Gods at play.

Tennis : A game that is played with rackets and a light elastic ball by two players or pairs of players on a level court divided by a low net.

God : A being believed to have more than natural attributes, The supreme or ultimate reality.

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal : Gods of Tennis.

That brings us to the question that is unanswerable to a few people, but fairly easily answerable to most others one way or another. Which one of them is better? Statistics say Rafa owns Federer based on head to head. Tournament records say Federer is close to being the greatest ever. Of late, especially after the Aussie open finals, it was pretty evident that maybe it is time for people to admit that Nadal is well and truly the king. On the other hand, Federer is playing some of the most patchy tennis of his life. On some days and off the other, Unforced errors like never before in his career. People say he is in bad form. But as Murray pointed out- He has reached 3 grand slam finals in a row and won one of them, and you say he is in bad form? Such is the high standards he has set. These two men have given us some of the greatest tennis matches we have ever seen. Surely there is more to come this year. Will Federer win his first one at Roland Garos? Or Will Nadal beat the king of grass on grass? Who's going to have the final say in the US Open? These questions will be answered in a few months. The other question is the tricky one. My answer- Nadal may beat Federer, but he can never be Federer.

Endurance Running

It was the usual Friday evening when we had collected on court for practise. After a tiring 2 hour work out, with exercises with and without the ball, someone thought aloud, asking what it is that we would be doing the next morning in our first proper morning practise session. First proper in the sense that it was the first holiday that we would wake up in the morning, and do something productive. Immediately, almost as if it came naturally, the think tank of our team suggested an idea. We would aptly name it Endurance running. Now, for an average sportsman what we do may not be termed as endurance running, but then again we are students who play, not players who study like the ones who are regular favourites at tournaments. That said, for an average student in our college, what we do is of quite some magnitude. Endurance running, if we were professionals would have probably been a run that lasted say 10 rounds around the football field. That would be 10*700 metres = 7 kilometres. But as always we do things with a twist, a twist that makes getting tired so much fun, you don't stop even if its completely exhausting. What the aforementioned think tank suggested was a really nice break up of running. First a warm up for 4 rounds, not the usual rounds around the field but again with a twist. The twist being everyone runs in a straight line and at every turn, the last guy in the line overtakes the first guy. This can be really hard, but also is fun. I suck at it, but then that's a different story altogether. Right, so that was warm-up. Then there is the best part. To put it simply it was five 100 metre sprints. Then four 200 metre sprints. Three 300 metre strides. Two 400 metre strides and a final round the pitch 700 metre jog again. Doing the math, it comes up to 6.5 kilometres of running, subtract a little for laziness and cutting of the track, also some inconsistencies. 6 kilometres of running could never be made this interesting. As we finished, we were barely able to walk and carry our arses back to the block. Thankfully as some sort of reprieve, Captain Camel Calcutta and the aforementioned think tank decided to treat us breakfast. Benefits of hard work you could say. That rounded up a week that was never short of anything - morning practises, evening games, 2 people quitting the team and eventually coming back realising that the pros of staying in would always outweigh the cons if you stayed out. Oh, did I forget to mention, I love this game, and this team.

Looking Back

It's new years eve, Some people look view it as the time when people look back on the year that has passed and look forward to the coming year. Some people try to use this day as changing, making new year resolutions. While some people just use it as an excuse to party and get wasted. I at this moment am doing the first. I don't believe in the second. And the last, there's still a few hours to go before that :)

2008 was quite eventful. It was a year when I lost really good friends, made some even better ones; Lost track of who mattered, and found it again; Did not know what I was going to do with life post college, then realised and finally decided; Did not know where my priorities lied, but found out a way to find out where they did; when there was a someone, and suddenly there wasn't; and Went from a neither here nor there to finally knowing to choose somewhere.

Now that the year is coming to a close, looking back at whatever happened, it was a great year. It has changed me, definitely for the better. Now for 2009, a year of extreme importance. Happy new year!