Sunday, October 31, 2010

Do Svidánija, Elena :’-)

 

 

Q: Why are you doing it?
ELENA DEMENTIEVA:  (Laughter.)  I need some support.  Why are you asking me these questions?
    I think it's the right time for me. I never wanted to wait until my ranking dropped and I'm not going to be able to go to the main draw.  I always wanted to leave this sport with a passion for it.  Tennis has been such a big part of my life, and always will be.
    To be honest with you, I mean, if I would be a man I would never stop playing.  But in the age 29; I have to think about something else.  I think I'm ready for the big change in my life.
    Still, it's very tough decision to make.  Very emotional.  I made the decision in the beginning of this season, so it was very hard coming to the tournaments knowing that this was my last one.  It was very emotional for me to play the whole year.
    But, I mean, that's decision like you know, it will happen to every athlete, and you have to get ready for this.

 

 

It’s not often that I’m prescient.

 

In fact most of what I say bears very little relation to reality.

 

But when Demmie went down to Stosur at NY this year – there was a feint but lingering whiff of despair in the air.

 

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You didn’t need a MENSA-like emotional intelligence quotient to realise that so much more than a simple loss lay behind the way she despondently mouthed ‘no’ to her mother - heartbreak with a vivid suggestion of finality mixed in.

 

Not only was this completely out of character for one of the tour’s best known fighters– she seemed to be closing the door not just on any future hopes of Slam glory, but on tennis itself.

 

Knowing what I now know (that she had made up her mind at the very beginning of the season to pack it in), it makes perfect sense she would feel that loss so keenly: this was to be the last Slam match she would ever play.

 

Ditto her tearful retirement from RG – her 46th consecutive Slam appearance, and the one she’d felt herself best placed to win, even in her final year.

 

Well, I always had a dream of winning French Open, so starting you know, playing this season, I just wanted to give myself another try.  After Olympic Games, that was the biggest dream of mine.  I was so close.
    But I mean, I was pretty lucky.  I never had so many injuries during my career.  I was pretty healthy.  But that injury probably happened in the worst moment in my entire career.

Yeah, but, you know, I have no regrets.  I think I was practicing very hard; I was trying very hard; that was my way.
    If it didn't happen, it didn't happen, but I have nothing to blame myself.  I was very professional and I had nothing but tennis, tennis, tennis, and I did it with passion.
    So I have absolutely in regrets.  I have so many things to be proud of.  It was a very difficult and long way for me.  So, yeah, I just have very nice and unforgettable memories.


 

Ditto-Ditto her final ever tour win against (funnily enough) Sam Stosur just three days ago – the happy-screech she let out after three long sets (surprising at the time)was not unlike the one emitted after winning gold in Beijing – only now has the penny so heart-wrenchingly dropped.

 

As the season wore on and further losses followed (most recently to Polona Hercog in Luxembourg) I all but resigned myself to an inexorable, James Blake almost-but-not-quite-winding-down phase of her career.

 

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Not once in my wildest dreams, however, did I imagine a retirement announcement would follow so soon.

 

Thinking back now, it all accords perfectly with Elena’s natural, unaffected, no-nonsense disposition – no emotionally-messy swan-song for her - no staged withdrawal dragged out mercilessly over the year.

 

The time was right. Her physicality/fitness, her most prized asset, had begun to fail her – what more was there to be done? And why need anyone else know about it?

 

***

 

-- ElenaD: Neither “classy” nor “nice”

 

*scrunchy-wincey face*

 

Yes, I’m afraid I really do struggle with those words.

 

With the frequency those superlatives are doled out you’d think we were living in Camelot itself – or some equally cosy-but-liberalised postmodern equivalent.

 

Well neither Lady Guinevere nor Audrey Hepburn has made an appearance in the top ten yet, so I’m assuming it’s the terms themselves that have been devalued.

