players doing good things, at least for one week

BASTAD:

(2)D Ferrer (ESP) d N Almagro (ESP) 61 62. An all-Espana final on clay? You must be joking!!! Nice for David Ferrer, and good to know that he does show up for tournaments and it's good to know that being spotted smoking in the distance (MAYBE) doesn't harm your career.

Other Spaniards did not fare as well as these two. Tommy Robredo was upset early, but managed to play some impressive tennis against this guy:

I think we should all support Nicolas Almagro because I do, only for this reason: once on television, the commentators were discussing Almagro and the dominance of the Spaniards, and they happened to mention that he comes from a small town and doesn't train in the big city of Barcelona like the others do, so he's kinda left out. So being runner-up at a tournament to one of the cool Spaniards must be a good feeling.

PS-Of course, that story could be total bullshit. I just report what ESPN commentators (home of Shriver, Carillo, Fernandez, McEnroe, Drysdale, Fowler, Jensen, Enberg) say, and you can make up your mind whether to believe it or not.

GSTAAD:

(5)Paul-Henri Mathieu (FRA) d Andreas Seppi (ITA) 67(1) 64 75.

I like Mathieu, although it is tough to consistently support him, because he has a terrible tendency to take big leads and then suddenly choke them away. I'm not sure why he does that (although choking once can lead to choking twice and so on), but I do think that if the ATP changed the rules and gave victories for everyone that almost won and didn't, Mathieu would be number one. Same with Seppi too actually, who is rather weak in the mental sense. From his match scores, he seems to trip his way to victories. No questioning the talent of either, but I do think that a therapist would help. Or yoga at the very least.

BUT: Take heart, men! Seppi managed to beat Igor Andreev in the semifinals, which was a nice impressive win to get him to his first final. He can take a lot of good things from the match, except that he was up 5-3 in the final and then choked it away to Mathieu. It must have felt good to PHM. For once to be on the receiving end of a choke! allez!

oh yeah: it's pronounced 'shtahd'

NEWPORT:

(4)F Santoro (FRA) d (5)N Mahut (FRA) 64 64. There's a reason they call Santoro 'the magician.' if you've never seen him play, it's lots of fun to watch. He slices and dices and is probably the most entertaining player on the tour; this has led him to good results, including a 7-2 career w/l record against former no.1 Marat Safin and two victories over Roger Federer. He's thirty-four, and he's just won his first title in years, so huge felicitations!

Another funny thing about Fabrice: he has an excel document full of data on the players of the ATP tour and he's friends with the President of France. Does anyone else think that he's an undercover agent?

Nice for Mahut, reaching two finals in the last few weeks. Even though he lost both. Even though he hit 10 double faults in this match. I predict he'll keep doing good things.


other cool things:
Pete Sampras and Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario were inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame:


I tried hard to find a picture of Aranxta from the ceremony, but I ended up picking this one because of the startling resemblance to Rafael Nadal:





some small asides:
someone wrote in asking why I hadn't mentioned/poked fun at Richard Gasquet for the articles in a French tabloid reporting about a gay affair that he might have had. I have a good reason for that: don't participate in the process of disclosing other people's sexuality, especially if the person involved wants it to be private. Putting my ethics and morals aside (it's easier than it sounds), the affair in question happened months ago. Also: he denies it, the other guy denies it. IF Richard is gay, I hope he comes out with respect and dignity, not through a glare of paparazzi coverage.

Besides, this investigative report here has already uncovered the inner torment of Richard's personal life: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-ppssLz9xzU



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Wimbledon

1. Well, congrats to Roger on a stunning upset of the entire tournament. And Mirka shot about a million photographs of him. I'm not sure why, since he's going to be on the cover of every magazine for the next year and a half.

2. enough about roger! Rafael Nadal can play on grass. and played he did, for seven straight days.

3. enough about rafa! onto...robin soderling. I wasn't amused by his antics during his third-round and neither was nadal. the entire universe knows that rafael takes a lifetime between points, but it certainly isn't up to Captain Soderling (!!) to save the day. tell the ump. don't try to embarass rafael in public. because you might end up embarassing yourself.

