This last weekend was full of "sport" with many unusual results. Here are some personal observations about what I witnessed.
First the Madrid ATP Tennis Championship, where I saw the unranked David Nalbandian of Argentina first whip the No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal of Spain on Friday, Serbian Novak Djokovic in the semifinal on Saturday, and this afternoon he showed phenomenal form to beat the World No. 1 Roger Federer of Switzerland. David Nalbandian became third man to beat world's three top players en route to a title.
I can understand Nalbandian beating Rafael Nadal, as Nadal had a tough match against Andy Murray of England. I could see that this unbelievably fit human being, nadal, was tiring, but his quality tennis pulled him through against Murray.
Against Nalbandian, Nadal was overpowered by this stronger fitter individual as the signs of the strain of the week showed through. Nalbandian then beat Djokovic in the semifinal.
But the win against Federer, who is such a superb tennis player, probably the greatest I have seen in my lifetime, was quite difficult to understand. It seemed to me that Federer was giving up in the second set.
Then to Cricket, where India beat Australia in the Twenty20 match on Saturday. Although I was not able to see the match live, using CricInfo text commentary and YouTube rapid uploads by some dedicated cricket lovers, I was able to see this exciting win by India, almost live.
Then there was the World Rugby Union Championships. First Argentina whipped France for the third place. Yesterday, I watch South Africa beat England without a single try being scored in this game.
I have watched a lot of Rugby in my life. I always have thought it was a rough sport. But when I watched this final on tv, the realisation was this was probably the most violent of all field sports dawned on me. There were bleeding faces, cut eyes, dislocated shoulders and almost every minute of the 80 minutes was brutal. The tv conveyed this brutality right into the living room. I was in the centre of all this violence. I really wondered how these grown men could subject themselves and others to this degree of sheer physical torture.
It was interesting to see that when a player was ordered off the field by the referee, with blood streaming from both his eyes, he was back on the field at the first opportunity to take further part in this gladiatorial sport.
And finally, I watched the Formula 1 Championship which was held at Interlagos, Brazil. There were 3 people with a chance of winning the World Championship, and the one with the least chance was the Finn, Kimi Raikkonen, known as the "Ice Man" as he hardly displays any emotion on his face or in his voice, driving the Ferrari.
But win the Brazil race he did, and with Fernando Alonso of McLaren in 3rd place and Lewis Hamilton, also of McLaren, in 7th place, the World Championship went to Kimi, with Alonso and Hamilton getting joint second place, each with 109 points against Kimi's 110.
Almost every tv in Finland was probably tuned to seeing this race. As Finland celebrates this victory, my weekend of sports viewing taught me much!
The finesse of great tennis, the fantastic action of Twenty20 Cricket, the endurance and skill of great driving of Formula 1 cars and the intolerable physical violence of Rugby.
I did watch some football and handball over the weekend, but give me Twenty20 cricket and tennis as the two best sports to watch to pass the time away as we grow older.
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