Cruel Thirties!

This post is not a cry of getting into my thirties, you don’t cry when you get older, otherwise nobody would be celebrating their birthdays. This is a post about how cruel a Thirty would become, if you are not moved on from what you were doing in your teens and early twenties!!!

Let’s take a shot at it, the influencing characters of my teen ages and twenties. The best offside player of his time, Saurav Ganguly and by far the best bowler in the history of cricket, Shane Warne are no more playing. Michael Jackson is passed away two years back. Genius Indian composer Illayaraja is not composing music as good as he used to do. The legendary contemporary writer Sujatha passed away two years back. No Ronaldo is in football. Bill Gates is doing Charity and enjoying his retirement life. Steve Jobs is still roaring, but his body is tired and weakened unfortunately. Promising Sun is already cherished and Gosling was all over the place and finally joined Google without knowing what exactly he is going to do! Who would have thought the fates of Prabakaran and Sadam would be decided in this manner? And many presumes Java’s beginning of end is already started!!!

		No More! VIEW SLIDE SHOW

This year I am witnessing one of my favourite sportsman’s beginning of the end. He is the man who turned lots of  people watching tennis back again. Tennis was dominated by power hitting players like Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi and I think lots of people in 90s started to enjoy women’s tennis than men’s due to this factor(I may be wrong, the perception based on what I have seen and heard during the time from the kind of people around me). Steffi Graf was rocking the stage more than anybody those days.

Roger Federer arrived, in early 2000s, immediately drew the attention by his single backhand slices, which is referred more classical tennis play. He doesn’t show any emotions on the stage, determined and focussed most of the times. He is known for his unforced errors, understandably due to his attacking play maker. 

Then this guy Rafael Nadal came, not a graceful act on the stage, but effective, very effective. His never-say-die approach earned him many grand slams. Obviously I am not a big fan of him but I admire his forehand curve in returns. The rivalry started in Tennis. It made Tennis interesting, and since French and English times have mere 8 hours difference, I had to lose my  sleep to watch all these rivalries. No regrets though.

A rare emotional outburst in the field, Australian Open Finals 2009!

This year Australian Open was the beginning of end for the magician. Roger lost in the quarter finals and when asked he said wait for six months and then tell its the case. He managed to get into the finals of Rolland Garros, given some hopes to his fans. But yesterday was a disaster! He lost to Tsonga in the Wimbledon 2011 quarter finals, even after winning the first two sets comfortably. He didn’t look convincing, committed or exciting yesterday. I think its a fatigue of playing one too many grand slams and there is no motivation to prove anything to anybody including himself!

Watching Wimbledon 2011 Live, Fourth round matches in two laptops and iPad!!

He is still ranked world number three, it could be still early to write him off, but I am sure his prime is well past, he is hanging on and unless he finds an incentive to play better, I doubt he will ever get back to his usual groove. He knows better than anybody else on when to hang his boots though!

So there you go, an end of another idol’s power demises!

Checkout this guy Tomic, an eighteen year old Aussie, showed some promises!

Let’s move on!!!

I Am A War Victim!

June 5th, 2011, I was on my way back from Sri Lanka to Singapore. I especially requested for front row seat, only to alight early so won’t miss any action of the final of Rolland Garros that day between Federer and Nadal. Soon after I cleared the immigration, I checked the score, Federer was leading, having just broken Nadal’s serve. I was so excited, called my brother-in-law and checked whether is he watching the match? He said he isn't, neither subscribed to the channel this year. Disappointed, but fortunately he too was interested in this rivalry, so immediately subscribed to the channel. Subscribing to a channel in Starhub TV is as easy as finding a girl friend. You just have to chose the channel and press yes, everything through remote control. Yes just like that and you will get the bill end of the month!!!

So the match went on, Federer eventually lost the first set, and as expected, it was yet another loss to Nadal. Federer can’t play against Nadal in clay, any Spaniards for that matter. You don’t have to be a Nadal to win Federer, but just learn a bit Spanish accent, talk to him just before the match, he won’t stop laughing for next few hours, you can even win a game with dodgy serves! If you don’t believe me, watch these two videos.

The moment he hearing the Nadal’s accent, he couldn’t stop laughing afterwards!

Its even worse!

Now the Rolland Garros is over, I was personally happy with the way Federer played there. His back hand cross court slices came back to live, and the number of unforced errors dropped. So I was(am) confident that he will become better in much  faster grass Wimbledon court, which was due in two weeks.

Singapore cable TV operators looked so awesome! Starthub TV has two dedicated channels(205 and 207) for racquet games named “Racquet Channel”. I was cursing bother Australian and Sri Lankan cable operators for not providing such cheaper priced channels so we can afford to watch Tennis like this. Its all going really well so far!

Queens Tournament, which is considered a warm-up before the Wimbledon, started. Though Federer opted out, Nadal lost to Tsonga, enough for me to get my adrenalin pumping. Yes Federer is going to do it again! I didn't still know what was coming ….!

Wimbledon qualifiers started. The Racquet channels were telecasting some badminton tournaments and repeat telecast of Rolland Garros. I was still ok since I missed most of the clay actions when I was in Sri Lanka. I thought they didn’t telecast the qualifiers. Fair enough.

Round one started, I skipped my exercise session to watch the Nadal’s game, the Starhub TV was still showing repeat telecasts and some boring badminton Singles. I was little curious. I asked my in-law, he was clueless too. The fact that we subscribed to Racquet channel in June, only to watch the final of Rolland Garros and then the Wimbledon. But Wimbledon is not being telecasted in Starhub TV.

So we called the operator and checked, they said, Starhub didn’t get the Wimbledon rights this time but only Rolland Garros. What the hell? The Cable TV which has two dedicated channels for Racquet games couldn’t secure the most important racquet tournament. And the rights have gone to Mio TV, another competitor cable operator in Singapore owned by Singtel.

So what does it mean? You now need to have two cables, two operator devices and pay twice the rental to watch Tennis tournaments. The same story has been happening for other sports like cricket, where cricket world cup was in Mio TV and IPL is in Starhub TV. It wasn’t the same situation two years back, now they regulated to have fair for all ground and we are now in this situation! They can’t be kidding, can they?

Now what is to do with this post’s title? How I became the war victim? They say(who are they btw), war is fought in this world as a part of the agenda of arms dealers. They sponsor the war, sell weapons to both the  warring parties and let them fight. It’s the people who are victimised end of the day. So what’s the relevance?

Starhub’s and Singtel’s, who secured the Rolland Garros and Wimbledon rights respectively, majority of the shares are held by the same company Temasek!!! Now if you are a diehard tennis fan, you got to subscribe for both the cables and eventually paying to this farce play!

So what do I do now? Subscribing to both? Cmon, when there is a war, you either fall for the farce or you flee from the scene!!! I obviously do the later! So I am watching matches live in this following cool link!!!
http://www.lshunter.tv

He he he he!!