Just the mere presence of Andy Murray in this shot caused the ballboy to choke and stumble at the final hurdle.

Much love.

How freaking cool is Roger Federer? We miss you being number one!

Who is Chris Rattue's favourite tennis player? John McEnroe. A player known for crazy outbursts, complaints, and hatred of authority.

On one hand, McEnroe exposed the often poor standards of tennis officiating, but on the other hand he also exposed his own poor sta­ndards of behaviour and the demons within.

And I loved him.

Quite.

He also likes: English cricket batsman David Gower, "cricket maestro" Richard Hadlee, Christian Cullen, Bryan Williams, George Best, Muhammad Ali, "the Swiss Miss" Martina Hingis, and Wayne Rooney.

And who does Chris hate? Tiger Woods.

Woods is distinctly ungracious to my mind, self-absorbed, and high and mighty when it comes to others who cross his path. Any humour is self serving.

The whole golf and sporting world bows before the high priest of the pressure putt, something Woods appears to accept as
his right and with disdain. He is a relentless chaser of history yet ­adds nothing to the character-filled legend of the game.

­­Round 2 of Wimbledon saw a couple of the prettier entrants tumble out of the competition.

Maria Sharapova (wow there's some racy pics there) will no longer be grunting away at the baseline and Andy Roddick's giant serves and shoulders will be missing from Round 3 (no surprises there, photo strictly for the sake of Megan and other lovers of sweaty shirtless tennis players).

But no to worry tennis-pervs there is still the sleeveless Rafael Nadal as is the plucky and lucky Ana Ivanovic.

In a recent podcast Sideline Mike asked Noizy: Who would win in a deathmatch between Tiger Woods and Roger Federer?

The answer contained a detailed and lengthy debate (mainly lengthy). What we hadn't seen however were these YouTube videos:

Golf ball to the stomach

OR 

Tennis ball to the nuts (an old favourite)

Well you've seen the evidence, what's the verdict readers? 

Until today (yesterday last night this morning stupid time zones) no one but Bjorn Borg had won four straight French Opens. Now that awesome streak belongs to both Borg and Rafael Nadal.

The player named after a ninja turtle continued his dominance of the clay surface, and his intolerance of shirts with sleeves, as he cleaned up current world number one Roger Federer in straight sets. Federer was apparently not his former dominating self (not that he's ever beaten Nadal at the French Open and his record against Nadal on any surface is now 6-11). After the match this was the commentary from some former greats:

Mats Wilander: But we hoped that when you've won 12 Grand Slams, you would give him a little bit of body language, so that maybe Rafa thinks that Roger thinks he has a chance.

Alex Corretja: Yes, yes, yes.

Wilander: What's happening to all of them against Rafa? The only battle you can battle with him is in the mind. His tennis is too good. Show me a little fire.

Corretja: He gave up. Just ridiculous. 

Why so harsh on Fed-ex? It wasn't just a straight sets win by Nadal it was a 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 crushing. Nadal is now pressing in on becoming number one if (and this is a big "if") he can beat Federer at Wimbledon.

Men's tennis was looking kind of boring until the Federer-Nadal contest came along. Hopefully we can look forward to a few more duels between the two and not flat out destructions.

ps. yes, that is a geeky title I used

You know who retired on Wednesday? The best female tennis player of her generation: Justine Henin.

We used to call her the "female Roger Federer" because that used to be a compliment. This year she did much better than him so Federer now wishes he was the "male Justine Henin".

Henin finished her career with 41 singles titles, seven grand slams, a singles record of 493-107 and career earnings of $19,461,375. And when she retired she did it as world #1 (the first woman to do so). The new ranking will be out on Monday but this last week will be Henin's 117th nonconsecutive week in the top spot, the sixth-longest reign at No. 1 since the computer rankings began in 1975.

That means that your new world #1 is...Maria Sharapova (19 singles titles, 3 grand slams, 297-68 record, $11,992,028). For some reason it seems a little bit of a let down.

Super 14 action looms, and the Dropkicks discuss the potential impact of the new experimental law variations. Also: sevens, the circuit pulls into the Dropkicks hometown of Wellington; rowing, the great Drysdale v. Waddell duel; cricket, Shane Bond off to play in the IPL; and Atheletes and Dicks of the Week.

Download Episode 03

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