BY THE TIME WE GOT TO BOISE: Reflecting on the star power of the the upcoming Serbia vs. USA Davis Cup tie in his hometown of Boise, Idaho, Greg Patton compared it to Woodstock and said, “It's like the Rolling Stones playing on one day, then Led Zeppelin on the second day and then on the third, it would be the Beach Boys and the Beatles playing together.”
POP QUIZ: Name the Hall of Famer who has the USTA in his name.
Answer: Gustavo Kuerten.
AUSSIE O. COUNTERFACTUAL: What if that little white feather didn’t fall and interrupt Andy Murray’s service motion before he collapsed in a key tie-break in the final … What if Serena didn’t turn her ankle while playing doubles and then against Sloane Stephens … What if Li Na didn’t twist her ankle in the final against Azarenka … What if Vika hadn’t stretched the rules and took a double medical timeout in the semis as Stephens was beginning to zone … What if Stan Wawrinka prevailed in the best match of the Aussie Open against Djokovic.
OVER THE TOP DOWN UNDER: All singles and doubles players in the Aussie Open got a $1,000 “welcome to Australia” check as soon as they arrived for the tournament.
AN ITEM ON ITEMS: Serena and her coach Patrick Mouratoglou; Azarenka and rocker Redfoo; Sharapova and the ATP’s Grigor Dimitrov; Maria Kirilenko and the Washington Capitals’ hockey star Alex Ovechkin and that old standby Caroline Wozniacki and Rory McIlory.
ANALYSIS GONE WILD: After Russian Olga Puchkova lost 6-0, 6-0 to Sharapova, newscom.au noted that she won $27,600 for 55 minutes of work, or $1,200 for each of the 23 points she won … Australian Open radio dissected the coin toss prior to a Sam Stosur match … Broadcaster Greg Willis said, “Ballboy 349 is bending down and is throwing the ball to Sharapova and now he puts his hands behind his back.”
NOT SO DEEP THOUGHTS ON DEEP POCKETS: BNP Paribas owner Larry Ellison puts all the money he makes from the tournament back into the tournament … At the Aussie Open a ball fell out of Andy Murray’s pocket. When that happened earlier in his career, broadcaster Andrew Castle noted, “You’d think with all the money they’re making that they would have deeper pockets.”
AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME: While reflecting on refs finally enforcing time limits, Pam Shriver said, “There’s a concept, follow the rules.”
HEADLINES
A Timeout Jeered Around the World
Federer does not expect to win every time.
Madison lists her “Keys” To Victory
ASTEROID NEARS EARTH, BUT IT WON’T HIT US
WOULD ARTHUR BE HAPPY?: On the 20th anniversary of Arthur Ashe’s death, his agent, Donald Dell, wrote in the New York Times that “there is so much today he would smile about: Diversity in the upper ranks of the tennis world, particularly among American women, including the Williams sisters, Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys and Taylor Townsend; an African-American president; a thriving democracy in South Africa; A worldwide coalition … working to enable people to live longer with AIDS.” Ashe’s widow, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, added that Arthur “would have felt vindicated for all of the hardships, for the blood and sweat [of the Civil Rights movement] that was given for so many years. Surely he’d still be fighting and saying that we have a long way to go. Yet to have the privilege of seeing the progress made is just indescribable. We’re living in a very momentous time.”
GO FIGURE: Both of Federer’s twin daughters have their her own nanny … Tomas Berdych, who doesn’t have an apparel contract, wears oddly plain gear without the usual assortment of stripes and slogans.
IMAGINE THIS: The saga of the imaginary girlfriend of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’O at first brought to mind one of the great imaginary happenings in American history, Orson Welles’ 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio drama of a fictional invasion of aliens. As for tennis, we had an imaginary interview with the founder of tennis, Major Wingfield, who actually had died in 1912. And our former Managing Editor Hugh Delehanty interviewed Yonex, Martina Navratilova’s dog. Still our favorite piece of imaginary tennis journalism was Jon Wertheim’s fictional account of a rising phenom. He wrote, “Simonya Popova is hot. Smoking. Close to it, anyway … [She] is on a back court at the Bollettieri Tennis Academy, midway through a series of practice sets … Her skin and hair colored by the sun, Popova is dripping sweat like a busted faucet … Showing court craft to match her power, Popova unfurls a topspin lob that traces a perfect arc and nicks the baseline. “More accurate than ICBM,” says [Popova’s father] Sergei, smiling at his daughter. “How you beat her? I cannot say, because I do not know.”
POLITICALLY AND NOT S0 POLITICALLY CORRECT: Some say no man’s land should be called no person’s land … When comparing the men’s and women’s circuit, France’s wildly popular but not so “PC” Jo-Willie Tsonga said, “The girls, they are more unstable emotionally than us. I’m sure everybody will say it’s true even the girls … you don’t think? It’s just about hormones and all this stuff. We don’t have all these bad things, so we are physically in a good shape every time and you are not. That’s it.”
“EVERYTHING HE TELLS ME IS SHALLOW AND HAS NO MERIT”: The BNP Paribas wants to up the prize money for men and women by $800,000 each, but despite the players approval, the ATP, incredibly, is now saying no. ATP board member Mark Webster, one of three board members who represent the tournaments and voted against the increase, told Tennis.com, “We are in the middle of prize money discussions … and we’re holding firm not to increase and then you do it. We have to keep the players in tow. It’s like a land grab, give them your finger and they ask for the arm.” BNP Paribas Open CEO Ray Moore said, “The European tournaments don’t want us progressing … It’s totally anticompetitive … Everything Webster tells me is shallow and has no merit.”
