Well That Was One Hell of a Week...

by Savannah

Dear Serena

Please let your cook know that I would like my crow oven fried please. And I'd like a rather large serving of it.

Sincerely,

Savannah

At some point during the semifinal of the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, South Carolina Brad Gilbert Tweeted the line of the year. Paraphrasing he wanted to let Samantha Stosur know that the keys to the woodshed were being held for her. Serena Williams let it be known that while she is not in the Golden Circle she is still a tennis force to be reckoned with. I don't think Samantha knew what hit her. Harnessing her power and playing with the precision of a surgeon Serena cut her to shreds, beat her like she stole something. As long time tennis fans know the danger of a dominant first set is that the player can lose focus and let their opponent into the match in the second set. That most certainly did not happen to Serena.

But there was more to it than that. Sascha Baijin, Serena's hitting partner, persuaded Serena to mix Luxillon strings with gut to help cut down on the errors off her racquet. She listened to him and it looks as if the new stringing arrangement is working well.

But it doesn't stop there. Serena played a mature game, a thinking person's game. The woman who used to blow her opponents off the court with raw power still blows them away. But the power is now tempered with nuance and subtlety, a deftness and lightness of touch that has developed in her game over the last few years. She and her coach, father Richard Williams, have tinkered with her approach to her matches from what I can see, and Serena, unlike some of her peers, has listened to the suggestions of those around her and done what has to be done to continue building her legend.

After Polona Hercog embarrassed herself and women's tennis by going ass up to Lucie Safarova in the other semi final (I don't know how she wasn't fined for malingering. She made absolutely no effort to play Lucie) I had to stop myself from saying they should just hand the trophy to Serena. You never know what is going to happen in a tennis match so it's never a good idea to assume an outcome.
It was apparent by five minutes into the final that Serena's concentration was not broken. I do hope that Samantha left the keys for Lucie.

I don't want to get carried away. Some of the American announcers started raving about Serena's prospects during the spring clay court season in Europe. The surface they played on in Charleston didn't allow for sliding. It's not the same as the red clay of Europe. Serena has won the French before. Can she win it again? Serena can do anything she puts her mind to.



The Power of the Suit

France overreached.

I said as soon as I heard itthat France would play it's Davis Cup tie against the United States at the Monte Carlo country club. The French players are not good clay courters. Their stars, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon are much better on hard courts. The United States reputation and record on dirt is abysmal. No American even bothers to come to play Monte Carlo.

But Jim Courier called bullshit on all that and once again his team of big serving hard courters stunned France walking away with a 3-2 win.
Are people quaking in their boots now about American's on clay? Should John Isner have stayed in France and played Monte Carlo with fresh legs or was it wise to have him fly back to Houston, Texas for the US Clay Court Championships? Time will tell. I can say that Courier is getting something out of this Davis Cup team that no one in their right mind would've thought possible.

Maybe it's the suit.

This and That

I'm still waiting to see what Victoria Azarenka gets from adding Amelie Mauresmo to her team. Tactics on clay? I don't think so. Strength of mind? Let's not go there. The French crowd on her side so that there are no more embarrassing moments like in Miami? ::Shrug:: This is one I really don't get.



Svetlana Kuznetsova has fired coach Olga Morozova and hired Israeli Amos Mansdorf. This move I understand. Sveta's game seems to have gone backwards. When Sveta is on she can play with the best of them. I hope Mansdorf gets her back on track.

The USTA is looking for officials. If you think you're up for it click HERE for details on how to apply and educational information.

Sergiy Stakhovsky gave an interview in Russian that was posted on a Ukrainian site. I think that interview was the most read interview ever given by a tennis player. The Russian was translated by a tennishead with the Twitter handle @Anna_TennisFan. I'm going to quote from her translation picking up where Stakhovsky is talking about Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and Player Council politics.

About Nadal’s offense with Federer…
He wasn’t offended by Federer, exactly. He was disappointed that his ideas – useful for the tour, as he thinks – aren’t heard. It concerns the 2-year ranking, among others. But if you start that, then every player needs to vote, and that’s not entirely correct. Look: in today’s pay for tennis players’ efforts, I personally support this new change. It protects my ranking. The earnings of most players are, really, laughable.
(...)
Going back to Nadal: the Grand Slam tournaments, as we know, pay the players an abnormally low percent of their earnings. For instance, the US Open spends 4-6% of their profit on prize money. The ATP tournaments – around 30%. Since 2004, the prizes in the big tournaments rose less than the inflation.

You lose the reason to enter the top-100. If you travel with a coach – you’ll be in a small “plus”, $20-30 thousand per year. And those are the 100 best people in this sport all over the world. If you take the 100th soccer player, the 100th golfer, any sport that’s on TV – their salaries will be immeasurably greater. Even the 100th soccer player in Ukraine earns more.

