Novak Djokovic Proves It Takes A Real Man To Whine Like A Little Girl

It is possible that when Novak Djokovic quit against Andy Roddick earlier in the week, it was the most courageous act of the young 2009 sports year.

Djokovic has a bit of history with retiring early from matches, at least 4 times in Grand Slams. He actually has the highest percentage of retirements to career losses among the top 10- nearly 10% of the time he loses because he quits. Perhaps he retired each time because of injury. Or perhaps he retired because he was losing.

He also has a history of calling the trainer out to get treatment during matches, something other players have expressed annoyance with. There is nothing illegal or unsportsmanlike about getting treatment, but it just seems like he happens to need it far more often than most guys.

So last year during the U.S. Open, Roddick came out and called Djokovic on all of this and said that Djokovic "is either quick to call the trainer, or he's the most courageous guy of all time," joking with the press that it could be any number of ailments, from shoulder, knee, ankle and back injuries, to SARS, anthrax or a commong cold. This after Djokovic said in an on-court, post match interview ealier in the tournament that he needed to stand next to the next so he wouldn't fall down. When Djokovic later beat Roddick in that tournament, he spoke live on the air and over the stadium P.A. and whined that Roddick had said those mean things and said that crushing Roddick as he had just done proves he didn't have those fake injuries. He was soundly booed by the New York crowd and ripped by the general media.

The irony of course, is that by playing "hurt" in one match and then playing brilliantly with no sign of injury the next match (like he had done here), it kinda proves that he was faking, right?

Then before this latest Grand Slam, Djokovic bristled at the (truly absurd) idea that Brit Andy Murray belonged on tennis' current Mount Rushmore alongside Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic. Let's be honest, Djokovic doesn't even belong there, and Murray sure as hell doesn't...the guy hasn't won anything yet. Murray has been in one Grand Slam final and he got crushed in straight sets. All of this is fine for me to say because I am not one of his opponents, and no one is reading this anyway.

But Djokovic couldn't resist and came out before the Australian Open and whined how offended he was that Murray was being called a favorite alongside himself, Federer and Nadal. Of course, Djokovic has won one Grand Slam (against a patsy in the final when Nadal and Federer had both been upset earlier) and his only other Grand Slam final looked a lot like Murray's: a straight-set crushing by Federer.

Anyway, after all of this, you would never think that Djokovic would ever have the guts to fake injury, ask for extra treatment, or certainly not retire early against Roddick again! And not in a Grand Slam where the true champions show their mettle!

This week Djokovic and Roddick faced each other in a Grand Slam for the first time since that U.S. Open match and the conditions were brutal. By the end of the match, the on-court thermometer showed about 136 degrees Fahrenheit (the air was actually about 95).

Djokovic came out well early and won the first set. Roddick took an early lead in the second and almost instantly Djokovic looked like the walking dead. I understand that it was hot, but it was hot on Roddick's side of the court as well. And it was hot on every other player who had been playing that day and that week. And these are supposed to be some of the finest athletes in the world!

So Roddick jumped all over Djokovic, winning the next two sets, with the Serb dragging himself around the court like he'd been shot for most of the time. He had a few extended breaks with the trainers coming out and putting ice on his neck and stretching his legs and shoulder. Roddick even drove the "you're a whiny girl" point home by standing in the sun, running place and keeping loose during one of Djokovic's "injury breaks." Then finally when the match was about to get out of hand, Roddick up 2-1 in the fourth and 2 sets to 1, Djokovic summoned all the courage he had in himself and disregarded that what he would do in the next 30 seconds would characterize himself for his entire career: he quit.

Federer, who is about as prone to smack talk as the Pope said after the match, "Well you know, it's not the guy who's never given up before...he gave up against me in Monaco last year because of a sore throat." After that sore throat match, Djokovic said in an on-court interview that he felt a little dizzy too. He said that he'd been checked by a doctor the day before and cleared, but that he thought the doctor's diagnosis was wrong, "obviously." He was booed off the court.

Federer went on to say, "If Novak were up two sets to love I don't think he would have retired 4-0 down in the fourth."

So the book is closed on this one. He may go on to one of the great champions of all time (once Federer and Nadal retire), or he may succumb to all these unnamed maladies. But either way, Novak Djokovic will very likely go down as one of the biggest whiners and quitters the sports has ever seen.

Stay tuned (in the middle of the night) Saturday for what is bound to be an epic final between two acutal champions, Nadal and Federer.

How Often Is There A Sports-Related Event Worthy Of Saying "Low And Behold"?

