I forgot to mention the possible impact of the weather as one of the reasons I do not like to purchase US Open tickets in advance. When you attend a tournament for just a few days, it sucks to have rain interrupt play on any of those days. I feel for those folks who traveled to Flushing Meadows to watch tennis over the past few days. It’s been a complete…
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Added by tennischick on September 12, 2009 at 6:00am —
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...But from the moment Oudin came on court, my attention was all hers. She was playing against Maria Sharapova, a player who normally attracts the support of American audiences everywhere. In fact, it has become almost convenient to forget that Sharapova, with her unshakable American accent, is not actually American.
My prediction was that Sharapova was in for…
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Added by tennischick on September 10, 2009 at 9:30pm —
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I’ve been going to the US Open since 1999. The first time I went, I was alone, a novice feeling her way around a major tournament. I was picked up in turn by an elderly Jewish couple with season tickets, a father and son from Columbia, and a Junior player who had lost in his opening round and needed someone to latch on to until his parents could…
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Added by tennischick on September 9, 2009 at 6:00pm —
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First it was Kim Clijsters. Then I heard talk about Mary Pierce who is reportedly in serious training with Yutaka Nakamura at Bollettieri’s. And now rumor is that Henin is training for some exhibition matches later this year and may be open to returning to competing for real. What’s going on? What’s with all this leaving and coming back?
Personally I blame Dinara. Yes I know that it’s not fair of me to lay blame anywhere but since you logged on to this blog to get my opinion I will…
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Added by tennischick on September 2, 2009 at 7:13pm —
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“Strokes of Genius” opens with a reference to pigeon shit. Apparently pigeons used to shit all over Centre Court at Wimbledon. So in 2008, the All England Club enlisted the services of a hawk to slaughter the pigeons and thereby get rid of the pooping problem. Wertheim introduces this as an analogy to the match between Rafa and Rogi. I assumed that Rafa was the hawk and Rogi the shitting pigeon. I took immediate offense.
Click…
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Added by tennischick on August 29, 2009 at 5:38pm —
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I showed up an hour early. In my excitement about playing tennis, I misread the announcement and thought that we were meeting at 6pm. In fact, the meet-up was posted for 7pm. The sun was still brutally hot. The public courts were filling up fast. I stood there for a while wondering where everyone was.
Most of the courts were occupied by men. There was a smattering of women. A woman and a young girl who seemed to be her daughter struggled to hit the ball, the mother’s returns going…
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Added by tennischick on August 28, 2009 at 8:12pm —
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...I found myself derailed by the bizarre view of courtside coaching in which the coach is attached to a microphone so that the TV audience can hear his every word. And what I saw in Maria Sharapova was a player who seemed utterly humiliated by the experience.
The humiliation started yesterday in the match against Kleybanova. The coach mentioned to Maria that he knew that her arm was tired but that he wanted to hit more slice serves down the line. She interrupted him snappily to…
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Added by tennischick on August 23, 2009 at 4:57pm —
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When Pete Sampras retired in 2002, after spanking Agassi for the umpteenth time, he gave the impression that he was done with tennis. In interviews he indicated that his career was over. He was going to turn into a homebody, taking care of his wife and helping her to pop out some kids. As evidence that he was done for good, his training team packed up and found other jobs, most famously Paul Annacone who found a lead job with the Lawn Tennis Association.
I can’t honestly say that I…
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Added by tennischick on August 19, 2009 at 7:00pm —
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Apologies for not writing. I have been in obsessive mode. I’ve spent the last two weeks obsessing about everything to do with the US Open. It’s my annual torment. Although to be honest it also gives me pleasure, so much so that I have concluded that there is a part of me that simply loves to obsess. I must get off on dithering.
First I looked into purchasing a mini-plan. You know, one of those Labor Day weekend deals that include tickets and hotel. The lowest priced I found cost…
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Added by tennischick on August 18, 2009 at 8:00pm —
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...I was stunned by the way the commentators were crying down Dr. Bartoli yesterday. Not because I disagreed with what they were saying -- au contraire -- but because one so rarely expects such a high level of honesty from ESPN-hired commentators covering a match.
