( book fandoms )

( live-action fandoms )

( anime/manga/drama fandoms )

( RPF )

*I am told that it is a mark of growth as a writer if your old writings make you cringe. So that's a good sign, I suppose. Fics marked with WARNING: OLD were written in high school, and frankly are kind of awful, but the ones included here for some reason have sentimental value to me, such that I didn't want to leave them out. There are others that I'm pretending don't exist.

hello, dear writer! hopefully seeing my requests has not sent you screaming into the night, and you are as excited as I am about Yuletide 2009! I think I covered my individual requests pretty well already, so I thought I'd mention a little bit about what kind of stories I like best - though I guarantee pretty much anything with the characters I picked will make me ecstatic. =)

I like:

-happy endings. seriously, just make them all happy in the end or at least give me hope that they will eventually turn out okay at some point in the future, and I'm usually set. I'm all for angst and hurt/comfort, but I love all these characters too much to want them to be miserable for any extended period of time.

-affection between characters. you've probably noticed by now that I'm mostly into slash, but I like het and friendship/family gen as well; what's really important to me is the bonds, sexual, romantic or platonic, between characters. two guys who are madly in love? totally chill. an overprotective older brother worrying about his baby sister's first boyfriend? also totally chill. two best friends bantering or looking out for each other or just generally being quietly fond of each other? absolutely, completely chill.

-boys being boys. I picked all boys this time around (my inner feminist is already kicking me, don't worry), and I especially like to see them characterized as, well, typical males. (is that sexist? whoops.) I don't want them to be sobbing into their handkerchiefs or talking about their feelings or writing bad love poetry. (well, maybe Horace and Vergil.) I like it when boys are inarticulate and awkward about emotions and would infinitely rather have them tease each other and pull metaphorical pigtails than be sensitive. (within the bounds of characterization, of course, and the finer points are obviously at your discretion.)

-AUs! the crazier the better. are you suddenly struck with the mad desire to write the fic where Horace and Vergil are college freshmen who meet at a poetry reading, or Rafa Nadal is a porn star, or Laurence and Tharkay and Granby are astronauts or fairy princesses or ~cough~ tennis players? GO FOR IT. there is no alternate universe too wacky or cliche for me. (crossovers are great, too, just preferably confined within fandoms I actually know.)

I do not like:

-deathfic. no, really, don't kill anybody. I like these characters; I don't want them to die!

-girl-bashing. I am a girl. I don't want to read blanket statements about how girls suck, or the convenient villainization of women to get them out of the way of a slash relationship. (I wish I didn't have to say this, but... some things that I have read recently make me feel like I should mention it.) this doesn't really apply to Horace and Vergil, neither of whom was particularly involved with women (and if you want to do something with Vergil's apparent fear of girl-cooties, dear author, I am not in denial about his potential misogyny, nor do I want you to whitewash him), but please, please, please, if you write Temeraire, Jane is amazing and hardcore and way too good for Laurence, and if you write tennis, Xisca and Jelena are cute as buttons; I don't want them to be bad guys.

I'm going to copy over my requests, but this is just in case the original letter gets lost somehow; there's no new information. they were probably overly detailed to begin with. =)

Naomi Novik - Temeraire series
John Granby /Tharkay/William Laurence
slash would be awesome! any combination of the above would make me so unspeakably happy. (Granby is my favorite character, which is not to say that I don't love Tharkay/Laurence - I do! - but just that I would like Granby to make an appearance even if he isn't in the main pairing or trio.) if you don't want to go the slash route, wacky shenanigans, perhaps involving the dragons, would also delight me. all I ask is that they get a happy or at least hopeful ending. (no Jane-bashing, please. I love Jane.)

RPF - Classical history and literature
Horace/Virgil
this is my absurd academic OTP. I love them to distraction, and I believe with all the tin-hatted fervor at my disposal that they were totally in love. so pretty much anything about the two of them together will make me happy. (they don't have to be romantically in love if you're not comfortable with that; platonic mutual admiration and BFF-ness will do me fine.) poetical one-upmanship! road-trips with Maecenas! anxieties about the political situation! crazed AUs! late-night poetry readings! again, wacky shenanigans and happy endings are the way to my heart.

