Two And Two

Some conversations...

[Ahmad] I think I saw some of the major stuff
[iuqiddis] Mona Lisa?
[Ahmad] yea
[Ahmad] and let me tell u
[Ahmad] I think that shit is way overrated

[iuqiddis] any famous paintings you saw?
[Stephanie] Mona Lisa, which I'm not that overwhelmed by

[Sarmad] Hey, have you even watched Star Wars?
[Saami] No, I'm not a trekky

Saami re-telling a story from high school. The student body (of which he was part of) organized the drive.
[Saami] I got caught getting food [that was for people who were donating blood]
[Sri] you have no conscience?
[Saami] *waves head absently* no, I was very cautious but these fuckers were taking pictures...

The Final Stretch

(1)

The last leg of the season starts tomorrow with the Paris Masters. After that the top eight go to London to duke it out in the ATP World Tour Finals (or WTF). It's a pity that there is practically zero coverage of the fall tennis season in the US because the next three weeks are going to feature some high quality tennis, along the lines of what we would expect during the four slams.

The results of Paris will decide the last two slots of the eight-man field in London. Right now it seems that Fernando Verdasco and Nikolay Davydenko have the best chance of securing those berths. Personally I'm hoping that Robin Soderling gets one of the two spots. He has performed very consistently in the last three grand slams, and his game is well suited for these fast indoor courts. If he gets into the top eight, he might be cause for concern for some of the other players in London.

With that out of the way, onto the main event: the race for year-end number one. With the first half of the year dominated by Nadal's phenomenal run in the hard court and clay court seasons, and the second half of the year by Federer's slam performances, things are poised quite nicely for a duel for year-end number one. Going into Paris, Federer stands at 10155 points, and Nadal at 8845 points. The Paris winner gets a 1000 points. If Federer wins Paris, it's all over for Nadal; and it would be a rather anti-climatic finish to the season. On the opposite side of the draw, things are more promising. As long as Federer doesn't win the title, Nadal has a shot at year-end number one in the WTF at London. The better he does at Paris, the more intense the battle for number one will be in London.

In Paris, Federer has Del Potro and Murray in his half of the draw. If Federer goes that deep, he could be playing either one of the two in his semifinal. Personally I would love to see a US Open final rematch. Either way, Federer has his work cut out for him. In the other half of the draw, Nadal could potentially play the defending Paris champion, Tsonga, as early as the quarter finals. If he wins that he might play Djokovic. After seeing Djokovic's form in Basel (today), I think Djokovic might put a break on Nadal at the semifinals stage. He was playing some fine aggressive tennis.

Hopefully things do come down to London. The round robin format is not something we see too often in tennis. The best part is that opponents can possibly play two matches against each other: first in the round robin format, then in the final. This adds an extra dimension to a tournament, something that we never see in a grand slam or masters tournament. Alas, Federer and Nadal will be in separate groups, so we won't see them play twice. But hopefully we'll see them in the finals, fighting for the top position. The season started with them wrestling for the cup in Australia, maybe it will end in a similar fashion in London.

1. La Palais Omnisport de Paris Bercy, the site of the Paris Masters. Image obtained from here. Rights.

Roland Garros

Even God wants Federer to win.

This year, I was giddy like a school girl before the French Open was starting, and not because I was graduating. I just felt that this year maybe Federer might beat Nadal at Roland Garros. Sure, he's been erratic and at times seems aloof during matches, but by this point we all know that whatever ailments Federer has, they usually get taken care of by the time a Slam rolls around. What gave me a tinge of hope was Federer's game play in the pre-French clay Master tournaments. He was actually tweaking his game. Instead of the largely baseline game that has allowed him to beat pretty much everyone not named Nadal on clay in the past years (his Roland Garros record for the past 4 years reads 23-4, with all four losses coming to Nadal), he made more attempts to approach the net and started using the drop more profusely.

I thought this was a big change because let's face it, when a guy has won 13 Grand Slams, he can justify being stubborn in not changing the game that has worked greatly for him. But after last year's drubbing at the French final, I guess he realized he would have to shake his game up to, at the very least, not get humiliated. Both these changes are not particularly dramatic, he already had them at his arsenal, he just chose not to use them. So I guess it was more of a mental adjustment to force the issue, rather than staying back and getting pounded ball after ball by Nadal and his glorious forehand.

So with that little adjustment of his, I hoped he would at least mount a challenge to Nadal, if not win the cursed trophy.

What I never expected was that by the time the second week of Roland Garros rolls around, not only Nadal, but Djokovic, and Murray would be all out of the tournament. Okay, maybe I wasn't sure about Murray, but with form both Nadal and Djokovic were in, I expected them to go far. This is monumental for Federer. This year, his record reads 30-6. You remove the losses against these three, and it reads 30-1. The biggest threats to Federer simply dropped dead (almost literally in Djokovic's case the way he lost his match). The way his luck is going, Monfils will probably break a leg mid-match, Del Potro will, well...he always bends over anyways...and whoever the other finalist will be...well maybe he can witness some vintage Federer tennis.

That being said, I think the biggest threat to Federer career slam would be Monfils. He's very athletic and chases down practically anything that comes his way, so if Federer isn't playing his best, it might be trouble. If Federer plays like he did in the later sets against Haas or Mathieu from the get go, the match will be over in three sets. When he's on, no man not named Nadal can beat him on clay.

We'll find out what happens in less than six hours from now.

So the International Astronical Union have finally given the 'dwarf planet' UB313 an official name. Its called Eris, after the Greek Goddess of Discord. How fitting.

For those who have been living under a rock for the past month or so, Pluto has been stripped off its planethood because of the disovery of UB313, which is a bit bigger than Pluto.

My O-Chem Book trying to review resonance hybrids:

It is important to understand that the two structures in Eq. 1.6 are fictitious, but nitromethane is a real molecule... An analogy to this situation is a description of Fred Flatfoot, a real detective. Lacking words to describe Fred, we picture him as a resonance hybrid of two fictional characters:
Fred Flatfoot = [Sherlock Holmes <----> James Bond]
This suggests that Fred is a dashing, violin-playing, pipe-smoking, highly intelligent British agent with an assistant named Watson, and that Fred likese his Martinis shaken, not stirred.