I wish I have The Tennis Channel, but I don’t think local cable operators (Philippines) offer that. Mostly, I have to rely on online streaming sites to watch tennis because the sports channels my cable provider offers mostly show golf, football, racing, and other sports I don’t really follow. Well, I only watch tennis, so that’s the channel I really want. The day I find it on a network cable tester will be happy day for me. Much like when I found FOX Asia being tested and later on retained.

Tennis is actually a year-round sport but the months of January, June, July, and August/September are the most important ones since those are the months of the four Grand Slam tournaments. Unfortunately, I think Star Sports only cover Wimbledon these past few years, and sometimes the Australian Open. Now that it’s almost time for the French Open, I can only rely on my 1-Mbps internet connection, which frankly is not enough to stream matches, especially the most important ones which a lot of people watch at the same time.

I am almost as big a Justine Henin fan as I am a Roger Federer fan. I love artistry in tennis, and in my mind those two are the ultimate artists of the game. Sure, their athletism is also at the highest levels, and other players have that, too, but their game (how they play) is what I enjoy the most about watching them.

So it is with a heavy heart that I read Justine’s open letter to her fans, which also served as the official announcement of her retirement, after a generally disappointing (for her, for sure) comeback in 2010 — she fell to injury at Wimbledon, soon after a promising start at the Australian Open where she was a finalist. No matter how many retirement gifts come pouring in, I can imagine this is not how she imagined things will play out. Maybe her injury is irreversible, or maybe she didn’t want to deal with the long recovery and attempt to go back to the top, which will surely be an almost impossible task by now, but her fans can only appreciate that she tried to come back and that we got reminded, however briefly, of her brilliance.

This is how tennis’ most important rivalry of the decade looks like outside of the tennis courts:

Come on! These guys can sell anything. From half-a-million-dollar watches to cheap auto insurance.To see them having  fun together is just an added super bonus. Well, at least if you’re a tennis nut like me. Too bad they’ve taken down the longer version of these outtakes. I saw the 14-minute clip and it was HILARIOUS. Roger just  couldn’t stop laughing and Rafa is a bit embarrassed but game. I especially loved the part where Roger’s speaking lines in Spanish and Rafa’s teaching him how to pronounce the words. Great guys, these two. I’m so glad I love tennis.

I’ve been avoiding making comments in social media sites about this year’s U.S. Open because I’m so scared about Roger Federer’s results, after a quite disappointing year. The media has been writing him off generally and with good reason. So it was a surprise that he was breezing through his matches and you’ll see papers praising him to high heavens again like Nadal wasn’t the first seed. I didn’t think I’d see the day when Roger Federer is the favorite because of his commercial appeal. Rafael Nadal may be the king of all tennis now but he’s nowhere near Roger’s level of charisma and fluency when it comes to being an ambassador for the sport. Well, at least except when Roger’s bitter sad about losing that he’s making comments like “I won’t be watching the final, but I hope Rafa wins” after losing in the semis to Novak Djokovic. Well, I hope Novak wins. Roger can go home to Switzerland now and maybe enjoy his twins, who by the way, just celebrated  their 1st birthday, although we didn’t get any 1st birthday invitations. Not that I thought that’s possible.