The Slams are holding everything, and if they start sharing their profits, it’ll make sense to make it to the top-100. Yes, it will look vulgar if a player who lost in the first round, makes $50-100 thousand, but how much he invested in himself to even play there. To fly to Australia – that’s already a feat. It’s 24 hours. I’m not risking flying economy there, it’s just unrealistic.
If the Slams make concessions, I’m against a 2-year ranking. Because many players will need two years to make it in the top-100. And now people are really working on it. Now, the 70- or the 200-ranked player – are the same.
(...)
Do you often communicate with Federer?
I do it constantly.

And what’s he like?
He’s a good person, but too neutral for my taste. He’s too Swiss. He wants to keep out of any bad stories too much. When players want to change something, he looks at it too passively, because it can harm his image.

I respect Nadal more in that context, because he openly supports the players’ interests.

Needless to say that last part has Federer fans up in arms. But what is surprising is that Nikolay Davydenko said the same things back in January with little or no fanfare.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP)—Roger Federer’s reticence to join other players in voicing complaints about issues affecting the men’s game came under fire again at the Australian Open on Monday.

Former No. 3-ranked Nikolay Davydenko said he didn’t understand why the 16-time Grand Slam champion wasn’t supporting the push to address player grievances, including the schedule and the distribution of prize money.

Davydenko’s remarks came a day after Rafael Nadal criticized his Swiss rival for sitting back while others speak out and “burn themselves.”

“I don’t know why Roger is not supporting the players,” Davydenko said. “Because he don’t want … any problems. He’s nice guy. He’s winning Grand Slams. He’s from Switzerland. He’s perfect.

“He don’t want to do anything, he just try to be an outsider from this one.”

For the second time in six months, rumors of a possible strike emerged following Saturday’s player meeting in Melbourne. Davydenko said a strike was still a distant prospect, but that the players would meet again at the Indian Wells Masters tournament in March.

“The ATP should try to do something between now and Indian Wells,” he said. “For sure, all the top 100 players will go there and just see what will be changed.”

The Russian said he did not support the idea of a shorter season, a change that is backed by Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, but he agrees that prize money has not increased in line with growing profits at Grand Slam tournaments.

Am I surprised? Not at all. Rafa's resignation from his position on the Council makes more sense now but that's all I can see that is "new". It looks as if the tennis press did all it could to ignore the story. Enrico Mariariva began tweeting Google translations of the interview and they were retweeted and retweeted until fans began to ask to read the original in both Russian and in an English translation. The time is gone when any so called media can ignore a story. News will out and if/when it hits Twitter it's game over. This is both a good and bad thing - some false rumors have gone viral on Twitter - but information on these matters is vital to tennis fans who plan months in advance to attend a tournament especially a major. Journalists aren't supposed to be mouthpieces for the powers that be alone. They are supposed to report the goings on on their beats. This is not done by those covering tennis.

For the entire Stakhovsky interview click HERE

For the full Davydenko remarks here is the LINK

Solidarity Forever - NOT

Everyone's wet dream Marat Safin added his voice to those of James Blake and Andy Roddick, the only two players who have come out publicly and supported Etienne de Villiers vision of a new and improved ATP which he calls Brave New World.

Safin, who is reported to have played a major role in ending the DeVilliers experiment with Round Robin play has now come out in favor of giving the other proposed reforms a chance.

Echoing the statements of the American players Marat said the following:

"We have to let it be and let the people at the top make their choices," he said. "We can play tennis but we can't change and make everybody happy. I'm sure whoever is taking care of it is making everybody happy.

"Once we have him, let's give him a chance for four or five years to see how it goes," he said, referring more directly to De Villiers. "It can't be worse than it used to be.

"When Mark Miles left we had no chances," Safin alleged. "It was going bankrupt, no money. At least we have a lot of sponsors. It is getting better. It's picking up but we have to believe in our people and make sure to support them, even though they make mistakes.

For the entire article Go Here

The player's petition, said to have been signed by 60 players, calls on De Villiers to rethink his plans to downgrade both Monte Carlo and Hamburg which are presently TMS events.

Ya gotta love politics. You never know who will end up in bed with whom and for what reason. As of now the elected player reps Ivan Ljubicic and James Blake are on opposite sides of the issue. Ljubicic has sided with what is reported to be the majority of the European players. Blake, the vice president of the Players Council at the present time seems to have Andy Roddick and Marat Safin, both charismatic players in his corner in this fight which has been categorized as the USTA vs Europe.

I will keep posting about events related to this topic as circumstances warrant.

Redrum! Redrum!

Who can forget the young boy from the iconic horror movie “The Shining” who was trying to warn people about what was coming. “Redrum! Redrum!” he kept shouting. No one understood what he was saying or meant until he wrote it on the back of a door and his mother saw the word for what it was reflected in a mirror. By the time Jack Nicholson hacked through the door and uttered his now famous words things looked quite dire for his wife and son.

