#tennis online

[faeryaesther]

WHO IS THIS DIVAAAAAA 😍😍😍😍😍😍

[iamsigningmylifeaway]

in case anyone was wondering I went to the gay club as wimbledon 2008 rafael nadal (not one person recognized me)

[muirneach]

rune 💫

[mortiflyer]

me when i thought i liked star stable more when it was older and of shittier quality because that's when everyone said it was better and then i took time away from the fandom space and realized i was a) in like third grade when the game was "old" b) genuinely love the new updates, quests, and horses

[m00sebaby]

reading up on the zheng qinwen drama and good LORD. first of all, danielle collins shook iga's hand at the olympics and snapped at her a bit and no one really turned that into a federal issue. iga refused to shake an umpire's hand after she lost to zheng qinwen in the olympics. lots of hands get shaken in tennis, lots of exchanges are had but it sure seems like the only ones that ever make any sort of news or have any sort of push are when they're tied to a woman of color. second of all, i feel like the common thread is people saying that the handshake was "cold" which i am unclear on the way to measure the "warmth" of a handshake when i am not shaking the person's hand. and honestly? maybe its just me, but, after a long match where you're fucking exhausted from physical exertion, why does it matter if the handshake was warm? who cares? they're athletes. they're competing.

its tennis. not the miss manners etiquette finals. she shook her hand. she did what was expected of her. she didn't jump the net and challenge andreeva to a bare knuckle brawl. expecting it to be a "warmer" handshake feels not dissimilar to saying she should've smiled more.

[batsplat]

Quick questions about Casey

1. You mentioned something about his back, did he have back issues

2. When was he diagnosed with his chronic illness and what was it (I wanna say it’s sleep related)

3. I read that he hated that the Ducati has yellow on it when Vale switched over

(Not a question but I watched hitting the apex recently and man Casey saying not gonna lie I enjoyed watching him suffer more then we did is the hater levels I want to reach but also your ambitions outweighed your talent iconic)

Did you see that Vale did a interview/show thing in Italy and they asked if his balls were named Casey and Marc like wild stuff is happening over there

in order:

1) back pain: yes, he had back issues going back to an injury sustained at assen 2003. from his autobiography -

After crashing out of the lead group again at Barcelona I was chasing Jenkner for the win in wet conditions at Assen but Dovi's bike missed a gear and I hit his back wheel and ended up in the gravel trap. I had to lay the bike down before I hit a wall. (That crash would affect more than one race; the back injury I sustained would go on to plague my career.)

and he's discussed the issue post-retirement (x):

Basically with chronic fatigue, I can't keep myself fit and healthy. I have a problem with my ribs, and I often suffer from back pain. I have some disks that put pressure on my nerves and cause spasms. I've improved by taking new medication, but I can't train or go out and do things.

apart from the sepang 2006 flare up discussed in this post, there were a couple other major recurrences during his career. first off, estoril 2011, where casey's back suddenly started causing him excruciating pain during the race (x):

and from his autobiography:

My chances of chasing [Jorge and Dani] for the win at Estoril were ruined on the first lap by Marco Simoncelli - who cut me off in turn one and then crashed right in front of me in turn four - as well as my old back injury from 2003, which flared up again. At some point during that race I felt my back completely lock up on me and I couldn't move for three or four corners. I was struggling to do anything and could hardly breathe so for a moment I thought I would have to pull in but thankfully within half a lap it eased up a little, got better and we managed to finish in third place.

lastly, casey had to miss a day of pre-season testing in early 2012 (x):

“I was stretching this morning for a good 20 minutes preparing to go out on track for the first time and then all of a sudden my back just locked up on me,” Stoner said. “I couldn’t move or do anything. I had to call someone to come and help me move into a position that was less painful! “Then I had some physio on it straight away trying to get it better for this afternoon, but it wasn’t feeling good. I had some more physio after lunch, but it still wasn’t easing up. I felt I could have gone out on the bike in the afternoon, but we all agreed it would probably make it worse for tomorrow.

and from his autobiography:

The new RC213V was fantastic but I couldn't even ride it on the first day of the test because of my old back injury, which flared up again when I was warming up. I must have been stretching for a good twenty minutes and then all of a sudden my back just locked up on me. I couldn't move or do anything - I had to call someone to come and help me move into a position that was less painful.

so yeah. nasty injury. I think that one and the wrist were probably the worst continuous problem zones for casey

2) casey was advised he had chronic fatigue syndrome way back in 2006 - but the diagnosis on its own didn't necessarily mean either he or the doctors knew how badly the condition was affecting him. he certainly didn't think it was a satisfactory explanation of his mystery illness in 2009 when he was forced to step away for several races. during that time, he eventually identified lactose intolerance as the culprit - which a helpful anon a few months back informed me makes sense as a comorbidity with chronic fatigue. he was able to improve his health in 2009 by cutting lactose out of his diet, though it was only after his career that he came to better understand the full impact chronic fatigue syndrome was having on him

