Apparently all my material is going to come from Andy Roddick interviews from now on, so hopefully he won’t retire from a devastating injury tomorrow. Otherwise, I’d be forced to stop writing, which might be tragic for the 0.6 dedicated readers of this blog.

This time, our quote of the day comes from a journalist interviewing Mr Roddick.

Is this starting to look a little bit like an AARP convention here in the draw with Haas, Ferrero, and Hewitt, all the old guys in there?

Ok, let’s get this straight. I know that athletes in most sports are no longer young by age 30, but isn’t this a bit harsh? Let’s check the numbers quickly.

Juan Carlos Ferrero, born 2 February 1980 (age 29)
Tommy Haas, born 3 April 1978 (age 31)
Lleyton Hewitt, born 24 February 1981 (age 28)
Andy Roddick, born 30 August 1982 (age 26)

Um, yes… they’re all so incredibly ancient, wouldn’t you agree?

Poor Andy Roddick. I guess it’s not his fault, but he just looks so big and dumb to me. But the biggest surprise is that he’s not actually dumb. In fact, I spent several hours the other day chuckling to myself upon reading some of his more infamous quotes. Normally, this is when I would provide evidence of past smart alecky comments from his illustrious career. But today, you are lucky enough to see fresh smart alecky comments to journalists after his wife accused him via Twitter of having an unnatural love for Rick Astley.

Q. So can you talk us through Rick Astley here?

Andy Roddick: What do you want me to say? I said I wasn’t proud, but I’m not going to lie to anybody. I busted my wife on some of her crappy music. She brought up Rick Astley. I can’t deny it. It’s in my iPod. I bet it’s in your iPod, too, so shut up (laughter).

…

Q. How did it come about, this passion for Rick Astley?

AR: Okay, calm down. Just calm down.

[Questions about tennis... *yawn*...]

Q. You said you like going into London for dinner. I hear you enjoy going to The Ivy.

AR: Yeah, I’ve been there before. It’s nice.

Q. Been there this year?

AR: Once, yeah.

…

Q. Any other favorite spots in London that you like?

AR: Wherever Rick Astley is going.

Hehe. Don’t you love mandatory post-match press conferences?

Anyway, I have to admit that I actually had to look up Mr Astley’s name before this post to figure out who exactly he is. Then, I realized that I had heard that one song of his before! In fact, I have a video of Tyson singing this song at karaoke. Too bad Youtube is still blocked from this side of the Great Firewall.

It’s a sad time for tennis. While I know that others are still mourning over Nadal’s decision this season to wear shirts with sleeves, or his recent announcement that he would not be healthy enough to make Wimbledon next week, I’m mourning something else.

You see, this will be Marat Safin’s last season. I know what you’re thinking, “The highly combustible Russian has his moments, but plays erratically. Why should we care?” Yes, he’s a former World No. 1, and a two-time Grand Slam winner, but more importantly, he has a lot of… character, shall we say? His brand of tennis has extremely high entertainment value. I mean, who else on tour is going to pull off the following (from the 2004 French Open, courtesy of the Washington Times) :

And in an inexplicable fit of glee before a packed grandstand at the storied French Open, he dropped his pants.

“It was a great point for me!” Safin explained Friday after a 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, 6-7, 11-9 second-round victory over Felix Mantilla that took two days to complete. “I felt like pulling my pants down. What’s bad about that?”

And earlier this year at the Hopman Cup, Mr Safin “arrived at the event sporting a bandaged right thumb, two black eyes, a blood-filled left eye and a cut near his right eye, all suffered in a fight several weeks earlier in Moscow.” Despite the injuries, he claimed to have won the fight.

See why those temperamental shoes will be hard to fill?

Do you ever find yourself looking into random subjects for no good reason? It’s been happening to me a lot these last few days. As the topic of hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, and other less glamorous tropical storms came up as we were planning a warm weather getaway, and I started wondering… How exactly do the naming schemes work? That turns out to be a somewhat complicated process involving various different agencies around the world and their rotating list of names. But along the way, I discovered this interesting tidbit, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The practice of giving storms people’s names was introduced by Clement Lindley Wragge, an Anglo-Australian meteorologist at the end of the 19th century. He used female names, the names of politicians who had offended him, and names from history and mythology.

Gordon Dunn and Banner Miller’s 1960 book, Atlantic Hurricanes further enlightens us that

By properly naming a hurricane, the weatherman could publicly describe a politician (who perhaps was not too generous with weather-bureau appropriations) as “causing great distress” or “wandering aimlessly about the Pacific.”

Am I the only person who thinks that this practice is hilarious and should be brought back?

In the meanwhile, I’ve taken it upon myself to discover that there was, once upon a time, a Tropical Storm Amy. Apparently, Amy wasn’t intense and destructive enough to become a full on hurricane, but it could have been worse. As a friend jokes, it could have been “light drizzle Amy.”

As the French Open bids us farewell for the year, everyone’s talking once again about Roger Federer. Once seemingly immortal, but now, only ranked at a lousy 2nd place in the world, my little bear’s namesake has finally won his “missing” Grand Slam (which earns him a bit of spending money to the tune of €5,590,800). That makes it a record-tying Grand Slam number 14 for Mr Federer, and now the hype is everywhere.

Is he, or is he not, the Greatest of All Time? Or, as the NYT Blogs so eloquently asked its readers, “Federer the GOAT?”

I have no insights as to who the GOAT actually is, or whether Greatest of All Time even has any meaning in a sport with such a rich history, but I do have a favorite response to the posed question.

“He’s the best Quentin Tarantino lookalike tennis player. Ever.”