I got to watch my alma mater play hoops tonight for the first time since their second round NCAA tourney game last March. They were hosting St. Mary's, a conference opponent who is currently ranked #27 (AP). Typically teams will get up for a rival who is highly ranked, especially at home, so I was pretty excited about the game.

The game was set to come on a 6 Pacific time, and when I tuned in around quarter to six, the Purdue at Minnesota game still had about 10 minutes to go, so I knew I'd miss the start of the USD game. This was a little frustrating at first, but I did get a nice piece of information that I will store away for this upcoming March, and I will pass it along to you fine folks now (both of you):

Purdue is ranked 18, and Minnesota is ranked 21, and they play in the Big 10, so their chances of both making the NCAA tournament are very good, and they'll likely get good seeds. If you have any inkling that their first round opponents are potential Cinderellas, or if they happen to get a crappy seed and play a good team in the first round, do not hesitate to pick Purdue and Minnesota to both lose in the first round. The only way I will pick these teams to win a game is if I learn that their opponents have three or four guys get hurt. Or if they play Gonzaga, because I have a long-standing personal rule that I do not pick Gonzaga to win any games in the Tournament, and generally speaking, it serves me well.

(I think I need to formulate the Rules of Picking the Tourney.)

Anyway, as that painfully slow game withered to a merciful end, they starting running the USD-SMC score in the upper corner.

"Hey, USD is up 2-0...oh, make that 2-2...down 4-2...6-2...13-2. Ouch."

By the time ESPN2 switched over from Brent Musberger's miserable ass-kissing call of the Purdue-Minnesota game, the USD was already over. But then I remembered that St. Mary's had led USD by 17 in the second half of their conference semifinal game last year and USD came back to win in double-OT. Not tonight. But at least USD had the courtesy to play quickly, lose quickly, and allow ESPN2 to get to their next scheduled program a little early!

By the way, if you are looking for a small team to make some noise in the Tourney, St. Mary's is a very good option. They have a spectacular point guard (guard play+NCAA tourney=win), good shooters, some decent big men, 5 Australians (I don't know if it helps, but that is kinda cool) and they play serious defense. They won't be under the radar since they're already creeping into the rankings and have the nation's longest winning streak going, but everyone east of California will not trust this little band of Aussies.

They are impossible to root for however. Last week they beat a conference opponent by 50. No problem there; you should beat conference foes when they're down. The problem I have with it is that they fired up 31 3-pointers in the game. Classy coach.

One final thought on the Purdue-Minnesota game before moving on: we are all clear that the Big 10 Conference has eleven teams in it and that as creatively as they may hide that fact in their logo, that still doesn't make sense, right? OK. Moving on...

Speaking of Aussies and ESPN2's evening program, the next thing on the agenda was the Djokovic-Delic match. It ended up being a very nicely played, evenly matched four-setter between the #3 ranked returning champ and the little known American. The announcers made the point several times how these two were friends and how good the sportsmanship was throughout. When the match ended, they greeted each other genuinely and both thanked the boisterous crowd warmly.

The reason that all those warm feelings are worth remarking about (besides that they are just rare in sports) is that Djokovic is Serbian and Delic is a Bosnian-born American. I'm not sure how much you've been paying attention to the news for the past...oh...500 years, but the Bosnians and Serbs don't generally hug and and get warm reactions from crowds of people from the other place. I wasn't going to write about this because I couldn't really figure out a point I wanted to make that didn't get all socio-political and/or cheesy.

So I started writing about the USD hoops game when what on my TV should appear but a good old fashioned, Geraldo-style chair throwing brawl in a courtyard at the Australian Open. Apparently the warm fuzzies between the Serbian Dojokovic fans and Bosnian Delic fans only lasted until they got outside the stadium. Then a Serb threw a chair at a Bosnian woman who had just finished being interviewed by ESPN2 and the kangaroo shit hit the fan. I still wasn't sure what to write about because now I couldn't figure out a point I wanted to make that still didn't get all socio-political and/or judgemental.

So I went back to writing and ESPN2 came to my rescue again providing me with a nice, neat ending to this story. They went back out to the courtyard and showed some cops hauling the thugs away who had been throwing metal chairs in a crowd including women and children and low and behold: Australian cops wear Crocodile-freaking-Dundee hats! They're like Canadian Mounties but not gay. I am 100% sure that if they had widened the shot, we would have seen that they also wore just board shorts and sandals and carry boomerangs and machetes instead of guns and mace like our sissy cops here.

Add this to the growing list of reasons why Australia is awesome (#1 of course being how much hotter the accent makes the women).