Waiting to Fast Forward

Some people wait for the bus, intellectuals tend to wait for Godot, but when it comes to watching tennis on television, I wait for the DVR to get far enough ahead so I can fast forward through the stuff I don't want to see. 

It isn't the commercials I object to. I accept commercials as necessary because they pay the bills. Frankly, some are quite entertaining. I actively seek the one with Novak Djokovic playing tennis on an airplane wing and the amusing one where Roger Federer is stopped by TSA because he has Swiss chocolate balls in his carry-on. I don't mind seeing ads for Tennis equipment and clothes and I get a real kick out of the tournaments showing shots of the pros having a good time as the French is doing during this tournament. I enjoy the interviews with both the men and the women and like to hear them analyze the game just past. I love trying to figure out what Rafael Nadal is saying. I rarely succeed. This year he seems to have forgotten his birthday. 

So why is waiting for the DVD to record ahead so I can fast forward as important as waiting for Godot to show up? Well, frankly, it's the women's matches where these long-legged, pony-tailed Lulus shriek like a Banshee every time they hit the ball, coming out with ear-splitting shrieks that sound as though they're giving birth on the tennis court. That or passing a kidney stone the size of a golf ball. 

Then there's the schizophrenic switching from one match to another. Like this morning on the Tennis Channel when world number 1, Novak Djokovic, was down two sets to 1 to Andreas Seppi (22 in the world).  Exciting stuff. Could Djokovic come back? What was the matter with him? Could Seppi continue to play out of his mind? Was this going to be a three setter? Or would it go four or five? Djokovic holds three major tittles at this time (Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open). If he wins the French, he will be the first player in a long time to hold all four major titles at once. There's a lot riding on his matches. I was on the edge of the couch. But instead of sticking with the Djokovic-Seppi match, the Tennis Channel opted to show the last few points of a woman's match being played at the same time as the Seppi-Djokovic match. I tried to fast forward to get back to the match to which I was committed and had been watching, but the DVR had caught up and I was on real time. Bummer. So to give the DVR time to do its thing, I bailed and took the dog for a walk . Hopefully, by the time I get back to the tennis, the DVR will have trudged along and given me the freedom to watch matches that are interesting instead of matches that I have to watch with the mute button on.