RPF - Tennis
Novak Djokovic/Rafael Nadal
anything about them being total dorks in love is a-ok by me. I love their posses, too, so side-characters (including Novak's coterie of lady-friends) are very welcome. play-station dates! watching football together! Novak's amusement at Rafa's terminal fashion FAIL! I like them best when they're being the twelve-year-olds they totally are inside, and tease each other relentlessly. (oh, and I also adore their girlfriends: if you're not seeing the slash, I am all for them as friends who double-date.)

RPF - Tennis
Feliciano Lopez/Rafael Nadal
one of the things I find most fascinating about Rafa is how he relates to the rest of the Spanish tennis players: he's so the spoiled baby of the family. they raised him right, though, and now he's such a good boy. I think his friendship with Feli is just darling; they really adore each other. I'd love anything about the two of them (and any other members of the Spanish Armada you see fit to include). if you would like a few potential starting points: ever-fabulous Feli mentoring young Rafa in fashion (or sex, or alcohol, or anything, really); Rafa being proud of Feli for helping bring home the Davis Cup in 2008; anything from when they were sharing a house at Wimbledon (subtlety: you're doing it wrong); anything from a Davis Cup tie they won together; or whatever else that strikes your fancy! I love slash (as you may have noticed) and I'd be happy with porn, but I'd also be so so so happy with friendship fic. I love them so much!

I really hope this was helpful! I've probably erred on the side of way way way too much information, but you're totally free to ignore me; I just always want to know more. if you have any questions (I can't imagine this is possible, but just in case) feel free to comment anonymously and I'll be happy to clarify anything! (seriously, brownie points if you've read this far; you are not at all obliged to pay attention to anything I have said.) I'm trying to put together manifesto posts for tennis RPS - here's Rafa/Feli; I'm still working on Rafa/Novak - in case you're curious. I never stop proselytizing, sorry! if you happen to have volunteered for tennis RPS, maybe it'll be useful, and if not, maybe I'll get you into a new fandom! I can always dream. =)

thank you so much for signing up to write for yuletide, Santa! I promise you, whatever you write will make me so happy. I love my teeny fandoms and all fic within them. I really just want you to have fun writing. if you need to ignore everything I've just said in order to do that - go for it! here's to making Yuletide gay!

Rafa, why don't you want me to be happy? goddammit. I am not pleased with you. (I bet Nole isn't pleased with you either. ignoring him to giggle incessantly with Fed. I want the clay court season back.)

also my thesis persists in not writing itself. why can I never have nice things?

I got my assignment! as per usual, I'm a little surprised by which fandom I got matched on, but I think once I get the source material from home and go over it I'll be okay. it's kind of weird though because I used to get crazy bunnies for this fandom and never wrote any of them, and my recipient appears to have exactly the same taste in pairings as I do, so... YAY! hopefully I will be able to come up with something worthy. =)

I may need to get some people to talk this through with, though. idk if I have any friends who are into this fandom. that'll be interesting.

in other random news, I found a new band! and I love them! (well, not "found" them, I had one or two songs, but I finally got a few whole albums and they're awesome.) the Magnetic Fields, guys. so much love.

I don't even know what I'm doing with my thesis right now. I kind of think I need a plan of attack, but since my plan of what I want to write changes based on what I read each week, I... don't know what I'm going to be reading from week to week. and thus I am a mess. hopefully I will manage to magic myself out of this sometime soon, but until then... who knows! (I have totally wasted my entire day off. I have no one to blame but myself.)

in other news, Rafa dug himself into a hole and then just barely managed to dig himself out - I watched the scores until he lost the first set and went down a break, went to take a shower so he could lose without me, came back and he'd gotten the break back, went to eat breakfast, came back and he was down several match points, watched him break back and went to do some thesis reading, came back and he'd won the tiebreak but was down a break again, at which point I flung my hands in the air and cussed him out a little. and then magically he managed to break Nico when he served for the set (for the second time), hold serve, break and serve it out. FIVE MATCH POINTS. FOR FUCK'S SAKE, RAFA. I KNOW YOU'RE COMPETING WITH NOLE BUT THAT IS NOT A COMPETITION YOU WANT TO BE WINNING. (feel free to proceed to win the tournament like Nole did, though. that's an acceptable action to emulate.)

and then Federer managed to lose to Julien Bennetteau in a match I was sort of vaguely keeping an eye on, thinking, oh, he managed to hold serve, that's cute! oh, he managed to get it to a tiebreak, that's cute! oh, he won the tiebreak, that's cute! aww, he's up a break in the third on Fed, that's adorable! ...and then I went to dinner and apparently Fed never broke back. and then I laughed.

oh, and Marat Safin retired. the ladies mourn, but their panties are at last freed from the oppressive threat of spontaneous combustion. exciting happenings in Paris!

ganked from aramley. doubt anyone's interested, but hey, might as well.

