Weekend Winners

by Savannah

Maria Sharapova was handed the Championship trophy of the Pan Pacific Open by Jelena Jankovic who retired during their final with a wrist injury.

Gilles Simon proudly hoists the winners trophy he earned by winning the Thailand Open over Victor Troicki.

Nikolay Davydenko (right) holds the winners trophy for the first Malaysian Open Tournament that was held in Kuala Lumpur. Fernando Verdasco was the runner up.

Rajeev Ram and Eric Butorac won the doubles crown in Bangkok

Alisa Kleybanova and Francesca Schiavone are the PPO doubles champions for 2009

Mariusz Fyrstenberg (L) and Marcin Matkowski (R) took home the doubles championship at the Malaysian Open

Tennis Talk

by Savannah

The US Open Series

The summer hard court season is now officially underway. Labeled the US Open Series, the WTA and ATP sponsor a series of tournaments leading up to the final Grand Slam of the tennis season, the US Open which is held in New York City's borough of Queens.

I've always liked the US Open Series. There is plenty of television coverage and you get to see players you don't normally see. Why do I say that you see players you don't normally see? The reason will become clear.

The first tournament in the series is played at Indianapolis, Indiana. The defending champion, Gilles Simon, is playing at Hamburg instead of defending his crown in the MIdwest of the United States. You remember Hamburg? It was a Masters Series clay tournament that got busted down to an ATP 500 series event by the tennis powers that be and was rescheduled. Simon is the top seed in Hamburg. Indianapolis featured Andy Roddick, newly returned to top five status, as the top seed. Roddick would be an excellent draw for American tennis fans especially after his showing at Wimbledon but it was not to be. Andy withdrew due to a hip injury he suffered during his Wimbledon run leaving the folks running the tournament with Dmitry Tursunov, ranked number twenty seven in the world, as the top seed. Tursunov has a large fan base because of his humorous and entertaining blogs so all is not lost. Fans who bought tickets are going to come and I suspect they'll see good tennis.

The situation with Simon highlights the problems the US Open Series faces. Just as the American players whine that going to Europe to play the clay court events leading up to Roland Garros takes them away from home too long the Europeans say the same thing this time of year. Why subject their bodies to the pounding meted out by hard court play now when they can come in August and play a a few events leading up to the hard court Grand Slam? Don't forget that the Europeans do come from Australia to play the Spring hard court series in the States. That swing, like the Summer swing, features back to back Masters Events and that is a lot of physical and mental wear and tear for the players.

As for the women their events start the week of July 27 with the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford. Stanford usually draws a strong field. The defending champion is Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak who had a good run in Europe. Following the trend set by the men the woman ranked number one in the world, Dinara Safina is playing in Europe this week at Potoroz, a WTA International level event. She will show up in the States for the LA Women's Tennis Championships which begin August 3. Safina is the defending champion at Los Angeles.

The women then play Cincinnati followed by the Rogers Cup in Toronto. Nadia Petrova is the defending champion at Cincinnati and Dinara is the defending champion in Canada.

There are those who say that it makes no sense to have clay court play after Wimbledon and that the grass court season should be extended. Hamburg, they argue, should be a grass court event not a clay court event. The European players deliver a collective "whatever" and play in Europe as long as they can. The big dogs will stay in Europe until they come to Montreal for the Rogers Cup Masters. The Cincinnati Masters event takes place the following week. Calls for the schedule to be changed have fallen on deaf ears with Tennis Canada sticking firmly to it's guns. The argument could be made that the entire rescheduling of the ATP calendar was done to secure that the Canadian events maintained their place in that calendar. Forget that the women hate to come to Canada for whatever reason and that playing back to back majors for both tours is hard work. For a country with no players in the upper echelons of tennis the Canadians seem to have a lot of power in tennis politics.

For a list of all the tournaments and the television schedule please go to the US Open Series website.

World Team Tennis

It seems that lately World Team Tennis matches are becoming more like WWE events. I haven't heard of Vince McMahon sitting courtside as of yet but the event between the Kastles and the Sportimes the other night seemed to be right up his alley. In this case a picture is worth a thousand words so without further ado here's video of what happened.



Initial reports said that John McEnroe was playing peacemaker. Doesn't look like that to me. Should Leander Paes have apologized? Yes. Was Robert Kendrick wrong for what he did? Remember that the US is a baseball nation and that retaliatory tit for tat action is expected. All I know is that when Hunter Hearst Helmsley appears across the net from Shawn Michaels remember that you read about it here.

