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Monday, November 23, 2009 01:03 PM
Record crowd sees Murray win
The latest incarnation of the year-end ATP championships (formerly the Tennis Masters Cup) is as the ATP World Tour Finals. Following a four-year stint in Shanghai, they will now be held at the O2 Arena in London’s Dockland area for the next five years.
Sunday saw the opening action in front of a crowd of 17,467, a record for a tennis event in Britain. (Note: seating capacity at Wimbledon’s famed Centre Court is 14,954.) It witnessed an entertaining 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 win by home favourite Andy Murray over Juan Martin del Potro.
After a day of watching what are sometimes abbreviated as the WTF, here are a few observations:
It is interesting to note that the crowd is almost in the dark, with the two-tone blue court being illuminated in such a way as to make everything look a little more theatrical.
Also nice to see is that unlike the recent women’s Tour Championships in Doha, Qatar, the players will have a day off between rounds as the schedule alternates between Group A – Roger Federer, Murray, del Potro and Fernando Verdasco – and Group B – Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Nikolay Davydenko and Robin Soderling.
The women’s event was marred by injury retirements, particularly in the case of Caroline Wozniacki who had to play two withering back-to-back matches in the round-robin phase before she finally broke down the next day and retired in the semi-finals.
The men’s alternating schedule is still not ideal because Nadal’s group will play Monday-Wednesday-Friday, meaning that, when its two top players cross over for the semi-finals on Saturday, they will be facing players from Group A who were able to rest on Friday.
(A clearly nervous Nadal lost his opener on Monday, 6-4, 6-4 to Robin Soderling, making poor unforced errors on set point in the first set and on the second match point in the second. On those match points, the moving video panel circling above the lower level of seats flashed “MATCH POINT MATCH POINT MATCH POINT MATCH POINT...” before the final point was played. It’s a dubious innovation that is potentially distracting for the players, and a definite sign that tennis times are a-changin.)
Inquiries to the ATP about who decided which group would play first, thus giving them the day off before the semi-finals, received a response that one of the factors in the decision was British television’s desire to be able to feature Murray in its first day of coverage on Sunday.
There also seems to be potential for some disappointed fans in the scheduling, which features only one singles match, as well as a doubles match, in each afternoon and evening session. With the inaugural WTF being highly promoted, is it worth risking alienating the paying customer if the singles is a real dud, or if one of the players is injured or ill and has to retire?
Two final thoughts: US Open champ Juan Martin del Potro’s sleeveless tops just don’t cut it at an indoor event. There is a different atmosphere of decorum about playing indoors and a proper T-shirt or collared shirt would be more appropriate.
And, regarding Andy Murray’s coaches, surely he does not need two – his main coach and fellow-Scot Miles Maclagan and consultant coach Alex Corretja, the retired Spanish player. If you look in Murray’s courtside box, there is Maclagan, Corretja as well as Murray’s physio and his fitness trainer. Corretja was originally hired to help Murray during the clay-court season but has gained a larger and larger presence. You have to feel for Maclagan – as any self-respecting coach would, surely he believes he can handle Murray on his own without having Corretja around all the time.
In a tough economic climate, Murray’s support coterie is a veritable growth enterprise in Britain.
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Besides Daniel Nestor who, with partner Nenad Zimonjic, was upset by the Polish duo of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski in the opening round of round-robin play, there are two people with connections to Canada involved with the O2 event.
Ex-Montrealer Greg Rusedski, who recently got in hot water with Murray for suggesting that the Scot should play more aggressively, warmed up Federer before his first match (a 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory) with Verdasco. Rusedski, like the Spaniard, is a left-hander.
And John Beddington, the former long-time tournament director of the Canadian Open event in Toronto, is the man who brokered the deal that brought Barclays on board as title sponsor for the ATP World Tour Finals.
Link to this postFriday, November 20, 2009 12:33 PM
Not-so-proud parenting moments
There has been a history of infamous tennis fathers, men who were either overly-meddlesome and/or abusive in their relationships with their daughters.
The same has not been the case with tennis mothers but, if there is one, it would likely be Samantha Stevenson, mother of Alexandra Stevenson. Samantha gained notoriety in 1999 when Alexandra, just 18, reached the Wimbledon semi-finals and the story broke that her daughter’s biological father was retired basketball great Julius Erving (a.k.a. Dr. J).
Samantha had a liaison with Erving while she was a reporter covering the hoops superstar's Philadelphia 76ers.
