Be careful on your next visit

Not mine but I consider it mine to share – this happened in the capital city of MALAYSIA, KUALA LUMPUR.

“Random attacks against tourists and expats in KL

A few days ago (Saturday 26-1-2013) my friend and I were walking in KLCC Park (i.e the park in the Twin Towers) around 21:00 between Mandarin Oriental Hotel and KL Convention Center when I was attacked from the back by 10-15 young Malaysian guys who gathered around me and started hitting me out of nowhere… I don’t know them, I’ve never seen them in my life and we were walking in the park totally minding our own business! For a moment I was shocked, surprised and totally thrown off-balance but it took me a second or two to get up and start hitting (trying desperately but not successfully) to hit back and scream for help. Of course nobody from the people around has a drop of humanity or chivalry to even say a word! The bravest action from the people there was to stand and watch. After around 2 minutes with my kicking and hitting back and screaming like a madman the guys ran away… and from a close proximity I saw a police man mounted on his motorbike so lazily and cold bloodedly coming towards me and was about to pass by me, not even to ask what the hell was wrong with me until I stopped him desperately to complain, but of course – to the surprise of those who are new to KL (but I was not surprised at all!) – he didn’t care the least and rode off in the opposite direction while some of the guys were still in sights and he could easily pursue them (or at least pretend that he is perusing them)! Now I know that the website here is not a complaint box and of course now no one can do anything about it, coz those who could lend a helping hand right on the scene didn’t give a f@#k! (I can swear that some of them were videotaping the incident). I am just writing this to warn whoever is planning to come to the beautiful country of Malaysia and enjoy the nature, the weather and the food… think twice people! Obviously the purpose of attack was not mugging… it was simply hate… I guess some Malaysians are fed up with tourists and expats coming to their country and spending sh*t loads of money on hotels, food and transportation. They just want to be left alone… so leave them alone and find yourselves another vacation spot… unless of course u r in for some action! Last important note… for those who do not know: If you are not safe in KLCC Park (i.e. the twin towers) then you will not be safe anywhere in Malaysia! A friendly reminder, a similar incident happened about 2 months ago in the tunnel/bridge between KLCC and Pavilion (not to me but I witnessed it) and of course remember the tourist who was stabbed to death (from the back) in Jalan P. Ramlee in broad day light last month (it was all over the social networks but of course unfortunately didn’t make it to national news!!).”

A short conversation

A short conversation seen on Twitter:

DjokerNole Novak Djokovic

Ok guys. This is my support to JAPAN Will be playing with it on my match. Tape on my knee http://yfrog.com/h2playhj

Kei Nishikori

@DjokerNole Thank you for your support to my country. I have set up a link to donate with the Red Cross, http://on.fb.me/rckei Thanks, Kei.

 

Touching.

Protege meets thenumber one

Marin Cilic has been showing a lot of promise in his match against marathon-man Isner. Another long match with additional games in the 5th but Cilic prevailed.

Now the real test comes in the form of the current no 1 Rafael Nadal. Cilic has proven that he can take on a big hitter like Isner but he needs to play smarter against Nadal who will not be making that many unforced errors as Isner and give away free points. Nadal will be a much better and faster runner than Isner. Cilic will have to do a lot of running of his own.

Bagels galore… well almost

The recently newly crowned (again) world number one in tennis Rafael Nadal was bagelled during his match against Lukas Lacko in Doha – the first ATP meet of the year. Flabbergasted I checked all the tweets and Facebook posts to find out what was going on and found out that he had had a fever the day before and had been on antibiotics. Now not only was Rafa playing singles and gunning for a dream final against Roger Federer, he was playing doubles as well.  Tweeted Brad Gilbert to find out if it was true about the fever and of course the gentleman didn’t respond. I mean, come on who am I but some small time fan of tennis? Never mind.

Now any GP (or person with a good head on the shoulders) would tell you that death in sports occur when the heart cannot take the workload while having an infection. But Rafa wouldn’t have any of that and went gung ho down the court to take the match against Lacko and the one against Gulbis as well the day after.

The match against Nikolay Davydenko was of course another story. Kolya played so well that he was on the verge on bagelling Rafa in the second set after having taken the first with 6-3. Somehow the steam went out of Kolya or he didn’t want to bagel Rafa again or Rafa just picked himself up so the score didn’t end with a bagel but with a chicken (my own phrase) 6-2. There are theories that he didn’t want a meet with Roger so close to the Australian Open and risk losing it. Not good for the Nadal morale eh?

You’d think that Rafa would bundle himself up and crawl up on Mummy’s lap and drink lots of fluids and whine there. But nooooooooo! He’s playing the doubles! Is that being a good compatriot to Lopez ( does Lopez need the money that badly) or is Rafa just being plain stupid?

If he can play without retiring today against Kolya and still play the doubles then it’s my guess that he was outplayed by Kolya and not that sick. But by now he’s already assembled a whole arsenal of excuses (and with the help of  Nadalites) that this loss wouldn’t seem so bad after all.

