The longest tennis match finally came to a close.

Well I guess everything has to come to an end. Although sometime, the end seems like to come after an endless walk at an industrial strength treadmill until it's worn out.

The longest match in the history of tennis has finally came to a conclusive halt. John Isner and Nicolas Mahut were two tennis players who prior to their epic battle were just a shade more famous than the name of any hotdog vendor. Not until they churn a final score in the fifth set where the numbers resembles that of a cellphone unit. Get this: 6-4 3-6 6-7 7-6 70-68.

The game was so long, I think the spectators were more concerned on the final score than who the winner is. Just to name the victor-John Isner pulled of the emergency brakes to this record breaking match.

11 hours and some minutes. That was how long the world had to wait to determine just who is going to walk away with all the sweat and hours of knees buckling compensated with a sweet win.

Some of the spectators had been reportedly developed a left to right neck and face motion mannersim.

Armando Gallaraga's perfect game dreams blown to bits

Video Here

Your weekly dose of F-bomb

Just a short one here.

In your life's checklist of what to do before you die, seated in the guilty pleasure category is the "Say the f-bomb on live TV" (that's under "Ripping Craig Sager's suit on live broadcast") which this drunk Flyers' fan just managed to broadcast after the Finals clinching win of Philadelphia over the Habs. She did it out of complete ecstasy.

F-bomb number two was the earlier entry for this week. Jason Williams didn't just drop a bomb. He machine-gunned it like Rambo to all those reporters who would just not back up from his locker. He mentioned it as often as you say the word "the".

This was after the Magic fell 3-0 behind the Celtics in the series.

Wherever LeBron

And they keep on rubbing it on LeBron James with a sadistic fervor of a 7 year old hammering away on a dodging mole arcade game. It has been a meltdown. A colossal meltdown because it's the Cleveland Cavaliers and he's LeBron James. Losing to a worthy opponent is a consolation that no one would buy simply because the Cavs carry the best record in the league and the expectation were as high as the flight of the Hindenburgh.

And then "Oh humanity" happens.

The same goes with Alexander Ovechkin and the Caps. Only, his fate is a little bit more difficult to swallow than Castor Oil. Getting ousted by the eight-seeded Habs, not to mention being up in the series 3-1 before that imporbable Habs' three-game streak. the only consolation also for Ovie is that the same Habs ousted the Pens and of course most importantly-Sidney Crosby. Proves only that the post-season sometimes does not reflect your regular season performance.

Now what for LeBron? Is he going to New York? To Dallas? To the Bobcats? To Delonte West's home and start twisting West's head like a loose threaded light bulb? I don't really care that much about where he's going. I am more excited on the hype, anticipation and most especially the burning threads of discussing where he might be and should be than the actual signing he's going to make, let's say to play for Cleveland Indians just to surprise everyone and set a Guiness World Record for the "Sports announcement that caused the most number of simultaneous shitting in pants."

Ripping heads in the NHL

Okay, Alexander Ovechkin gets a two-game suspension after treating Chicago Blackhawk defenseman Brian Campbell as if he's a playground swing with a kid on. Campbell got his clavicle dislocated as a result thus the suspension for Ovechkin aside from the 5-minutes stay inside the bin.

It was not supposed to be a bigger issue had it been the first offense of such kind by the Caps star and also, had it not happened after a slew of blind-side hits in recent games. We have seen Mat Cooke's failed attempt to rip the head of Marc Savard and not get a suspension. These NHL penalty decisions just draws the line in a blurry manner. Clearly, Mat Cooke has the intention to injure Savard while in contrary Ovechkin's intent was for the play-not the player.

And you have Mat Cooke escaping a suspension? I feel Don Cherry's remarks that other players might consider this as an open season for blind-side hits having seen Cooke get away with it.

No arguement that Ovechkin should get a suspension as it states in the rule:

23.5 Fines and Suspensions - Stick Infractions, Boarding and Checking from Behind Category - In regular League games, any player or goalkeeper who incurs a total of two (2) game misconduct penalties for stick-related infractions, Boarding - Rule 42, or Checking from Behind - Rule 44, shall be suspended automatically for the next League game of his team. For each subsequent game misconduct penalty, the automatic suspension shall be increased by one game.

