It's been about two days since Novak Djokovic took out Jo-Wilfried Tsonga for the Australian Open men's title, but only one day since I caught the match via the magic of DVR. I almost wish I had stayed up and caught the match live at 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning -- it was that much better than the women's match, even though my guy Tsonga lost. I think the match has been commentated to death, so I can't add much beyond how interesting it was to watch Djokovic be placed into the role of on-court bad guy. He really had the crowd on him and, as Mary Carillo pointed out, he's used to being the crowd favorite. Even his family seemed taken aback by the pro-Tsonga crowd. I wondered during the match if his vaunted arrogance would eventually put him into the on-court asshole role originally forged by Jimmy Connors and carried on today by Andy Roddick -- but Djokovic's disarmingly charming victory speech put those fears to rest, at least for now.
Other than the afterglow that comes from watching a fairly high-quality final, the main thing I came away with was a renewed feeling of urgency that Dick Enberg must be stopped. His crimes against commentating are legion and cringe-inducing. Some examples:
- His treacly essays that opened and closed the match are monuments to mawkishness. Mercifully, these weren't quite as risible as his Wimbledon women's final piece a couple years back when his stretching of metaphors about hunger and desire made it sound like we had accidentally tuned in for "Breakfast at a Lesbian Orgy."
- Enberg emoted that Djokovic and Tsonga were "breathing new life into the men's game," as if men's professional tennis were on life support under such luminaries as Federer and Nadal who've managed to break through as stars even in our insular America.
- Given Tsonga's much-remarked upon resemblance to a certain famous boxer, is anyone surprised that Enberg camped out at the well of bad boxing metahors?
- Enberg actually spoke the words "sing a Tsonga."
- Best bumbling moment of the match: Noting that Tsonga was caught "between a hard and rock pl...um, a hard place and a rock."
- Enberg never misses a chance to say terre batu, because "red clay" just doesn't sound frenchy enough.
In all fairness, and as Mary Carillo did point out, Enberg missed his chance for "Sting like a bee" when the Police front-man was found sitting in the stands. But in the interest of viewer sanity -- or, at least, my sanity -- can we limit ESPN tennis commentary to, say, Darren Cahill, Mary Carillo and -- seriously -- Jimmy Arias?
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