The tennis

The Australian Open is on again. Hooray! There's nothing I like better than staring at a blue screen in the wee hours of the morning, desperately hoping that the Aussies get thrashed.

It's not that I have anything personally against the Australian players - I am Australian after all and, all else being equal, would like to see them do well.  The problem is that all else is not equal.  I will give a name to my pain and that name is "Sandy Roberts".  Gee he annoys the heck out of me.

All  the other matches get commentary by people like Jim Courier.  Jim is great.  He knows heaps about tennis and he's also witty, subtle, and clever.  But whenever there's an Australian playing the network wheels out Sandy from whatever dismal stinking den he lives in for the rest of the year and puts him on MY television.


Sandy is the most blindly partisan commentator I have heard ever, in any sport.  He doesn't actual commentate at all, he simply barracks.  He whines, sledges, exaggerates and fantasizes.  For example, tonight as Alicia Molik was looking like she was about to win her match against a French woman whose presence on the court was somehow overlooked by Sandy during his prognostications of inevitable victory, Sandy came out with some claptrap like, "This would be the perfect time for a couple of aces".  Sure, why not just say, as the players walk onto the court, "This would be the perfect time for 147 consecutive aces, and maybe she could grow wings from her feet while she's at it."  Fascinating stuff.


And if that's not bad enough you have to put up with all the repetitive cliches that he churns out, point after point.  "She's asked the question!", "She's raised the bar!", "Just gotta get that train to the station!".


AAAAAARGH!!!!