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any story I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

you can find a list of all my fic here or in my memories. go on, play with me! all of us in the States have the day off tomorrow; you might as well distract me from the sound of my thesis not writing itself.

Rafa and Feli. what to say. they are almost tour BFFs (Rafa will inevitably list his best friends on tour as Carlos Moya and Feli, in that order; Feli will inevitably list Fernando Verdasco and Rafa, in that order) and they have known each other for ages, since Rafa was a baby-faced teenager with a really, really obvious case of hero-worship for Carlos Moya (he soon graduated to an epic crush on Roger Federer). Feli is five years older than Rafa, so obviously there was a bit of a change in dynamics as Rafa grew up and started winning everything in sight - Rafa is currently ranked #2 in the world, Feli is hovering somewhere in the forties - but their friendship seems to have withstood any tension; Feli is really proud of Rafa and Rafa adores Feli. when Rafa won the last match in the Davis Cup tie against Serbia and went straight to Feli for a nice long clingy hug... oh my heart.

some ridiculously adorable YouTube clips of the two of them:

Feli and baby Rafa go shopping!


Feli and Rafa play doubles!


Feli and Rafa talk on the phone after Feli helps Spain win the Davis Cup! (I can't speak Spanish but I am told by reliable sources that what they say is basically, "I wish I was there," "Me too, kisses to you," which... ADORABLE.)


Feli wrote Rafa a SONG. about HOW AWESOME HE IS AT TENNIS. and MADE THEIR TEAMMATES JUMP UP AND DOWN AND SING IT TO HIM. I don't think epic BFFness quite covers it.


here are some picspams by morebliss which are relevant to my interests: Feli and Rafa, Feliciano: friends and lovers, Davis Cup, and Feli and the Armada.

some fic: I'd Do Anything To Catch You Falling by buckle_berry, Ready For a Fall by louiselux, and, uh, You Can Do Better Than Me (I Can't Do Better Than You) by me (I'm sorry! there's really not a lot of Rafa/Feli out there!), to get you started - they're all pretty pornographic, just a heads-up.

as an afterthought sort of note: Rafa/Feli is definitely not the most obvious pairing for either character. Feli and Fernando Verdasco are kind of impressively gay for each other and Rafa is really terrible at hiding his crush on Roger Federer. but I still think they're super cute, whether as a couple or just friends! they're totally the kind of buddies who sit around in their underwear playing videogames with each other - whether winner gets a blowjob is really just a matter of degree. =D

I'm having second thoughts about some of the fandoms I offered. I mean, I really enjoyed writing Shakespeare fic last year, but... what if I already told all the stories I have? but on the other hand, Yuletide is supposed to be about writing rare fandoms, not the fandoms you write all the time already (Temeraire and tennis, I love you tons, but this is not the point). but then when I think about getting my assignment, I don't really know whether I'd be upset or excited not to get tennis or Temeraire. argh! I wish I were a more decisive person.

but then, picking Greek/Roman Mythology (any) might be enough of a "hey adventure! I'm here! come find me!" offer for my entire Yuletide experience. I'm not backing down from that one! I'm a classics major with an entire bookshelf full of books on Greek and Roman myths and I used to make up feminist revisionist versions of them while playing with my Barbie dolls, I can totally handle writing fic.

...so I seem to have decided to go back and un-select Twelfth Night and Midsummer Night's Dream. and probably the fairy tales and a few of the mangas I offered out of random philanthropy because nobody else seemed to want to write them. but I will probably change my mind before I actually get to the Yuletide website, because I am incapable of making up my mind. (thoughts?)

friends! Romans! countrywomen! you're signing up for yuletide, right? because you totally should. it's the most awesome seasonal fic-exchange imaginable, and it's great for those obscure book-fandoms where you want fic but nobody ever seems to be writing it.

I've been contemplating what I want to ask for, and I think I have it narrowed down to four requests. I'm not sure, though, because... well, you'll see.