 

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Smile a lot, engage in tour pleasantries, but more importantly, possess the “right” sort of look (it helps if you score some big wins, though this is not strictly necessary) and you’re suddenly an “ambassador for the sport”. Whatever that means.

You see where I’m headed with this: the tendency is at it’s pug-ugliest when you can find nothing nice, nor classy, about the player you’re being invited to drum up. Not so much because they’ve done anything wrong as the plain absence of merit.

 

“Class” is, at least, quantifiable by how well you take defeat and so on, but what exactly is “nice”? And if we’re so intent on passing certain players off as “nice”, what, precisely, does that make legions of others that don’t make the cut? Not nice, presumably.

 

All this makes it rather difficult when someone really worthy of these labels shows up – only then is it plain to what degree they’ve been devalued.

 

I would have to say, therefore, that I never found Elena either “nice” or “classy” (she was too classy for that). Not as we’ve been primed to understand those terms.

 

She gave quite serious (sometimes stern) , honest and well-thought out responses to tricky questions posed in pressers. Not nice.

 

Q.  How do you want people remember you in the future? 

ELENA DEMENTIEVA:  Well, I don't know if I want people to remember me.  I'm sure I'm going to remember myself as Olympic champion.  That's the best thing could ever happen in my career.  That was the biggest goal, and I'm so proud of that moment.  It was unforgettable experience and unforgettable memories for me and my family.

I don't think about how people going to remember me.

 

 

She chose hard-won prize money over the million-dollar endorsements she could easily have had as a “leggy blond”.

Image clearly not “everything” ----> Not at all marketable ----> *So* not nice.

 

Here was a player that actually preferred getting rough and dirty and worse still, seemed to harbour an unfashionable enjoyment of her chosen sport. Really not classy Elena.

 

-- “Best player never to have won a Slam”

 

Surely now as bad as the posthumous Oscar for “Lifetime Achievement”. The Academy’s way of saying sorry to have missed out on you.

 

It actually brings into focus, quite brutally, what you haven’t achieved. Close, but no cigar.

 

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Elena’s frailties were well known – I rooted for her because, rather than in spite of them. Fed, Rafa and Serena all have their place, but I’ve always liked my players flawed and I like to see them striving to overcome those flaws – the more powerfully juxtaposed they are alongside their immense talent the better (Think Marat. Think Sveta).

 

It’s why she’ll likely remain my second fave WTA player for many years to come (Sveta’s queer mix of on-court genius, unceremonious cool and gangsta rap means she comes first. God knows how I’ll cope when she retires).

 

Her serve stank for the better part of her career. Let there be no illusions as to how debilitating this actually was. This was far more ‘schlock-horror’ than the kind of service yips that continue to plague Ana or Masha (both of whom had perfectly competent serves pre 2008), which have always been more ‘symptomatic’ than they are ‘systemic’.

 

Yet she played with that debilitation through an iridescent era that included The Williamses, Henin, Masha, Kim, Amelie, Davenport – all (perhaps with the exception of Lindsay) in their prime.

 

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She didn’t have winning records against any of them – but was still able to beat all of them multiple times (5-7 against Serena).

 

You’ll hear much of her unimpeachable professionalism and work ethic, and how good she was at making the most of a limited game. Not that any of that isn’t true, but it feels too much like selling her short (mainly, I suspect, because it is).

 

You’ll also hear a lot of commentary on how Elena worked extraordinarily hard to make up for her calamitous serve, this most peculiar of failings (one which should, by rights, have precluded her from ever being a factor given the competition she was up against) and was able to maintain her top ten standing over the best part of a decade largely by shoring up other facets of her game.

 

I disagree.

 

For one thing, and as much as I luuurve her, Elena didn’t have that many facets in her game to shore up.

 

Her greatest strengths – her fitness and timing off the ground -- were pure talent. No denying she worked hard to maintain and improve both, but they were as organic to her as the air we breath.

