welcome to ROME: Crowds start whistling and hooting before the match even begins.

 

TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL: John McEnroe told the Boston Globe, “Last year in Portugal, I had brought my two little girls with me [nine and 11 years old] because my wife Patty [Smyth] was on the road. After a match, they said, ‘God, Dad, that umpire was so wrong every time.’” McEnroe chuckled with pleasure, “I taught them well.”

 

THE BIG QUESTIONS DU JOUR: Yesterday’s big questions: “How can anyone possibly beat Federer?” and “Is he or Sampras the best of all time?” Today’s big questions: “How can Fed beat Nadal on clay?” and “Will Nadal soon become No. 1?”

 

SAY IT ISN’T SO: The grass that was shipped Spain from Bordeaux, France, to Mallorca for the Federer-Nadal exhibition was infested with worms and had to be replaced…It snowed during the WTA tournament in Poland.

 

OF BUDDHA, GRAVITY, GEOMETRY AND THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE: Writing in Walrus magazine, Andrew Clark contended, “It is difficult to describe the serenity one attains from striking a tennis ball with authority. Gravity, geometry, and all the forces of nature collaborate, and the fuzzy yellow orb spins as it should. Intent becomes action, and action becomes reality. That is the high. For some, tennis is a hobby; for others, it is a compulsion. For the most stricken, like me, it is a religion that, like Buddhism, allows devotees to transcend time and space and glean insight into the true nature of existence.”

 

THE DAY GOD CAUGHT A COLD: In the Nadal-Federer Monte Carlo final, we saw little of the belief from Federer that he used to ooze at every turn. His prime weapon — the most feared shot in the game, his forehand — was errant. Unlike Nadal, he lacked a certain fire-in-the-belly intensity. There was an inability to go to plan B, and he didn’t venture to net enough. He failed to prevail on the big points, and his return of serve was problematic. All this opened the door for many a commentator. Pat McEnroe asserted, “Roger should impose himself more at the outset against Nadal. One of the problems is that he beats everyone else so easily, even on clay, that he thinks he can work his way into a match if things don’t go well.”

John Lloyd asked, “How is Federer going to survive a best-of-five match if he meets Nadal in the French Open final?” Mats Wilander added, “Roger looked too happy after that defeat. He should see that losing to Nadal is unacceptable. Roger should be careful because Rafa is gaining on him.”  Now for sure, Fed will capture the French.

TV GUIDE — JUDGE, SUSPECT AND HUNKY BACHELOR: In her day, fiery Billie Jean King was known to make countless umps wince as she challenged court authority. But more recently, she played a judge in an April episode of Law and Order. Truer to form, John McEnroe (who’s had more of a presence on TV than any other tennis player) played a murder suspect on the May 9 episode of CSI: NY. Mark Philippoussis — the former Wimbledon finalist who’s said to be one of the most eligible bachelors in the world — will star in an NBC show, Age of Love. Modeled after The Bachelor, the show will feature the Aussie hunk who will date women in their 20s, the Kittens, and a group of older women in their 40s, the Cougars. Philippoussis is simultaneously preparing for Wimbledon by practicing four times a week at the Beverly Hills Estate of Gavin Rossdale and Gwen Stefani. Rossdale informed Philippoussis that the show, which airs June 13, will “change the dating habits of mankind,” while Philippoussis informed reporters [and here it is, this magazine’s glittering Paris Hilton moment]that, no, he’s never dated the embattled Ms. Hilton, or Tara Reid, for that matter.   DRAMA GUIDE: When tennis went Hollywood a few years ago, hopes were high that the game would at last be able to celebrate a big-screen winner. But Wimbledon, the ’04 romantic comedy with Kirsten Dunst, proved to be a fluffy flame-out. Similarly, hopes were high when Deuce — a tennis-heavy play crafted for the abundantly talented Angela Lansbury — was scheduled for New York’s Great White Way. The show features two former doubles standouts offering feisty banter as they take in a match we hear (thwack, whack) but don’t see. We absorb rueful commentaries about a long-ago match they lost in Australia, the commercialization of the game, its inflated prize money, hefty endorsements, loud grunts and scanty costumes. There are complaints of nipples that are too evident and lesbians who are too prominent. And we get a certain salty language that, according to the New York Sun, “would have sent dear Jessica Fletcher — the gum-shoe played by Ms. Lansbury on Murder She Wrote — hurdling over the handle-bars of her bike.” The play offers up a streaker (of course) two dreadful sportscasters, a long-admiring fan, some wit and insight, but not much more. Critic Eric Grode was less than impressed, saying Deuce was a “moldy new comedy…[that] has stumbled onto Broadway with the grace of a John McEnroe temper-tantrum.” USA Today was hardly kinder, calling the play, “a forgettable trifle” which was “a criminal waste of [Lansbury’s] talent.” Coincidentally, another new Broadway play — Frost/Nixon — about the storied interview conducted by the British playboy media operative Sir David Frost with the former president, who was trying to redeem himself, also includes a role for the Aussie great Evonne Goolagong.