Naomi Novik - Temeraire series
William Laurence/John Granby/Tharkay
slash would be awesome! any combination of the above would make me so unspeakably happy. (Granby is my favorite character, which is not to say that I don't love Tharkay/Laurence - I do! - but just that I would like Granby to make an appearance even if he isn't in the main pairing or trio.) if you don't want to go the slash route, wacky shenanigans, perhaps involving the dragons, would also delight me. all I ask is that they get a happy or at least hopeful ending. (no Jane-bashing, please. I love Jane.)

RPF - Classical history and literature
Virgil/Horace
this is my absurd academic OTP. I love them to distraction, and I believe with all the tin-hatted fervor at my disposal that they were totally in love. so pretty much anything about the two of them together will make me happy. (they don't have to be romantically in love if you're not comfortable with that; platonic mutual admiration and BFF-ness will do me fine.) poetical one-upmanship! road-trips with Maecenas! anxieties about the political situation! crazed AUs! late-night poetry readings! again, wacky shenanigans and happy endings are the way to my heart.

RPF - tennis
Rafael Nadal/Novak Djokovic
anything about them being total dorks in love is a-ok by me. I love their posses, too, so side-characters (including Novak's coterie of lady-friends) are very welcome. play-station dates! watching football together! Novak's amusement at Rafa's terminal fashion FAIL! I like them best when they're being the twelve-year-olds they totally are inside, and tease each other relentlessly. (oh, and I also adore their girlfriends: if you're not seeing the slash, I am all for them as friends who double-date.)

RPF - tennis
Rafael Nadal/Feliciano Lopez
one of the things I find most fascinating about Rafa is how he relates to the rest of the Spanish tennis players: he's so the spoiled baby of the family. they raised him right, though, and now he's such a good boy. I think his friendship with Feli is just darling; they really adore each other. I'd love anything about the two of them (and any other members of the Spanish Armada you see fit to include). if you would like a few potential starting points: ever-fabulous Feli mentoring young Rafa in fashion (or sex, or alcohol, or anything, really); Rafa being proud of Feli for helping bring home the Davis Cup in 2008; anything from when they were sharing a house at Wimbledon (subtlety: you're doing it wrong); anything from a Davis Cup tie they won together; or anything else that strikes your fancy! I love slash (as you may have noticed) and I'd be happy with porn, but I'd also be so so so happy with friendship fic. I love them so much!

so I'm not sure if it's fair to request two prompts in the same tiny fandom, but I want them! idk...

this is so totally self-indulgent, but I saw that aradiachiba had requested fairy tale retellings for yuletide last year, and I love The Twelve Dancing Princesses, so... I kind of couldn't help myself. I hope she likes it! (everybody who writes fic, go over to the Yuletide site and write New Year's Resolution fic before it closes for this year's sign-ups!)

title: The Seventh Dancing Princess
author: meretricula
recipient: aradiachiba
fandom: Fairy Tales (trad)
rating: G
word count: 2700
summary: Prima was, in her own way, rather pleased by the curse. All well and good for her, Septima thought crossly when she heard their father's proclamation regarding the reward for uncursing his daughters; whatever man managed to figure it out would clearly choose either the eldest or the youngest, and as the youngest was twelve, unless he was a disgusting pedophile he would choose the eldest. Meanwhile, Septima would never see sixteen again, and her chances of finding a husband who even recognized her as an individual rather than one-twelfth of one, let alone liked her, were even smaller now that she was one-twelfth of a cursed conglomerate.

The Seventh Dancing Princess

title: among some talk of you and me
fandom: tennis rps
pairing: roger federer/rafael nadal, mentions of novak djokovic/rafael nadal, fernando verdasco/feliciano lopez
rating: pg
word count: 5500
summary: Rafa is the last man standing of his generation on the ATP tour, and he isn't dealing with it all that well.
author's notes: my deep gratitude to crazier_elf and aramley, beta superstars. you guys are amazing. title and cut-text are from T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

this is for aramley. it's totally all your fault.

( And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.” )

I totally wasted two nights of my life getting out a Roger/Rafa fanfic, and I'm not even sure I like it. maybe if I sit on it a few days I'll be able to see what's wrong with it better, I don't know. does anyone want to beta a tennis fic? I will pay in internet hugs and virtual cookies!

in other news, cannot force self to do work. expect this may get rather ugly at some point. alas.

Star Trek meets Le Petit Prince. it's amazing, and illustrated.