 

Perhaps fittingly, the biggest demonstration of this organic talent was destined to come not, sadly, in the form of a Slam, but in career statistics that make your eyes water.

 

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Career statistics that could not have been born of anything other than organic talent.

 

Career statistics that make you wonder what might have been had she been in her prime in these past few years of less lacquered competition.

 

It’s certainly difficult to see someone who “merely works hard” (and I mean that in the most flattering sense possible to Daveed Ferrer or Shahar Peer) producing results like these against the players she did:

 

» 10 out of the last 11 WTA Championships

 

» 46 consecutive Slam appearances ending at RG 2010 during which she made 3 quarters, 7 semis and 2 finals.

 

» top ten 7 out of the last 8 years (328 career weeks inside the Top 10)

 

» Career high world #3

 

Or, for that matter, a match like this:

 

 

Wimby 2009 is held up, depending on who you speak with, as either the “best match of her career”, or as a perfect example of the kind of frailty that precluded her from being “Slam material”.

 

I’m not sure it’s either.

 

There’s an unfortunate (if understandable) tendency to sanctify admittedly powerful moments beyond their worth, just as there is to stigmatise players beyond their measure.

 

The truth is, Elena had played as well as this against the top players many times in her career, though this was likely the most visible of those.

 

As to the infamous, fateful (has the word ever carried so much weight?) decision not to go down the line in that glorious summer of 2009, I’ve always thought of it as a moment of madness. True, it cost her a spot in the final, but it’s not that different to the kind of errant nonsense we’ve seen from either one of the Williamses or Justine 1.0 many times over.

 

The other, somewhat inconvenient, point to remember is that had Elena gone down the line, she would still have had to go through Venus in the final – whom she was a significantly less flattering 2-8 against at the time.

 

If we are to entertain any regrets, let it not be for this moment of madness, let it not even be for the USO 2004 (Sveta was simply that good). RG 2004, however, like one Mr Coria that same year, is a title she ought have made her own.

 

I have no regrets because, you know, that was my way.  That's the way I played.  I was far away from being perfect, but, you know, I had a great fighting spirit.  Even without good serve, I was struggling for so many matches, but I was fighting and I was never give up.  I was giving 100% on the court no matter who well I was playing.  This is what I like.

    You don't have to be perfect, but you have to try very hard, and I did all the time.

 

 

And yet, as a fan I’m left with a bitter aftertaste.

 

 

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I wish her well of course. But I also feel like that cat put out in a winters night after spending all day luxuriating by the fire.

 

Or like that kid that drops his ice cream on the pavement after crowing over everyone else (there’s one in every family in every country).

 

My player was clearly better than everyone else’s :’-(

 

Mostly, however, I feel stone cold – which is funny, as I’ve never been a fan of farewell tours: they mostly end up being a fare-thee-well-but-get-thee-on-with-it tour.

 

It’s babies of course.

 

And I’m told the man responsible is Maxim Afinogenov.

 

So that’s what you call yourself. >:- (

 

YOU TAKE GOOD CARE’A HER YA HEAR.

 

 

You’ve only just deprived us of one the most professional, thoughtful, fittest, well-mannered, intelligent, honest, beautiful, cleanest strikers and best timers of the ball this generation’s seen.

 

(Images: Getty)

Clijsters Beats Wozniacki To Win 2010 WTA Tour Championships

2009 and 2010 US Open ChampioKim Clijsters of Belgium beat World #1 Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark 6-3 5-7 6-3 in Goha, Qatar to win the season-ending WTA Championships on Sunday. Clijsters won her 3rd tour championship in 2 hours, 20 minutes, following up on wins in 2002 and 2003, by coming back after blowing a 4-1 lead in the second set. 

Altough she will end 2010 ranked World #1, Wozniacki still has not won a major championship and still has not beaten Clijsters, losing in straight sets the only other time they have played on tour, in the 2009 US Open final.

