Heard Around

by Savannah

Another racist incident in the ATP

American player Ryan Sweeting (above), who has been trying to make his way into the top 100 was fined $1,500.00 American by the ATP for berating the chair umpire after he over ruled a line call. Marc Weber reports the following:

An irate Sweeting, the former junior U.S. Open champion, was issued a warning for verbal abuse after calling the umpire "a f------ kite," as was reported by the umpire following the match.
(...)
"We received the code violation from the chair umpire and he provided me with a written report of what he heard, and I've fined Mr. Sweeting for his actions," said ATP supervisor Keith Crossland.
(...)
Crossland did confirm that statements have been taken from other officials and people within earshot of the rant. At least one heard a different word -- one that is derogatory towards Jews.

People have been doing yeoman's work in bringing more attention to Junior Tennis and it seems that while there are a great many players who are deserving of the attention some of the on court antics and attitudes that young players are bringing to the tennis court are disturbing to say the least.

Despite her talent Victoria Azarenka is one of the worst offenders in this regard. She seems not to understand the role of the chair umpire at all. Her outburst in Brisbane is what keeps me from being a whole hearted supporter of her.

Unfortunately Brydan Klein's recent outburst came as no surprise to me. Bernard Tomic is another one who could use some courses in on court etiquette.

It seems that the juniors coming onto the main tour are legends in their own minds and are having trouble realizing that behavior that may be sanctioned by their tennis organizations is not what is expected on either Main Tour.

Sweeting, who has had past problems due to his off court behavior is not a kid though. He's 22. He obviously wants to become a "player" in the slang sense of the word, in American tennis circles. It's going to be interesting to see how the American tennis media reports on this situation.

Live Streaming

There is tremendous interest in the match between Marion Bartoli and Kim Clijsters scheduled to take place Monday evening in Cincinnati. Unfortunately TennisTV and ESPN2 won't pick up the coverage of the event until later in the week. It's quite interesting then that Kim's website is touting it's "live" coverage of the match.

Now live can mean many things. I know on Eurosport they will tout "live" coverage and what you get is scoreboard watching. I guess we'll all be checking out Kim Clijsters site to see if we will indeed be able to see the match live. That is with a live stream. What would tennis fans do without them since TPTB seem to think we only care about quarterfinal, semifinal, and final matches. Getting to those matches is half the fun.

Los Angeles and the WTA

Flavia Pennetta was faced with the same situation Urszula Radwanska faced the night before. The woman across the net couldn't get her serves in to save her life as the saying goes yet the "stah" was still expected to run over her prone body and make the final. It seems that Flavia decided she had nothing to lose and went out to win the match. Flavia is looking to be the first Italian woman to be ranked in the top ten and knew that winning matches you're supposed to lose is part of the deal if she's to breathe that rarefied air. Flavia was seeded number 10 in LA and is ranked 14 in the official rankings. Her opponent is ranked #61.

It's funny about American commentators. Every visit from the "stah's" coach was treated as if Zeus was descending from Mount Olympus. Visit's from Flavia's coach were treated as comedic interludes. Yet it was the "comedic interludes" that ended up prevailing. Those of us sitting at home can say Flavia should've won it in two but we're sitting at home probably stuffing our faces with something while the players are actually playing. She won it in three sets. She won. I had turned the sound off by then so I didn't hear how the commentators handled the "unexpected" loss of #61 to #14.

Flavia will meet Samantha Stosur of Australia in today's final. There are people who bought tickets and they'll be there. I bet there will be a lot of commentary about empty seats today since the "Stah" isn't playing. Not much was said when she was playing and the empty seats outnumbered behinds. If you can see the match ignore that nonsense. Both women have a lot to prove with this final. It's the kind of match the WTA should be looking to promote. Right.

By the way the Stah's shoulder was taped last night. Kinda. It wasn't the support tape you usually see but I'm no expert on that sort of thing. I have to repeat that the double faulting problem existed before the shoulder issue. The shoulder issue was supposed to be resolved and the double faulting was to go away. Is it her ball toss? Is it the mechanics of her serve? Or is it something else?

Tennis In the Fountains

Beautiful pictures of Elena Dementieva and Kim Clijsters during their exhibition in Cincy yesterday. It sounded like a weird idea but looks like it was a lot of fun.