Alexandra, who turns 29 next month, has had a star-crossed career since a 6-1, 6-1 loss to Lindsay Davenport in the 1999 semis at the All England Club.
At the time, Davenport criticized Samantha for making statements about alleged racism and lesbianism on the women’s tour, declaring that her claims “sounded crazy.”
Ranked as high as No. 18 in 2002, Alexandra’s career has been plagued by injuries. She had shoulder surgery in 2004 and her troubles continue – she has retired from matches on seven occasions since June, including last week in Phoenix, Ariz., with a foot problem.
On Thursday, now ranked No. 229, she reached the quarter-finals of the $50,000 Tevlin Challenger on Tennis Canada’s indoor courts in Toronto, defeating her American compatriot Christina McHale 6-4, 6-2. The No. 240-ranked McHale, 17, is the current U.S. Junior (under-18) champion.
Unfortunately, despite her daughter’s relatively uncomplicated victory, Samantha Stevenson managed to insert herself into the match in an unnecessary manner.
The spectator chairs for the Court 2 match were placed on the vacant, adjacent Court 3. Almost everyone watching, as had been the custom all week, sat inside the Court 3 singles sideline. But Samantha positioned her chair prominently just outside the doubles sideline near the baseline, in the space between the two courts about 20 feet from the junction of the Court 2 baseline and sideline.
She sat by herself taking notes and was easy to spot dressed in a black ski jacket, black track pants, jogging shoes and wearing sunglasses.
From the beginning of the match, she encouraged her daughter whenever she played at her end of the court, saying things such as, “c’mon Alexandra, good location, you can do it,” as she prepared to serve.
During the early going, when a McHale fan at the other end of the court shouted out, “C’mon Christina,” Samantha said out loud to herself, “what an asshole.”
In the fifth game, when her daughter’s shot down the near sideline at her end of the court was ruled good, McHale protested to the umpire that the ball had been wide. When she then moved away toward the back of the court, Samantha said, “it was on the line, you’ve got bad eyes.”
McHale responded, “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Though reasonably controlled for the rest of the match, Samantha often said “good shot” or something similar whenever Alexandra hit a winner while at the far end, meaning that probably only McHale could hear the comment.
Midway through the second set when Alexandra had an on-court treatment from Tennis Canada trainer Marlene Nobrega for a shoulder/back/neck problem, Samantha got up out of her chair and went over and spoke to ITF supervisor William Coffey who was positioned just behind where Alexandra was seated.
After the match, Samantha walked off with her daughter and could be heard saying about somebody, “what an (expletive)''.
That fits her apparent us-against-the-world attitude, something that is certainly not very pretty to observe at a tennis tournament.
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From the ‘rarely seen department’ came a clothing change by Alexandra when she was seated during the changeover after the third game of the first set. She removed the long-sleeved black top she had been wearing and had nothing on underneath except a sports bra. She then she proceeded to put on a different top.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 12:13 PM
Abanda joins the big girls
The $50,000 Tevlin Challenger currently going on at Tennis Canada headquarters in Toronto features players from both ends of the career spectrum – veterans hoping for one last good kick at the can and youngsters who are bright-eyed and ambitious.
Among the former at this week’s event is No. 212-ranked Aniko Kapros of Hungary, 26, the 2000 Australian Open junior champion who was as high as No. 44 in the world in 2004.
Joining her are No. 229 Alexandra Stevenson of the United States, 28, who was No. 18 in 2002 and a Wimbledon semi-finalist in 1999, as well as No. 261 Mirjana Lucic of Croatia, 27, also a 1999 Wimbledon semi-finalist and a former No. 32 in 1998.
The declines of Kapros, Stevenson and Lucic can serve as cautionary tales for the emerging generation of young players.
Elisabeth Abanda, 15, of Laval, Que., is just starting out on the women’s circuit after winning the Canadian under-14 and under-16 titles in 2008, and the under-16s and under-18s in 2009.
On Tuesday at the Tevlin Challenger, wild-card entrant Abanda was on the brink of a major breakthrough when she held a match point against No. 7 seed Madison Brengle of the United States. Under some pressure during the rally, Abanda missed a backhand on the match point at 5-3 in the final set and eventually lost 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 to the No. 165-ranked Brengle, 19.
She will now concentrate on junior tournaments for the rest of the year, including the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl events in Florida next month, and hopes to play the qualifying for the Australian Open juniors in January.
