The Locker Room 7.8 (OT)

Mornin' folks. Another Roger Federer vs. Rafael Nadal final throwdown. Does it get any better than this? I'm keeping my powder dry, though, until the smoke clears from the battlefield - isn't that the true press pariah way? Why be a hypocrite about it, i figure. Anyway, after I post this, I am going to catch the junior finals, which feature two American kids, Donald Young (what is this, like his 562nd Jr. Grand Slam title?), and a surprise finalist, Madison Brengle. I'll have posts on both players, but not until next week.

This will be your Off-Topic post for the next three or four days, as I'm out of here at 5 A.M. tomorrow morning, and out of the office until Tuesday. Feel free to talk about anything here, including tennis.

It's been an eventful week-plus here in London. One of the highlights was seeing some of the press buddies I only run across at Grand Slams - guys like Alex Delmas (Diario As), my source for all things Nadal (and my neighbor in anonymity here in the cube farm of a press room), and Ubaldo Scanagatta, the impish and clever Italian journalist and pioneering Euroblogger.

I suggest you check out his blog, and get your local scungilli-scarfing, Sinatra-listening, mob underling to translate for you. And no angry Comments from all of you upstanding folks of Italian descent. I know you're there, but we are appear to be living in the era of Soprano worship. I confess I've never watched an episode, running my string of unwatched television sensation into the 20s (it includes Twin Peaks, Friends and that recent undertaker show, and goes all the way back to The Fugitive and others. . .)

Right now, Alex and Jaume Pujol-Galceran (El Periodico de Catalunya, and the co-author of the hot new Nadal biography that we presented to Rosia) are showing me streaming video from Pamplona, where the running of the bulls is on again. We're laughing about the way those meat puppets are being tossed around by the bulls. My sympathies are with the bulls, not the inebriated hombres dumb enough to harass them. I'm learning a lot about this archaic and fascinating sport.

BTW, Ubaldo's blog features a picture of him and Nadal astride the the bright red Vespa he rents at Roland Garros and here - a move that gives Ubaldo great mobility, while schlepps like me and Kamakshi, Doug Robson, LIz Clarke et al have to trudge up the Church Road every night at around 10 or 11, like a bunch of beaten soldiers retreating from the battlefield. Ubaldo also placed a five quid bet on Venus Williams to win Wimbledon - he got 12-1 odds and is presently strutting around like the cock-of-the-walk.

He told me you that after the first set of the Bartoli-Henin semi, you could have picked Bartoli at the odds of 50-1. Don't you love tennis?

I'd better go out to catch some junior tennis. Fasten your seatbelts, everyone! I'll be back later.