The Little Vulcan

keeping track of who's trying to get into the ATP World Tour Finals, not very interesting unless you care about Fernando Verdasco.

as of 10/18

1 Roger Federer 9855
2 Rafael Nadal 8845
3 Novak Djokovic 6410
4 Andy Murray 6040
5 Juan Martin del Potro 5815
6 Andy Roddick 4330
7 Nikolay Davydenko 3450
8 Fernando Verdasco 3030
9 Robin Soderling 2830
10 Fernando Gonzalez 2780
11 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 2640
12 Marin Cilic 2205
13 Gilles Simon 2105
14 Radek Stepanek 2095
15 Tommy Robredo 2040


Gonzo needs to get his shit together. that is all. Gonzo, you disappoint me. new goal: Fernando Verdasco, you need to not let Soderling do better than you in Paris.

lol till I die over the commanding performance of our new WTA #1. I think this basically encapsulates the struggle between Serena and Dinara this season: Dina finally chokes away enough points to let Serena take over. Serena wins the one match she has to and promptly loses to Nadia Petrova. so she is now #1 in the world... by 5 points. catfight in Doha, bitches! (unless I'm mistaken, I think Dina is still #1 in the race to the YEC rankings, so she still has a pretty good shot at ending the year as #1. assuming she can stop having hysterical breakdowns every time she steps on a court, of course.)

also, Marat and Ernests Gulbis won. are we living in opposite world? did they forget that they'd already made it to the second round? Marat is up against Rafa next, so sorry my Russian sexpot, you need to lose now. for sheer hilarity's sake I'd kind of like to see Gulbis make the finals, though. he's never made it past the second round this year.

hmmm... Bepa-Sveta and Rafa-Nole (please please please tennis gods, I will be so good) in Beijing, maybe Hewitt-Gulbis in Tokyo? (these are what I would like to see, not what I expect to see. though Bepa-Sveta actually could happen, if neither of them goes through one of their typical Russian meltdowns.)

and Murray is out of Shanghai, so unless Nole does something really drastic he's going to move up to #3 soon. I feel that karma is kicking Andy M's ass for not acknowledging he only got to #2 because Rafa was out for two months with tendinitis. again with the lol till I die.

I'm not even going to talk about the shit that went down in Tokyo, aside from POTENTIAL MASHA/VIKA FIERCE BITCHES FINAL YES YES YES PLEASE. and I honestly don't know whether or not to worry about Rafa, so we're going with default low-level concern until he actually plays. I really hope he will save himself for Davis Cup because if he isn't there I'm going to cry like a little bitch. and so will Feli.

however, since I get very into the math that goes into the rankings, I thought I would talk about the current dream of my life, which is that Nole manages to get his head out of his ass and reclaim #3 from Mandy, and also hold onto it long enough for the end of year rankings. (my hopes of that one are slim, since Nole would have to actually defend the Year-End Championship, but oh well.)

Mandy is currently at #3 with 8,390 points. he isn't dropping anything until October 19, but then he loses 1000 points for Madrid, 500 points for St. Petersburg on October 26, and 250 points for Paris on November 2. Shanghai and Paris are mandatories coming up, but to the best of my knowledge (?) he's not defending St. Petersburg, and he just withdrew from Tokyo, so depending on how he does in the Masters, especially Shanghai, which is replacing Madrid, he could be losing quite a bit. (I wonder if he'll ask for a wildcard to Basel or Valencia? I think the top players are required to play at least one 500 event after the USO.)

Nole is currently at #4 with 7,330 points, and he was apparently basically a joke last year from the USO to the YEC, because he's defending a grand total of 300 points (Madrid and Paris, R16 for both). depending on how he does in Beijing and the Masters, he realistically could move up if Mandy doesn't defend Madrid/Shanghai. he's not staying up there unless he defends the YEC, though; he got 1300 points for that.

Rafa's not defending much of anything for the rest of the year; 750 total for Madrid and Paris, and he didn't even play the YEC (he would have gotten 200 points for showing up). I kind of wish he wouldn't play Beijing, honestly, but I think he doesn't want to come back to a Masters tournament and he has to play Shanghai the week after. just please don't be a moron and get injured again, ok? it is okay to withdraw if you are injured. it is okay to retire from a match if you are injured, too. don't be such a fucking idiot.

but I did promise math.