OF ROCHE, ROACHES, BULLS, LIONS, TIGERS, CATS AND CANARIES: Tony Roche, who Federer recently fired, is a revered icon and respected coach. Still, truth be told, over all his years with Ivan Lendl, he could never get his pupil to win Wimbledon; he failed to guide Patrick Rafter to the Aussie title and, in his brief run with Fed, Roger was unable to win the French (although he did win 6 of his 10 slam titles under him)…Before the Barcelona final, Doug Adler noted that Juan Carlos Ferrero was called “The Cockroach” because of “his tenacity, his refusal to die. But today he’s up against the Bull — Rafael Nadal”… After homestanding Italian Filippo Volandri (who’s ranked No. 53 and endures one of the weakest serves on the circuit) quickly dismissed Federer in Rome, Bud Collins noted, “Federer left town feeling as though he’d fallen down the Spanish Steps, wondering if he’d encountered a lion left over from the Coliseum. Usually, a lion wouldn’t have bothered the big cat of tennis…But this was the day the canary swallowed the cat as 11,000 patriots sang as sweetly as canaries to their man, Filippo Volandri.”

 

WORST DAMN SPORTS LIST — PERIOD: You’d think that tennis, with its seemingly endless collection of rant ‘n rage, spit ‘n spice, camera kicking, finger flipping, f-bomb tossing characters, might well dominate a list of the top 50 blow-ups in sports history. After all, we have a deep bench of tantrum artists to call on: Think McEnroe ‘n Connors, Ilie Nastase ‘n Jeff Tarango, Lleyton Hewitt ‘n Pancho Gonzalez. But tennis got just a measly single spot on the Best Damn Sports Show Period’s list of the 50 top sports blow-ups. And down there, at No. 27, was a non-player no less, broadcaster Charlie Steiner, who in ’81 got into a testy fight in the Wimbledon interview room. (Editor’s note: “You cannot be serious.”)

 

JUST WONDERING: Will Nadal eventually dominate on clay the way Borg did?…Who will be Nadal’s great challenger on clay?…Is it legal for a tennis magazine to talk about a leading player who continually fidgets with his wedgies?… Since the Hawk-Eye system works so well, why don’t other sports start adopting it?…Will Hawk-Eye ever be used on clay?… Is one of Federer’s great talents his ongoing health?…Is Richard Gasquet’s exquisite backhand comparable with other great flowing one-handed backhands like Guga Kuerten and Stefan Edberg?… Will proud Martina Hingis soldier on and continue to play next season despite a gimpy back and an inability to craft wins over the game’s elite champions?…Are Ivan Lendl, Martina Navratilova and Rafa Nadal the three players who’ve most brought “physicality” to tennis?… Will America’s two best young African-American prospects, Jamea Jackson, now ranked No. 94, and Donald Young (who just won his first title in Little Rock) break through into the top 30?…What’s cooler, that the U.S. has two players in the top 10 (Roddick and Blake) or that tennis has two of the top 10 athlete’s charities in the U.S. — Agassi at No. 3 (just behind Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong) and Roddick at No. 10?

