Notebook: Lady GaGa’s the Embodiment of Class

Andy's Gold Standard...The Numbers...Quotebook

A FREE MAN: Jelena Dokic’s troubled father, Damir, was paroled by a Serbian court one year after his conviction for threatening the Australian ambassador.  He was initially sentenced to 15 months, but the sentence was later reduced.
DIZZY SPELL: Marion Bartoli retired from her match against Peng Shuai in Charleston, saying she “was feeling really dizzy.”
ANDY’S [...]

Notebook: Out of the Quicksand of Predictability

ROCKY RELATIONSHIPS, BAD LUCK IN SPORTS — WHAT BETTER FOUNDATION UPON WHICH TO BUILD A MARRIAGE?: Of Indian Sania Mirza and Pakistani cricket standout Shoaib Malik’s proposed marriage, the web-based magazine Despardes asserted, “Both Sania and Malik have two things in common: rocky prior relationships and bad luck in sports.” (Mirza recently broke up with [...]

An Organic Kind of Guy: Sony Ericsson Open Notebook

SEXUAL ASSAULT CHARGES: According to a London Times report, Brit Davis Cupper Dan Evans is “fully co-operating” with a police investigation into an alleged sexual assault which is alleged to have taken place in the early hours of March 19.
BORDER BROUHAHA: The cross-border wedding plans of Indian Sania Mirza and Pakistani cricket star Shoaib Malik [...]

Rafa Is Rafa: Sony Ericsson Open Notebook

ANNIVER-SORRY: Regarding his first wedding anniversary (April 18), Andy Roddick quipped, “She [SI swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker] said we don’t need to exchange gifts.  But I don’t know if that’s code for, ‘You’d better get me a gift!’”
ITALIAN OPEN HAS A NEW HOME: The Italian Olympic Committee recently unveiled a new $38.4 million, 10,500-seat tennis [...]

‘My Game Has Issues’: Sony Ericsson Open Notebook

FISH FRIED: Mardy Fish is the latest player to struggle with a sciatic nerve injury (think Andre Agassi, Fernando Verdasco).  Trailing Mikhail Youzhny 6-1, 1-0 in Miami, Fish — who earlier in the week had upset Andy Murray — called it quits.  “It was excruciating pain.  I was doubled over, could hardly breathe,” said Fish.  [...]

Anarchy In the UK: Sony Ericsson Open Notebook

SAY IT AIN’TSO: Wayne Odesnik pleaded guilty to importing HGH into Australia prior to the Australian Open. He was fined $8,320 and could be banned for two years.  Said fellow American James Blake, “I’m glad they caught him.” (A bit odd, don’t you think, that Odesnik is being coached by Argentine Guillermo Canas, who himself [...]

Being Andy Roddick

Part I of the Inside Tennis Interview

As the telecast of America’s Davis Cup tie against Serbia was broadcast in Roddick’s living room, IT publisher Bill Simons spoke to the star about his wife Brooklyn, his rival Federer, his hero Agassi and the transformation of his career

At Home With Andy Roddick

A Day of Wonder

Almost a decade ago, a young boy, Andy Roddick, lifted expectations to the stratosphere. Just as the golden era of Sampras, Agassi, Courier and Chang was beginning to lose its shimmer, the torch was passed to an emerging star with a serve that thundered faster than Sampras’, a bravado suggestive of Connors, and a forehand [...]

Jankovic, Ljubicic Reemerge at Indian Wells

JJ Downs Wozniacki 6-2, 6-4; Roddick Falls 7-6(3), 7-6(5)

INDIAN WELLS, CALIF. — Jelena Jankovic hails from Serbia, but is building a 20,000-square-foot home in San Diego. Ivan Ljubicic comes from Croatia, but says that nowhere suits his game better than the warm and breezy confines of Southern California.
Maybe someone in the State Department can offer them citizenship because both showed in their stellar [...]

A Sport for Rogues, Eccentrics and Non-Conformists

Hip Surgery Sidelines Haas…Shino Speaks…Quotebook

A SPORT FOR ROGUES, ECCENTRICS AND NON-CONFORMISTS: San Francisco Chronicle columnist Bruce Jenkins observed, “For a sport founded on upper-class convention, replete with 19th-century Londoners leaping across pristine lawns in long white pants, tennis has been molded by rogues, eccentrics and non-conformists. Its history would be as stodgy as four o’clock tea without its relentless [...]