Abanda, whose parents are from Cameroon, speaks fluent French and English, as well as a dialect from Cameroon. She is well aware of the greatest player to come from that country – 1983 French Open champion Yannick Noah. “His home in Cameroon is close to my mother’s and he speaks the same language as my mother,” she said.
As talented as she is, Abanda may not even be the most promising player in her own household. Her younger sister Francoise, 12, is viewed by some as an even better prospect.
Being sisters and being black, the Abanda girls have long ago become accustomed to being compared to Serena and Venus Williams.
When asked to name her tennis idols, Elisabeth said, “I like Kim Clijsters. I started to like her after her comeback at the US Open. I think what she did was great. And I also like players who have strong characters – like Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams.”
Currently No. 149 in the International Tennis Federation’s Junior Girls rankings, Abanda said she aims to be in the top 40 by the end of next year.
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Vavara Lepchenko of the United States will not get a chance, this week in Toronto, to extend her amazing streak of "6-0'' sets. After a run of five ‘bagels’ in a row on her way to winning the title at the $50,000 Challenger in Phoenix, Arizona, last weekend, the second-seeded Lepchenko has pulled out of the Tevlin Challenger because of a left foot injury.
Word around the tournament is that next year it will be a mixed event, with a $15,000 men’s Futures being added. It will one of two $15,000 Futures events staged back-to-back in Toronto.
Monday, November 16, 2009 10:30 AM
Agassi speeds through signing
After all the hype surrounding Andre Agassi’s new book ‘Open,’ it was too tempting for me not to go have a look at his book signing at the Indigo store in Toronto last Friday evening.
There was a large, overflowing turnout, with a queue of excited fans snaking around the aisles of books awaiting his arrival, most clutching copies of 'Open'. When Agassi finally made his entrance, his name was announced over the P.A. system with the same kind of hoopla as a Maple Leaf scoring a goal at the Air Canada Centre – “make some noise for A-a-a-n-n-n-dre AGASSI.”
There were limits to what the eight-time Grand Slam champion would do, with the eager fans having been forewarned, “he’s only going to be signing his book. So if you brought that US Open T-shirt – forget about it.”
Dressed in a casual crew-necked top, Agassi acknowledged the rousing welcome with a wave as he walked up to the dais where he did the signing. Just before he began putting his John Henry on the second inside page of Open, he took a microphone and said to the crowd, “just to be clear, I poured the last three years into this. I hope you enjoy it.”
One thing that was remarkable was the almost total absence of security. A woman, who looked to be an Indigo manager, answered “there should be” when asked whether she thought there could have been more obvious protection for the man who, in Open, describes times when he and former wife Brooke Shields received threats that required them to take special measures for their safety.
The closest thing to any beefy enforcement was a distinctly uninvolved commissionaire located about eight metres from Agassi, who was flanked by two very non-threatening, well-dressed women who were obsessively engaged in keeping the flow moving.
By my personal count over a three-minute period, Agassi signed an average of 10 books per minute, meaning the fawning faithful only got about six seconds of quality time with the retired, 39-year-old superstar.
With the loud rhythms of pop music pounding throughout the lower level of the store, some of the people filing past, roughly one in every five or six, stopped long enough to have their picture taken with him.
A young woman said about her signing experience, “he doesn’t say anything,” while another described the cursory interaction by noting, “the people beside him were saying ‘go quickly, hurry, hurry, hurry.’”
A man who was a rather eerie Agassi look-alike with a shaved head and just the right amount of facial hair, claimed, “he looked at me twice but I couldn't even get any pictures. It was quick, in and out – thanks, bye.”
Two attractive, well-dressed women were asked if Agassi had been flirtatious with them. “There was no time,” said one, “we were hoping, though.”
Another person did manage to get more than six seconds with the much-loved author, a bald-headed guy with a red beard who was dressed in a Montreal Canadiens jersey. “He said, ‘I like your sweater and your beard, how long has it been growing?’” the Habs fan related about their brief talk. “I told him I just got it cut. Too bad I didn’t get more time for him to sign other stuff.”
Then looking at me and pointing to a signature on the CH crest on his jersey, he said, “I got Ron MacLean to sign here.
“I’ve been meeting a lot of celebrities, and I met you, too.”
For a fleeting second I panicked, wondering if being the Globe and Mail tennis writer could actually qualify as celebrity. I frantically racked my brain, “where did I meet this guy?”
But, quickly, it all became all too clear – it was not “you too” but “U2.”