 

ATTENTION ALL ASPIRING SONGWRITERS: Here’s your golden opportunity! The China Open is conducting a public search for someone to compose the theme song for the China Open.

 

FROM HITTING HIGH NOTES TO HITTING FOREHAND WINNERS: First, the young Californian Vania King stepped up in an emergency and sang the Star Spangled Banner to open up the recent Fed Cup festivities in Florida. Then she went on as a substitute to clinch America’s match against Belgium. The feat brought to mind the claim, made years ago, that faux phenom Monique Viele was so talented that she was destined some day to begin a Grand Slam by singing the anthem and then go on to win it.

 

GO FIGURE: Maria Sharapova explained that her dream mixed-doubles partner was John McEnroe “so I can have someone to yell at the umpires with.” Since the beginning of the year, Guillermo Canas has risen 123 ranking spots from No. 143 to No. 20…When Nadal came on court to play his Italian Open quarterfinal and semis, the loudspeakers blasted out Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely…Qatar Petroleum and Qatar Telecom were sponsors of the German Open…After the ‘03 French Open, we noted that Federer was the best player ever not to reach a Grand Slam final…The often controversial French-Iranian Aravane Kezai came into the Key Biscayne press room and promptly announced that she had nothing to say and exited…So many times our Davis Cup team has had to trudge over to Sweden to play on slow clay. This year, despite America having big bangers Andy Roddick and James Blake, the tie in September looks like it will be played on a fast indoor court…For the first time since ’30, the Italian Open men’s final was not a best-of-five-sets match… Does a player who’s earned great fame and fortune in tennis [think Kim Clijsters] have a responsibility to continue playing even if her head and heart are not into the sport?

 

‘WHO’S YOUR DADDY?’: Ecuadorian icon Pancho Segura, who has mixed with the upper echelon of American tennis for 67 years, told Joel Drucker, “People think this game is all about nice clubs and nice places. But that’s not what it is at all. Tennis? Tennis is democracy, right here and right now, buddy. It’s two guys in an arena, trying to figure it out, trying to hurt each other. And guess what? It doesn’t matter once you’re on the court where you went to school, or who your daddy is, or how much money you have. Just two guys. Me and you. Very fair.”

HOME FIELD DISADVANTAGE: What’s more perplexing: that France’s Amelie Mauresmo has never won the French Open, that Brit Tim Henman hasn’t captured Wimbledon, or that neither Aussie Patrick Rafter nor Lleyton Hewitt has ever won the Aussie Open?

 

AND A PRETTY GOOD FOREHAND: One fan, reflecting on Serena, contended, “That girl has exactly the kind of chi and chutzpah it takes to win.”

SERENA’S DREAM: “In a perfect world,” Serena confided, “I would do a full [tennis] season and be done in late September and then film a movie and start (tennis) again in January.”

 

OF VENETIAN CHANDELIERS, PINK SATIN LOUIS XV CHAIRS, GOLD GIRAFFES AND PSEUDO-IMPRESSIONISTS: The Observer Sports Monthly reported on the interior of Venus and Serena’s Florida house, writing that “the main room — or should I say atrium? — contains a Venetian chandelier so large you can barely imagine it fitting inside Venice, some pink-and-white striped satin Louis XV furniture and a few extra pink upholstered chairs piled up next to them. There are double-height midnight blue curtains embroidered with gold giraffes, and pseudo-Impressionist paintings lean against a wall.”

 

WIMBLEDON TO USE HAWK-EYE: No other venue, not even the U.S. Open, has had more curious officiating episodes than Wimbledon. There was the linesman who slumped over and fell asleep. Here, McEnroe offered us his most inspired lines, and there was Jeff Tarango’s existential meltdown, which culminated with his wife slapping an official in the Wimbledon interview room. And, of course, Wimbledon’s linesmen were dolled up last year to make a major fashion statement when they paraded about in stylish retro Polo outfits. Now, this year, Wimbledon, which was the first to use the Cyclops machine on the service line, will be joining the increasing crowd of tournaments that use Hawk-Eye. Other Wimby changes include equal prize money for men and women for the first time and a farewell to the fabulously intimate “graveyard court” — Court Two. In ’09, Centre Court will have a roof, there might be night play and there will be a new Court Two.