Clijsters was happy to win, saying:
"I felt like it was never going to end," said the Belgian. "It was a really tough battle with some great shots, great tennis and great fitness. I'm glad that I won, obviously it's disappointing for Caroline but I don't know how many more years I'm going to keep doing this. She has a great future ahead of her."
Clijsters ends the year at World #3, just behind 2010 Wimbledon and US Open finalist Vera Zvonareva and ahead of 2010 Australian Open and 2010 Wimbledon champion Serena Williams at #4 and Venus Williams at #5. In 2009, Serena beat Venus to win the tour championships and ended the year ranked #1.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Doha 2010 - Day 3

by Savannah


For a summary of today's action, and an update on the IMG scandal please visit Savannah's World

WTA Championships: “Badabing-Badaboom”

 

I’m not completely sure what to make of the WTA Championships so far.

 

Both JJ and Demmie stunk out the outermost districts of Doha with their openers: matches that lead to reports of JJ collapsing in the locker room and Demmie tweeting sombrely how she was  “going to learn from that and play a better match next round”.

 

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They both managed to do just that (though JJ still went down in straights to Kim the way we all expected her to) - Demmie’s currently embroiled in the first three setter of the week with Stosur – easily the most competitive match we’ve seen (not that that’s saying very much).

 

Despite starting out thinking otherwise, I’m now questioning whether JJ should indeed concede her spot to the 1st alternate in the way many are calling for her to – she’s clearly not at her best this week, but why shouldn’t she continue to play if it’s at least as competitive as it was with Kim? She did earn it.

 

Bepa is, on the face of it, faring well (2/2 without dropping a set - yay) and the Williams’ absence presents other players I’d like to see do well (Vika, Franny, Stosur…) with a sizeable working opportunity to do some damage.

 

Also, Stosur just did for Caz – in straights – something that should (and does) fill me with glee….not because of any latent antagonism or Wozenfreude I might still entertain, but because she calmly and very cleanly hit through Woz – and in doing so, didn’t let her off the hook in the way all too many players have been willing to this year.

 

Then there’s this:

 

Caroline Wozniacki lost to Sam Stosur Wednesday. Maybe it was rust on Wozniacki's part, but it seemed more like great hitting from the Aussie—as much as we love to see craft in tennis, it’s pretty much helpless in the face of power. If you can only learn one, go with the latter.
Still, Wozniacki is proving to be a player—like, yeah, you know who, the ATP’s current No. 1—who bears repeated viewing. You see things in her game that you didn’t notice the first or second or third time around.

-- Steve Tignor, tennis.com

 

He goes on to ruminate at length on her retrieval skills, in particular the way she runs down the drop shot.

 

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Nothing wrong with any of this….well actually there is: I object in the strongest of terms to the use of the word ‘craft’.

 

I’m sure it takes a certain amount craft to elicit an error from your opponent (which is mostly what Caz is about), but by equating the two, Tignor has surely committed one of journalism’s cardinal sins: using domain-specific language in a non-specific, fuzzy way.

 

The problem with the word ‘craft’ is that it has a very specific connotation in the minds of most denizens of the tennis world.

 

Like it or not, for most people, sanitised notions of ‘craft’  will always be inextricably linked to a rainbow-coloured, all-court fairyland of idealised nostalgia – featuring Justine Henin (1.0) , a panic-stricken Amelie Mauresmo struggling to close out matches and, to a lesser extent, the more genteel, “lady-like” net play of the 70s and 80s – which wasn’t nearly so pretty nor so crafty as most people like to think it was.

 

I haven’t much time for those who like to dismiss Woz as a “pusher” – but she’s about as crafty and nuanced as last years telephone directory.

 

If anything you would have thought that title belongs to Stosur with the way she used her eye-watering blend of slice, kick-serving and power-play from the back of the court to badabing-badaboom Woz off court.