But those commentators held nothing back. One described her horror at watching Dr. Bartoli put his daughter through the paces of warming up for a match. It sounded almost as if Marion burns up so much energy in the bizarre…
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Added by tennischick on August 3, 2009 at 8:35pm —
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...Dechy was not the most tremendous achiever in tennis. I say this against the backdrop of comparisons to such high achievers as the Williams sisters and Steffi Graf. Some players, like Graf, seem to wait until their tennis life is over before than can go on to other pursuits. Players like Dechy combined tennis with other pleasures. If I had to choose, I could not imagine having Graf’s single-mindedness, even though I truly admire it. I am more like Dechy. I like to enjoy a nice glass of wine…
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Added by tennischick on July 27, 2009 at 9:30pm —
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...With the announcement that Roddick has also withdrawn from Indianapolis, I find myself contemplating the impact of his injury from a broader scope. Clearly the US would not have lost to Croatia had Roddick played Davis Cup. Clearly Dmitry Tursunov and Dudi Sela would not be the top seeds in Indianapolis had Roddick not called in sick. An injured Roddick is not good for American tennis.
That this coincides with an injured Nadal and an absent Federer places men’s tennis in a curious…
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Added by tennischick on July 22, 2009 at 8:00pm —
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It’s not entirely Jamie Foxx’ fault but his presence a few years ago didn’t help. It wasn’t that he serenaded Serena. It was that he didn’t seem to know how to stop serenading her. His song seemed to go on and on, and then he draped his body over hers and expressed his lust in a manner that I personally would have found disrespectful.
To be fair, it did not seem to bother Serena who laughed along gamely and spanked his butt when asked to do so. But I did note that she did not use the…
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Added by tennischick on July 19, 2009 at 4:04pm —
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I have in the space of this blog, previously bitch-slapped Martina Hingis for having tested positive for cocaine. I have also been less harsh on Gasquet for the same offense, not because I have double standards -- although I will fully accept if some readers believe that I do -- but because I honestly felt that there were differences between their situations that made the one less excusable than the other.
A friend called me after I posted that last column to say that he thought that…
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Added by tennischick on July 16, 2009 at 8:22pm —
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...Right about now, Selesians must be celebrating like it’s Christmas. You see, yesterday, Monica Seles got inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. This honor is very much deserved. Seles has won 53 singles titles and six doubles titles. She held the # 1 ranking for a total of 178 weeks and in both 1991 and 1992, she was the # 1 player in the world. She has won nine Grand Slams (only Wimbledon eluded her). And she was the original screamer. You could hear her playing a mile away.…
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Added by tennischick on July 12, 2009 at 11:30am —
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He knew he would have to go. There was just no getting around it. DampAss had been dreading this moment for months, ever since The Maestro had earned a 13th Slam. DampAss’ spirits had lifted temporarily after Nadal crushed him in Australia. But alas, along came Paris, and Nadal’s surprising announcement that he would not be defending. Suddenly DampAss found himself in a tie for the G.O.A.T. And now it looked like things were about to get worse.
The hardest part was figuring…
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Added by tennischick on July 11, 2009 at 6:17pm —
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The new Wimbledon roof: If you don’t build it, it will rain. But if you build it, Murray will complain.
Andy Roddick seems to have matured. Is it the punani or the Stefanki? Discuss.
Was Djokovic at Wimbledon? I didn’t see him. I think I saw his shadow playing on a nether court but that can’t be true cuz he’s not ugly.
Federer had a jacket with the # 15 imprinted in gold on the back. What would he have done if he had lost? Was there a back-up clothing…
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Added by tennischick on July 6, 2009 at 6:00pm —
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...Officially, dominant performers have every right to enter any contest they chose. But unofficially it is understood that they had better not because audiences would be most unhappy. And so, usually at the point at which their dominance peaks, they start being pressured to give others a chance. Or to paraphrase John McEnroe during his post-match interview of Federer, they start feeling that it is time to throw the other guy a bone...
Find the rest of this article…
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Added by tennischick on July 5, 2009 at 1:03pm —
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...Roger didn’t say it but his meta-point seemed to be that we have become so accustomed to his success that we dismiss anything that falls short of a win in the finals. He didn’t say it but he seemed to be implying that we his fans, are somewhat prone to either-or thinking, such that anything that is not a win in the finals is defined as a failure. He didn’t say it, because he was doing his whole classy guy act, but he seemed to be hinting that in this, we are all quite full of it. And then…
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Added by tennischick on July 2, 2009 at 6:30pm —
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So the entire tennis world is up in arms over an allegation that the Wimbledon organizers place the pretty players on center court while the homely chicks are relegated to the courts located in the netherworld. I have honestly been shocked by the amount of press that this story has managed to attract, what with the universal fixation on the death of Michael Jackson and the astonishing number of related scandals now clogging up the news pages.
I was even more intrigued that a…
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Added by tennischick on July 1, 2009 at 4:11am —
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