Would have been quite  record though is a world number one was bagelled twice in the same tournament. Now THAT possible record Rafa is welcome to create and keep.

Another rising star

As with Cilic I thought he would rise fast but unlike Cilic he has made better progress. He managed to beat Roger Federer (boohoo!) during the spring season of 2010 in the USA. I guess the difference between him and many upcoming “stars” of the game is that he has the financial resources thanks to his father, one of the richest men in Latvia. From just practising two days and then partying with friends after that, he has gotten down to a proper routine. His shaking of the legs during breaks gives you a sense of a rebel as with the unruly curly hair. Definitely one to look out for in the future. 

Cilic the new Federer?

A relatively unknown called Marin Cilic beat Andy Murray (3) at the US Open might make one think that this is a flash in the pan. The wind will go out of his sails after this match.

Now watching him having a go at Del Potro makes one wonder if it’s not the making of a new Federer. If he wins this match it’ll be really interesting to see him have a go at Rafa Nadal. His height and speed gives him a total coverage of the court and he has absolutely nothing to lose. Flashback – Federer’s match against Sampras at Wimbledon in 2001. You have to start somewhere, right?

How I became a Fedophile

Roger Federer

It was the final of the 2009 French Open and I was rooting of course for the swede Robin Söderling having lived here for 20 years. It was a renaissance for tennis in this country after he managed to beat Nadal in the preliminaries. Unfortunately he had the misfortune of ending up with Federer in the final. I hadn’t followed Federer’s matches up until the final but I thought if Robin could beat Nadal then Federer should probably look out. But no…. it didn’t happen. It was then I realized that I had just witnessed history. Federer had just won his first French Open and matched Pete Sampras’ number of slams. How cool was that!!! And then watching the prize giving ceremony how his tears flowed as he listened to the Swiss national anthem being played for his victory. I can only imagine the emotions going through him at the moment. Plus to hear him addressing the crowd in French and them appreciating it, that was tremendous. Swiss German being his mother tongue and being able to speak almost flawless English and French – that REALLY got to me. I speak four languages myself but they are definitely among the major languages of the world apart from English.
I then thought this guy must have a website and the most logical thing was to type the url http://www.rogerfederer.com and voila there he was! His website was a bit slow on that particular Sunday as I suspected he had just garnered a couple of thousand of new fans just by winning in Paris. The next natural thing was to of course check him out on Facebook – and I hit the Mother Lode. Federer’s personal Facebook website and with personal updates! Shall I gush?

From then on I followed his career as I knew he would make history. I saw his match from 2007 at Wimbledon where he matched my fellow countryman Björn Borg’s number of consecutive wins on the All England grounds. I wasn’t really rooting for him as I wanted Björn to keep his record but it wasn’t to happen. Federer actually matched it! How cool was that! You have to hand it to the the young Swiss that he REALLY has what it takes.

According to his schedule on his website he was supposed to play at Halle after Paris
but I thought that was very unlikely as it wasn’t a really important tournament ( well, everything is relative , right?) and he didn’t so the next thing to look forward to was of course the WIMBLEDON of 2009. By then I was a hopelessly devoted Fedophile and followed all aspects of his career and life. I even dreamt right after the French Open that the headlines in the newspapers said Federer became father of twin boys. Well, one out of two ain’t bad right ?

The first week of Wimbledon was pretty calm. Managed to sneak in two matches online at work as Federer played in the early afternoon (London being one hour behind CET). I missed only two matches on the whole which is only one less than the numbers of sets he lost during the whole championship. The second half of Wimbledon was spent on Malta and I managed to get the nearest local sports bar to tune in to Wimbledon on every Federer match. And of course the final…. now how exciting was THAT! I managed to garner a couple of tourists to sit alongside me to watch. It was pretty cool to hear them discussing and talking.. “Hey, what’s the score ?” “ Hey, he lost to Nadal last year right ? Where’s Nadal?” “ Fifth set ? Who’s leading?” … stuff like that. A couple of guys were sitting at my table and they got caught up in the final as well. They asked me why are you supporting Federer? I said I wanted to witness history and I did. What a satisfaction to see him just jump up in the air with joy when Andy Roddick hit a return outside the court. 15 slams!!!

Now why is he considered so different from other players? Honestly, not sure apart from his records but I have to say to watch him play on court in a match is like watching poetry in motion. He’s Mozart on court and a pleasure to watch whether he wins or loses. There is this feeling of satisfaction when you hear the racquet hitting the ball. And I can say that since I’ve watched every match he’s played since Paris, he has won them except for the one in Montreal against Tsonga. I didn’t get to see the matches from Montreal but I managed to follow the live scores from Cincinnati. Lesson of the day? Don’t miss a single match or live score when Federer is playing!

As of next week I myself and other Fedophiles around the globe will be rooting for Federer to win his 6th consecutive USO title. Of course anything can happen but whatever happens we are bound to be presented with plenty of good tennis from Federer.