, that can cause the kind of erratic play I've been seeing.

It's a terrible shame, really. This is high season for tennis, and there's really no break, no time for him to take without withdrawing from important tournaments. And doing so could mean not just a financial loss, but also one of clout. He's already lost the No. 1 ranking because of this loss to Federer, and in the politics of the tennis world, that also will have lost him a significant percentage of power. And it's not just his own bank account that suffers, but also the livelihoods of the people who work and travel with him.

It's an awful decision to have to weigh, and I don't envy him.

Of course, this is all speculation. I could be totally off-base, here.

But I get the funny feeling that maybe I'm right.

Anyone who hasn't figured out yet that I'm rooting for Novak Djokovic in tomorrow's men's final of the French Open has clearly NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION.

I'm fully armed with snacks and drinks and all the positive thoughts that I can bring to bear at that hour of the morning.

It's not like I'm obsessed . . . just deeply, deeply interested.

GOOD LUCK NOVAK!!!!

I refuse to blow my weekly-posting idea this early in the game, so I'm forcing myself to write up a post even though it's basically the last thing I can think of that I'd like to do.

And I can barely think of anything to discuss.

I took Stoli to the groomer today, and amazingly, Karen was able to get her shaved down for summer. I was so impressed that I overtipped LIKE WHOA, but seriously, I'm pretty sure she deserved it. I don't think Stoli would've let anyone else come near her with clippers, let alone tolerated her entire body being buzz-cut.

What's really funny is that Stoli looks like half the dog she used to be. Clearly, most of her size was fur. I tried taking pictures of her silly-looking naked self, but you can't really tell from the pics that she's basically bald.

I also went and got myself a long-delayed pedicure, which would have been nicer if the staff hadn't been rushing me out of the place. No, seriously-- they actually threw me out! I was quite surprised, especially since I'd called ahead and they'd promised they'd be open until 6pm. They booted me at 4:45, but I guess you can't expect much from these cheap-o nail places. I'm just crossing my fingers that I don't catch some horrid nail fungus. I'd tried this place last year, though, and been happy with the results, so I figured it was worth a repeat visit. Note to self: go back on a Saturday, next time.

The French Open began this weekend, and I'm delighted ( although unsurprised ) that Novak Djokovic made it through the first round. The French Open is notorious for upsets, though, and there have already been a couple of surprises . . . no doubt, more are still to come.

As usual, I haven't yet caught up on my TV shows, although I did download the CW Android app for my phone. Maybe I'll watch an episode or two on the bus and make some inroads that way.

It's hard to think with this heat, actually. I wasn't prepared for summer to hit this hard and this soon.

I miss having access to a swimming pool. It's probably the only thing I miss about living in Delaware.

Huh, is that the time? I've got to finish the laundry and then pack for another week at Mom's house. BLECH. Eh, fine, off I go.

Yep, it's that time of year again.

I love tennis, even though I suck at it. When people find out that I played on the tennis team in high school, they all say, "Oh, you must have been really good!"

Uh, no. Not really. My high school was just so small, making the tennis team was pretty much a matter of showing up and looking vaguely interested. My parents had both played, so I did start learning the basics at a relatively young age, but I was never going to be more than just adequate.

Still, I loved it and had fun, and if I gave up everything I was bad at, I'd never do anything.

Watching the elite of the sport, though, has always been AMAZING.

I loathe Roger Federer with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, but I have to give him credit for making tennis look like the easiest thing ever. His physical grace on the court is truly astonishing, and in the current era of power tennis, points to him for sticking with the one-handed backhand.

Rafael Nadal has the most savage forehand I've ever seen, and an impressive-- if overwhelming-- game that raises the power game by several orders of magnitude. Sometimes I wonder, though, why nobody else realizes that he's OCD, and that his numbers are all odd. It must be killing him by inches to be ranked No. 2. Maybe that's why he can't seem to beat Djokovic.

Ah, yes, Novak Djokovic.

I've had my eye on him since he turned pro in 2003, when he was just some Serbian throwaway who showed up on TV long enough for the big guys to wallop into the ground. He caught my attention, though, because his style of play reminded me of Ivan Lendl, who I'd admired very much back in his heyday. So I kept on studying Djokovic, watching how he improved and climbed steadily up the ranks, and then came the 2008 Australian Open. When he won the trophy, I said, Someday that kid's gonna be Number One.