3) yeah, I mean, there's one mention of casey hating valentino's yellow on the ducati in his autobiography, which has been posted in this parish and I do admittedly enjoy referring back to a lot. just one of those fun accidentally revealing lines, casey's always good for those. the key thing here, right, is that objectively this bike is not inappropriately yellow. there are many bikes out there that have made more extensive use of a secondary colour specific to the rider, which if anything is extremely helpful when you're watching the races. valentino's ducati is a red bike with a yellow number on it. sure, there's riders who just stick with a white number - like the dani/marc honda era, which was just annoying any time they're close to each other on the track. jorge has a red number, and it makes the yamaha era fights with valentino more watchable. also, take a wild guess who else had a personalised colour scheme. rhymes with 'moaner'. it's really just not in any way remarkable, right

so either casey's perception or his memory or his commitment to honesty is out of whack here. I already posted this photo a while back but just for context, here's valentino and casey's ducati bikes side by side:

from the way casey talks, you'd think valentino had thrown a bucket of fluorescent paint over the thing. sure, valentino's seat has a little yellow on it - but given how you'd generally expect that thing to be covered up, this should not be a deal breaker. at this point what it comes down to is whether you aesthetically prefer the colour yellow or the australian flag

and what is so fun about this is... it's not just that casey was paying attention to how much yellow was on the ducati. it's not just that he commented on it at some point. it's the fact that it made it all the way to his autobiography. let's assume casey isn't just being a dick here and knowingly exaggerating... I mean, even if his assessment of the colour scheme were accurate, this would still be a petty thing to bring up. ducati is not going to 'destroy their brand' by running a yellow-ish motogp bike for two years. not to be too cynical here but. it is also hard to take casey's concern for ducati's brand integrity particularly seriously. something about how casey wants to provide evidence for how valentino made motogp worse in basically every way imaginable... like casey takes such a big picture view with valentino, where he does manage to thematically tie him in with 90% of casey's problems with the sport. even with the colour scheme

idk it's just so charming to me because it's SUCH a cheap shot. each valentino feud has its own distinctly fun feel... and there's just something with this one where. y'know. it's not like they're making each other 'worse people' exactly, but they DO have the ability to drag each other down into the absolute dredges. they just make each other PETTY. like valentino always had an ability to get under casey's skin, sometimes on purpose but often just kind of accidentally... whereas casey had to put in the hard work in order to become really, really good at pissing valentino off. and by the end of their rivalry they'd gotten so skilled at pushing each other's buttons that you've got casey still thinking post-retirement about how much he fucking hated valentino's bike colour scheme

casey probably really did remember that bike as being offensively yellow, which just implies a pleasing level of attention being paid to valentino at all times. even when casey really didn't have much reason to be paying attention to valentino as a competitive threat. just this intense preoccupation with all he saw of valentino for years and years. imagine worming your way into the head of a competitor to such an extent that you're at risk of giving them a pavlovian response to a primary colour. beautiful

end notes: yes, schadenfreude is Good. it's fun how much casey's leaned into that angle in his own narrativisation of his rivalry, again comes back to all those handy communication skills he learned along the way. really understood the narrative oomf of the jerez 2011 incident (a bit more on that here and here). and on that last bit. I'm gonna be honest, as a rule I keep up with nothing athletes do after their career is over unless it's relevant to their actual careers. so I have... no clue what this is referring to and. uh. I feel like I'm missing a bit of context there

[internalweepingmentality]

Me saying I ‘hate’ most players: affectionate

Me saying I ‘hate’ Stef: I fucking hate him.

[micahsolusod]

I dipped my toes back into voice acting this year. It was really nice getting to work with new studios and new clients on some super rad projects! I’m just grateful to be considered these days.

My thanks to the studios that continue to keep remote recording accessible!🙏

[fritzes]

dude get off your phone

[youandthemountains]

there should be a how-to site that's like ok let's say I'm an alien who's just beamed to earth and has zero background cultural social knowledge: how I do this thing.

[muirneach]

actually hold on. while im here

[flyerskay]

Hockey doesn’t have steroid scandals because they all believe their hair is where their power comes from

[shining-glowstick]

My parents who are in Southtyrol right now on holiday just bought me the Vanity Fair with Jannik on it. 🥹

I will not understand anything, I don’t care

[gergoats-gogurt]

it’s him!! it’s -checks smudged writing on hoof- Verizon Nokia!!!

[newgabeorder]

Does Sports Time Theater Need An Expansion?

Now that my father is dead, I feel like I want to pay respects to him by expanding the sports cartoons on my weekend anime block project, Toon Time Theater. I may not be into sports like how my late father was, but I want to enourage my audience to watch something that also attracts sports fans. Previously, I live-streamed Captain Tsubasa (2018 series, Season 1, covering soccer), Sword Art Online (Aincrad arc, covering Swordplay/Chambara), and Rent-A-Girlfriend (despite not being a sports anime, but covering Bowling), and now I made it a habit to live-stream Haikyu!! (covering indoor volleyball) since I launched Toon Time Theater back in July 2023.

Once I complete the current season, I've been wondering what cartoons to live-stream to expand on the Sports Time Theater sub-block. I was considering the likes of Slam Dunk and Kuroko's Basketball considering our love for the sport. However, the 2026 World Cup is on its way, but my father was no soccer fan or soccer coach back when he lived. Well, I have intentions of live-streaming the second season of the most recent Captain Tsubasa series in two years to help encourage viewers to check out the World Cup when the games happen for real. Not to mention there is The Prince of Tennis, which I intend to live-stream once I complete all of Haikyu!!, including the Dumpster Battle movie that concludes the series for real. We'll just have to wait and see.

[leeeugenie]

Spice up your look, Baddie 💎