4. ana ivanovic vs. nicole vaidisova was almost exciting as djokovic vs. baghdatis. why do these guys all investigate their boxes between points? good tournament by vaidisova to take out mauresmo, although losing to ana after three match points must have been painful, especially for such a young teenage player. baghdatis/djokovic was a crowd-pleaser, despite djokovic remaining strangely clothed at the end.

5. sad exit for djokovic, even though i only picked him for the semis and picked rafael for the final. but i was still hoping that he'd go down gracefully and not with a foot injury. he should be cheered, because he's now number three in the world; not bad for a twenty-year old. he is also now the second-youngest player to reach both the french open and wimbledon semis in the same year. so still a good tournament for our beanpole serb. i can't wait for him to be the champion here, because apparently he promised to strip naked if he wins.

6. henman hill was packed once more, this time at carlos moya's expense. and then feli lopez (my favorite) took him out. ps-you know you're a tennis fan if you're at a crowded bar with a number of attractive social climbing stars, and the only thing you can do is sip your drink and watch henman lose.

7. i guess maybe you guys got the memo about sending good karma to JCF because he's poxed (did i type that? i mean pwned) Blake and then he went to the quarters and took a set off federer with some phenomenal serving. good stuff from a man the commentators called "a clay court veteran."

8. Marion Bartoli? I still don't really have anything to say about it. I still don't understand it. Good surprise though, even though she ruined all my predictions.

9. Nice for Venus. I want to point out that Tennis magazine only got her to the quarters (most of their predictions were pretty inconsistent), but she came and got a fourth Wimbledon (who said that would happen?), being the lowest seed to win it.



10. The greatest moment for me was when Monsieur Bartoli began to cry and Richard Williams reached over and hugged him. And held him. For a good half a minute. And then Williams patted Bartoli on the pack while he sobbed into a handkerchief. It was really touching, in some terribly bizarre and comical way.

11. Richard Gasquet. the man hit 93 winners against Andy Roddick, who isn't a slouch. he hit more shots that andy roddick didn't even touch than than two-thirds of all the points of the women's final. Federer won the entire thing and all that jazz, but seriously, it was pretty phenomenal, especially since Gasquet looked like he just wanted a hot shower and some wine in the middle of the third. and then suddenly found his brain and feet enough to win. if you're not a tennis fan or a new tennis fan, watch his tennis. it's like everything french, like wine and couture and impressionism-you just want to soak your fingers in it. it's so beautiful and tactile. he's such a dancer on court, i'd hate to see him break it down in the club.

and ps-it was terrible to see andy roddick in the post-match interview. i think tragedy actors could take a few tips from it.

12. I hereby say: No more Brad Gilbert. No more calling Rafael Nadal "Ralph Nader." I'm praying for Andy Murray to come back fast so that Brad has his hands full dealing with surly Scotsmen instead of harassing innocent television viewers.

13. Darren Cahill was a good commentator, and so was John McEnroe. the host at ESPN, chris fowler is fun. Bud Collins has been fired, praise Jesus. And besides that, nothing really changes in commentary. There's always the Blake/Roddick lovers (P.McEnroe), the ones that don't seem to know what's going on (Ted Robinson), the ones that seem to think we're blind (Dick Enberg), and one that just seems like everyone's senile grandfather (Cliff "Cliffie!" Drysdale).

14. From how many angles can you see a calf cramp? Apparently enough angles to fill hours and hours of television coverage during a rain delay. I'm only surprised that they didn't stick a camera up Serena's skirt to give us the aerial perspective.


15. James Blake is a published author now! When I heard this news, I was hoping that it would be an answer to the feud publicized by Vince Spadea in his Pulitzer-winning book, but instead it's actually (brace yourselves for innovation) an inspirational and original story about a kid from the who battles adversity and crushing defeat to make it big in the tennis world. Good idea, because we all know that Spadea ain't afraid of ya.

