At this very moment, there are no matches being played at the Australian Open. This is true for two reasons: (1) Everyone's asleep, because it's early in the morning, and (2) we, the East Coast liberal media elite, need time to write about what happened the day before without the distraction of amazing tennis matches.
The creators of the Australian Open, which is now more than 100 years old, knew that it was hard for American bloggers to write about tennis while tennis was taking place. Sure, writing about tennis is great, but at the end of the day, you'd rather be watching tennis.
Which is why, when the Internet gets ready for bed in the early evening, around 9 p.m. EST, the Australian Open wakes up.
It's perfect. Sure, you're kind of always between rounds, never really knowing who is at what stage, but that's fine. That's a completely manageable sacrifice to make for writing time, watching time, and (most importantly) no sleeping time.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Wednesday.
Tim Lincecum struck out eight over seven scoreless innings to earn his first win in two months and give the Giants their third straight shutout against the Dodgers, propelling them into a tie for first place in the NL West. The 3-0 win was such a relief for Lincecum that he shook his head around dramatically in the shower, eyes closed, wet hair flying everywhere, clearly pretending he was in a triumphant sports movie. Players nearby reported that he could be heard singing the words to Styx's "Show Me the Way," which everyone thought was pretty much a perfect choice for that scene.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday
The dream semifinal is set in Australia, as both Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal won their quarterfinal matches. Nadal holds a 7-2 lead in Grand Slam matches, but Federer has promised that he's going to break out his sickest cream-colored outfit yet to just priss the hell out of Nadal. "I'm gonna priss him 'til he blushes," Federer vowed. "Just delicately flip my hair, prance around like a schoolboy, and get my priss on something severe. Ya heard?"
A source indicated that the Big East will add Navy to the football lineup in 2015. The move was reportedly made to give the conference the option to be buried at sea when it dies from sucking.
Editor's Note: During this year's Australian Open, 12-and-under consolation bracket pioneer Rembert Browne is reporting back after each round with the things you missed while you were sleeping, at Sundance, or changing your name from Billy Cundiff to Joe Flacco II.
By Rembert Browne at
Paul Crock/Getty Images Greg Wood/Getty Images
The Australian Open is one of my favorite sporting events, because for almost 15 years now, I've set my alarm for 3 a.m. to wake up, turn on the television, and watch the matches in real time. I don’t know why this happens — apparently something to do with daylight, time zones, and kangaroos — but that's the way it's always been, and I love it. Anyway, because most normal American humans aren't staying up to watch the first round of the Open in the middle of the night, I figured I would throw on a Le Coq Sportif warm-up suit, sit in front of my TV, and then report back.
In her fourth round match, Samantha Stosur played the longest tiebreak in women's Grand Slam history, a 30-point back-and-forth against Maria Kirilenko. This was after she was part of the longest women's U.S. Open match: a three-hour, 16-minute battle of wills against Nadia Petrova in the third round. But she only needed two sets and 83 minutes in the US Open women's finals to knock off Serena Williams, who had been such a heavy favorite that her semifinals match against no. 1 seed Caroline Wozniacki on Saturday had been promoted as if it were the finals.
The Tuesday after Labor Day might actually be the worst Monday of all, marking as it does the end of summer, the start of school, the first day back from vacation. And for anyone who had Labor Day tickets to the night session at the U.S. Open, it must feel extra rough: Play stretched well past everyone's bedtimes, with Roger Federer and Juan Monaco not walking off the Arthur Ashe Stadium court until after 1 a.m. on the ultimate school night.
But Federer and Monaco weren't to blame; the Swede's Federer's 6-1, 6-2, 6-0 victory clocked a crisp and efficient 74 minutes. (You got the sense the man wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed.) The real culprit was a highly anticipated Round of 16 daytime match between no. 8 Mardy Fish and no. 11 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga that turned into a 3-hour-and-45-minute-long momentum-swinging marathon.
