Re: The "enjoy your little break, you've earned it (and vamos mandy)" Spring HC Th
Some more gossip about schoolmarmy Roger being annoyed with Joey Porter :devil:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090407.WBTennis20090407234319/WBStory/WBTennis
It's just not tennis
Tom Tebbutt, April 7, 2009
The NFL, in the person of Miami Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter, came to tennis last week at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami in a very noticeable way.
Porter, who won a SuperBowl with the Pittsburgh Steelers, was seated on an aisle just a few rows up behind the court for the Roger Federer–Andy Roddick quarter-final night match.
Apparently Porter, 6 foot 3 and 255 pounds, had earlier met Roddick and he was extremely animated in supporting his fellow American.
He would frequently get up and walk down closer to the court and shout (maybe bellow is a better word) encouragement in a very demonstrative fashion as Roddick returned to the court after a change-over. For many fans in the stadium, his behaviour was over the top, especially in the tennis context.
The burly linebacker would interject his support even when Roddick was at the opposite end of the court, with Federer just below him.
After Federer won a close 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 victory – a match that he seemed about to coast through uneventfully when he led 6-3, 2-1 and love-40 on Roddick's serve – some reports claimed he was able to ignore the vociferous Porter and go on to win the match.
Well, that was not entirely true. Coming out of a change-over early in the third set, the usually unflappable Federer said something like, “Can't you make him stay in his seat?” to umpire Gerry Armstrong. The British official replied that he had already said something. Then Federer responded with, “I'm looking right at him.”
Clearly Porter was getting to the world No. 2.
It might have been a bigger issue had Federer lost. Later, neither he nor Roddick was asked about it during their post-match media conferences.
The Florida Sun Sentinel quoted Porter as saying about his tennis experience, “I knew about the scoring system. What I didn't know about was there is a little golf tendency about it. You're supposed to be quiet and I caught myself yelling at the wrong time. I picked up a little bit of etiquette today.''