Unlike Superbowl XLIII where I wasn’t particularly rooting for any particular team, for the Australian open I was rooting for Federer. I haven’t seen the match yet so this post may be a little premature, but I thought I should write this anyways. Federer, who now has lost his number one ranking was trying to tie Pete Sampras’ record of 14 grand slams, played like a champion throughout the tournament specially beating Roddick convincingly in the semi-finals was all set for the “epic” show down between him and his nemesis – Rafael Nadal. Nadal, who before this match had never reached a final on hard court, was also playing great tennis and played well against fellow Spaniard, Fernando Verdasco, to finally win the semi-final in 5 sets to setup the epic final.
Once that happened I started to think about where else have I seen such rivalry, and given my love for football (yes I admit it – American Football), the two teams that come to mind are the Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots. To draw an analogy, in my mind, Federer is like Peyton Manning and the Colts who kept losing to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in 3 championship games before finally going on to win the Superbowl against the bears 2 year ago. Similarly I feel that Federer, has been losing a lot to Nadal and I feel that at some point it becomes more psychological than anything else.
In any case from what I read (and of course I did see the score so I know that it was a 5 setter), it was a great match again between the two and I guess that Federer will just have to wait to first equal Sampras’ record and and then hopefully he can beat it ( I think he will soon – after all he is only mid-way through his career 
) and move on to be one of the all time greats of the game. In the mean time however Nadal will be basking in his glory rightfully so.
What a great weekend of sports it has been.
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Well another football season is over (almost over – probowl remaining) and the superbowl today was the 43rd one between the Steelers and the Cardinals. Unlike last year, I personally wasn’t supporting either team, although I did want Kurt Warner to win another ring. However all of the day’s proceedings came down to a few big plays, a few big coaching “mistakes” and a few big officiating “blunders”. I will try to describe each of these below -
Big play – The biggest play in my mind from today’s game was the James Harrison 100 yard interception return for a touch down. That changed the momentum of the game going into the half time in my opinion. Instead of either going in wth a tie or a lead, the cardinals went into half time trailing 17-7, a two possession game. Which meant that they had to catchup from behind first before even thinking about lead / winning. There were other big plays in the game like the one from Larry Fitzgerald for the go ahead touch down and the one from Santonio Holmes that got them in range for the final touch down. I think that they were primarily trying to get in field goal range to go into overtime at the point when Santonio Holmes ran to the 5 yard line for a first and goal.
Big officiating blunders – The first one was personal foul on Arizona Cardinals for roughing the passer. In my opinion that was in the flow of the play and Rothlesberger just got the ball off before being hit. In most games that wouldn’t be called.
The next one was on Adrian Wilson for running into the holder for the field goal. Again he was off balance and didn’t intend to run into the holder. However that I guess the rule book is pretty clear.
The other one which in my mind was somewhat controversial was the holding in the end zone of the steelers that lead to the safety.
The last but not the least was the last play for the cardinals. That play shouldv’e been atleast called for a review from the booth. I think that it was close enough that the booth umpire should have called for the review.
All in all a great superbowl game after a long time and kudos to the Steelers for winning with a great two minute drill.
I have now officially been in the US for a decade. I still remember the day I first reached the US – 11/18/1998. As I start to think about the 10 years some good memories and some frustrating situations are flashing by. I arrived via Singapore on 11/18/1998 some time in the afternoon and my good friend Vikram was the airport to receive me. Leaving from the airport for the corporate apartment and stopping at Amarin thai for lunch – it was my first time outside of the country I was born and brought up in – India. I started working for Sun Microsystems as a contractor pretty much in a couple of weeks and after a year and 2 months I officially joined Sun Microsystems. I still remember being part of the first release of J2EE – J2EE 1.2 and the kind of team and schedules we had. That in my mind has been the best team and the best experience of my life in the professional world. As of this writing I am still with Sun Microsystems and still with the same group – Java EE and working on the next revision of the platform. A long time for a most people in the valley and have been through the ups and downs of the company.
On a personal front I got to travel the world both for work and for personal vacation both in and outside the US, got married to my beautiful and loving wife Preety and now we have a 20 month old daughter that is the apple of our eyes. My brother also moved to the US first to study for his masters and then to work
Some of the frustrating things personally has been the process for greencard processing. Most people who have lived in the US that long are citizens or on the way to becoming citizens. However for both me and my wife we have applications that are filed in June 2001 and February 2000 respectively and are still waiting for the USCIS to approve the application.
