Yesterday, 19-year old Simona Halep breezed through her first-round match against Serbia’s Bojana Jovanovski at Wimbledon. Why is this an important thing to share with people on the Internet? For the reason you didn’t start reading this paragraph until you’d stared at the picture for five minutes. Simona got popular a couple of years ago on the reactionary part of the Internet that flips out (in both the good and bad ways, which are open to interpretation) about 17-year olds with humongous boobs, and her success this year is due to losing them; Halep got a massive breast reduction, and it seems to be making her awesome at tennis.

By way of The Daily Mail:

Halep was first noticed on her way to becoming junior champion at the French Open in 2008. In a bid to boost her game, she spent much of the following year recovering from the surgery, which took her cup size down from 34DD to a more modest 34C.

At the time she explained her decision to fans, saying: ‘It’s the weight that troubles me. My ability to react quickly, my breasts make me uncomfortable when I play.

‘I don’t like them in my everyday life, either. I would have gone for surgery even if I hadn’t been a sportswoman.’

I’m going to play the “women are people too” card and say I’m happy for her, even if the loss of such magnificent breasts is sh:tty to the awful, judgmental part of our brain that can only praise women for their beauty or condemn them for looking like steroid monsters. I think those are the only two reactions I’ve ever heard about women’s tennis outside of Ron Swanson: Player X is hot, or Player Y is on drugs and looks like a man and has a penis and could rip off yours. In this example, we’ll say Player X is Martina Hingis, and Player Y is any tennis player with her picture on Fark.

We wish Halep a successful Wimbledon, and now are heads can go back to looking back and forth instead of just straight ahead and slightly down.

While you were getting hammered, indulging in delicious barbecue, and doing other American things, the Wimbledon final was getting played out across the pond. 2nd ranked Rafael Nadal beat 12th ranked Tomas Berdych 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 to seal the victory. I have no idea what those numbers mean. Could they be the number of homoerotic grunts each player made each set, perhaps? Probably not, but I have absoloutly no interest in knowing.

And when it ended, Nadal marked his victory with a celebratory somersault. That endless energy, and so many superb strokes, allowed the No. 2-seeded Nadal to outclass No. 12 Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 Sunday for his second Wimbledon trophy and eighth Grand Slam title overall.

Sunday’s contest was hardly a classic. More like a coronation — or, at the very least, confirmation that Nadal is elbowing his way into any conversation about the best players in tennis history. His eight titles at major tournaments pushes him past John McEnroe and ties Nadal with quite a heady group that includes Andre Agassi, Jimmy Connors and Ivan Lendl. –ESPN

Another of those players in the conversation for best player in tennis history is Roger Federer. But, his time in England was disappointing. The 16-time grand slam champion fell to number three in the ATP rankings. That will give Roger some food for thought while he’s diving into his Scrooge McDuck-esque money locker. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hard to be irritated with Andy Roddick now, especially after his effort in the final at Wimbledon where he nearly beat Roger Federer. But depending on who you ask, Roddick should have beaten the 15-time major tournament winner. At the very least, it would have made for a better ad.

One of Roddick’s sponsors (you can see it on the ad; I won’t mention them in the text because of my endorsement deal with adidas) curiously bought a full-page ad on the back of the New York Times sport section to congratulate Crocodile Andy and thank him “for his performance at Wimbledon.” No, they really called him Crocodile Andy. And they thanked him. Thanked him for losing! Oooh, burn!

I thought it was almost sad that Roddick apologized to Pete Sampras after allowing Federer to break Sampras’ career majors record through him. I’m inclined to think that not his job to defend the nation’s tennis legacy. But when ESPN and his sponsors try to sell him as an ambassador of the game, maybe it should be. And this is a rather poor effort in accomplishing that end.

|via Darren Rovell|

I really don’t have a big problem with famous people mouthing off in public once in a while. I’ve said this before, there are certain social plateaus that people can hit where they’re allowed to treat people in a way that some of us might find inappropriate. But people that possess a level of passion and arrogance need to be treasured, even if one of those people happens to be Russell Crowe. From the Daily Mail, who still likes driving on the left side of the street:

Crowe could be seen pointing to where he wanted to move for a better view of the thrilling five-setter which saw Federer triumph over Roddick in the final set, but it seems the officer was clearly having none of it.

The Australian could be seen debating the matter, but soon after meekly returned to his original seat having conceded defeat.

I’m torn on this. Tennis is one of those sports where you know going in that you can’t so much as pee on a mound of cotton while the ball’s in play. Everybody has to be quiet so they can concentrate or whatever. And I guess you can’t change seats during play. That said, everybody that goes to watch tennis in person knows this going in, and so you’re stuck living under that repressive tennis regime. But I don’t understand what would have been so bad about sitting behind Ralph Lauren. Sitting in front of him, on the other hand…that I could understand.

It took the longest fifth set in Wimbledon history for Roger Federer to get past Andy Roddick in the men’s final at the All England Club. Roddick held serve all but one time, as Federer and that stupid white jacket of his marched toward an unprecedented 15th major tennis championship. I have to give love to Roddick showing such naddage in the final, especially playing with a hip flexor injury that will force him to miss the Davis Cup, whatever that is. I’m sure it involves large helpings of lasagna and obese cats. Ufford would love it.

ASYLUM POLL: Who is the greatest major champion? Tiger Woods or Roger Federer?

Tiger Woods was in The District this past weekend, holding off stiff competition in his own tournament, the AT&T National, which is a crappy tournament name for such a good golfer. Hunter Mahan and Anthony Kim also came up short of catching the King of Cablinasia, as Tiger won his 3rd tournament of the year by one shot over Mahan. And then Tiger probably just went home and ate some grapes or something, because winning is all he does, and if some day he plays in a tournament and doesn’t win, he can set out on his other mission–killing Sarah Connor.

Yeah, it’s funny until you realize that Garrison spent most of her life battling an eating disorder to deal with the death of her mother, who died when she was 19. Great, now I feel like a dick. Again. From the Telegraph, which is based in Atlanta, I think:

Garrison traces her problems back to her inability to cope with the death of her mother when she was 19. She continued to be affected by the disorder after her retirement from the women’s tour in 1996 and became so depressed that she took an overdose in 1999.

In a recent interview she said: “I am still a lot heavier than I want to be and I still get down sometimes, but I’ve decided that I am what I am.”

Seriously, I could do the before-and-after shots like this one using images of me and half of you would swear that you were looking at two different people. I guess what I’m saying is that railing on overweight people is fine if you do it on a website using a pseudonym when most people already know who you are anyway. It’s like my grandpa always said, “People in glass houses don’t have any attic space.” But since he’s dead now, I don’t think that applies anymore.

Oh, and Andy Roddick got to the semis in Wimbledon. Way to not screw it up this time, jerky.