Everyone in the sports world called Djokovic a flash-in-the-pan. When he made it to the Number Three ranking, they said he'd never get any higher. When he kept losing in quarterfinals, semifinals, even finals of majors, they said he'd never win another title. They sneered at his fits of temper, his on-court antics, the dramatics of the family members who made up his entourage. He wasn't as courtly and polished as Federer, as humble and likable as Nadal. It was easy for them to badmouth Djokovic.

And then came the 2011 season.

The No. 1 ranking finally his, an astonishing 70-6 record . . . and still, the naysayers are out there trying to tear him down.

I think a big part of it is that Federer and Nadal have had things locked up for so long, anyone else who challenges their duopoly is dismissed by the tennis world as an interloper. It's "ostrich tennis", in my book . . . they refuse to acknowledge Djokovic, so therefore, he doesn't actually exist. Part of it is that tennis is seen as a gentleman's sport. It's very rule- and class-oriented, even if people don't like to admit it out loud. There's not much room in there for upstart young players from war-torn Balkan nations. Tennis is extremely snooty-- remember the fuss when players started adding color to their ensembles? ( And to wear anything other than all-white at Wimbledon is still unthinkable. ) The establishment of tennis likes its players to come from a certain world and to behave a certain way. It's what made Federer their poster boy.

Then Nadal roared in and didn't just upset the status quo so much as he bulldozed it flat and poured new courts over it. But he was so personable, so likable, that everyone was utterly charmed by him. Even Federer, I suspect.

Djokovic comes across as very genuine, however. He's not always charming, though he often is. Sometimes he's snippy, even through the constant joking around that earned him that ridiculous nickname. He has a temper that he has to work to control, just like everyone else in the world, and sometimes, he fails. He turns that temper on himself, though, rather than on others like Murray does. In the 2010 US Open, during his loss to Nadal, there was a point where Djokovic actually turned away and started smacking himself on the side of the head with his racket. It was a very . . . humanizing moment. He gets carried away with his celebrations and does crazy things like rip his shirt off or eat blades of grass, but when he takes that brief moment and crosses himself, it seems very sincere. So does his congratulations ( commiserations? ) at the end of the match for the opposing player. It looks like more that just the obligatory, "Good game!" that we all remember from our own sports days, don't we? Of course, remember too how we were secretly thinking "HATE YOU!!" the whole time?

I bet that's what Nadal is thinking now, every time he has to go to the net after yet another loss to Djokovic. Heh.

But be all that as it may, I think that Novak Djokovic is going to turn the tennis world on its head, and I think he's here to stay.

At least, until someone younger and hungrier comes along and chews the court out from under him.

So with my bowl of cereal this morning, I got to watch Resident Evil: Afterlife, which was a pretty awesome way to start the day. I'm a surprisingly big fan of the RE franchise, considering that I generally loathe zombies, but RE 1 & 2 totally had me hooked from the very first time I saw them. What I liked most was the emphasis on strong female characters-- action heroes in their own rights-- not just cupcake rewards for the manly men to rescue.

Okay, okay, and the slash in both movies totally wrote itself.

Of course, then RE 3 had to come along and ruin EVERYTHING, but I'm glad to see that somebody pulled it together for RE 4. I have great hopes for 5, which I understand will be coming out next year some time.

One of the things that I thought would bother me was that Wentworth Miller was playing the part of Chris Redfield. Originally Jensen Ackles was cast in the role, but he pulled out, I'm guessing because of scheduling conflicts with SPN's shooting schedule. And although I think Wentworth is hot like burning, I deeply, deeply resented that he was NOT Jensen.

Yet, much to my surprise, I liked him quite well. I did, however, find it easy to imagine how Jensen would have played the role instead. I really would have liked to see what he would have done with it . . . but, oh well. Nothing to be done for it, I suppose.

And now I am settling in on the couch to watch my TV tennis boyfriend, World No. 2 Novak Djokovic, beat the crap out of some other guy at Wimbledon. ( Yeah, yeah, I know. Baghdatis. Whatever, I care NOT. )

It's gonna be a good day.