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Exactly 10 years ago Alexandra Stevenson (now probably better known as basketball superstar Dr. J’s daughter) and Mirjana Lucic were rising stars who had just reached the 1999 Wimbledon semi-finals. This week, now ranked No. 235 and No. 288 respectively, they are playing the $50,000 Tevlin Challenger at the Rexall Centre at Tennis Canada’s headquarters in Toronto.
Admission is free for the tournament, which also features Canadians Stephanie Dubois, Valerie Tetreault, Sharon Fichman and Rebecca Marino as well as promising Anna Tatishvilli of Georgia and Ekaterina Afinogenova, sister of Atlanta Thrashers forward Maxim Afinogenov, who is the boyfriend of world No. 5 Elena Dementieva.
Here’s an incredible stat:
Vavara Lepchenko, an American ranked No. 114, won the $50,000 Challenger event in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday with a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Sasha Jones of New Zealand.
In the semi-finals, Lepchenko beat Rosanna de los Rios of Paraguay 6-0, 6-0. In the quarter-finals, after losing the second set to Coco Vandeweghe of the U.S., Lepchenko won the third set 6-0.
That means she was 30-0 in her last five sets of the tournament.
At the Tevlin Challenger in Toronto this week, Lepchenko, 23 and originally from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, is the second seed and plays Hungarian veteran Aniko Kapros in the first round.
Friday, November 13, 2009 10:12 AM
ATP stars deliver maximum effort
Roger, Rafa, Novak and Andy have earned a more than $19-million (all currency U.S.) combined in official prize money in 2009. The four – Federer ($6.38-million), Nadal ($5.18-million), Djokovic ($3.82-million) and Murray ($3.61-million) – have also salted away big-time multiples of those figures in endorsement income.
With all that money and each of them worn down at the end of another withering season, it would be easy for the big boys of tennis to be mailing it in during the final two weeks of the regular season before the ATP World Tour Finals begin in London in two weeks.
But, au contraire, there have given some gutsy efforts last week in Basel and Valencia, and this week at the BNP Paribas Masters event in Paris.
In Basel, Djokovic had a gruelling 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-2 win over Stanislas Wawrinka before following up the next day with a 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-2 victory over Radek Stepanek, rallying from triple-match point down when he served at 4-5, love-40 in the second set.
This week, it has been Nadal performing the minor miracles. Like Djokovic, he came back from a triple-match-point deficit when Nicolas Almagro served at 5-4, 40-love in the second set (and then two additional match points) before finally overcoming his fellow Spaniard 3-6, 7-6(2), 7-5 on Wednesday. Then, on Thursday he outduelled Tommy Robredo, prevailing 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 after being three points from defeat when his Davis Cup teammate served for the match at 5-4 in the final set.
Those are the kind of matches that a player does not win without heart and commitment. Djokovic and Nadal showed raw determination playing in front of the enthusiastic spectators in Basel and in Paris – with everyone getting more than their money’s worth.
As for Murray, he won the tournament in Valencia despite not having played in six weeks after a wrist injury and having an upper leg problem that visibly bothered him. This week, again in some discomfort with the leg, he outlasted James Blake 6-3, 6-7(5), 7-6(4) on Wednesday in a high-quality match that ended at 1:45 a.m. before finally running out of gas the following afternoon and losing 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 to Stepanek.
As for Federer, he reached the final in Basel before losing 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 to Djokovic. After six weeks off and his first extended stretch at home with his wife and infant twin daughters, he probably played about as well as could have been expected.
He was seriously off his game during a loss to Julien Benneteau in his opening round in Paris on Wednesday, but even at that the Frenchman had to play the match of his life in the late going to finally win 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-4.
Djokovic, Nadal, Murray and Federer deserve kudos for competing as hard as humanly possible at the end of a long, exhausting year.
At a time when the men’s tennis is embroiled in some controversy resulting from the revelations in Andre Agassi’s new book ‘Open,’ you could hardly ask for better displays from these four solid citizens of the sport.
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Daniel Nestor is poised to become the first Canadian tennis player to reach $1-million in annual official prize money. Nestor has currently earned $944,388, surpassing the record $840,536 he earned in 2008.
Already in the semi-finals of this week’s BNP Paribas Masters in Paris, Nestor will be about $11,000 away from $1-million if he makes the final. Should he and partner Nenad Zimonjic win the title, he will pass the $1-million mark by more than $50,000.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 06:35 PM
Agassi's book: Opening 'Open'
One thing is plain in reading Andre Agassi’s new book Open, which was released on Monday: what happens off the court in the personal lives of players significantly affects what happens on the court in matches.