I think that ATP fans have had a rather smug attitude watching the WTA “Roadkill” plan unfold. Nothing so bizarre could happen in the ATP. Well we’re all like Shelley Duvall in “The Shining” and we’re finally seeing what’s coming reflected in a mirror. We should have seen it coming. Round Robin play anyone?

It seems that the inmates have finally taken over the asylum. Tennisheads had barely calmed down from Davis Cup play and Marat’s great play for Russia under Tarpishev’s guidance when a bombshell hit.

Tennis-x revealed Etienne de Villiers has decreed that starting in 2009 TMS events, now renamed Masters 1000, will carry the same point value as the four Grand Slams – The Australian Open, The French Open, Wimbledon, and The U S Open. This was hard on the heels of announcing that to no one’s surprise Shanghai will host a Masters Series level tournament thus clearing the way for the TMC, or whatever it’s called, to be moved back to Europe, probably to London.

A little history is necessary for those who may not know how the current structure of men’s tennis came about. Richard Vach wrote the following in his column on tennis-x.

The ITF lost control of the tour in the late 1980s when players revolted against the lax running of professional tennis, and the ATP Tour was born in 1990 (a title since shortened to ATP, and reportedly changing to “ATP Worldwide Tour” in 2007. Just in case you might mistake it for a regional or local tennis tournament). Since then the ATP and ITF have been at loggerheads in a push and pull battle for control of professional tennis, at times making nice, at more often times taking shots at each other in the media and refusing to back down from even minor power positions. The ATP has had difficulties with the 2009 calendar, especially in regard to the ITF’s stiff positioning of the Slams and Davis Cup weekends.

Full Article Here

There’s no need for niceties here. The plan does nothing to address the scheduling issues that plague tennis and force players to have to choose where and when to play in order to maximize their chances. Hamburg is a victim of this as is the Paris late season Masters event. To say the plan sucks doesn’t begin to say how bad it is. Columnists, bloggers and fans have all reacted with either laughter or anger. Change is one thing no one will deny is needed. Destruction is another thing altogether. In my opinion this is an attempt to blow tennis up from the inside, to implode it like a building that has been deemed worthless by some real estate developer who wants to build a bright shiny glass and steel box where a building put together by master craftsmen with brick and mortar once stood.

They’re taking balance away from a sport that has been truly international in order to make it a sport for ball bashers from the Northern Hemisphere unable to construct a point even if given, yes, a map. But the fans, the people who buy the tickets and fill the seats have no say in this. It’s not clear what the Player’s Union will say. When last seen their top officers were either trying to get the rules bent for themselves or denigrating a fellow player who was wronged by the ATP. I have a feeling the leadership will pretty much keep their mouths shut.



The next ATP board meeting will take place in Paris just before Roland Garros. Some of us are old enough to remember Disney's original "Fantasia" where Mickey Mouse, thinking he knew as much as the sorcerer, decided to try a spell on his own.

Things went well at first and Mickey was proud of himself. Then things got a little out of hand to say the least and the Sorcerer's Apprentice had to be rescued by someone wiser than him. It seems he knew only part of the spell-the part that started it. He had no idea how to stop it. I think it's high time the reins of power were taken from the apprentice and given to someone wiser, with more respect for tradition and who is willing to remodel, not destroy the sport of tennis.



Update: The ATP's Greg Sharko is reported to have sent out an e-mail saying that the Slams will continue to be worth more points than Masters 1000. This is after the "Melbourne Age" reported the same story Tennis-x reported. This is posted on Tennis.com

Link Here

Image Is Everything

The ATP will be leaving Las Vegas on Sunday. I’m sure that they wish that the Sin City slogan about what happens in that town staying in that town could be used as an incantation to take the ATP back to the end of the James Blake vs Juan Martin del Potro match. I’m willing to bet tons of virtual money that they wish that despite the pleas of the top seed, Blake in this instance, someone had had the cojones to tell him get to stepping and to take his elimination like a man and that no midnight calls to Mr. Disney who was in Portugal at the time had been made. That way the event flows smoothly and tennis heads are looking at Evgeny Korolev and wondering if he’s got the intestinal fortitude to make it into the top ten of his sport while savoring a semi final between Lleyton Hewitt and Marat Safin, one the most hated player and one who everyone, male or female, eight to eighty, blind, crippled or crazy, wants to wake up to.

