Djokovic bt Schutts 7-6 6-3

the updated table is posted here (on Britishtennis.net)

- Andy down to 14. Djokovic up to 13. Berdych out. Youzhny storming ahead.

- No more threats to Andy this week - just the Nole and Mikhail story to watch.

They're both spurring each other on - Andy won't be taking this lying down in Indian Wells :)

scoobsuk wrote:

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They're both spurring each other on - Andy won't be taking this lying down in Indian Wells :)

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The whole nip/tuck thing with them in the rankings is really fun to watch. I know they aren't really competitive with each other (at least outwardly) but it must have an impact on them chasing the higher ranking and one of them winning and the other one following it up. It is a very healthy competition in the way they do seem to respond to each others achievements by upping their own game.

I'm really looking forward to Nole vs Fed tomorrow. Fed in all out smack-down mode is always a pleasure to watch.

German Swiss.

Andy is going to catch up with him in the next few weeks.

http://www.supertennis.co.za/default.asp?id=206705&des=article&scat=supertennis/atp


This sucks, though. He had a freak injury last year and now this.

Madeline wrote:

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German Swiss as Arka says, but apt to call out "Allez!" when playing

Mixed up lot, the Swiss.  I was left speechless the first time I went there to hear somebody say "Merci vielmals"! Since then I have heard it several times.

So, allez Rogi!!!

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Merci is actually schwyzer duetsch (= Swiss German, and yes the u and the e really are the opposite way round) for thank you, so it's not a case of the odd Swiss person you've heard randomly mixing up the two languages, it's actually part of the language/dialect itself. They tend to say it as if it were spelt "merzi" or "merzie" and of course vielmals isn't proper German either, in the sense that it's not wrong, but Germans wouldn't say 'danke vielmals', they'd say 'vielen Dank'.

Have you ever heard Fed being interviewed in schwyzer duetsch? You can hardly believe it's the Fed we know when you hear him speak it (he sounds so silly ), then you realise that it is his native language, so that's how he talks naturally.

If you want to hear a completely random mix of French and German though, the Alsace region of France is the place to go. It's like German with a French accent and French words thrown in a lot more regularly than in Swiss German.

This all seems very weird to a Brit, but that's just because we live on an island and have no land borders with other countries. Indeed, Alsace has even changed hands between French and Germany lots of times over the last few centuries .  

Oops, we were supposed to be talking about tennis, weren't we.