Only He Didn't Actually Type "Insert Frowny Face Here"

So i am resolutely not a tennis fan.  Not necessarily because I don’t like the sport but because realistically there are only so many sports that one can follow.  I’m already devoting too much of my mental reserves to correctly differentiating between the various Jokinins,Sedins and Nicklas Backstroms, pondering what Rory McIlroy’s Z-score in the most recent U.S. Open means for his purported greatness and the future of the game, and of course identifying on sight which of the many football players have been on and/or won “Dancing with the Stars.”  Forget about being a three-sport athlete - I have a hard enough time being  three sport fan.  I’ve never fully understood those men (because they are inevitably men - even women who “grew up with brothers” are, at best, faking it)  who can cite every statistic about every athlete (again, invariably just the athletes who are men) in every sport.  I suppose they make room for the endless litany of stats by avoiding things like learning the names of the contestants on the Bachelorette and, you know, reading books.  But I know my limitations and my priorities and, as such, am simply not a fan of tennis.


That being said, I know we all heard about last year’s Wimbeldon match between Nicolas Mahut and John Isner - and no, not because either of those men were contestants on the Bachelorette, but because it lasted for 11 hours, took three day to play, and was eventually won by Isner with a score of 70-68 in the last set.


Well non-tennis fans, it’s Wimbeldon time again, and somehow the two men have been assigned to play each other in the first round.  Again, I’m no tennis expert, but apparently the process is somewhat random and the odds of this happening were less than one percent.


Though it seems like a diverting coincidence on the surface, in actuality, the whole thing is rather tragic.


Not because after the last match, Mahut went into something of a downward spiral that lasted for several months and doesn't merit joking about.

Not because of the economic costs associated with innumerable tennis fans (or based on myself and the couple hundred people I know, 5 tennis fans) taking three days of work to witness history repeating itself in the most boring way every.


But because Isner’s response when he heard the news?  A single text message to Nicolas Mahut reading simply:


“Insert Frowny Face Here”