In what I hope is a regular feature, I will dissect the week's major sporting events using Nintendo games and products as a point of comparison.  Games color and shape the way we see the world.  So do sports.  By viewing sporting events through a specific gaming lense, my intention is to combine these interests in a way that hopefully sheds light on each.

Secondary goal: To make strange, often ill-fitting connections that may or may not cause you to chuckle or ponder deep existential queries or remember that one time you chucked your NES pad across the room and missed your sister's head by inches.  Follow along if you wish.  And I welcome your responses or alternate takes on the weeks' topic. 

Special thanks to community member T. McReynolds for the inadvertant suggestion.

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"Forty - Love."

Wimbledon began this week, one of Tennis' most cherished traditions.  The grass courts make for a fast-style of play, and the all-white dress code provides the necessary English stuffiness. 

This got me thinking.  If each of the USTA's majors had a representative Nintendo sub-genre, which would they be?  This is how I'd break them down:

-Wimbledon = Art Style.   Clean and slick.   Loved by many, uninteresting to some.

-U.S. Open = Game & Watch.  Sort of funky, but hard to play and win. 

-French Open = Touch Generations.  The red clay court makes play softer, often slower... just the right pace for those non-gamers in your life.  Plus, the French like touching.  So I've been told.

-Australian Open = Those crazy Japanese games that never released in the west.  Because they're played on the other side of the world.   And because I hear Rafael Nadal loves his Tomodachi Collection.

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GOOAAALL?

Landon Donovan of the U.S. soccer team scored during the 91st minute against Algeria to win 1-0 and advance to the Round of 16.  It was the first time a U.S. team won their World Cup group since 1930.   Some have called it the greatest ending to a World Cup soccer match they've ever seen....

...or you can think of it as the opposite of one of the worst endings ever. 

I experienced this pain first-hand, earlier this year, when, after nearly years of on-again, off-again slogging, I finally beat Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts.  Or at least I thought I did.  Previously, I'd played it on a SNES.  Then I'd played it on emulators.  In a lucky used-games find, I scored a copy of the GBA version for $4.  Psyched and reinvigorated, I moved Arthur through graveyards and haunted ships, castles and devilish mazes, double-jumping and sword-throwing over and over and over again until reaching the World 8 boss.  I was on the subway.  After sinking my lance into that double-faced beast I nearly jumped up and hollered to the commuting hordes, "I did it!"  And then I read this:

Goddess Bracelet??  What the freak is the goddess bracelet!?  Did I miss it along the way?  It's not over??  NOO.  I hate you, game.

Go U.S.A.!