The Odd Stat of the Week

Issue: No football this week.  Where are you going to go for your stat?

Short Answer: How about tennis?

Reasoning: I can honestly say that I have yet to watch a single point during the Australian Open.  It is the first major of the year in the great sport of tennis, and, I can honestly say, I don't care.  Tennis is fine.  I don't mind it.  I have watched a match or two in my life.  I even enjoy watching Wimbledon - something about playing tennis on grass.  I don't know.  Maybe I don't care so much about tennis because I stink at it.  Sure, I am competent - I can hit the ball over the net, and I bet I could beat most people that are reading this - but, if I played against someone who was good, I would be made a fool of.  Let me tell you how I know this.

Allow me to take you back to the year 1999.  I was a 20 year old sophomore at Georgia Tech.  A good buddy and teammate of mine, Derek, was dating a girl who played on the tennis team.  I too happened to be "seeing" a girl on the tennis team (I'm not going to mention her name, but she is married to someone famous now.  Kinda weird.).  Somehow a conversation came up of which the result was this: sure, Derek and I will play you guys in tennis, and I bet we can hold our own.  Hell, I bet we can win.  We are dudes, and dudes don't lose to chicks at anything.  Obviously Derek and I weren't THAT sure of ourselves.  And, after a short warm-up period, any confidence we did have, was shattered.  Our damage control systems kicked in, and we agreed with the girls that maybe we needed a little head start.  We wanted 2 games.  They gave us 5.    A 5-0 lead in each set.  We could actually win this thing now.  Right?  Not quite.  Final tally?  7-5, 7-5.  I think we won 3 points the whole time.  I really never expected to win, but I didn't expect to be humiliated.  Lesson learned.  If you can't even serve over-handed, you probably aren't going to beat division-one tennis players.  Even if they are chicks.

Anyway.  This upcoming men's Australian Open final will be only the third major final since 2004 to not feature either Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer (or most likely, both of them).  The 2008 Australian Open final featured Novak Djokovic defeating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.  The 2005 Australian Open featured Marat Safin defeating Lleyton Hewitt.  That's right, every single French Open final, every single Wimbledon final, and every single U.S. Open final has featured either Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal, since 2004.  25 total grand slam finals (counting the 2011 Australian).  22 have had Nadal or Federer.  7 ('06, '07, '08 Wimbledon, '06, '07, '08 French, and '09 Australian) have actually had both at the same time (Nadal is 5-2, but 3-0 at the French Open).  Federer has 18 grand slam finals appearances.  Nadal has 11 appearances.  These. Dudes. Are. Beasts.  Pretty sure either of them could handle me and Derek.

Runner-up for odd stat of the week: Roger Federer's career record, at a major, when winning the first two sets - 166-0.