Tennis trauma

My Easter holiday started this afternoon, and very welcome it is too. I have five whole days to myself without having to worry about lesson planning or what I'm going to to with my class of four-year-olds who have a limited concentration span of about two minutes, unless they're watching telly.

These last three days of classes have passed uneventfully, all the children were already on holiday from school and were much better behaved in class in the Academia as a result. Also, we've been playing more games and watching films, which is more fun for me too.

However, I did make the mistake of using Woody Allen's Match Point in one of my adult classes. I wasn't much of a fan of Mr. Allen's before, and I'm still not. I watched the film over the weekend and was not impressed. For a start, the film is full of unconvincing British stereotypes, in particular the dodgy London landlord whose lines were full of words like geezer and mate. Also, there's the upper-class friend whose every second word, it seemed, was 'bloody'.

Secondly, Woody Allen either knows very little about tennis or is trying hard to ingratiate himself with the British. For a start, the main character, who, we are to understand used to play tennis professionally before giving it up to coach, has no idea what he's talking about. When asked 'Who was better, or tougher, Henman or Agassi?' replies, 'they were both great'. What tosh. For a start there's no need to ask that question as the answer is obvious. But having been asked, the only possible answer is Agassi. Hmm, lets see: Andre, eight grands slams, and one of the few players to have won all four - Tim, zero. He never even made it to a Grand Slam final, not even at Wimbledon. Andre trained by running up hills in the LA heat and Tim, we presume, practised fist pumping in the mirror (and he was still never any good at it). I'm possibly being rather unfair on England's until-recently-favourite tennis player. My dislike of the man has as much to do with the reaction, the fawning, of the British public to his performance as much as his usually uninspiring, lacklustre play itself. That and having to watch his matches on Eurosport while other players, those in possession of more flair and more character, were not shown, grrr. As a quick aside, I did once email Eurosport to complain about this and the next day they carried on showing Henman and all the commentators made a great effort to point out what a wonderful player he was at every opportunity, pah.

Agassi: Better and tougher than Henman.

So anyway, to get back on track (although, by the way, I do like Andy Murray, he does have character) this section of the film only served to make the two main male characters in the film totally unconvincing to me. A view enforced by an earlier line when the ex-professional player mentions not having the same talent as Rusedski or Agassi - please! Greg had his moments, although my favourite was his outburst at Wimbledon a few years back (and Boris Becker's reaction) rather than any display of talent (however, at least he made it to a Grand Slam final) but to lump him together with Agassi just won't do (and what about Federer? Does Woody Allen not know he exists?). And such a wet, uncommitted, passionless reply to the previously-mentioned question made the character's actions later in the film just as unbelievable.

Federer: He's really very good.

So there it is, rant over, I can get on with enjoying my holiday now I have that out of my system.