Idle Chit Chat

Fallout continues from Pete Sampras' comments about the GOAT situation. Some of the grand poobahs of tennis media have even backtracked and seem to think Sampras' opinions have some validity. The Worshipful are not having it though.

Those Williams Women are still everywhere. Their improved hair and makeup not to mention attire speaks volumes about what stylists can do for women of means. The rest of us have to do the best we can. Here are pictures of those Williams Women at a movie premier last week. So glad Venus lost the bathrobe.


Uh, Okay...

London, July 12 : Tennis ace Andy Murray's life story is all set to be turned into a Hollywood movie.t least three major studios are in the run to grab the rights to the star's life story for millions of pounds.

The rush for the rights began when studio bosses found out that the 22-year-old tennis player survived the Dunblane massacre.

Andy was just eight when Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 pupils and a teacher at Dunblane Primary School on March 13, 1996, before killing himself in the gym.

Andy, who reached the Wimbledon semi-final last month, rarely speaks of the nightmare that unfolded before his eyes that day.

However, the Glasgow-born battler, who is now the world's No. 3, might just reveal the story in return for millions of pounds.

A senior executive at Fox said his studio would "easily match" Andy's career earnings of 4.7million pounds to acquire the film rights to his life story.

"This guy is an absolute inspiration," the Daily Star quoted him as saying.

It is believed that Universal and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks are also hoping to sign him up.

Source

Recent sighting of David Nalbandian

Mario Ancic and friend
The Champions


Jeremy Chardy Champion 2009 Stuttgart. It's his first title.

Robin Soderling Champion Bastad 2009


Sybille Bammer defeated Francesca Schiavone at Prague.


Flavia Pennetta 2009 Champion Palermo

Doubles play is taking place at the men's events. I'll update the blog this evening with pictures and results.

The Bondarenko sisters Alona and Kateryna won the doubles at Prague.

This and That

by Savannah

From the ITF via tennis.com

Following Australia's decision not to contest its Davis Cup tie in Chennai because of security concerns, the ITF has officially declared India the winner of the zonal contest. India now advances to September's World Group playoffs.

"The ITF regrets and respectfully disagrees with the decision of Tennis Australia to default," the ITF said in a statement. "By virtue of its decision not to send a team to compete against India, Australia has forfeited the tie.

"[B]ecause of the specific concerns of Tennis Australia, the ITF [had] asked its independent security consultants, the Olive Group, to make a site visit to Chennai to investigate both the situation on the ground and to assess the security arrangements put in place by AITA [All India Tennis Asociation]. Following the site visit, the Olive Group reported that it was satisfied that the tie could go ahead as planned. Tennis Australia received a copy of the Olive Group report... Following an appeal by Tennis Australia, the ITF Board of Directors voted to uphold the decision of the Davis Cup Committee, after having received complete documentation for review."

I'm not surprised at all by this. Maybe my worldview is more jaded than others but as soon as the first appeal was filed I thought this could happen. The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket players, even though it took place in Pakistan, sent a chill through that part of the world. I totally understand where Australia is coming from but they backed themselves into a corner by raising the security issue. Once that was done their only option was to forfeit the tie.

Good luck to India in September's playoffs.

Roma Masters Draw

[1] NADAL, Rafael ESP vs BYE
SEPPI, Andreas ITA vs QUERREY, Sam USA
SODERLING, Robin SWE vs GRANOLLERS, Marcel ESP
QUALIFIER vs [14] BLAKE, James USA

[9] TSONGA, Jo-Wilfried FRA vs GASQUET, Richard FRA
ALMAGRO, Nicolas ESP vs GULBIS, Ernests LAT
FISH, Mardy USA vs ANDREEV, Igor RUS
BYE vs [6] VERDASCO, Fernando ESP

[4] MURRAY, Andy GBR vs BYE
KIEFER, Nicolas GER vs i]QUALIFIER[/i]
CHELA, Juan Ignacio ARG vs ROCHUS, Christophe BEL
[WC] CIPOLLA, Flavio ITA vs [15] CILIC, Marin CR

[12] GONZALEZ, Fernando CHI vs CHARDY, Jeremy FRA
TIPSAREVIC, Janko SRB vs ACASUSO, Jose ARG
BENNETEAU, Julien FRA vs MELZER, Jurgen AUT
BYE vs [7] DAVYDENKO, Nikolay RUS