 

VIVE LA DIFFERENCE: Kim Clijsters’ final career record against her arch-Belgian rival Justine Henin will probably be 10-12. (Martina Navratilova’s lifetime record over Chris Evert was 43-37.)

COLLINS WAKES ‘EM UP IN OHIO: The dean of tennis journalists — the playful, often beloved Bud Collins — was asked to give the first commencement speech of his venerable career at Baldwin-Wallace College, from which he graduated in ’51 and where his dad was the athletic director. Not surprisingly, Collins offered a platitude or two (“Columbus took a chance and so should you”). But so what, every graduation speech (excuse me while I yawn) has plenty of those. And, of course, the talk reflected Bud’s delight in inventing evocative nicknames, his joy in telling tales of distant journeys and his penchant for asking questions. But there was a twist. The talk was hardly a reflection on tennis and the meaning of life. Instead of recalling the arrogance of Marcelo Rios, he spoke of the arrogance of power and the use of such phrases as “Mission: Impossible.” Instead of reflecting on how at Forrest Hills his commentary almost sparked a meltdown from “The Lone Wolf,” Pancho Gonzalez, he spoke of “Alibi Alberto” Gonzales, the embattled attorney general. Instead of asking on-court questions to some breathless 17-year-old Serbian, Collins posed seven provocative questions. Why don’t we have a cogent energy policy? Why does education lag so much? Why is there no national health-care program amidst our affluence? Some at Baldwin-Wallace (which one local reporter described as “a real red state college with a big business program”) started to squirm ‘n moan. Collins continued: Why are so many millions of kids living in poverty? Some heckling began. Bud went on. Why is a CEO paid so high? Why don’t we have an intelligent immigration policy and, in light of Virginia Tech, what about some sane gun control? (Whew!) As for globe-trotting journeys, the nomadic journalist didn’t dwell on his exotic journeys to Bhutan, his late-night adventures in Rome or tales of the Davis Cup in Latin America, amidst bullets and bombs. Instead, with substantial sorrow, he told of two trips to Vietnam, where he visited storybook villages which repeatedly had been torched by the fire of war. Collins spoke of a certain kind of amnesia he feels our leaders suffer and was deeply troubled that our nation was again embroiled in conflict and that our reputation abroad was suffering. Sobering thoughts from an often light and playful figure known for his bubbly spirit and over-the-top wardrobe. But then again, we live in turbulent times, when even a benign, grandfatherly tennis elder speaks out. Columbus dared. So did Bud.

ANDY’S ANGST: When reflecting on his difficult childhood, Andy Murray didn’t refer to the trauma of having a mass murderer invade his school when he was eight. Instead, the young Scot told writer David Harrison of the impact of his parents’ divorce. “If I stayed with my mother for two nights, then I felt I should stay with my father for two nights,” said Murray. “At Christmas I didn’t know how long to spend with each of them. I would get stuck in the middle of their arguments. I would get really upset, and one of the things I would have loved to have more than anything was a family that worked better together, although I love my mother and father to bits. When I was younger and went on court, and was away from the arguments…I could just go out and play.”

 

FEDERER IS TO HERTZ AS NADAL IS TO AVIS?: It’s the most defining stat in men’s tennis these days. Federer has been No. 1 for 173 weeks and Nadal has been No. 2 for 96 weeks. Both are records and the numbers reveal just how locked into place matters are atop men’s tennis. Of course, the twist is that second-ranked Avis (that would be Nadal) has a dominating 7-3 record over No. 1 Hertz (that would be Federer.) And yeah, since Federer took over the No. 1 slot in February ‘04, there have incredibly been 11 rotations at No. 1 on the women’s tour between five players — Henin, Sharapova, Davenport, Mauresmo, and Clijsters.

