I have to keep reminding myself that I have a life that goes on even when a Grand Slam is taking place. Even though I'm living on Paris time my reality is New York time. Pain in the ass isn't it?
I can bitch and moan all I want though. Before I go any further I have to salute Virginie Razzano of France. As many of you kow Virginie lost her fiance and coach to a brain tumor about seven days ago but she insisted on playing. I don't know if she won or lost and I really don't care. She was a winner simply by taking the court.
Now on to the usual mayhem.
Once again I have to start with the talking heads. I'm not singling out ESPN this time. All of them are simply amazing in their ignorance of the sport they get paid to comment on and explain to viewers. Keep in mind viewers can be casual, viewers who are curious about the sport and are looking for intelligent explanations of what is going on between the lines or they can be fanatics, people who can talk intelligently about Steffi Graf's last match. Both groups are done a disservice by tennis announcers. Instead of intelligent discussion we get a lot of bullshit, inside jokes and conversations about the NBA playoffs.
What set me off? Johanna Larsson of Sweden took the court against commentator favorite Ana Ivanovic. At some point early in the match one of the women on Tennis Channel said that she'd never heard of Ms Larsson. After it was obvious the heretofore unheard of Ms Larsson had enough game to send Ana packing the discussion turned to something or another.
I have to explain why I get so annoyed at know nothing announcers. I live in the States. I grew up watching baseball with my father. No baseball announcer would dare say on the air that he never heard of some guy that just came up to the main team. Whether the support staff supplies the information or not he or she must come across to the viewer as being totally aware of everything that has to do with Player X. For an announcer to say they've never heard of tennis Player Y and not be able to recoup and cite their history annoys the hell out of me.
Many tennisheads now follow Challenger tournaments and players the same way they follow main tour players. I'm one of them and it's a good thing I am. I can't rely on the "expert commentators" to provide me any information on players who miraculously appear in Grand Slam draws can I? Besides, you can watch Challenger tournament live streams now. Maybe someone should tell the experts that huh?
I'm sure Kim Clijsters fans were happy to see her running around showing no ill effects from her foot injury or lay off. She said she'd been practicing for about a week.
Vania King got a big win today over self professed party girl Dominika Cibulkova. I would like to have seen that match since for once both women were not fighting someone a foot taller.
Young Heather Watson of Great Britain won her match yesterday. There's a lot of talk about her in some tennis circles. I can't say tennis circles in general because I'm sure the American commentators haven't heard about her.
I didn't see Patty Schnyder's match today but there were tons of comments from fans saying she should hang up her racquets. Readers of this space know why she will continue to play as long as she can.
End Notes
I'm a Bag Check whore. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's is sooo cute. For an athlete Victoria Azarenka doesn't even try to hide her junk food jones.
Nice ink. I believe this is Lukas Rosol.
The war between bloggers and tennis "journalists" continues.
We are very sorry, we have been asked by the International Tennis Writers Association not to release transcripts of post-match interviews this year, so as not to disadvantage reporters here at the French Open. You can find many of the relevant quotes in the articles posted on our website.
Scroll down for the quote from the FO officials.
SOURCE
I guess now the "journalists" can take a players comments out of context and distort questions and replies to their hearts content. Bastards.
2 comments:
That last sentence says it all. How many times over the years did Player A get the narrative written that he/she was an arrogant, 2-faced douchebag just because of a throw-away comment that was published in a way that would show the player in a poor light? For me, this war between tennis writers and bloggers is welcome. For years I have defended comments attributed to Federer, Serena, Venus and many others and just because I did not know about ASAP's website I was never able to get their definitive comments. Now I can and now every single fan can too. We see the questions and we see the responses of the players and then we see what the tennis writers decide what they will publish.
As for the fact that they have no clue about certain players. It started with Wickmayer and will continue for as long as they want it to. Bastards!!! indeed
I meant to post something about Heather Watson. She is having a quite remarkable year. I remember someone posting something last year about who would have the better career, either Robson or Watson and I picked Watson because I just felt that she had a bit more going on upstairs than Robson. Robson has a really good game and is quite composed for her age, but man, she has developed quite an attitude which is in sharp contrast to where her game is right now.
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