I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: dominic thiem

  • starting 2020 with a spectacle or two


    The Kansas City Chiefs scored three touchdowns in the last five minutes of the game to surprise the San Francisco 49ers and win the Super Bowl last night. Congratulations to the team, Coach Andy Reid, and all those Chiefs fans who have supported the team faithfully at Arrowhead Stadium through the years when many of them must have felt they were wandering in a wilderness of lost hopes and dreams. (Memo to Agent Orange: the Chiefs are not in Kansas anymore, actually they never were. It’s Kansas City, Missouri. Maybe Mike Pompeo can find it on a map for you.)

    What a spectacle. I hardly knew what to focus on during the pre-game and half time shows.  As my friend Saskia from the Netherlands says, Americans know how to make a spectacle of themselves – or something like that. The Super Bowl brings our sports frenzies to new heights every year, and this year was no exception especially with the performances of Jennifer Lopez and Shakira who gave frenzies new meaning.

    Meanwhile, as fires continued to burn in Australia, the first major tennis tournament of 2020 was coming to an end. The Australian Open has been going on for the past two weeks during which time I appeared dazed and confused due to my strange hours of trying to watch the tennis matches live on my telly.  For any of you who are mentally making an effort to convert Australian time to Eastern Daylight time here, stop immediately. It’s impossible, and you will never even know what day it is, much less whether it’s a.m. or p.m. Trust me. I’m a veteran of that battle. Still, I feel like something will be missing in my life until the clay court season starts in Europe.

    Sofia Kenin, who was born in Moscow and whose family immigrated to the US when she was four months old, surprised herself and everyone else in the tennis world by winning the women’s singles championship at the Australian Open over the weekend when she defeated Garbine Muguruza in a blistering three-set final. In the semi-finals, Kenin walloped Australian Ash Barty in straight sets – much to the dismay of thousands of Australian fans watching in Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. Barty was the defending champion and ranked number 1 in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association while the 21-year-old Floridian Kenin was at #14. Hopefully Kenin can lessen the load the Williams sisters have carried for American tennis fans for the last 20 years. Is Kenin for real? Gosh, I hope so.

    The men’s singles championship trophy was won by Novak Djokovic when he defeated Dominic Thiem in a nail biter five-set final.  That was Novak’s eighth major title down under and not really a surprise to anyone other than Thiem’s mother whose hope springs eternal from the players’ box behind the court. Better luck next time, Dominic – your mother and I see trophies in your future. As for Djokovic, this puts his Open trophy total at 17, which is 2 behind Rafa Nadal at 19, and 3 behind Roger Federer who is at 20 and holding. Just in case anyone is counting. I’m counting because I consider myself privileged to have been a witness to what tennis peeps call the Golden Age of men’s professional tennis. At this point I take “golden age” any way I can get it.

    The Super Bowl and Australian Open weren’t the only games in town for Pretty and me this weekend. Our Gamecock Women’s Basketball team polished off a very tall and excellent University of Tennessee team at Colonial Life Arena on Super Bowl Sunday. Our team is coached by Dawn Staley who has assembled a super group of freshmen to complement several returning upperclassmen – they have quickly jelled to become something special this season with a record of 19 – 1 and are ranked number 1 in the nation according to the AP poll. Go Gamecocks! I can almost taste that New Orleans shrimp at the Final Four!

    Last, but certainly not least, another season kicks off today in Iowa. The Democratic primary in that state tonight begins the race for a president of the United States to replace the impeached one who will evidently continue to occupy the White House at the conclusion of the Senate “trial” this week. I wouldn’t want to live in Iowa today.  Those citizens carry a heavy burden to their caucuses tonight. I’ll be listening for the returns with much anxiety mixed with anticipation. That’s how I roll through a political quagmire.

    Finally, the ground hog that determines our weather forecast has predicted an early spring this year. That makes me happy for Pretty who has signed up for not one, but two, tennis teams for the spring schedule. She much prefers warm, sunny weather for her matches. My bionic knees much prefer warm, sunny weather, too for the sport of bending them to get up out of my recliner.

    Stay tuned.

    Totally unrelated photo of 4 month old granddaughter Ella

    with her NanaSlo, but I just love this picture of us so here it is

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Vive la France! D-Day, the donald, and the drop shot


    The French have it all this week: 75th. Anniversary of the Allied invasion in WWII that began on the beaches in Normandy on June 06, 1944 (commonly referred to as D-Day); an American president on the continent who truly can’t stop himself from revealing his ignorance of, oh well, just about every nasty thing he finds to tweet about on an hourly basis; and the final week of the 2019 Roland-Garros tennis tournament, the second Grand Slam event of the year which finds familiar names in the men’s semi-finals and fresh faces in the women’s semis.

    I am swept along by the stirring images of the American cemetery in Normandy, the stories of the amazing four women ages 92 – 99 known as the Rosies who were not only the Riveters but also the draftswomen and/or anything else needed, these four women representing all the women who worked building the planes, ships and bombs necessary for our soldiers waging a war in Europe, Africa and the Pacific. These women are in France for the D-Day Anniversary remembrance and will bring their memorie as well as their flowers for one of the crosses in the cemetery which belongs to a brother by his sister who has never had the opportunity to visit his grave. Tom Brokaw will also be on this site as he pays tribute one more time to the fallen soldiers of WWII who inspired his book in which he named them our Greatest Generation.

    One of the women who wins the French Open this year will be a first time winner of a Grand Slam. The names of the four remaining women in the draw will be familiar only to those who follow women’s tennis regularly: Ash Barty of Australia, Johanna Konta of Great Britain, Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic and seventen-year-old Amanda Anisimova of the USA. These remarkable women managed to eliminate more familiar  tennis names like the Williams Sisters, defending champion Simona Halep, #1 player in the world Naomi Osaka, Madison Keys, Sloane Stevens, and 108 additional competitors who fought their hardest on the clay courts but lost to better players on a given day.

    The men at Roland-Garros are also down to the final four, but their names are not only familiar but famous. Roger Federer of Switzerland meets his long-time rival Spanish clay court warrior Rafael Nadal in a much anticipated semi-final match. Federer has won 20 Grand Slam tournaments to Nadal’s 17. The Serbian Novak Djokovic has 15 Grand Slam titles but came into the French as the winner of the previous three major tournaments so a win for him would put him in a category all his own. Austrian Dominic Thiem will play Djokovic in the other semi-final on the men’s side. The French got the final four men in the correct order, but who could have predicted the women’s semi-finalists? I can’t wait.

    Last  and definitely least, an American president trolls the international twitter space with irrelevant nonsense and makes his trip for D-Day a public relations nightmare for his staff and everyone he encounters on the other side of the Pond. I felt sorry for the Queen during his toast at the state banquet. She looked like she was wondering if her dogs would be more entertaining than this presidential impersonator from the Colonies. Poor Queen Elizabeth. And can anyone really believe the British royalty told the president to bring his whole commoner family for dinner?

    Stay tuned.