 

A MAN REFLECTS ON HIS CULTURE: When we got a standard (ho-hum) PR release on how splendid Switzerland is, we thought the pitch applied rather neatly to that Swiss fellow, Roger Federer. “Switzerland,” the PR artist claimed, “has a new edginess, yet has managed to stay appealingly traditional (see ‘tradical,’ a newly coined word to describe classics that are now cool). Chic design, creative food, and the diverse European influences in the country all offer fresh spins on Old World ways.”

 

GIVING NEW MEANING TO VARIETY: Just three months ago, tennisdom all but bowed in adoration at the temple of Federer’s much celebrated genius and saluted his astounding variety: the variety of his creative strokes, the variety of the ways he won and the variety of the wannabes (Roddick, Nadal, Agassi, Ljubicic, etc.) he’d rebuffed.

More recently, tennis is noting the  stunning variety of his losses. The tennis god has suffered setbacks against his top challenger — Nadal; against a player fresh off of drug suspensions — Guillermo Canas (twice) and against a little known journeyman, Italian Filippo Volandri, No. 53. Mr Perfect also has lost this spring on hard courts, clay and a hybrid combo of clay and grass in exhibitions, in singles and doubles. What’s next, one cynic asked, mixed doubles? (But be careful — never underestimate the mighty Fed.)

 

OH, HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN: What’s more shocking: That the once seemingly invincible Roger Federer has lost four times since he swept to the Aussie Open title or that this year’s NCAA Championships, which included such little known schools as Radford, Elon, and UMBC, did not include the once-dominant Stanford men, who have won a record 17 NCAA titles?

 

NO CRAFT, NO TOOLS: Ivan Lendl, 47, was the first player to be oh-so-fastidious about his rackets. He’d change frames every time new balls came into play and was the first to wrap his highly customized adidas rackets in plastic. But now he doesn’t have a single one. “I gave them all away. When I want to play, I have to borrow one,” he confided.

 

DENIAL OF THE MONTH: After a French magazine sparked rumors that rising star Richard Gasquet is having an affair with a married French businessman, Gasquet responded: “This question has come back hundreds of times, and every time someone turns up saying, ‘Oh, I have evidence.’ It is just bull——. Neither him nor me are homosexuals. It’s absolutely obvious.”

 

BYE, BYE BORIS: Pam Shriver contends that wherever capitalism thrives, so does tennis.  The late Boris Yeltsin, 76, who died in April, not only helped dismantle the Soviet Union, he fashioned Russian capitalism AND inspired Russian tennis. In fact, what other modern politico has been as much of a booster of a single sport than Big Boris?

“Yeltsin’s name became synonymous with tennis,” Russian tennis chief Smail Tarpishchev told Reuters. “When he picked up a racket in ’92, it was the most significant moment for our sport…In large part due to him, tennis has become what it is today.”

Yes, Olga Morozova, Andrei Chesnokov, Yvgeny Kafelnikov and, of course, Anna Kournikova were essential to the astounding Russian tennis boom. But it was Yeltsin who kissed and shook hands with every modern Russian champ — from Myskina and Safin, to Kuznetsova and Sharapova. When 60 Minutes famously interviewed him, it was on his tennis home court. He told Elena Dementieva that she had to improve her serve, went to Wimbledon, and was a fixture at Moscow’s tournament and at Davis and Fed Cup matches. When Russia won its first Davis Cup in ’02, Yeltsin — the self-proclaimed team mascot — was there, cheering wildly and “bear-hugging” his heroes. Yeltsin said the victory was his proudest moment in sport.

 

KIMMY’S CORNER: Justine Henin said she and Kim were “coworkers, but it stops there.”…When Kim was still engaged to Lleyton Hewitt, commentator Mark Woodforde said she probably suffered her wrist injury “from carrying her [huge engagement] ring around.”…At the ’03 U.S. Open awards ceremony, the big wig presenting the prizes said champion Kim and finalist Mary Pierce were “two wonderful firms.”…Kim contended that winning friends was more important than winning trophies.