Tennis isn’t a team sport like hockey or basketball where a 10 or 20 per cent dropoff in a player’s performance can be camouflaged by the individual being part of a greater whole.
In Agassi’s case, his crystal meth use, his relationship with his first wife Brooke Shields, the breast cancer that affected his mother and sister Tami at the same time, his own and other friends’ health issues, and his growing infatuation with the woman who was to become his second wife, Steffi Graf, all were huge factors in explaining the ups and downs of his results on the ATP Tour.
After reading the excerpts from Open that have come out leading up to this week’s publication – about drug use, about his traumatic relationship with his father, about his hatred for tennis, about his agonizing back problem is his last years on tour – the book itself can seem mildly anti-climactic. But it is a very good autobiography that touches on all stages of his life on and off the court.
It is especially good on his early life in tennis, his ill-fated relationship and marriage to Shields and his persistent and ultimately successful courtship of Graf.
There are some seemingly mean-spirited asides in the book, such as the way he describes how the relatively obscure German player Bernd Karbacher is bow-legged and “his ass is chapped,” and how “I leave him standing there like a Jehovah’s Witness on my doorstep” about Boris Becker waiting at the net for a post-match handshake.
As well, there is the frequent, sometimes jarring, use of the f-word in various forms in describing the inner conversations he has with himself. This particularly odd if he intends, as is implied, that the book is partly to be a record for this children, Jaden and Jaz, eight and six respectively, to read later in life.
Not surprisingly, because his co-author J.R. Moehringer is a Pulitzer Prize winner, Open is well written. At times, it is clear that it is Moehringer’s prose and turns of phrase that come through, even if Agassi has an undeniable ability to be eloquent on his own.
About the crowd for his first-round match at the 1999 French Open, the book reads, “There were sixteen thousand people in the stands, screaming like peasants overrunning Versailles.”
Also, the books later describes Roger Federer “with his suave agility, his shot-making prowess and puma-like smoothness.” Those sound a lot more like Moehringer’s words than something written by “double A,” as Agassi used to be known.
If the content of the book is virtually 100 per cent Agassi, then the style, feel and flow of the writing has to be at least 90 per cent Moehringer.
In the ‘Acknowledgments’ at the very back of the book, Agassi writes, “I asked J.R. many times to put his name on the book. He felt, however, that only one name belonged on the cover. Though proud of the work we did together, he said he couldn’t see signing his name to another man’s life.”
Still, it seems wrong that there is no sign of Moehringer’s name anywhere in the book except for in the “Acknowledgements.”
But all in all, prospective readers, especially those of the more hardcore tennis variety, will be pleased that the book focuses on the sport enough that it cannot be classified as a sell-out to the more sensationalist sides of Agassi’s tumultuous trek through life.
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There are a couple of odd references to ‘Canadians’ in the book. Talking about the time he was defaulted in Indianapolis in 1996 for using obscenities against Daniel Nestor, the Torontonian is described as “Daniel Nestor, a Serb from Canada.”
A few pages later, about a loss in San Jose in 1997, he writes, “I falter in the semis against Greg Rusedski from Canada.” That was two years after the former Montrealer left for Britain.
Monday, November 9, 2009 11:39 AM
Agassi opens up on CBS
After all the talk flying around about Andre Agassi since the revelation last week that he took the recreational drug crystal meth for much of 1997, and then lied about it to officials when he tested positive, the essence of his highly-publicized appearance on CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday came down to the last few images of the item he did with interviewer Katie Couric.
They were of the children, in caps and gowns, during the first ever high school graduation ceremony of the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas.
Anyone looking at those children, from a disadvantaged area of Agassi’s hometown, all of whom were reported to be going on to college, would have to say that what Agassi has done in starting that school vastly overshadows the human fallibility he showed by taking crystal meth and then lying about it.
Put simply, he is like many professional athletes who have fallen for the temptation of recreational drugs, but he is unique in giving back to the community in a way that will so directly improve the lives of the 623 kids at his school. His foundation has raised $140 million (U.S.) to build and run the school, something that looks awfully good on a man who didn’t go past grade nine himself.
Couric’s interview touched on several of the hot topics in Agassi’s new book ‘Open,’ done with Pulitzer prise winning writer J.R. Moehringer, that have appeared in excerpts ahead of its release on November 9.
Agassi talked about hating tennis, something that went back to his childhood when his domineering father Mike drilled him mercilessly in hopes of making him a champion. That feeling was described as being “a deep part of my life for a long, long time.”
