Oh btw, I cut my hair really short this week.
I went from this:
To this: but may a bit longer than this ... like the length of my avatar.
What do you think? My hair colour is also kind of like this one. Golden brown but I don't think this one is golden brown.
Actually it used to be more like this before I cut it short. My friends love my new haircut. They think it totally suits me.
I am just making sure it's all about me here and Andy and not...ahem Javier. lolol
Actually it used to be more like this before I cut it short. My friends love my new haircut. They think it totally suits me.
well change is good and it is all about how you feel and look anyway.
if you and your friends approve and love the new look then try it out for a while.
and then one day surprise the world again and go with longer hair. long hair can work too if it is done right.
shorter hair will certainly be more manageable in the morning anyway when you rushed for time and getting ready for work in a hurry.
I was just thinking:
Andy needs a cool logo. is there anyway you can pass the world along to him and his mom.
I can try too because I follow his mom on twitter. maybe she will listen and hire a company to start exploring.
its high time they start making Andy a global brand. a logo will make that possible.
rafa, roger, and nole already have their logos.
I think even berdych has a logo but I am not sure.
I think Andy has a logo. I remember seeing a bunch of them but not sure which one he's going to go with. They were quite nice. Again, not sure if they were going for it seriously or if this was just something they were playing around with. I remember seeing those on Murray's World last year I think.
I think it was something like this. What do you think?
The one in the middle on the 3rd row looks devilish.
Who's Hoshi? Honestly, I don't know half the people here lol but welcome, welcome and some more warm welcome.
People should not make big deal about this straight sets loss by Andy against Fognini. As I said last night, Fog is essentially a clay-courter. With the exception of one or two events, where he made the finals of a hard court, he has all his other credentials on clay. Even today, he's not good enough on any other surface but clay. So Andy was faced with a very good claycourter who's been in form since last year. Not to mention, Andy also had to play against a very loud crowd and he had deal with stomach flu just prior. So there were a few things that did not work out in his favour to begin with. Andy could have hung in there for a longer bit but he did have to play everyday and on Saturday, he had to finish his own match and then play the doubles again. The doubles was very tight. Andy did the best he could given the circumstances. Fog was fired up after the doubles loss and Andy underestimated him perhaps slightly. I still think at this point, Fog would have won the match since Andy hasn't won a title since Wimbledon. On top of surgery, he was also in a slump because of Wimbledon I'd say and right now, he's coming out of it. This is a very vulnerable time for him right now but he's getting there of course.
Andy can still have a very strong and proud career despite not having good results on clay on his resume - though never say never. As good as people tend to make Federer out on clay, only 10/12% of his total titles belong to clay. And we all know his only RG title came at the expense of Soderling taking Nadal out first. He did not really beat Nadal to win it.
And not to mention, about 70% Nadal's titles are on clay and 8 out of 13 of his Slams came at RG. And that alone put him as one of the great players of all time.
Sampras didn't do much on clay but his results on grass and hard are outstanding along with his six years straight at No. 1 and the fact that, no one owned him in his era. Even Nadal is slightly getting owned by Nole lately (3 all in Majors since 2011) though it will be interesting to see where things stand once it all ends.
So Andy has nothing to worry about. He's great on 2 surfaces - grass and hard and he has 5 to 7 good years left in him. So he can achieve plenty relying on those 2 surface and become one of the greats if he's in for it. Not sure if he will but he has the potential and he's got 2 great surface in his favoure. He'll just need to do average on clay and perhaps when it all ends, he'll have a few clay titles in the bag as well.
One thing that is not worth reading at any given point is when a fan gives his/her opinion on their favourite players. They are, at least most of the time, heavily biased, over the top and blind. For example, a Murray fan giving his/her opinion on Murray, or Federer fan on Federer or Nadal fan Nadal and so on. There are exceptions of course but they are rare.
Here's an example I found yesterday. It's by Clayqueen at TW:
"The biggest myth in tennis is that Federer is talented. Talent cannot be measured in a weak era. Up against Nadal, Djokovic and Murray, Federer is the least talented.
Nadal is the most versatile and talented player in decades, probably ever. Even the players acknowledge this."
I much prefer not to waste my time on these types of posts and tend to scroll past as quickly as possible. In fact, when you come across such a post, you also form an opinion about the poster as well and make yourself note as to not to pay any attention to any posts made by this particular poster. Clayqueen is just an example here of course.
Basically any post made by posters on their favourite surface or favourite players should be heavily avoided. At least I try my best to avoid it. Same goes for posts filled with hatred rather than a dose of objectivity and some facts perhaps.
But of course objectivity along with some facts are a rare find - mainly because, they lack consistency as all other extreme emotions such as jealousy, hatred, greed etc. tend to take place first and anything else comes last, especially after a bad loss. Objectivity and perspectives tend to take a backseat. Almost no fan is above it. But I suppose that's what sports are all about these days anyway.
Now on a completely unrelated matter, I found this bit about the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin quite interesting as I started digging his religious background and upbringing.
"Vladimir Putin was born and raised in Leningrad, U.S.S.R., now known as St. Petersburg, Russia.
Putin had, in classic Soviet fashion, a secular upbringing. His father was a “model Communist” and a “militant atheist,” though his mother was a devout Eastern Orthodox Christian1 and she had young Putin secretly baptized into that church.2
It was merely symbolic, however, as Putin went through the bulk of his adult life–rising through the ranks of the KGB and the Soviet Communist Party–conforming to Soviet secular convention.
It wasn’t until the double-whammy of 1) his wife’s car accident in 1993 and 2) a life-threatening house fire in 1996 that Putin began questioning his atheism. During a vulnerable moment before Putin departed for a diplomatic trip to Israel, his mother gave him a baptismal cross. He said of the occasion:
I did as she said and then put the cross around my neck. I have never taken it off since.3
Now, Putin has become a bit of a zealot. He seems to want to reestablish a pre-Soviet combination of church and state, saying:
First and foremost we should be governed by common sense. But common sense should be based on moral principles first. And it is not possible today to have morality separated from religious values.4
Furthermore, Putin has proposed compulsory religion and ethics classes for Russian students.5"
