TENNIS AYNAOUI?

The Golden Globes caused a major conflict in the nine o'clock hour last night. The WB was showing the third episode of my new favorite reality TV show "High School Reunion" and The Deuce (ESPN 2) was airing live Australian Open tennis. Even with some dextrous remote control work, My Girl and I still missed a good portion of "Reunion" which I hope to catch in its entirety when they re-air it on Thursday night. What we did see was quite entertaining, with our favorite "character" The Nerd boxing The Bully and making time with The Homecoming Queen. I need to see the whole episode before I can give a fair and accurate assessment. Things looked bleak in the first half of the ten o'clock hour. Renee Zellweger won, Richard Gere won, and Andy Roddick lost the first two sets to the 25th seed, 20 year-old Russian Mikhail Youzhny. But the tide turned as the clock approached eleven. "The Hours" won Best Picture and Roddick began to mount a comeback. The Golden Globes surprisingly finished on time and generously left the spotlight to tennis. Roddick came all the way back from two sets to love to pull out an improbable victory and stay alive in the tournament, slated to play Lleyton Hewitt in the quarterfinals. But, 18th seed Younes El-Aynaoui had other plans. He served the match of his life and would not let world #1 Hewitt take control of the match. Hewitt won the first set in a tie-breaker, El-Aynaoui won the next in tie-breakers with neither player surrendering a break of serve. Until the fourth set when Hewitt, the hometown favorite, double-faulted on break point and gave El-Aynaoui a window to win the match. And win he did, serving it out and taking the fourth set 6-4, upsetting the best player in the world and disappointing a nation in the process.

I must take leave of this blog presently to retire to the living room where I will watch Andre Agassi play his quarterfinal match against Sebastian Grosjean, the fast Frenchman whose name periodically gets stuck on a loop in my head. Au revoir, pikers.