The drug use was attributed to being “in a life I didn’t want to be in,” as well as being conflicted about his pending marriage to actress Brooke Shields.
Maybe the most touching moments involved his father and the criticism that has recently come from some of his tennis peers, specifically Martina Navratilova, regarding his drug use and subsequent lie about it.
When he phoned his father from the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida at age 16 to ask him if he should turn pro, Agassi said about the response, “it was like ‘hello, who am I talking to? What are you going to be – a doctor? You don’t go to school – take the money and turn pro.’ While he was right, and I probably knew I would make that choice anyhow, I just didn’t quite like the way he put it.”
Agassi, 39, teared up when Couric mentioned Navratilova’s criticism, particularly that she had compared him with disgraced baseball pitcher Roger Clemens. “When a person takes a performance inhibitor (as opposed to performance enhancer), a recreational drug,” he said, “the one thing that I would hope is, not that there aren’t rules that need to be followed, but along with that would come some compassion. That maybe the person doesn’t need condemnation, maybe this person could stand a little help. I had a problem and there might be a lot of athletes out there that test positive for recreational drugs that have a problem. So I would ask for some compassion.”
Agassi also spoke about the 1990 French Open final when he claims he spent the match worrying that a hair weave he was wearing, which had come apart the day before when he took a shower, would come off. It all sounds humorous now, but in it there was an element of disrespect to Andres Gomez of Ecuador, who won that final and became a national hero in his homeland.
In storybook fashion, Agassi cited falling in love with tennis great Steffi Graf, whom he calls Stefanie, as something that has helped redress his hatred for his sport. “When Stefanie came into my life,” he said, “I realized that tennis gave me her. That in itself... the scoreboard was getting more balanced and gave me reasons to appreciate it.”
Couric didn’t mention the reported $5 million (U.S.) advance he received for the book, but did ask him if he regretted being so honest about his drug use, given some of the reactions. There were equal parts candour and calculation in Agassi’s response: “It wasn’t an option for me to write a book about my life and leave out the central points of it – one of the turning points of it. It certainly it wasn’t an option to write a book called Open and not be.”
AD-IN: During television coverage of last week’s ATP 500 event in Valencia, Spain, Tommy Robredo went wide for a ball to his backhand side and, in a desperate effort to reach it, transferred the racquet to his left hand as is sometimes done by Maria Sharapova.
Commentator Jason Goodall remarked, “Robredo is doing his Sharapova...but he does not look quite as nice is a dress though.”
Sunday, November 8, 2009 11:39 PM
Dwarfed by Nadal and Federer
Novak Djokovic is the forgotten man of the Big Three of men’s tennis, dwarfed by the holy duality of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
But since the middle of August, he has been the most consistent player on tour, going 19-3 at Cincinnati, the US Open, Beijing, Shanghai and, this week, in Federer’s hometown of Basel.
His only losses have been twice to Federer – Cincinnati final and the US Open semis – and to Nikolay Davydenko in the semis of Shanghai. He lost that one 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(1) to the inexorably efficient Russian, battling as best he could despite playing his ninth match in 11 days – he had won the Beijing event the previous week.
On Thursday in Basel, he recorded the fifth “double bagel” on the ATP tour in 2009, defeating No. 59-ranked Jan Hernych of the Czech Republic 6-0, 6-0.
In the final game, he showed his sense of fair play by conceding a Hernych ace, which had been called out at 15-30, by simply walking over to the deuce side to play the next point.
Afterward, at the net, Djokovic didn’t offer any bogus “aw shucks” sympathy, or smile at Hernych, feigning compassion. There was just a business-like clasping of the hands that appeared in no way to reference the one-sidedness of the contest. “It’s hard to talk about a 6-0, 6-0 result,” he said later. “The win is what counts. He didn’t play very well today. Actually he made a lot of unforced errors and didn’t put any pressure on me, so I just kind of cruised through the match.”
Djokovic started 2009 by trying unsuccessfully to defend his Australian Open title. He was beaten by Andy Roddick in the quarter-finals when he had to retire because of heat-related issues.
The Serb, 22, had been complaining a lot at the time about his trouble adjusting to his new Head racquet after accepting a big-bucks deal to switch from his former Wilson model.
But he has gradually got back his old form and posted a tour-best 68 wins, which includes titles in Dubai, Belgrade (an event owned by his family) and Beijing. He has also regained the No. 3 ranking from Andy Murray.