 

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Kim is certainly the best of the bunch, but as we saw yesterday with her double-fault-diarrhoea, has a worrisome propensity to be at her uber-stinking-worst when she’s not at her uber-glittery-best.

 

There’s still time Vika.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Doha 2010 - Day 2

doha 2010

For a review of Day 2 play at Doha please see Savannah's World

Jim Courier New U.S. Davis Cup Captain

by Savannah

Jim Courier is to be named the new Captain of the United States Davis Cup team. For more details please go to Savannah's World

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Doha 2010 - Day 1

by Savannah

Billie Jean King on the state of her baby the WTA,.

Billie Jean King, who co-founded the Women's Tennis Association and remains among the sport's more forceful advocates, concedes that women's tennis "is not in a great place right now." But King argues that the sport always goes in cycles; this particular down cycle, she said, is due more to freak injuries and bad luck. She also suspects it's exaggerated by media, whom she believes delight in pointing out injury or frailty (real or perceived) among female athletes.

"I just want everybody to be healthy at the same time because we really have depth if we can get them all playing," King said. "We've had a very bad year. But it's not going to be like that forever."


SOURCE

Doha - A Dismal Start

Jelena Jankovic did not have a great second half of the year. Still most people, well me, expected her to suck it up and bring her "A" game to Doha. The opening match between JJ and Vera Zvonareva should have been competitive. Instead JJ dropped the first set 6-3 and disappeared for the second set losing it 6-0. She is still saying she is ill.
Doha 2010

For some reason I didn't expect much from the Caroline Wozniacki/Elena Dementieva match and I got even less. The final score was 6-1, 6-1 Wozniacki and it wasn't even that close. Elena is obviously injured but she did play the entire match.
Doha 2010

There was one match worthy of the name and that was not between two new school WTA'ers. Francesca Schiavone and Samantha Stosur, neither of whom have official WTA sanctioned nick names both came to play.
Doha 2010
I'm sure Franny will be talking to herself after blowing a 4-0 second set lead and losing the set and the match 6-4.
Doha 2010
The win has to be a confidence booster for Stosur who tightened up her game winning six games in a row.

There is a lot of speculation that both Elena Dementieva and Jelena Jankovic will withdraw from the tournament. Li Na and Shahar Peer are the alternates. It was announced today that Li is a confirmed player in Bali, an event she said she didn't want to play. We should know more tomorrow.

Wednesday Order of Play - Doha

Khalifa Tennis Complex (from 17.00hrs - 10a Eastern US Time)

1. Vera Zvonareva vs. Victoria Azarenka
2. Kim Clijsters vs. Jelena Jankovic
3. Caroline Wozniacki vs. Samantha Stosur

Monday, October 25, 2010

The Weekend's Winners - and The WTA in the Desert

by Savannah

The WTA wound up it's season with a Premier event in Moscow and an International event in Luxembourg. The only women who got a break were the ones who took one.
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Roberta Vinci won the singles title in Luxembourg.
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Timea Bacsinszky and Tathiana Garbin were the Luxembourg doubles champions.
Meanwhile in Moscow there was a Victor/Victoria moment.
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Victoria Azarenka fought like hell to come back from being down 0-4 in the second set to defeat Maria Kirilenko in straight sets 6-3, 6-4. Kirilenko will have nightmares about that second set.
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Meanwhile the Glam Girls team of Flavia Pennetta and Gisela Dulko won the doubles championship.
The ATP staged 250 events in Moscow and Stockholm.
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To no one's surprise Roger Federer won easily in Stockholm. It seems Jonas Bjorkman managed to detach himself from Roger's anus.
Sweden Dbles 2010
Eric Butorac and Jean-Julien Rojer won the doubles championship.
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In Moscow the team of Dmitry Tursunov and Igor Kunitsyn took the doubles championship.
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Viktor Troicki won his first ATP title in Moscow defeating Marcos Baghdatis in three sets.
Congratulations to them all.