[5] DEL POTRO, Juan Martin ARG vs BYE
HANESCU, Victor ROU vs TROICKI, Viktor SRB
QUALIFIER vs QUALIFIER
KUNITSYN, Igor RUS vs [10] WAWRINKA, Stanislas SUI

[13] ROBREDO, Tommy ESP vs SAFIN, Marat RUS
KOHLSCHREIBER, Philipp GER vs BOLELLI, Simone ITA
[WC] STARACE, Potito ITA vs MONTANES, Albert ESP
BYE vs [3] DJOKOVIC, Novak SRB

[8] SIMON, Gilles FRA vs BYE
[WC] FOGNINI, Fabio ITA vs [WC] VOLANDRI, Filippo ITA
QUALIFIER vs BERDYCH, Tomas CZE vs
MATHIEU, Paul-Henri FRA vs [11] FERRER, David ESP

[16] STEPANEK, Radek CZE vs SERRA, Florent FRA
QUALIFIER vs LOPEZ, Feliciano ESP
QUALIFIER vs KARLOVIC, Ivo CRO
BYE vs [2] FEDERER, Roger SUI

Qualifying play began today.

Fed Cup News

Both Anna Chakvetadze and Svetlana Kuznetsova were reportedly left hanging at the net by their celebrating Italian opponents Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone. DRAHMAH.
The Italians are up 2-0 over Russia.


Meanwhile Alexa Glatch of the United States bested Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic to give the United States an unexpected split of the first two singles rubbers.

You know it's the clay court season when...

The whining starts about the homogenization of surfaces. I remember a mere couple of years ago a player who was an all surface player was the ideal. Now it seems the all surface player is some kind of pariah and needs to be replaced.

As usual the whining centers around Wimbledon. The latest one comes from Victor Lamm of Tennis Week. Here's a sample.

Tennis is a unique game in many ways. It can be played indoor or outdoors; a match can span less than an hour or more than five hours; players can actually lose more points than they win yet still win the match.

One of tennis' top distinctions is that it remains one of the only significant sports played on different surfaces, which encourages diverse games styles. Or so it did.
(...)
Grass courts used to yield notoriously fast and low bounces that destabilized even the most potent baseline games.
Players couldn’t hang from the baseline for long and even the most defensive players had to serve and volley in order to stand a chance.
(...)
In the aftermath of Pete Sampras' victory over Goran Ivanisevic in a battle of big servers in the Wimbledon final, outcry grew for longer rallies on grass.

The All England Club's grass has become slower every year — as if it were a 55-year-old weekend hacker suffering from herniated discs in his back and blisters on his feet — and hard courts are getting so slow that the ball gets fluffy after a few games.

"What's disappointing about Wimbledon is how much I really don't enjoy playing on grass now because it's changed so much," said four-time Wimbledon semifinalist Tim Henman, prior to his last appearance at the grass-court Grand Slam. "The grass court has changed massively. They're so much harder and so true, the ball bounces up a lot higher. Here if you're hitting a good shot, you feel like it goes through the court. I think a combination with the grass changing to 100 percent Rye and the balls...it's so soft... the ball almost stops and sits up."
(...)
But the deeper byproduct of all these surface changes is that Grand Slam surfaces have become more consistent — and less varied — in terms of speed and bounce.
(...)
Consider that in the last 30 years 16 different men have won Roland Garros and of those 16 champions, nine never won another Grand Slam title in their career. In that same span, 14 different men have won Wimbledon and 10 of those 14 won other major titles. But only three of those Wimbledon winners — Borg, Nadal and Agassi — also reigned at Roland Garros.

YAWNNNNNNNNNN! Mr. Lamm also misses the days of hard court specialists, clay court specialists and grass court specialists. They're still around. It's just that their distribution can't be made by nationality anymore. It's kind of like The Slob assuming that because Fernando Gonzalez and Juan Martin Del Potro are from South America they're automatically clay court specialists. Gonzalez plays well on clay but he and his game are more at home on a hard court. Hard court specialists? Let's see. There's Andy Roddick, who may not play at all during the clay court season, James Blake and Mardy Fish. I give Sam Querrey and both Bob and Mike Bryan credit for playing the European clay court season. Roddick, who is playing well right now, just pulled out of Rome. Unless he plays one of the ATP 250 events leading up to Roland Garros he's skipping almost the entire season. He'll probably show up at Roland Garros since it's a Slam.

