New Season's Resolutions

Happy 2016, y'all! We are 14 days into the New Year, but it's never too late to think up some New Year's Resolutions or, better yet, 2016 goals that one can strive to achieve during this revolution around the big, bright, reddish-yellow orb of which we are so dependent sun. I have a list of general goals I would like to achieve this year (e.g. read more books), but I also have a couple of tennis-related items that would make me a better fan this year and in the years to come:

Resolution: never miss the drama
(Daily Mail | @WTAreactions)

• Organize Twitter - I deeply apologize for invading your mentions with quizzical notifications about being added to some random list, but one of my goals for the past few years was to organize my timeline and I'm forcing myself to get around to it this year. Parsing out certain segments of Tennis Twitter is already realizing benefits: I can get the latest goings on of Novak Djokovic and enjoy the Nole love bubble on one list, see what the journos are reporting on another, and curate the fun tweets from my favorite Tweeters without having to sift through the TL hay to find those lovely needles. I also find myself on Twitter less now that I know I can always go back and find the important tweets that I may have missed.
• Plan sleep - This is especially important this Australia swing for those of us in the States and Europe. FOMO is a major pandemic within the hardcore tennis fan community. With most tennis throughout the year playing outside of my timezone, I often find myself staying up until WTF o'clock in the morning or waking at ungodly hours to watch the matches I have circled on the Order of Play. None of this is good for my day-to-day life. Instead of getting involved in a marathon of matches, I need to pick my spots and understand that I'm just not gonna catch everything. Whatever I do miss, I can get a succinct recap by consulting one of my lists!
• Watch more challengers/juniors - Since streams are available for the ATP Challenger Tour and certain USTA junior events, I have little excuses to ignore this echelon of the sport. I've been spoiled by high-quality tennis from some of my favs, so this may be a difficult one for me to follow through on. Still, it would be beneficial to keep track of the young or obsolete talents at the lower levels of the game just to say "I saw them first" when they breakout on the main stage of the tour.

What tennis resolutions do you have this year? Let me know with a comment or a tweet! Hope you're all ready for the Australian Open - should be crazy.

(p.s. Year of the Gentleman is still a tough album, so underrated.)

Cleaning Up the Mess in Madrid

Wow, Madrid! That was the crappiest mandatory ever!

Call me an anti-traditionalist American, but clay tournaments are boring. The matches are slow. The rallies are long...and slow. The days are slow...and long. And Madrid 2013 seemed to magnify all of these issues I have with clay and put them to the forefront. Granted, this is all from my own perspective as an observer, but there were many times I was asking for the blue clay back (especially since I was watching on my iPhone at work and I can't afford to stare at the screen too long to locate the ball mid-rally when my bosses tend to swing by often).

ANYWAY, Madrid had quite a few stories, but we'll focus on the ones that were made on court.

The Stan Man Can: the Swiss #2 (but #1 in our hearts...maybe?) has joined his countryman, Roger Federer, in the Top 10 by his recent clay results, including a thorough beatdown of David Ferrer in Portugal, overpowering a red hot Dimitrov, and outlasting Tsonga and Berdych in back-to-back rounds. It's too bad he ran out of gas in today's final. I would've loved to see him give Rafa a bit more trouble, but who can blame him after playing 10 matches in 11 days over two different tournaments? I thought his crushing loss to Djokovic in Melbourne would deflate him, but it seems to have galvanized him. He's a legitimate threat to the Big Four and I look forward to seeing how he fares through the clay swing and in U.S. hard court season.

Baby Boy: speaking of Dimitrov, Madrid 2013 will be remember as the tournament where Grigor showed what he can do and how he can inspire a crowd. He broke through and took down the #1 ranked player in the world in one of the best matches I've seen in my short life. As a Nole fan, it took me a solid 24 hours to realize how great and important that match was to Grigor's growth. He has the complete offensive arsenal. We would all love to see that amount of talent sustained throughout an entire tournament.

Deja Vu: speaking of Dimitrov, his gf can't catch a break against Serena. MaSha lost, yet again, to SW in the Madrid final in straight sets in undramatic fashion. I don't think she'll ever break through against Serena. It's a nightmare matchup for MaSha and SW will never brain cramp against her like she does against other players such as Anabel Medina Garrigues (what was that bagel all about?).

Coming Up Short: speaking of Dimitrov, he and Kei Nishikori scored huge wins against the world #1 and #2 only to bow out in the very next round. Kei's loss was especially disappointing because he lost to No. 113 Pablo Andujar in a very poor display. It takes more than beating one great player to reach the top. These young guns will have to earn there places amongst the best the hard way.

Who does that?

All in all, Madrid made a few waves, but the tournament as a whole...well, sucked. Hopefully the Djokovic and Federer would have the sense to touch a racquet before their first match at Rome later this week. What are your closing thoughts on our first combined clay event of the season, not counting Oeiras? Miss the blue clay like I do? Leave a comment, or unfollow me on Twitter and delete me off BBM. Whichever you prefer.