Wednesday, January 20, 2010

In praise of women's tennis

As I type, Elena Dementieva and Justine Henin have been on the court for two hours and they're not even halfway through the second set, which is at deuce, two-all. It's the most beautiful, forceful, elegant match I think I've ever seen: two evenly matched slender blonde stars of the game, both having a good night and whupping each other all over the court except when doing delicate precision work at the net. It's like watching a magic cheetah trying to catch Tinkerbell.

UPDATE: and the unseeded, unranked Henin has just beaten the world no. 5 in straight sets, 7-5 7-6.

4 comments:

Mindy said...

I so enjoyed watching that game. You just can't guess what Henin will do, even after being out of the game for 12 months or more. It's like she never left. I think she would have been pushed to win a third set, but thanks to her talent, skill and hard work she didn't have to. Dementieva played a cracking match as well. It was a shame someone had to lose.

Another Zoe said...

Slightly off topic, but still in praise of women.... are you possibly going to write a post on why the new set of stamps featuring Oz writers includes just one woman?

Anonymous said...

Couldn't agree more, Zoe. My heart just sank, especially after the Miles Franklin affair last year. It's not as if we have a representational shortage of excellent women in Austlit, like politics. I assume they have to be alive, so that rules out HHR, and Miles Franklin, but what about Helen Garner, or Kate Grenville -- or the wonderful Ruth Park??? Coy Lurker

BwcaBrownie said...

I love watching the Williams sisters get hours of sweaty exercise and still not be slim. saves me the exertion of finding out personally.

and Another Zoe ? - we cannot expect sense from AusPost since they put RussellCrowe on a stamp. The supposed cachet of being depicted where previously only kings and queens were, has long gone.