16. "It's the most boring tournament in the world. Apart from tennis there is hardly anything to do. Luckily we hired a house in the city because there's nothing to do elsewhere. But still, all we do here is yawning." -Nikolay Davydenko, on oldest major championship in tennis.

17. Who else hates the challenge system other than Roger Federer? I too think it's a little ridiculous. I don't like the finality of the computer; not only does it only have a margin of error of four millimeters (doesn't sound like much unless it's a close call in the men's final), but it's only 90% accurate. So 10% of the time, the call is going to be wrong. And no one knows which 10 times it is. I'm not in the Roger camp (how enjoyable was it to see his pokerface flip out and ask it to be turned off?), but I'm not in NBC's 'IN-SYNC!' camp either.

18. Sunday's weather was so lovely. I mean, that middle sunday. The one that no one used? I know that they weren't too far behind by Friday, but when the weather forecast was so grim for the early part of the week (on the plus side: serena's calf never got so much publicity!), there should have been an emergency plan. I was seething to think of Djokovic and Nadal sitting in the locker room (not that there was much sitting, I guess. Nadal was probably jumping up and down while Djokovic imitated his moves right behind him.) while the Wimbledon official was on tv talking about how much fun the tournament was. Three cheers for Wimbledon 09: once that roof goes on, I don't ever want it coming off.


All in all, despite the best effort of injuries, cramping, upsets and rain, it was a good two weeks. Between Borg watching Federer win the final, Nadal's incredible play, a good effort by Ferrero to take a set of Federer, the breakthroughs of young and future victors, you have to admit that it's an exciting time in tennis; it isn't often that you get to see the emergence of legends. By any standards, Roger Federer has now penciled in a paragraph in sport history.

thirty.love1@gmail.com

Wimbledon picks

I'm going to go out on a limb and pick.....



TIM HENMAN.
07 WIMBLEDON CHAMPION.


or maybe Roger Federer in an old school jacket.
defeating a Spaniard with wedgies and capris.
I see a shirtless Serbian in the semis (hopefully, even though Novak's draw is terrible)
And a lot of big American serves in the semis.

Justine Henin
defeating the taller Williams (and the one that I like better)
Serena in the semis, probably with earrings longer than her skirt (I don't like Serena much)
and....Mauresmo.

Federer def. Nadal. Roddick, Djokovic.
Henin def. Venus Williams. Serena, Mauresmo (or Vaidisova. )

i think the serbians should make a good showing again with some confidence from their french successes.

spain should do better than they're expected to. don't discount rafael nadal, although I know everyone doesn't think that he can recap his success from last year, i definitely think he can. i see spain doing pretty well; lopez should do ok, if he can keep from getting distracted, and he has such a winsome personality that he attracts fans wherever he goes. moya should lose to henman.

and hopefully the americans can do better than they did in paris. not a high challenge; i'm not sure how they could do worse, unless they all come to an executive decision to withdraw all together. unlucky for fish to play nadal in the first round, though.

seriously, does anyone at tennis magazine even watch tennis? I know they went to press too early to note that Murray isn't playing, but still. Some of their picks are terrible. Vaidisova's brain is still muddy sometimes, and I'll eat my own racket if Gonzalez reaches the quarters. I know no one thinks Nadal will make the finals, but I think Nadal has such mental focus that he grows his arms with his mind. It won't be easy or pretty, but he'll get there.


maybe a fourth-round surprise will await Federer. karma's a bitch.



thirty.love1@gmail.com

Players formerly known as Champions (now ranked between 20 - 10000000) : Juan Carlos Ferrero

Sometimes I see Juan Carlos Ferrero on the last court practicing, and I remember that he had always been quiet but his hype and fan base hadn't been. Jon Wertheim at si.com talked about seeing him unheralded on court 18. I saw that too, and couldn't help but remember that he had once reached at least the semis at the French for four years in a row (including at his debut). In 2003, he became number one, reached the Aussie quarters after the Sydney final, he reached the fourth round of Wimbledon (losing in five sets to Grosjean, not bad for a "clay-courter,") He also won two Masters titles and reached the US Open final, where I was even surprised to see him walking after how much tennis he played to get that far.