Except, you can argue whether Ovechkin did it to injure the other player but that's not what the issue in the NHL is. Clearly, the issue is the unbalanced implementation of the rules' penalties. It almost make it look subjective despite consulting a concrete rule book. Simply, if Ovechkin got that kind of penalty, then the likes of Mat Cooke should get more.

Here, Don Cherry offers his thoughts as we are left to watch horrendous montage of Cooke's murder attempts.

Sampras-Agassi brings back time by acting like grade schoolers

Final dump for the day.

Howard-Pujols Trade brewing,brewing, brewing, gone

It's either a brewing possibility or a brainchild of a complete gossip between two soccer moms discussing about men with exactly the same names. Reports of a Phillies-Cardinals negotiation to trade their respective star first basemen-Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols-gathered some steam enough to make the rounds on the web.

Clearly, Pujols is a way ahead of Howard when it comes to all-around performance although the reason seen for this "trade" is that Pujols might ask for the continent of Africa once he's a free agent after 2011. Certainly, it might rival that of A-Rod in 2007 when he was promised the whole nation of Bhutan as payment.

Phillies GM Ruben Amaro, in an article from ESPN.com, denied such kind of talks going on.
"That's a lie. I don't know who you're talking to, but that's a lie." Well, I think such a short retort is enough to convince me.

Castillo leaves us with the "10th round" memory

As the rest of us pugilists fans were left with a stuff of legend that Joshua Clottey trained for his fight against Manny Pacquiao by replacing the filling of a punching bag with his own self, a relatively quiet decision right after an undercard was made. A combatant in one of the greatest fights boxing has ever witnessed is calling it quits.

Jose Luis Castillo decided that it’s time to hang up his gloves after retiring on his stool between the fifth and the sixth round of his fight against Alfonso Gomez. It did not take a while for the former lightweight and junior lightweight champion to realize that he doesn’t have it anymore.

“I just found out tonight I don’t have it anymore,” Castillo said. “I want to apologize to the public and I am definitely announcing my retirement.”

Of course, as a boxing fan, it’s difficult to find a reason on why we should forgive him for there’s hardly a reason why he should apologize in the first place. He was one in the great line of Mexican warriors of this generation drawing close fight with the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. and several other class fighters.

But there is only one bout that will forever be associated with his name. A brawl so memorable not even Alzheimer’s can make me forget-at least for that one improbable round.

It was his fight with the late Diego Corrales in 2005 when in round 10 he managed to put Corrales down on the canvas twice. Corrales appeared to be very unstable at that moment that is seems Castillo is about to commit murder on national TV should the pummeling continue. And in a stunning reversal of the situation, Corrales managed to dig deep for those last drops of power to score a TKO. No words is enough to translate what has just transpired during those moments.

It was the boxing version of “Shock and Awe”.

Now that Jose Luis Castillo is done as a boxer, he leaves the ring with a 60-10-1 record and the memory of this legendary fight a true boxing fan will not forget.

Cold War: Canada proxies Russia

The Vancouver Winter Olympics’ rolling snowball is now in the stage of reducing its momentum as it nears its closing ceremony. That speaks for the other sports played in this quadrecentennial sporting affair.

The same cannot be said with the Men’s hockey tournament. Barely a week after the “minor miracle” win over hockey nation and host Canada, Team USA is now in the finals after causing Finland major headaches in the semifinals that Finnish Goaltender Mika Kipsussoff played no different than an aspiring limbless net minder from Chernobyl. The score was 6-1 with Patrick Kane scoring two goals-to which he said: “Would’ve been nice to get a couple more”.

In a perfect world, it should have been a Cold War affair between US and Russia exactly 30 years after Lake Placid. In the great world of spoilers, it’s going to be US-Canada. Looking at it at the marquee, it’s a not that bad either as it brings sentiments almost 5 decades after Squaw Valley.

The rivalry even made a story of its own in this very tournament. With the loss to the US during the preliminaries, team Canada Lego-locked its cojones together (benching Brodeur for Luongo the next game) and made the Russians collectively resemble Jaromir Jagr during that isolated cross-check fate by Alexander Ovechkin.

If the US wins, I’ll go call it an upset. It doesn’t matter to me if they’ve beaten them before, doesn’t matter if you’re country is mostly the home of the NHL , when you’re up against a proud superpower hockey nation in their home ice, a win is an upset.

Even video games will tell you the same.