Roger Federer

You might find me mention this guy quite often in my blogs. Well, he's just too good and it's always a treat watching him play. He's the reason I follow tennis so much these days and to help me with any statistics, Google apart, I have a master statistician in house (my friend, batchmate, colleague and now my flat partner!), Satyajit or John as I love to call him.

But I am not here to give you any statistics on Roger, you can find all about him on Google. So, what am I doing writing this blog with his name as the subject? Well, I promised myself to be more active here and thought, maybe I should share a few interesting moments with Roger as the subject and of course, you might forgive my more sinister motive, getting more hits on Google for my page.

While in London, I had a chance to watch all the action at Wimbledon live. It was a Saturday and I had to choose between Wimbledon and the World Cup quarterfinals, couple of games involving England (against Portugal) and Brazil (against France). Since Federer was not scheduled to play, I choose to go for the latter. Unfortunately for me, both my favorites were outplayed and this friend of mine, who stood all night in the cold with nothing but a thin Manchester United (or was it some other club?) jersey on for the Wimbledon tickets, was rewarded for his endurance when he got a chance to see the God himself practicing on one of the main courts. And he didn't feel a bit sympathetic when he showed me all the pictures he had managed to click (this photo is courtesy him, you can check out more here)! So, I missed that one close opportunity to watch him live but maybe next time.

Who wants to miss the Wimbledon finals? Not me for sure. No wonder than that when Panga and I were out with a couple of other friends on a Sunday lukkhagiri trip to Southall in London, (we had promised to show them around and help with some shopping!) we spent the whole afternoon in some shady pub watching Federer battle it out with Nadal while our poor friends were left to fend for themselves. Fortunately for us, they didn't complain much, and we are still in talking terms. And for once this year, we got the result we so badly wanted, for Federer to beat Nadal.

Talking about Roger again, this friend visited us in Bangalore a few days back. Thanks to a few twisted minds, we reached the airport to "welcome" our dear friend in a tradition Indian style, garlands, coconut, rice and what not! I am sure we managed to embarrass him. Later, when I was checking out the pictures, one really struck me. We have our own Federer look-alike!! Even my friend Himanshu (that’s the look-alike) acknowledged that himself. Take a look for yourself. I am sure Heman (as we call him lovingly) won't mind and Heman, if you do, maaf kar de yaar.

Well, that is all I have the energy for today. Can't promise I will be back tomorrow with something but will definitely try to come up with something this weekend. Ciao.