So he had a dream year with so much potential, and now he's sorta wandering around the top 20. (And note that he hasn't won a title since 2003.) It seemed to fall into nothing out of nowhere: 0-3 in the Masters Cup. He seemed to rebound in Australia and Rotterdam.

And then the deadly disease: chicken pox.

It does sound a little pathetic, I think, no offense to JCF or anything. It would be one thing trace a demise back to say, the plague or anthrax. We didn't laugh when Tommy Haas dealt with his family's motorcycle accident or when Guga Kuerten hurt his hip. But the chicken pox? I had that, and sat in a tub of tomato juice and watched television for a couple weeks. George fucking Washington had pockmarks and then he became president. But Ferrero got it and flunked out of tennis.

The pox among other things too, I'm sure. But I just think its funny to talk about his deadly battle with the plague and disease and starvation. Ooops, I mean his fight against the POX.

But he was good, and I think he could have been the second coming of the Guga Messiah. But then Rafael Nadal showed up and Spain left him behind to quietly practice unheralded and alone.

I still support him. I think he deserves it, just for being an all-round good guy. I've seen him be really kind and patient fans, and didn't he once make out with Alex Corretja?


EDIT: i want to thank the person that shot and took the time to put this on the internet.















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menstennisforums.com

A lot of you email me about 'MTF,' which I never really had been to. Last time I went there, I thought my eyes were going to start to bleed, but I decided to give it another chance.

I went to menstennisforums.com expecting pedantic discussions of topspin forehands or a coverup for a Marat Safin fan fiction page, which is what I thought it was last time. I was ready to laugh at crazy tennis fans, players who considered themselves the next Nadal or people who sat around at work looking at shirtless pictures of Novak Djokovic (there’s a lot of them).

But that’s not really what it is at all. It’s a bizarre place, but by parts it was enlightening, amusing and informative. I did sit around and read a lot of fun name-calling between Nadal and Federer fans (how many rounds of debate can there be? apparently months worth.); oddly enough, their fans at MTF seem to hate each other more than Roger and Rafael do.

But they are a strange lot. Among the millions of inside jokes that they have, including the fact that at some point, they decided that Carlos Moya was some kind of religious figure (I still don't understand this), that Marat Safin should be nicknamed 'hippo' and that Oscar Hernandez (?) was the king of tennis. Everyone discusses players girlfriends, whether they smoke (SPOTTED: DAVID FERRER) and even which players were cuter as a baby. I guess I could also mention that the 2007 French Open final thread contained ___ posts or that people were on discussing tennis until 4 or 5 in the morning local time. And we could all sit here and laugh about people that were obsessed by players they didn’t know or a sport that some didn’t play.

But I guess we all have little obsessions, small fetishes that no one else would understand. And finding people that also recognize and understand those fixations is like finding an extended family, united by one interest that the rest of the world might laugh at.

And that’s what I saw. An extended family, whether arguing over Federer and Nadal or arguing over the hottest tennis player (Marat seems to reign undisturbed here, let's hope he can channel that in tennis matches). People from America, Bosnia, Serbia, Brazil, South Africa, India, France, Belgium and a million other places discuss current tournaments, woes of their national tennis coverage, their favorite players, the matches of the day – even discussing more serious matters, everything from car crashes to wartime experiences. I read about the bombing of Serbia, people recovering from diseases, the Polish reaction to the missile defense system in that country. Real friends, real discussions, real affection, all with people that they might never meet or talk to in person.

It’s a good source of information. There are articles in many different languages with someone always willing to translate them for you. Without it, I would never have learned about Richard Gasquet's supposed gay affair (everyone denies it, but stories like these have to believed on faith) or that Radek Stepanek and Martina Hingis were engaged (how beautiful and touching!!). Find your favorite player, and there are stores of information about them in individual sections.

