Back by popular demand...

That's right... I'm back baby.

Popular demand is a major understatement, and by major understatement, I mean major overstatement. So there was actually no demand, I made it up. Are you following this? Cool.

I've been trying to stay up late lately to watch the Australian Open. It's been tough, and I've pretty much failed every night, but that doesn't mean I wont stay up late tonight to watch the finals. Because I definitely will.

World no. 1 Roger Federer has now reached 18 of the past 19 Grand Slam finals, which is unbelievable. He's already the greatest player of all time with 15 Slam Championships (previous record holder Pete Sampras had 14), and I can comfortably say that Federer is still under-appreciated. Will someone eventually pass him as the greatest of all time? Probably. But we'll never see someone come up with the consistency he has.

As noted, he's now reached 18 of the past 19 finals, but he's also reached 23 consecutive Grand Slam semi-finals. It's not like he's fallen in the early rounds and had a few mental lapses, he's been in the final four 23 straight times. There's no equivalent to that in the world of sports, trying to make a comparison to baseball, basketball or football would be absurd - because he's better than that. (Note: Federer has so many career achievements, there's two Wikipedia pages, one for Roger Federer, and one for Roger Federer's career achievements. Two words : BALL ER)

I've heard people question the level of competition Federer has played against, saying there's not many clear cut rivals for him. After Nadal the field drops off - which is foolish.

If it weren't for Federer, I think Rafael Nadal would be the greatest player of all time. Pete Sampras was great, absolutely great, 14 slams, seven Wimbledon titles - Great. But like every sport, the game is evolving. We've never seen guys like Nadal playing tennis. He's 6'2, 190ish pounds, is the fastest guy tennis has ever seen, and he looks like this:



See? Sports are EVOLVING. Saying they don't is like saying the 1972 Dolphins, the only undefeated team in NFL history, would run the table again today. It's STUPID.

Tennis isn't a physically dominating sport right? Enter Nadal. Just watch one of his matches, against anyone, and he looks like a man playing with kids, and he's the one who's actually a kid at only 23-years old. It's sickening.

As the years pass, the game changes. I don't think Pete Sampras would fare as well today as he did in his day. Would he still be a great player? Of course. Federer and Nadal are that much better - and others are approaching quickly. Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Juan Martin Del Potro and Marin Cilic are all guys on the rise quickly, and they're all under the age of 22. That's what's really scary.

In every sport, the age at which athletes are developing is getting younger and younger. We've known teenage baseball and basketball players could compete forever, but now every sport is seeing young guys come in and tear things up.

Song of the Week honors go to - "Too Much" by All Time Low. Kinda emo, I know, but what can ya do? We're all a little emo, I'm just the one writin' the blog and taking the heat.

Mahalo.