 

VACATION PLANNER: There’re few more captivating places in mid-summer America than Vermont.  So imagine watching Venus or Serena representing America against Russians Maria Sharapova or Svetlana Kuznetsova in the shadow of beautiful Mt. Mansfield in tennis-happy Stowe, Vt.  No wonder the upcoming July 14-15 U.S. vs. Russia Fed Cup match is creating a stir. 

 

Farewell Annalee: Annalee Thurston, a former WTA player and  media operative, passed away in May. Thurston grew up in Long Beach, lived in San Francisco and moved to the Coachella Valley eight years ago. “Everyone who came into contact with Annalee was treated to her generosity - maybe it was getting a pass to an event, or an introduction, or a cot in her hotel room,” said her friend, Rosie Casals.  “She gave and gave and gave.”

 

The Mac Nightmare That Won’t Go Away: After losing a senior tournament in Barcelona on clay in  April, John  McEnroe returned home to lick his wounds. Instead, he opened up his oldest and sorest one.

“I was feeling horrible, my back was going out, I turn on the Tennis Channel and the first thing I see is my [3-6, 2-6, 6-4, 7-5, 7-5 loss to Lendl in the ‘84 Open final],” Mac told IT. “I say. No way! I’ve never watched it before, but I decided misery loves company.”

The loss came during Mac’s greatest year ever (he went a record 82-3) and ended his 39-match winning streak. It was the closest he would come to winning the French and took away his last real chance at being called one of the greatest all around players ever.

Mac still calls the match a choke, but after finally watching the fourth set, he doesn’t feel as bad he did before when thinking about all the chances he had to seal the match. He was up 4-2 in the fourth, but Lendl made everything difficult from then on.

“A [key] volley I remember being a pretty easy choice between a drop volley and playing it safe, was actually a tougher volley than I remember. I was thinking it was a semi-gimme, and all of sudden I way, way stretched out. It was makeable, but it was tough. So I felt a little tiny bit better, but I couldn’t bear watching after that. I saw another other easy ball that I missed and  it was fortunate I had to go do something else. It’s hard for me to watch anything, even my victories.”

 

UNDERSTANDING PRIVILEGE: From early on, Rafael Nadal’s uncle and coach, Toni, put tennis into perspective. The former soccer star shared with Neil Harman that he would tell Rafa, “You must play always with a good face. It is impossible to learn with a bad face…There are people in Africa who have big problems. We don’t have problems, or if we do, they are only little ones. I say to Rafael sometimes when he misses a shot and has a long face…the ball has gone out, it is only one thing. Rafael has never thrown his racket. It is unbelievable how some people treat what they are given. He [gets] his shoes for nothing, yet for other people, they cost 100 Euros. There are players who have their rackets strung, they don’t use the racket, and they go back the next day to have them strung again. That is bad.”

 

GEE, WE THOUGHT BELUSHI WAS PRETTY GOOD ON HIS FEET: One analyst claimed that Argentinean Juan Martin del Potro is “The Sam Querrey of clay. Big kid with a lot of game, some attitude and, unfortunately, the footwork of John Belushi after a weeklong bender.”

 

HYBRID HEAVEN OR HELL: The inventive hybrid exhibition in April in Rafael Nadal’s hometown of Mallorca, in which Nadal downed Federer 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 in front of 9,000 (“is this a bullfight or a tennis match?”) fans on a court which was half clay and half grass, drew much attention. Dismiss it as a gimmick, but the exo was perhaps the third most noteworthy exhibition in tennis history (after the Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs Battle of the Sexes in ‘73 and the 1928 Queen of the Hill battle between the aging French icon Suzanne Lenglen and the rising Berkeley beauty Helen Wills in Cannes). Of course, the event made clear that tennis is truly unique. No other sport is played on such a diverse range of [four] surfaces. But why did Federer agree to play his key rival in Nadal’s hometown, just before the most competitive stretch of the season? And sadly, there is a shadow over this seemingly innocent event. Renata Marcinkowska, a former WTA player sued the organizers for unfair business practices. Now a South Carolina teaching pro, she asserted that she met with IMG in February with the idea and they showed no interest. “I feel they’re Goliath and I’m just a little David,” she said. “I’ve been cheated.”

