Renewing Interest in Watching Tennis

My 86-year old father is mentally sharp as a tack, although he often complains that the rest of his body seems to be breaking down.  One of his passions, something that he has enjoyed for decades, is watching professional tennis on TV.  I remember as a teenager following players like Chris Evert, Evonne Goolagong, Martina Navratilova, Billy Jean King, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, and Björn Borg in the 1970s, but once I moved away to live on my own I ceased to care about the sport.  So the years have passed and now it is 2013.  I talk regularly on the phone with my father, and he often brings up tennis.  He knows that I don't follow it, but still he speaks the names of various players and tournaments as if I know who and what he's talking about.  Well, I now feel I'm in a better position to hold my own in a tennis discussion with him because...

I already knew (from my dad) that the Australian Open was ongoing.  Favored Serena Williams had already been eliminated, and my father had already mentioned an upstart young American woman who had advanced far past her ranking.  On the men's side, my father favored Novak Djokovic over the others, which as it turns out is a good thing...he's the best player in the world right now! But I was only marginally aware of him until a few nights ago when I accidentally dozed off in front of the television with the channel on ESPN...and woke up in the wee hours of the morning to witness a live broadcast of an Australian Open semifinals match between Djokovic and fourth seeded David Ferrer.  Normally, I would have just dozed back off to sleep.  Instead I became entranced by the match and thought that maybe...just maybe, tennis wasn't all that boring to watch after all.  After Djokovic disposed of his opponent in straight sets, ESPN showed a replay of the final minutes in one of the women's semifinals pitting eventual champion Victoria Azarenka against that "upstart American" Sloane Stephens.  In one game, Azarenka had five match points against Stephens, including a double match point, but her young opponent managed to come from behind with incredible tenacity and win that game.  She eventually lost that match, but made a deep impression on me as someone who may end up ranked #1 in the not-to-distant future.

I also later saw the replay of the men's finals match between Djokovic and Andy Murray, which the former won with much more difficulty than he had in the semifinals. 

Tennis is something that I may find myself watching more of.  Of course, just knowing what I do now already greatly enhances the quality of the phone chats I have with my father.  But I also like the timelessness of the sport, something akin to baseball, where the athletes, coaches, fans, and officials aren't slaves to the clock...