In a brilliant marketing ploy that ranks up there with Dollar Dog night, the Terrible Towel, and everybody’s favorite, the bobblehead promotion, two titans of the tennis world met in Spain yesterday for a gimmick match for the ages.
Dreamy Roger Federer, a four-time winner at Wimbledon is a specialist on grass courts, and his frequently manpris-clad opponent, two-time French Open winner Rafael Nadal, is frequently referred to as the “King of Clay.” They agreed to play an exhibition match on a specially constructed half clay-half grass courtto decide once and for all who is cuter better dressed on the court a better all-around tennis player.
Nadal won in 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 sets. I don’t really know what that means, but I think it was close.
Ladies... 
I saw this last night, and I thought it was such a great gimmick!
I was excited about this match for like 3 weeks beforehand and somehow when to came time to actually watch it, I missed it.
Somebody needs to starighten this tennis scoring soon. WHat do they count points by 15, except for the third one is only 10? Why is a tie called deuce? Why is zero called “love”?
What a crazy idea. And yes, that’s a very close score. What it doesn’t measure is why Nadal is the only player who can beat Federer.
Anyone else miss the 80’s, when tennis completely ruled?
Just me?
Sampras is still my favorite and I watched when he beat Agassi in the US Open in 2001 I believe. That was the second to last time I made a point of watching men’s tennis. The other time was when Roddick met Federer in a Grand Slam and Roddick got his ass handed to him.
I like Kim Clijsters on the women’s side, but she is retiring and injured a lot.
I thought James Blake’s tribute to Agassi at the U.S. Open was kinda awesome.
I miss the 80s, but it has less to do with tennis and more to do with my Lite Brite and kool-aid.
I miss slap bracelets and how they drove the teachers nuts.
My 80’s love comes from my obsession with Boris Becker and redheads.
I really, really, really liked Becker.
See, this is what is wrong with men’s tennis. Do you honestly think Boris Becker or Ilie Nastase would jump into some gimmicky exhibition match with Connors or McEnroe? Heck no! Instead, you have a milquetoast dominant player and a fruity capri-pants wearer duking it out. Men’s tennis sucks. Now that I have discussed men’s tennis, I need some pizza and hookers to recapture my manhood.
PSUgirl: What about Guillermo Canas? He beat Federer (or as I like to call him, Swisszilla) on hard courts this year-twice.
But yes, Nadal always gives him fits.
The undercard should have been a one-on-one hardwood match of Gasol & Sefalosha, no?
(Yes, hardwood. Mentioned… for the Ladies… enjoyment.)
Now tennis is a equal opportunity sport. There are hotties for the guys to look at and hotties for the ladies (so I’m told). There’s “love” and even mixed doubles, and I think we can all agree that everyone wins when there’s mixed doubles.
Stefan Edberg and Patrick Rafter – I miss those guys.
Now a woman who claimed she invented this idea has filed a lawsuit.
Good thing I patented manpris befo…what? Oh hell to da naw.