So what is it the whiners want? Do they think that certain players are not "temperamentally fit" to compete and win on certain surfaces? Should we go back to wooden racquets and ignore the effect technology has had on the sport?

I'm sure many of you saw the above picture of Rafael Nadal and Manolo Santana. Mr. Santana was donating the racquet he won Wimbledon with to Rafael's foundation. My first thought was why is Manolo giving Rafa a squash racquet?

People can talk all about the changes in the various surfaces the sport is played on but if you ignore the evolution of the racquet you're just making noise with no substance. I remember that match between Pete Sampras and Goran Ivanesivic. It was boring as hell. Is that what purists want a return to? I think not.

Heard Around

The Hamburg TMS is over for the men. Rome and Fes are over for the women. Looking ahead the two WTA Tier III events next week in Istanbul and Strasbourg have better fields than many WTA Tier I events. The big boys of mens tennis are taking a well deserved week off on the ATP side while everyone else, well maybe except David Nalbandian, seen here in Cordoba, are playing either the ARAG event or Poertschach.


Jelena Jankovic’s fans are begging her to take a week off. Someone even posted a sarcastic jibe saying she would be playing both 's-Hertogenbosch and Eastbourne during the same week to make sure she gets enough grass court prep. And many fans didn’t get the joke. We love you Jelena but we want you around a lot longer. Relax. Your talent isn’t going anywhere. By the way Jelena is playing Strasbourg.



But there are other posts floating around the fan boards that are a little more serious and deserve some reflection. One thread, found HERE asks the question “Honestly Is Safin Done?”
A few of us tennisheads from Talk About Tennis got together recently and this subject came up all on its own. Has it really been seven years since Marat dismantled Pete Sampras at the US Open? At the time I saw championship trophies piling up in Marat’s home. Most people, even fans, dismiss him as a head case ignoring the injuries he’s had. But what about his Davis Cup triumphs? A valid question since Marat seems to do well in those pressure cooker situations. Shamil Tarpishev seems to know how to motivate Mr. Safin but he has his commitments and it doesn't look like he'll become Marat's full time coach. What should be done? I have no idea. But if the question is being asked maybe it’s time for Marat to take a serious look at where he wants to be this time next year.

Ironically there was a similar thread about Fran Schiavone's tennis status HERE. She is not winning the matches this year that she was winning last year. I haven’t heard about any injuries so maybe there is something going on between her ears.



The most interesting news from the women’s side other than Anastasia Myskina coming back in the French is that Jennifer Capriati is considering a comeback. An article posted in WTAWORLD from a local Palm Beach tennis magazine reports that Jennifer is working with Harold Solomon to get in shape and then see what can be done. At 31 and after having been away from the game for awhile I hope Jennifer gives any thought of return a clear eyed appraisal. She should also look at what is happening to Martina Hingis who came back at a younger age and after having remained fit during her time away. After her initial success Martina is struggling a bit. Jennifer was not very fit when she left due to injury. With Justine Henin, Serena Williams, Jelena Jankovic and others in top shape half stepping will not get her back into the women’s tennis elite.



And, very quietly, Serena Williams has reentered the top 10.

Roland Garros




The debate now centers on how the draws will look on both the mens and womens side at Roland Garros. The debate on the mens side centers on Guillermo Canas. He has not had a great clay season so far but will he put it together in Paris? Some would add Filippo Volandri who had a fantastic run at Rome. I would wait to see how he does away from the home crowd before making him into a giant killer. Lleyton Hewitt has shown that he does deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as some of the other potential giant killers with his great showing at Hamburg. Will the French men get their act together and make a serious run on the terre battue? Will Gasquet step up? Will Clement, Grosjean and others make life difficult for their opponents? And where will they be placed in the draw? What about Juan Martin del Potro? Jose Acasuso? Juan Ignacio Chela? Carlos Moya? Will Fernando Gonzalez break out of his post AO blues?






As for the women Maria Sharapova will be making her comeback with a tune up in Istanbul before entering the fray at Roland Garros. Will a rejuvenated Patty Schnyder wreak havoc in Paris? Will Jelena be able to hold it together through seven matches and reach the final which many of her fans think she has a chance to win? How will the Chinese women do? What about the Bondarenko sisters who have been playing well of late? Will Amelie Mauresmo conquer her jitters and win it all? Or is it all moot and Justine Henin will be the one hoisting the trophy? What about Serena?

Paris, The Emerald City, is in sight now. It should be a very interesting next three weeks.