When I finished skimming some sections, I felt oddly warm inside. Everyone wasn’t nice and everyone wasn’t smart, but most people were characters; at times I was learning a lot and at times, I was falling on the floor with laughter (particularly in places called ‘If the ATP were a gay bar, who would hook up with whom?’ and ‘The Grass is for cows, smoking, fodder, football pitches & anti-grass tennis Thread’). There are posters that have a future as models, tennis girlfriends (I hear of openings in the Safin box for hundreds of you), stand-up comics, and more legitimately as tennis journalists, writers and directors of tournaments. It’s a good place and while I wouldn't want to move there, I recommend visiting. I hear the trees are lovely in September.



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Nole

This is a post about Novak Djokovic, for no reason other than he's my new favorite tennis player. And he's my new favorite tennis player for no reason other than I think he's really funny. He wins a lot too, but mostly he's really funny. I used to think that Gael Monfils would become the next comedian standing and for awhile I thought that Roddick would step up (there's still time). I even thought Rafa would do it, until I discovered that its really not nice to laugh at other people's english.

But Novak Djokovic is really special. He has two beautiful Serbian tennis players in his posse (cast your vote: Ana or Jelena? which one is he "not dating"?), he's an excellent and yet his whole family still thinks his brothers are better, he had asthma and got it fixed (I fucking had asthma and I fucking used an inhaler, but I guess its hard to hit forehands and push-and-inhale at the same time) and he's bizarre.

I'm gonna keep editing this and adding to it, because with Nole (why do they call him Nole? why do people nickname people in weird ways? why not call him Nove?), the fun doesn't stop.

• everyone else loved this, but i thought the best part was his jig at the end, like ashlee simpson did. maybe he lipsynced this whole thing. maybe thats not even his chest: http://youtube.com/watch?v=voV4By6MODU

• headbanger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B1ImK4VBUY

• this is him getting his ass beat by a girl (ana, one that he's "not dating.") : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAtVW0X8T4o

• this is him trying to cook something, a clip with the wonderfully pornographic title of 'novak's meat madness.' : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xTe_elf9r0
  

• there's a lot more, but I did skip all the fan fiction about him and richard gasquet.

EDIT: oh all right. i mean, if you're interested
http://darklucia.livejournal.com/12378.html#cutid1 (not only is he a ladies man, apparently he and richard have quite the affair to remember. which makes me terribly sad because it means that this gem of a video is completely untrue: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-ppssLz9xzU )

• I like him even more now because he likes to make fun of people, although I'm sure he calls it something nice like 'imitating rafael nadal.' personally i call it 'teaching rafael a lesson about picking your ass by mocking it in public'
  
  like in this clip from Wimbledon: http://youtube.com/watch?v=gzXyY8jebwU

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Leaving Paris

1. Rafael Nadal won. There's really not much more to be said. The Hamburg loss was as irrelevent as most people thought (except maybe Roger). And watching him defeat Djokovic made it all the more clear that Nadal has put galaxies between himself and the other rising stars. Also that Nadal is barely a year older than Novak, and he's already won three Grand Slams. He might be the most phenomenal prodigy in tennis history.

2. 1st set: Davydenko leads Federer: 4-2, Roger serving 0-40. Nikolay failed to break.
2nd set: Davydenko leads Federer: 5-4, served for the set
3rd set: Davydenko leads Federer: 5-3, served for the set

final result: R FEDERER (SUI) def. N DAVYDENKO (RUS): 7-5 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (9-7)

Federer looking vulnerable against Davydenko had to help Rafael's confidence in the final. Battle of the nerves.

3. Bad loss but an overall good run for the Russian. although I sometimes feel sorry for him: he plays almost every week, he's losing his hair, he has trouble securing endorsements, no one knows who he is even though he's in the top 5. So a semifinal at the French must be a good consolation prize.

4. Serbia made an excellent showing, until Jankovic and Djokovic burned in the semifinals. Ivanovic waited an extra round to do that.

5. Speaking of small countries and rising stars, hats off to Ernests Gulbis of Latvia. He managed to defeat Tim Henman, before losing to Albert Montanes (although not before taking a set off him).