Women in the Desert

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The WTA Year End Championships begin tomorrow in Doha. The WTA is also introducing it's new logo, featured above with seven of the eight competitor at this event. The group breakdown is as follows:

Maroon

Caroline Wozniacki
Francesca Schiavone
Samantha Stosur
Elena Dementieva

White

Vera Zvonareva
Kim Clijsters
Jelena Jankovic
Victoria Azarenka

The White Group is quite competitive while the Maroon Group is pretty, well, WTAish. May the best woman win.

Idle Chit Chat

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As everyone in the world knows Maria Sharapova's engagement to Los Angeles Laker Sasha Vujacic was the big news last week. They look very happy in this picture and I'm glad to see that. Of course, being me, I wanted to see the ring.
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Looks like he stepped up to the plate and did right by her. I don't think a date has been set. The NBA season is about to start and her season will start in January. Best wishes to both of them.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Voodoo Dolls for all Life’s Disappointments

 

1) WTA rebranded

 

 

Meh. It looks a little too Samsung-like if you ask me. Or like a regional broadband provider.

 

The old sonyericssonwtatour.com url – the one which you might comfortably fit all of Aesops fables in -- has gone too.

 

I take it Sony Ericsson are about to jump ship?

 

2) Federer d. Mayer 6-4 6-3 to win the ‘If Stockholm Open’

 

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I’m no pimply nosed DC Comics enthusiast. BUT  I KNEW I’D SEEN THAT TROPHY SOMEWHERE BEFORE.

 

To date this year, Fed’s won a Slam, a Masters-1000 and, now,  a 250 event. Should he win the 500 event in Basel, the box set will be complete.

 

The last time he did that was back in 2006 – when it wasn’t presumably “all about the Slams”. And now, if you don’t mind, Superman wants his career memorabilia back.

 

3) Troicki d. Baghdatis 3-6 6-4 6-3 to win his maiden ATP title at the Kremlin Cup.

 

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Viktor’s too good a player not to have a single title to his name. A handy reminder that even in this rarefied year of Career Slam excellence there’s an entire zombie-eyed subculture willing and waiting to get their name engraved on just one of these things – however proletarian it might seem in the grand scheme of things.

 

Moscow is the only event I’ve seen where players get to accessorize quite so freely: winning here earns you not one but two trophies, an expensive watch, a flower bouquet and a $170K cheque in prize money.

 

Not only that, but had Viktor won doubles with Janko later on in the day (they fell 7-6(8) 6-3 to Dimitrov/Kunitsyn), he’d have two of every one of those.

 

4) Also in Moscow, Azarenka d. MariaKiri 6-3 6-4

 

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Happy to see Vika winning again.

 

Though, to be honest, I’d settle for a semi/quarter if it meant a guarantee she’d not come out flat in Doha next week.

 

I had her down for a breakthrough before Caz – which she sort of made good on by winning Miami last year (even if it was against a limping mummified Serena).

 

And were it not for Serena, she may even have made more of an impact at the Slams (she has been especially unlucky in this respect).

 

Still, it’s been pretty meagre since then by her standards. Next week’s a chance to put all that right. With not a Williams in sight.

 

5) So according to Tennis Magazine, “the biggest disappointment of 2010” is…

 

Dinara Safina.

 

Never mind that her back complaint meant she spent the better part of the year either severely compromised or out of action altogether.

 

It’s also wholly at odds with the type of press Ivanovic got during her little fall from grace – which was all about “what she must now do” to reassume what media-lovey-doves presumably thought of as her rightful place at the top of the game.

 

Newsflash: Ana played fantastically well, but still only won a Slam because Henin had retired that very month and because the Williams, quite frankly, haven’t been a factor at RG for a long time.

 

It’s a credit to her that she managed to do what neither Dinara or JJ were able to by taking advantage of that window of opportunity, but only the most feral of AnaKads will try and make much more of it.

