Wimbledon 2008

I do not follow sports very well. I'll watch the Olympic trials like a good American citizen, listen to the commentary, and regurgitate the same information, slightly rephrased, two minutes later, hoping to impress my family with my knowledge of all things athletic. Generally, this does not work. Generally, my sister will look at me as if I've sprouted two extra heads, roll her eyes and then level her gaze at all six of my eyeballs. "Yeah, I know, Claire," she'll say. "Bela Karolyi just said that."

So pretty much all I know about tennis is that it's not the one with touchdowns, alleyoops or home runs. It's the Hamptons kind of sport. It's the one with white outfits. Okay!

But I tend to pay attention to Wimbledon... if only for the cheeky name... I mean, really... it's Wimbledon... especially this one. It was so epic. For real. You have the Williamses duking it out and then you have yet another set between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

I started to watch Federer vs. Nadal. I was turned off by the rain delays, which made more time for replays of women's doubles. When Serena and Venus are on the same team, it's like a wall of tall woman and it's pretty indestructible. They have individual clothing lines, for the love of Pete. I'd sure as heck be intimidated. I already knew they'd won, but I doubt there would have been a lot of suspense in store for me if I'd been in the dark.

Besides, Roger and Rafa played for a very, very, very long time. In order to watch all of those hours of tennis, I'm pretty sure you have to understand the rules of the game.

So I was pretty clueless. Does this mean I did not have an opinion? No, it does not. In fact, I was totally rooting for Rafael. (Sorry, Roger, I'd absolutely give you The Best Hair Award... and oh, ok... Most Swiss.) The reason was simple. I had absorbed enough commentary to understand how historic this year's Wimbledon was, and I didn't know about Federer's bout with mono until after I had decided to support Rafa. I felt like it was time for Bjorn to be displaced a little bit and, thanks to the wonders of replays, I had to give props for how thoroughly Rafa has made over his game. He puts a smile on John McEnroe's face. John McEnroe! And, because of his trophy-biting habit, Nadal reminds me quite a bit of a Spanish version of the muppet Animal.

Furthermore and most importantly, I think Roger's monogrammed cardigans look doofy.