In keeping with his reputation for being fun-loving and mischievous, Djokovic memorably declared in Shanghai three weeks ago, “nothing, nothing, nothing is better than sex. It is what God created us to do.”
While he looked strangely resigned in his losses to Federer in Cincinnati and at the US Open, lately there has been a renewed confidence and spark in his game. It indicates that things could be different if he is to meet the great Swiss in Sunday’s final, even if it’s in front of the Federer faithful at an event where he used to be a ballboy.
The one-year suspension to US Open semi-finalist Yanina Wickmayer, announced on Thursday by a Belgian anti-doping tribunal, brought to mind a story Daniel Nestor told during Flushing Meadows. Wickmayer, who can appeal, was suspended for not making herself available for three different drug tests.
Nestor recalled how this past summer, after being awake at about five o’clock in the morning with his seven-month old daughter, he took his phone off the hook to try to get some sleep.
A representative of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) drug testers showed up at his downtown Toronto condominium but could not reach him by phone. He was disappointed that the representative stayed in the lobby and did not make the effort go up to his condo and knock on the door.
The result: Nestor has one mark against his record for not being available for testing. He is only
allowed a total of three before being suspended.
Mike Bryan, half of the top-ranked Bryan brothers doubles team, has twice failed to be available for ITF drug testing. Once, according to him, it happened when he got up early and went out to have breakfast at an eatery in his hometown of Camarillo, Calif.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 10:23 AM
Finally, some respect for the scribes
From the ink-stained wretches of forty years ago to the keyboard-tapping zombies of the modern era, there has been an impressive stream of sports reporters through the press box at Jarry Park stadium in Montreal.
They covered the beloved Expos baseball team from 1969 through 1976, but since 1980 it has been tennis that been played out below the creaky crescent-shaped balcony atop the west end of what is now known as Uniprix Stadium.
Anyone curious about the working conditions of Montreal baseball writers way back in 1969 need only take at look at the current quarters used by reporters covering tennis. They are almost unchanged – and there’s the rub. The old Jarry Park press box is clumsy, cramped and crowded, and in need of a serious makeover.
About 10 years ago, the ATP tour threatened Tennis Canada with losing the sanction for its men’s event in Toronto if the York University facility there was not brought up to the standards of other North American Masters Series events – i.e. Cincinnati, Miami and Indian Wells, Calif.
Tennis reporters at the Montreal tournaments don’t have that kind of leverage but would surely like to not have to contort their bodies just to get into their seat, trying to find a position that is suitable for working once they are wedged into rickety chairs in the front row or perched on awkward bar stools in the second row.
Prominent names in Canadian sports journalism, and man-sized guys to boot, Rejean Tremblay, Pat Hickey and Mario Brisebois will be happy to learn that change is finally on the horizon.
Tennis Canada hopes to rebuild the press box as part of a $12-million renovation that could begin as soon as after the women’s Rogers Cup event next August.
There was a presentation made to Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay in March, and the plan is to have the project financed with $1.6-million from Tennis Canada, $1.6-million from the City of Montreal as well as $4.3-million from both the federal and Quebec governments.
Included in the overall construction plans are the building of four clay courts, a restaurant/storage area at one end of the Banque National Court showcourt, a photographers’ pit in Uniprix Stadium and other renovations including an upgrading of the main stadium’s luxury suites.
But there remains one thing that reporters do not want to see changed – namely the longstanding practice of having the press-box fridge stocked with beer at about 6 p.m. every day. It’s a pick-me-up that doubles as a camaraderie booster for the hard-slogging members of the fourth estate .
Sadly, the tradition has never been copied in the media centre at the tournament in Toronto.
Vive la difference.
And furthermore
It was a streak – four losses in a row – unbecoming of a man, Daniel Nestor, who is co-No. 1 in the ATP’s individual doubles ranking. It ended on Tuesday at the ATP 500 event in Basel, Switzerland, when Nestor and co-No. 1 Nenad Zimonjic defeated Lucas Arnold Ker and Fernando Gonzalez 4-6, 6-3, [10-5].
Since the changes (except for Grand Slam events and Davis Cup) in doubles to no-ad game scoring, and a champions tiebreak instead of a third set, Nestor has often said he finds the game has become much more of a crapshoot.
Oakland-based tennis writer Matt Cronin reports that Maria Sharapova, 22 and 6-foot-2, has a new boyfriend. He is Los Angeles Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic of Slovenia, 25 and six foot seven.
