Under Thought-sourced Thursday

The strain was starting to toll on keeping up a post a day, so I decided to outsource today's post to someone else. Some say he eats vulcanized rubber as part of a balanced diet and that when he speaks, he refuses to use vowels, but all we know is that he is called Mr Anon E Muss esq. CBE. Recently he has been watching some tennis, so here is his underthoughts.......

I was watching the Australian Open until the wee hours of the morning the other day and couldn’t help notice some oddities about the game of tennis.

The Australian Open oddly enough has been played twice in New Zealand. It was played once in Christchurch and more recently in Hastings. It was the result of a partnership between the Australian states and New Zealand. Wisely for New Zealand, the partnership ended in 1922. New Zealand’s tennis domination has known no bounds since.

New Zealand's current top ranked player

Australia has had their fair share of success however. Lleyton Hewitt is a former Wimbledon and US Open champion and happened to be playing the match I was watching. I couldn’t help but notice that after winning a major point, he would yell at a cobra snake.

"You got to ask yourself, do you feel lucky...Snake?"

Far be it from me to question the psychology of a former champion but when you should be focusing on one opponent, antagonizing a deadly snake probably should wait until some spare time. Perhaps it’s a way to tap into a repressed memory of when he was bullied out of his favorite sport and had to take up tennis instead.

If you can dodge a 200 kph serve from Nadal, you can dodge a ball.

Sadly the power of the cobra failed Lleyton and he lost in a hard-fought 5 set match. At least I think he lost. The scoring is a bit baffling. The first point was worth 15. Fair enough. The second point was worth another 15. That makes sense considering the first point. The third point was worth 10. Huh? The third point being more valuable in that it gets you closer to winning the game should at least be equal right? The answer is no. It’s only worth 10 miserly points.

"It wasn't your best work, a 10 from me" - Simon

Winning a game without conceding a point is a love game. If I win having shut out my opponent, I don’t anticipate he'll be feeling the love. Conversely, should I lose a game badly, love isn’t the word that would leave my mouth. Maybe that’s just me. Moving along, should a game be tied at 40 apiece it is considered deuce. Deuce being derived from French, refers to the number two. That seems perfectly clear to me. Fortunately advantage is aptly named. The fun doesn’t end there though. We started with nonsensical numerals, switched to nonsensical words and now that the set has tied and needs deciding we are going to switch gear to numerals again but we’ll use single digits instead. A tie break is the first to 7 winning by two. Bear in mind a set can be won by getting to 6 games needing to win by 2.

"I don't get it, do you get it? No I don't get it, do you get it?

Trying to forget scoring and enjoy the game, I couldn’t help notice the poor line judges. Despite holding important roles that can decide major matches, the organizers seem intent on punishing them. Being in the firing line of a 180+kph serve is a job hazard I understand but did any of the judges know that it’s illegal for them to use there hands to stop a projectile from hitting them when they first applied? You’ll notice that instead of simply catching the ball or blocking, they must keep their hands behind them and dance out of the way with a deft hip thrust. Clearly this is a leftover vestige of some odd tennis custom.

Sarah Wilson - Head of the Line Judge Committee