Mandy: 8,390 - 1,750 = 6,640 (before YEC)
6,640 - 600 = 6,040 (after YEC)

Nole: 7,330 - 300 = 7,030 (before YEC)
7,030 - 1,300 = 5,730 (after YEC)

Rafa: 8,845 - 700 = 8,145 (before YEC)
8,145 - 0 = 8,145 (after YEC)

actually, if Nole manages to outplay Mandy for the rest of the year, he's looking pretty solid. if he does well in Beijing that would be a nice cushion, and if he could manage to, you know, win some shit in Asia, that would be awesome. not that I really want him to win, since Rafa's playing in all the same tournaments, but come on, Nole, please stop slumping sometime soon. (also, Mandy would have to pull some crazy shenanigans and actually win the YEC in order to overtake Rafa for year-end #2, so that's nice to know. much depends on the state of his wrist, I suppose, but I don't think he can actually win all the major hardcourt events left in the year, especially with JMDP all up in the house.)

ok, blatherings over, off to do thesis research!

well, I don't think it's going to get any better. as always, tell me how to improve it and I will be deeply grateful!

title: and I am standing still
fandom: tennis rps
pairing: Rafa/Nole
rating: G
word count: 1350
summary: "Novak?" Rafa repeated, struggling to find his English, which usually eluded him until at least after breakfast. He was not awake enough for this. "Why you call? Is - Novak, is three in the morning!"
notes: takes place after Novak beat Rafa in the Cincinnati semis in 2009; because Rafa lost that match, he remained at 3 in the ATP rankings, and he and Novak were guaranteed to be seeded in opposite halves of the draw at the US Open, unable to meet until the final. my gratitude as always to t_lyrical, beta extraordinaire.

( the whole world is spinning, and I am standing still )

I know basically one person maybe possibly cares, but... is this real life?

http://twitter.com/fuckontdtennis

"SHUT UP. IF YOU WROTE TENNISSLASH YOU'D HAVE BETTER GRAMMER." orly? because... all signs point to no. they also point to hilarity, and the poetic justice of twitter's lack of spellcheck.

I mean, I keep reading, because I'm kind of addicted and even low-quality crack is better than none, but there are about five active writers in tennis fandom with a solid grasp of the English language. let's not even talk about characterization, folks. is that bitchy? in a word, yes. also, accurate.

(for serious, this is the most amazing twitter I've seen in ages. it reeks of bitterness and rage. I've never before thought that "butthurt" could be the most legitimate description of anyone or anything, but it's marvelously apropos.)

does that joke ever get old? idk.

Spain won their Davis Cup semifinals! (absolutely steamrolling Israel in the process, despite lacking their top two players.) *\o/*

Croatia lost theirs. =/

Serbia won their playoffs! (and looked kind of ridiculously fabulous in the process, even sans Novak. I love Tipsy and his crazy eyes. how were they fighting relegation to Group I? they're miles away from the competition, without their top player even playing.) ^_^

Davis Cup final will be on clay in Spain! =D

there's been some legitimate discussion of who is actually going to play the final. Spain has a pretty ridiculous number of players on the men's side, and they can only field four at a time. there's something to be said for the idea that the players who have actually helped get the team to the final should get to play, but only to a point. if Rafa is healthy, then I don't care if he hasn't played since the first round, their captain would have to be retarded not to use him. (with Rafa and Nando, I think you also have to acknowledge that even when they're injured, they show up and cheer; they're clearly involved in the team effort even if they aren't playing.) Feli and Nando are the closest thing the Spanish have to an actual doubles team, although to be fair most of the boys on the team except Juanqui seem okay at doubles and have played with most of the others competitively at one point or another. I don't even understand why they keep putting Tommy Robredo on the team; aside from doubles today he hasn't won against legitimate competition in Davis Cup since 2004.

basically I am praying they will bench Robredo and pick either Ferrer or Ferrero for the other singles spot. and as much as I love the tiny adorable David (my love of Spanish boys goes: Rafa > David > Feli > Juanqui > Nando > Tommy > Nico, who is unloved), I hope they will pick Boss. he is a veteran, he has seen all this shit before, he will not frazzle. also, he is Boss.

I don't want Nando to play singles, which may be controversial, but I feel like he frazzles more than David or Juanqui, and he kind of has to play doubles. obviously he can play doubles and singles, but if he doesn't have to I don't think he should. he and Feli are much less natural clay-courters than the rest of Team Espana; nothing wrong with letting Rafa and Boss take care of business on the singles end.

tl;dr version: Spanish boys are hot when they win. I hope they do so once again in the final.

gayasatennisplayer.tumblr.com. don't say I never told you.

ps: why is physics haaaaaaaaaard?