you just take it or you leave it where it was

Breakfast at Wimbledon was fun when I was living on the East Coast. You made a lazy Sunday of it, and it could be a communal thing, the family getting together to watch McEnroe or Becker or Agassi or Sampras (snorrrre) or Ivanisevic (mmmm, Ivanisevic) claim their victories, lots of arguing over which player was better, why the other one was losing, and who wanted some batata powa.

On the West Coast, it's by necessity solo. I really do not know anyone willing to get together at 7:30 in the morning to watch, and besides which, I'm not sure I would drag myself out of the house at that hour. Instead, with a bowl of cereal in my lap, I sit down and watch on my own. Usually this is just fine. When you're watching Federer trounce his latest victim, gathering in groups is not so important- most of the time, the group mentality starts pushing away from the favored player, and honestly, I love Federer too much to hear people talk crap about him. I do not mind that he is so good- to watch someone play tennis as well as he does is a beautiful thing to watch, and I get the goosebumps knowing I'll be talking about him some decades later the way that people a generation before me talk about Bjorn Bjorg.

And yet, today, I sort of miss the East Coast. Watching the Fed play flawless tennis and skip lightly to a Championship is one thing. Watching him and Rafael Nadal unglue each other is quite another. This is the kind of game you want to watch with a legion of tennis die-hards- not Rafa fans or Fed fans, but people who love tennis. Only when these two play each other could one player go up two sets, and you still have no idea how the match is going to turn out.

As fans, we win either way. The Fed wins, we get to see a man getting closer to smashing record books and writing a new history. Rafa wins, that's a moment for history too- to win the French & Wimbledon in one year is no small feat.

Of course, since this historic battle is in the UK, we have to deal with the rain as well. Looks like it's going to be a lazy Sunday after all.