Courtside Greetings

After 4 long days of watching athletes do battle in the blistering desert heat, one thing is clear -- tennis players are a very strange breed.  On some level you figure they'd have to be - tennis is an individual sport that requires ridiculous mental discipline and involves a grueling schedule filled with weary road travel.  But some of the stuff I've seen this week puts these guys in a whole different category of kooky.  Yesterday Rafael Nadal, the world's second best player, started to walk away from his chair to get ready to serve, but then quickly turned around and bolted back to his seat to meticulously arrange his water bottles, as if their alignment somehow directly contributes to his level of play.  Then there's Novak Djokovic whose habit of bouncing the ball 20 or more times before he delivers a serve got so freaking annoying I found myself screaming "hit it already!!!" from the stands.  Finally, Tommy Haas. He was so annoyed by the crickets flying about the court the other night (see picture below), he threatened the umpire to "do something about them! Get a broom or something!" When the official shrugged as if to say, dude, it's mother nature doing its thing, a highly irritated Haas took it upon himself to swat every insect in the sky and on the court with his racket.  As my sister put it, "man, tennis players are almost as weird as hockey goalies!"