6. Disappointing and crushing women's final, especially after Ana's strong start. But I really think that in the wave of Rafael's domination, Justine's is a little unheralded. She's equally dominant. And television coverage did an excellent job of chronicling every last known detail of her off-court personal life; I was really pleased to hear about every second of her dramatic comeback from her divorce and her personal fulfillment and rediscovery of her estranged family. (aka no one wants to know, and I'm sure Justine doesn't want us to know.)

7. Guga Kuerten presented the trophy and gave a little speech in french, which basically cemented everyone's love (is love even adequate anymore? I feel like this has escalated to full scale mania and obsession) of him. Has there ever been a more beloved tennis player? Next thing you know, he'll be UN Secretary General. And I believe that he would be perfectly legitimate.

8. basically:

1. Diego Hartfield (ARG) def. Robby Ginepri (USA): 6-4, 1-6, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2.
2. Igor Andreev (RUS) def. Andy Roddick (USA): 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4
3. Ivo Karlovic (CRO) def. James Blake (USA): 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, 7-5
4. Laurent Recourderc (FRA) def. Sam Querrey (USA): 7-6 (4), 2-6, 6-0, 6-7 (5), 6-3
5. Roger Federer (SUI) def. Michael Russell (USA): 6-4, 6-2, 6-4
   
6. Gilles Simon (FRA) def. Vince Spadea (USA): 2-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3
   
7. Juan Carlos Ferrero (ESP) def. Amer Delic (USA): 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-3, 6-5
8. Juan Pablo Brzezicki (ARG) def. Robert Kendrick (USA): 6-1, 3-6, 6-2, 6-1
9. Nicolas Almagro (ESP) def. Justin Gimelstob (USA): 6-4, 6-4, 6-4
   

so that brings the final score to clay def. American men: 9-0. seriously though. is there NO WAY for the american men to at least win two matches? is that so hard to ask? Even the french men were able to do that, and they've practically got Yannick Noah tattooed on their backs.



I'll end with the collection of the un jour a roland karaoke videos. In case you missed it, there was a French TV show that asks players to submit themselves to public humiliation by singing/lipsynching on television in front of hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of people. Some are successful, some are not. And if these videos are any indication, player parties must be dull until the Frenchmen get a few drinks in them and decide to take their clothes off.

UN JOUR A ROLAND:

Rafael Nadal (singing La Bamba): http://www.dailymotion.com/sportvideos/video/3504603

Novak Djokovic (ahhh the djoker, singing I will Survive): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x23gzl_novak-djokovic

Roger Federer (Simply the Best): http://www.dailymotion.com/sportvideos/video/x23ual_federer-is-simply-the-best

Gilles Simon (Hot Stuff): http://ma-tvideo.france3.fr/video/iLyROoaft6o8.html

Tommy Robredo (something unintelligible in Spanish): http://ma-tvideo.france3.fr/video/iLyROoaft6ov.html

Florent Serra (I believe I can Fly. not very good, but the man in the back is surprisingly good at making out with himself): http://ma-tvideo.france3.fr/video/iLyROoaft6oM.html

Michael Llodra (Night Fever. after all, this is the man who once hid naked in a locker): http://ma-tvideo.france3.fr/video/iLyROoaftQgu.html

Elena Dementieva (Lady Marmalade): http://ma-tvideo.france3.fr/video/iLyROoaftQg7.html

Alize Cornet (something in french.): http://ma-tvideo.france3.fr/video/iLyROoaftQgU.html

Justine Henin (something french) : http://ma-tvideo.france3.fr/video/iLyROoaftQk9.html

Marcos Baghdatis (Sex Bomb) : http://ma-tvideo.france3.fr/video/iLyROoaftQkw.html

Serena Williams (some rap song, it's very....'bootylicious.' for lack of any better word to describe it.): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x265m6_serena-williams-fait-son-show

Ana Ivanovic (upside down.): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x26ts1_ana-ivanovic-upside-down

The Best of 2007 (really, there's no need to watch every single one. this one really does pick the best.): http://www.dailymotion.com/sportvideos/video/3726083

The Best of 2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bte2iKh83s


onward to london!
last one to Big Ben is a Vince Spadea!



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