Tennis and Tom

Watched a bit of TV this afternoon in my lazy hazy summer mode. First round of the Roger's Cup women's tennis event from TO was on, and it was a dramatic match. Canadian Stephanie Dubois was playing veteran Ai Sugiyama of Japan.

I tuned in during set two, with Sugiyama having won the first set in a tie-break. But Dubois is pushing her in set two, and eventually gets a service break to win it and force a tie-breaking third set.

In that third set, Dubois breaks Sugiyama's serve in game one, holds serve herself, then breaks again in game three. With a three game, two service break, lead, you'd think it was all over. But this is sports, folks.

Sugiyama digs in, and shows why she's still number 27 in the world at age 32, as she gets one service break back in game four. Then she holds serve, and breaks Dubois's serve again. Now, on serve, Sugiyama holds to go up 4-3, and again breaks Dubois, who is twelve years her opponent's junior, isn't even ranked in the top 100.

Sugiyama serves for the match at 5-3, but Dubois breaks her serve! The Canadian then holds serve to tie the match at 5 games all. Then she breaks Sugiyama for an opportunity to serve for the match, and Dubois closes it out, winning 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-5. Amazing stuff.

In between games and some points, I'm flipping over to some sort of concert film with Stompin' Tom Connors filmed at the Horseshoe Tavern, which I was at way back in the early '90s with my buddy Jeff seeing The Northern Pikes.

The film is crazy fun, because it was shot in about 1975 I'm guessing. There's stubby beer bottles on the tables - Labatt 50 no less, and people smokin' up a storm, including Tom himself between songs. Moreover, they also intersperse some of the songs with footage to compliment the tune.

So, there's some snowmobile footage for a snowmobile song, the collecting of Irish Moss by folks on horseback along the beach of PEI for the tune Irish Moss, and Tom in pursuit of a never seen woman by various means of transport, including canoe - this is Canada, eh? - for a song about a girl. And an animated bit too. It's totally crazy.

I watched the credits, which rolled by with Tom walking off into the sunset guitar slung over his back and someone else singing about how Stompin' Tom's a friend of his, but they didn't indicate when the film was made or who was singing the song that played during the credits.

Who says there's nothing on daytime TV?