Sharapova apparently has moved on from film business type Charlie Ebersol, son of Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports.
Monday, November 2, 2009 10:29 AM
Tough week for the women
The women’s tennis year will be put out of its misery this week with the final two events on the calendar – a sort of best-of-the-rest 12-woman tournament in Bali, Indonesia, for players who won lower-tier WTA Tour events, and the Fed Cup final in Reggio Calabria, Italy, between the host nation and the United States.
For the top players, the year effectively wrapped up with the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, Qatar, which concluded on Sunday when Serena Williams defeated her sister Venus 6-2, 7-6(4) to take home a champion’s cheque of $1.55-million (U.S.).
That brought to an end a week that was as much casualty ward as competitive tennis.
Four of the 10 players involved (both alternates were called on to replace injured players from the original field of eight) – Dinara Safina (back), Victoria Azarenka (thigh), Caroline Wozniacki (abdomen) and Vera Zvonareva (ankle) – had to withdraw from matches. At various times, four players – Safina, Wozniacki, Zvonareva and Azarenka – were suffering and in tears on the court.
While neither Serena nor Venus lost their composure, or had to retire from a match, both were also ailing. Serena had wraps and/or tape on her left thigh, left wrist, abdomen and ankle, while Venus had a left knee problem that required a large wrap for Sunday’s final.
The end of the tennis year has, regrettably, become a survival-of-the-fittest exercise.
One of the problems at the tour championships is that the top eight in the rankings qualify and then play against each other for either five of six days (six players in the field) or five of five days (two players) if they make it to the final. It’s a gruelling schedule with the best playing the best with virtually no days off between matches – unlike the Grand Slams where there is almost always a rest day between rounds.
One simple solution would be to extend the event by a day, allowing the two groups of four in the round-robin phase to play on a day-on, day-off basis.
This year, Wozniacki played and won two three-hour matches in the heat of Doha on consecutive days, and had nothing left the next day (Friday) when she lost 6-2, 6-2 to Jelena Jankovic, aggravating an abdominal strain that forced her to retire against Serena in Saturday’s semi-finals. A day off between matches might have allowed the Dane, 19, to recover enough to continue.
It is also disappointing that this weekend’s Fed Cup comes down to a grand finale between singles players (rankings in brackets) Melanie Oudin (47) and Alexa Glatch (136) for the U.S. and Flavia Pennetta (11) and Francesca Schiavone (17) for Italy on the red clay in Reggio Calabria.
Venus did not make herself available and Serena, before her semi-final with Wozniacki on Saturday, pulled out, claiming she was too exhausted to play. She and Venus were the only players who could have added some real star power to an event that should be right behind the four Grand Slam tournaments in terms of prestige.
Finally, here’s a thought. The season-ending Championships in Doha managed to attract the top eight in the world, but there were four players absent who probably would have drawn more attention had they been competing in an event of their own – and all four are slated to be in the 2010 Australian Open. They are Maria Sharapova (still getting up to speed after shoulder surgery), Ana Ivanovic (poor results in 2009), Kim Clijsters (only played four events on her 2009 comeback) and Justine Henin, who is set to rejoin the tour in January in Australia.
Who would not bet that those four together would draw better crowds than the marquee names in Doha, basically just the Williams sisters, and maybe Jankovic?
Roger Federer, playing for the first time in five weeks since Davis Cup the weekend following the US Open, is on the schedule for Monday’s opening day of the ATP 500 event in his home town of Basel, Switzerland, taking on old junior pal Olivier Rochus of Belgium. The great Swiss would generally not play on the first day but, at 28 and considering his recent back troubles playing on hard courts (the surface in Basel), he obviously requested the early start because he’s looking to get some rest during the week – i.e. two days off before Saturday’s semi-finals if all goes as he hopes it will.
Match Tough Contributors
Tom Tebbutt
Tom Tebbutt has covered more than 90 Grand Slam events, including the past 55 in a row as the Globe's tennis writer, as well as all the Canadian Open tournaments in Montreal and Toronto since 1974. He is also well known for his broadcast work, having done commentary on RDS tennis coverage for the past 20 years as well as reporting to various radio outlets in Montreal and Toronto in English and French. A former editor of Canadian tennis publications Racquets Canada and On Court, Tebbutt was on the board of directors of the International Tennis Writers Association from 2000 to 2007. In his recent book, A Champion’s Mind, about tennis great Pete Sampras, veteran American writer Peter Bodo described Tebbutt as "an enterprising journalist and tennis nut from Toronto."