 

HOW RACKET SPORTS CHANGED THE UNIVERSE AND ASSORTED OTHER MUSINGS ON A SPRING EVE: Sometimes everything just clicks in a moment. Other times innocent (whoops, there goes a billion kilowatt dam) miscues lead to a free-form debacle. For example, Condi Rice wore a red dress to a recent diplomatic event at a bigwig (“let’s try ‘n work this out”) conference in Egypt. But a Ukrainian violinist in the band had a snit over the color of the Secretary of State’s apparel. There followed mid-major hullabaloo, and Iran’s foreign secretary walked away from the meeting with Rice. In contrast, early in the ‘70s, the chilly Cold War relationship between the U.S. and China was frozen deep into place. Then, at a ping-pong tournament in Japan, an American player audaciously approached a Chinese contestant and offered a jaunty greeting: “Hey, Chinese, long time no see.” The quip led to a certain rapport. Shortly thereafter, an American table tennis team broke the thick ice of China’s isolation and journeyed to the Inner Kingdom. Then Nixon followed suit and chatted up Mao Tse Tung. And today? Well, little ol’ WalMart is expanding all over an intensely commercial China whose wares are in the malls of every village in America! Moral of the story? Don’t wear red to diplomatic to-dos. Do be jolly at the next international table tennis tourney you go to.

 

I WISH THEY COULD ALL BE EASTERN EUROPEAN GIRLS: The London Telegraph’s Sue Mott asked, “Why can’t our tennis players be more like the Eastern Europeans? Talk to Jelena Jankovic and you would understand precisely why. Because everything they have achieved comes with shovel-loads of hard work, painful separations and a pitiless eye for ambition. The life of a tennis player for a girl out of Serbia is not one long float on a pedalo…When she was 14, the country Jankovic was living in declared war on the country she called home and set about bombing her city…“I would watch on CNN. They bombed buildings I knew. The electricity was lost. From 8 p.m. every night, a siren would sound and I always felt scared.”

 

CLIJSTERS—JUST ANOTHER DISGRUNTLED PEASANT MILKMAID?:  Few have graced tennis with a more authentic generosity of spirit and athletic ease than the ever-sensible Kim Clijsters.  So many, such as writer Margie McDonald, have saluted “her courtesy and dignity that placed her above many athletes.”  Still, the net crackled with inexplicable criticism.  One online commentator called Kim’s departure a “farewell tour de farce,” and claimed she was treating the season “like a prolonged giggle…She can’t stop with those gushy statements about the domestic bliss and dogs and babies that await when she’s done with the Dickensian sweatshop of pro tennis.”  Blogger Peter Bodo contended that Kim had “a tedious and uninspired career…[with] a game with roughly the same degree of sex appeal as curling…[She] drained the fun, beauty and spontaneity out of the game…I’m not sure she ever made an interesting comment.”  The critic then backed off and generously conceded he would not hold Kim “accountable for being terminally dull” and then contended, “being nice is not a virtue.” As for her departure, he asserted that Kim “backed out sniping and carping, like some disgruntled peasant milkmaid ruing her lot and making poisonous accusations…”

 

QUOTEBOOK

“To grow the sport more in the U.S., the tour should focus on tournaments in the U.S...They’re changing the schedule to cater to Europe and I don’t like it at all.” – Serena Williams

 

“I would seed him in the top five at Wimbledon without a doubt... Name five guys that could beat this guy at Wimbledon. [Sampras] absolutely still just cranks the ball and makes you so uneasy. I’m tempted to push him to play.“ – John McEnroe

 

“Of all his performances versus Nadal, this has been the worst.” – The Tennis Channel on Federer’s loss in Monte Carlo

 

“Obviously, he needs a little bit of a jolt. He’s, like, sort of human right now.” – John McEnroe on Federer

 

“He hasn’t even started to use a lot of his game.” – Tony Roche, Federer’s former coach on Roger

 

“He’s thanking everybody for everything.” – The Tennis Channel on Rafael Nadal’s wide-ranging thank-you speech in Spanish after he won in Monte Carlo.

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