The Adventures of QueerPenguin

Lleyton spelled backwards is "Not Yell"

C'MON!!!!! So the little princess went down in four last night to the rather delicious, if rather ill-tempered, raquet-slammer Marat Safin. Spewwie managed to score something last night though - classically-trained Shakespearean and multiple Tony award-winning actress Bec Cartwright apparently accepted his marriage proposal and now has the big Harry Winston on her bony, unpolished finger. Woopee shit.

To be fair to Not Yell, he actually played a good match and was relatively restrained and well-behaved. Marat just played that little bit better on the night, which NY actually admitted in a rare showing of humility. Apart from the occasional raquet slam, Safin was calm, dominant and did not let anything get by him or allow NY to hit many winners. And he still managed to be sexy and attractive whilst expressing Niagara Falls of sweat from his body.

The love-or-hate-Spewwie debate is rife. Obviously he had the whole crowd behind him last night (including coach Roger Rasheed, whom I would like to point out was once also my coach for the grand total of two training sessions when I was 14), but this seemed more due to the fact that it was an Australian - any Australian - in the final of an AO since 1988 when Pat Cash went down to Mats Wilander. And we haven't had an Aussie win the tournament since Mark Edmonson in 1976. Spewwie came very close - I have a feeling in my waters that next year will be his year provided he stays on-form and takes out Roger Federer at least once before then. In the meantime, he may need to reconsider the on-court petulance and immaturity that forms a large part of his game. The screams and hand-pointing may have worked to unsettle lesser-ranked players like James Blake and David Nalbandian, but Safin wasn't having a bar of it.

On the other hand, do our best tennis players need to be role models too? Let's face it, we don't have a good track record. Mark Philippoussis, while also yummy with a spoon, is about as mature as Paris Hilton (they make a good pair really), Pat Cash was a sook, as was Nicole Bradtke/Provis - really the only exemplary model of sportspersonship in Aussie tennis is Pat Rafter, and even he had his moments.

But then of course, there's Alicia Molik, who's way cooler and far easier to like than Spewwie. As an ex-pat South Aussie I'm much prouder of Molik than NY. She's cool, level-headed, gracious in both victory and defeat and once she's mastered her second serve I reckon she's a top-5 player. It was such a shame that her reaching the quarter-finals of the AO and only just going down in a fantastic battle against Lindsay Davenport was overshadowed by NY's ascension to the final, but I know I'll be keeping a closer eye on her this year and enjoying her grunt-free, C'MON!!!-free style much more than NY's aggression, abuse of linespeople and inability to acknowledge his opponent.

posted by Sam @ Tuesday, February 01, 2005