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.

Aussie tennis player Lleyton Hewitt (not pictured) made some kind of comment at Wimbledon the other day that kinda sounds sexist but really isn’t, saying that women tennis players couldn’t play in a best-of-five-sets format. But I guess he’s totally cool with them getting jobs on their own and voting in national elections? Pig. From Reuters, via FanNation:

“I don’t think a lot of them would last five sets,” said the Australian after setting up a second-round date with fifth-seeded Argentine Juan Martin del Potro.

“The training you have to do to last five sets, especially seven best of five-set matches, it’s a lot more than three-set matches. There would obviously be question marks (over whether) a lot of them could last that much.”

Wimbledon evened the prize pools for men and women in 2007, but the women still only play best-of-three sets. So yeah, a notable portion of the current group probably would not survive in that environment. Although longer matches is would probably be little of an improvement when the sport’s stars are all either getting injured or retiring. But, let’s be honest, there are a few bigger girls on the ladies’ tour. I’d post pictures of them here for you to see for yourself, but we’re a family website. A family of masturbators.

Asylum has a great rundown on the women competing at the All England Club for the Wimbledon championship this weekend. It’s airing on ESPN2, satisfying the weekday afternoon fan jones for televised sports. Seriously, I’m launching the National Hide-And-Seek League and all of our games are gonna be on weekday afternoons. And no, we’re not having a salary cap, either. What do you think this is? Russia?

Speaking of Russians, here’s a quick gallery we put together of Maria Kirilenko, who won her first round match against Petra Kvitova. But unfortunately, she’s going to have a much tougher opponent in the second round. My boner.

|thanks to Keith for the panda img; keep ‘em coming|

As The All England Club prepares to host Wimbledon in July, rumors are swirling over a potential crackdown on the grunting from some of the female players, who had been the subject of complaints during last month’s French Open. From the Daily Mail (via GameOn):

[N]ew proposals to make noise hindrance part of the International Tennis Federation’s code of conduct [mean that] grunters could potentially forfeit a whole game or match.

One of the loudest offenders is Maria Sharapova, who at 101 decibels is almost as loud as a lion’s 110 decibel roar.

In last month’s French open, Aravane Rezai complained to the umpire about the noise emitting from 16-year-old player Michelle Larcher de Brito.

As the rules stand now, an umpire can award a point to a player if distracted by a grunt. Which is poppycock. I, personally, like to hear the person on the other end grunting, and as loud as possible. Only a woman would get annoyed over that sort of thing. It doesn’t help that Wimbledon is traditionally the stuffiest of the four tennis majors. Next year, these women might be forced to play in ankle skirts and heels. The heels, I could get behind…

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are the only two male tennis players on Earth that are worth watching, and yesterday they met in the Wimbledon final for the third consecutive year, with Nadal upsetting Federer's quest to be the first man to win six straight championships there.  It was an epic five-set match that lasted nearly five hours of playing time (seven hours with the two rain delays), the longest and probably best Wimbledon final ever played.

A quick timeline of how it went down on the West Coast:

9:20 a.m. — Me, recently awake: "Oh, the Wimbledon final started at 6:00!  Maybe I can catch the end! (turns on TV, rain delay, shocked to see Nadal won the first two sets.
10:00 – 1:00 — Grocery shopping, leisurely breakfast, trip to the book store, trip to the record store.
1:18 p.m. — Return home.  No chance Wimbledon is STILL on.  Turn on TV.  Nadal is sopping wet and climbing through the crowd in celebration.  The announcers agree that it's the greatest Wimbledon final ever. 

Some people saw the greatest tennis match in decades.  I had a tasty brunch and bought a Tom Robbins book.  In your face, sports fans.