But we all know this isn’t the Magic Kingdom and a mere wave of a wand is not going to put the evil genie back in the bottle or send the wicked king away. Instead we have the spectacle of the vice president of the Player’s Association making the following statement:

"What I thought was that a common-sense overrule took place. But if we have to go by the letter of the law, I’m okay with that.”

http://tennisworld.typepad.com/travelblogue/2007/03/another_twist.html

People dog Andre Agassi about the old Canon campaign which featured the slogan “Image is everything” but as is often the case in our hot house media driven sports culture all an athlete has is their image. For obvious reasons every fan of an athlete, especially in an individual sport like Tennis, can’t be allowed unlimited access to their favorite. Fangirls and fanboys rely on web sites, message boards, and pictures of their favorites to draw conclusions about them. IMG and other image makers are paid huge fees to craft a positive image for the athletes they represent.

Not only individuals are involved in the image game. The ATP and WTA also spend millions to make their leaders appear to lesser beings as demi gods whose pronouncements from on high will raise the level of fan participation to higher and higher levels. The debacle this week did damage to a player and the organization behind him.

This player is not an ordinary player. For years James Blake was a “journeyman” , a guy who would enter an event, make a little noise in the early rounds and then politely give way as soon as he played a higher seeded player. Two years ago he suffered a series of tremendous body blows. He lost his father to illness and then suffered an accident which affected his neck. On top of that he came down with Shingles. When he came back on the tour everyone wanted to give him a break and James responded to that increased support. The level of his play rose and despite some misguided “happy to lose” comments he stopped losing to the big guys without much of a fight. By the end of 2006 by doing well at lower tier events he had cracked the top eight and went to Shanghai where he exceeded all expectations. All of this gained him fans and increased exposure. He reportedly lobbied hard for the post of vice president of the Player’s Council and was elected to that position. In that position it is his job to represent the player’s views to management. This includes upholding the Rule Book and forcing management to deal with not only the spirit but the letter of the “law” as defined in it.

By making the above statement Blake has done serious damage to the tacit agreement about image and the player. The wall of “image” came crashing down and what has been exposed is a not too pretty picture of Mr. Blake. When faced with a similar offer by the ATP in Argentina the week before Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain, who has been in a horrible slump, refused it saying he did not want to advance in that manner. Marat Safin and Lleyton Hewitt both issued withering comments about Blake’s stance.

The only person to suffer worse damage than Blake is Etienne de Villiers, the leader of the ATP. Faced with a public relations disaster to his credit he bit the bullet, did a mea culpa which included him saying he was half asleep half a world away and wasn’t clear on what was happening. He reversed is initial decision and thus allowed Evgeny Korolev to advance to the quarter finals in Las Vegas. He has now said that he thought he was doing what the fans wanted. Blake has lots of fans. Korolev is an up and comer from Russia known only to hard core tennis fans. I don’t think it takes Dr Preston Burke to figure out that the TD of the event probably figured into this equation. The TD figures Blake puts more fannies in the seats and probably wanted Blake to advance as well. Blake’s role in these tawdry events is being actively debated on tennis message and fan boards. If I’m his media advisor I tell him to keep quiet while I create the proper words for him to say. The statement I quote from the article in the Tennisworld blog makes it clear that Blake felt the rules should be bent for him. I think that ends the debate about what his role in this was.

The Player’s Council and the ATP board will be meeting in Miami to discuss not only what happened but what to do about Round Robin play. I like Round Robin for the TMC year end event. There are only eight men playing. The conditions are controlled. You don’t have the vagaries of regular tournament play where a player can become injured or ill and upset the apple cart. I was willing to give it a chance this year but it seems that players conspiring against other players did not take the form many fans, and players, thought it would. When a player can’t rely on his elected representative to do the right thing the entire purpose of the Player Council is defeated.

Here is a list of the members of the Player’s Council. I think this meeting in Miami will be closely monitored by the press and the fans of this great sport.

Ivan Ljubicic - President
James Blake - Vice President
Olivier Rochus and Thomas Johansson - 1-50 Singles
Paul Goldstein and Davide Sanguinetti - 51-100 Singles
Bob Bryan and Kevin Ullyet - 1-100 Doubles
Martin Garcia - At Large
David Adams - Alumni (non voting)
Ricardo Piatti - Coaches (non voting)

http://www.atptennis.com/5/en/media/reports/06_President.pdf

I’m not a player. I’m not male. But I have a strong feeling Mr. Blake will not be re elected to his post next year. And who can blame his peers? Image, in professional sports, is everything and Mr. Blake has destroyed his all for the sake of a tournament that in the scheme of things is simply a tune up for the main events of Indian Wells and Miami. I know that Blake needs this event, it’s the type of event he wins to keep his ranking up. An athlete is an inherently selfish being and I have no problem with that. I thought that the reason professional athletes have agents and managers is to make sure the person behind the curtain doesn’t get revealed to his or her public and fans.

I've already said that the shenanigans of the last few days should sound the death knell for round robin play during the regular season. Like everyone else I'm going to be waiting to see what happens at that meeting in Miami later this month.