Hey everyone, coming at you again with my latest SBNation blog profile. With all the migraines lately it slipped my mind until about thirty minutes before this was supposed to be posted so I'm going to fall back on looking at a blog I'm very comfortable writing about as opposed to the blog I had in mind for these week.
SBNation sits at 249 blogs and it's almost about time for me to stop ranting about the 'march to 250' and communities and all that. But until then I will continue to stress: 250 blogs is 250 communities not unlike ours. There is something here for everyone, I'd be willing to bed that SBNation has at least 3-5 blogs that would cater to anyone. Last week I took a look at Mocking the Draft, and it's something, considering the upcoming draft, that you should revisit if you missed the last post.
Today I'm looking at The Daily Forehand, a tennis blog. Not very many people know it, but tennis is... right up there to me with football. I'm picking this one because it's a "comfort" blog, to me, in that, on short notice I'll be able to write about it with ease.... but it's still a really good blog, and if you read on, I'll tell you why.
Editor: Ben Rothenberg
A few years ago I was watching TV (imagine that), and DirecTV was advertising the best live coverage of the upcoming Australian Open. I'd never watched a tennis match before, but I figured I may as well. So I stayed up, and I turned it on for the semi-finals. I can't remember who it was in that round, but I found it to be incredibly... calculated. Tennis brought such an air of competitiveness that I really didn't think the sport could bring. I mean, it's two guys just hitting it back and forth, there's not much to it, right?
What I found was a game that was unbelievably tiring, a game that was very, very physical, and at the same time as much of a mental challenge as it was physical. There was emotion, and a lot of it, and I thought that was something I had to reserve for the sports with the "big championships." So of course I had no idea that this Australian Open was such a big deal. Then I tuned in for the finals, and it was something close to a five hour match that I watched literally every second of. I learned that guy A's forehand was something to be feared, but guy B took advantage of a weaker backhand with a serve that was just too much to handle.
To finish off my little history lesson, I put aside tennis for the post part, watching it whenever I could, until the next year's semifinal at the very same Australian Open where Fernando Verdasco took on Rafael Nadal in what is still my favorite match. Vernando had one of the best outings of his career, bringing the world number one at the time Nadal to his knees. It was a losing effort, but an effort it was, and from then on I became a die-hard fan of Verdasco. So I haven't been following the sport for very long but I've done my history homework and I am very much a fan.
So moving on to the blog, which I've yet to touch up on. If you're at all interested in tennis and the ATP tour, you should definitely check it out. It doesn't always have daily articles, but there isn't always daily tennis. You will find the latest there is to know about the tour, the top players, anything going on in the world of professional tennis, you can read there. So why go far from SBNation when just about everything you need is right here?
A majority of you will read this and move on, but I urge you, check it out, read up on some of the commentary there and understand that following a sport like tennis is just as easy as following a sport like football, and in just about every case: easier. With the good coverage and good (albeit small) community over at The Daily Forehand, you've got a starting point to learn from.
Right now we're in the thick of the ATP tour, with some big upsets already taking place. I cannot explain well enough in text just how intense and technical a tennis matchup can be, so I only can say that you should check it out if you're interested in something while the football onseason continues. The Daily Forehand is a great place, run by a passionate tennis fan, whom I wager wishes he had more time to do what he does. They're up to date, and you can be too if you just head on over.
Now I bet you're wondering what your bonus is? Well, I just wanted to hand over a couple more links concerning the ongoing NCAA Basketball Tournament. March Madness is in full swing and I wanted to link you to two SBNation blogs that I didn't know enough about on short notice to cover in depth.
They are Searching For Billy Edelin, a blog covering the scope of NCAA Men's Basketball Division 1 and Blogging the Bracket, a blog focused on the bracketology of the ongoing tournament. With all that is going on currently, make sure to head on over and check out both of these blogs for prediction and coverage. Enjoy your lunch folks, and I hope to see you at the open thread in an hour.