All in all I would say it has been an interesting ride and an interesting learning experience of living here in the US.
I came across snappyfingers.com website today. Basically SnappyFingers is a Question and Answer search engine. It indexes FAQs from all over the web and provides a search interface. It seems like an interesting site and not only is it useful for finding answers but also for researching common queries surrounding a topic. Looks promising but still in it’s early stages though. For more details about the company click here.
It’s been a while since my last blog. The 2008 NBA finals between Kobe Bryant and his LA Lakers and the “new” big three (KG, Ray Allen and Pierce) of the Boston Celtics. The Celtics have made a big turnaround from the previous season to one with the best record in the NBA this season. Great credit goes to Danny Ainge who made the right trades at the beginning of the season to take the team to the NBA finals on the verge of winning it’s 17th NBA title and for the first time to the finals since 1986. I hope that the Celtics will not collapse from this point and will win this championship. Unlike my hatred for the New England Patriots I actually like this Celtics team and am rooting for them. I hope that there isn’t going to be another “Tim Donaghy” incident here. As for Phil Jackson stop complaining about the discrepancy of the free throws.
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The New England Patriots “path to perfection”, “19-0″ season has come to an end in a rather uncanny fashion – perfection and 18-1. Relax 1972 Dolphins. you’ll still are the “only” unbeaten team in a season thanks to the New York football giants. I also want to highlight David Tyree the rookie receiver who made an excellent catch on an even unbelievable scramble by Eli Manning on 3rd down and 5 to go with 1:08 left in the game. As for the New England Patriots they will have a long off season specially given that they had to give up their first draft pick with the spygate scandal. GO NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS!!!.
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Adam Gilchrist is a true gentleman in the sport. On his final tour before he retires, at his stop at the Gabba he was caught behind trying to pull. The ball snicked off his glove and carried to Dhoni and he did not wait for the umpire’s decision. He could have probably gotten away had he waited, but that’s what makes him a gentleman in the sport and in the Australian team.
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As per Justice Hansen’s report the incident was initiated by Andrew Symonds when he took offense to the fact that Bhajji patted Bret Lee on the back and started an unnecessary incentive laden attack. When asked if he had an objection to that Symonds reposnded – “My objection was that a test match is no place to be friendly with an opposition player, is my objection”. Symonds what do you have to say about this. However Bhajji was fined half the match fee and Symonds was let go? Is this real justice? Yet Cricket Australia, Ricky Pointing and others are “furious” over the decision. What makes Symonds so special that he isn’t even being criticized for initiating the whole thing? Pointing get Symonds in control before being furious about the decision.
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In one of my previous post about cricket I said that Australia is the best team in the sport. However after seeing some of the current series between India and Australia and the way the Australian team players, in particular Andrew Symonds has been in the series I need to rethink that statement. A best team in sports isn’t one that just wins but does so with class, one that Andrew Symonds for sure does not have. In the second test match between Australia and India in Sydney Andrew Symonds was out not once, not twice but thrice and still wasn’t judged out by the umpire. One of the three was a clear caught behind by the wicket keeper to which Symond had to say -
“Apparently, in the eyes of some critics, I should have merrily walked after nicking one to the Indian wicketkeeper. But I have never once walked in my career and I’m not about to start now. And, barring Adam Gilchrist, nor will anybody else in the current Australian team”
If this is really true then the only true sportsman in the Australian cricket team is Adam Gilchrist aka Gillie. I tip my hat to you Gillie if this is really true. As for the rest of the team – being the best isn’t about just winning but also being a true sportsman.
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I am currently visiting my in-laws in Bombay (Mumbai) for a couple of days and they live pretty close to the airport. The one thing that bugs me the most here is the fact that there is a lot of air traffic at night. Want to know why? India is one of the few countries that lets planes land and take off during late night / early hours of the morning. I feel that a lot of international airlines actually misuse this and make the flights either land or take off late in the night / early in the wee hours of the morning. India, like most other countries, should ban take off and landing of flights late night / early morning. The occasional delayed flights should be fine. However flights schedule should not allow flights between 11:00 p.m and 5:00 a.m in the morning. A lot of the European countries and US cities don’t allow flights later than 10:00 p.m or allow them to fly out only in a certain flight pattern so that it does not affect the local residents as much. I wish India would also put some such rules in place.
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