 

And if you really want to talk disappointments, then how about  Marin Cilic? Who’s been practically extinct since winning Zagreb back in Feb this year. He has, in fact, made only one Masters QF in the last 12 months – and that was in Paris last year.

 

But he’s won Zagreb right? So that’s ok.

 

6) Roberta Vinci d. Julia Georges to win her 3rd WTA title in Luxembourg.

 

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Voodoo dolls trump alien eggs any day of the week in these ‘ere parts.

 

Quite simply the most grotesque artefact ever awarded to anyone, anywhere. 

 

What exactly were they thinking?

 

Quite apart from anything else, it’s the sort of “thing” (what would you call it?) that might have been used as a prop in “The Wicker Man”.

 

I wouldn’t want to play Roberta now either. You might lose a limb. Or a family member.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Shanghai: “Remains of the Clay”

 

Just a moment to reflect on those I’ve jinxed, written off or otherwise cut-down in their (sub)prime.

 

And those whom I missed out should not feel themselves hard done by – your time cannot come too soon.

 

Everyone has hidden talents.

 

And last week I really went to town with my own.

 

So we’ve seen the one where you rankle Fed into a McFlurry of Long-Shanks with your mere presence on court. Show us another trick.

 

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For what it’s worth (quite a lot as it happens), you’re now the proud owner of 6 Masters titles – the most any player’s ever won without bagging a Slam itself: if you were a WTA player, now would be the moment we’d take you out to be flayed and dismembered – or, if you’d prefer it, the other way round.

 

The tennis media does both – to the soundtrack of your choice, and at no extra charge.

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Nevertheless, Muzz turned out to be the only top five player to play consistently to his ranking all week. I know that word’s virtually taboo these days. All the same, no one else was up to this most devalued of key performance indicators. And he did it without a coach. Again.

 

I’m not even going to attempt to defend the debauched way in which I went about throwing water on the idea that he could create any sort of a stir last week.

 

Not just in the finals, not even against Jo-Will-He-Wont-He.

 

No, I charted the precise geography and thermodynamics of Muzz’s expected downward spiral with nothing less than Hawkeye exactitude – all before he’d struck a single ball – all before I’d seen him strike a single ball, which, as it turned out, wasn’t before the final.

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If I’m subject to a self-imposed gagging order in that respect, then I figure there’s not all that much left to say.

 

Except, if that’s “all” it takes to get you play to your ranking Muzz, I know what I must do.

 

Say all you want about the pissy, schoolboy-errors with which Fed flounced his way out of the final - the fact remains that it was he (not Djoko or Robin) that made the final and that it’s him (rather than Muzz or Djoko) back at world #2 (again).

 

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A gross-out spectacle it may have been (and it was), but that’s now four out of four Masters finals since Madrid (and a win in Cincinnati) - so much for it “only being about the Slams”.

 

It probably is the twilight of his career, but it’s worth remembering how you still get burnt if you venture too close to a dying star.

 

Up until the semis I had thought Djoko was the best player of the week (mostly through idle hearsay it must be said) .

 

He had, after all, only just gone and won in Beijing (in a delayed Monday final - a win here would have meant, amongst other things, being the only man to ever win two titles in  one week).

 

As it stood then, either one of Fed or Djoko might have lifted the trophy:  it wasn’t just me that thought that 1st set of the Novak/Fed semi was the performance of the week from both men.

 

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But nooo, I had to go the whole spit-roasted hog and pronounce that match a virtual final – it’s winner being, in my eyes, the most deserving of the title itself, certainly more so than those two miscreants contesting the other semi.

 

Poor sods – they never had a chance.

  

Well now. Here we all delightfully are in the blessed heart of darkness itself.

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This one was such a splenetic mess, I’m almost inclined to exonerate myself of any and all blame. Sauron himself could not have said or done anything to make this any worse.

 

Describing this as a tennis match would be like speaking of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ as a Merchant/Ivory production.

 

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In my defence, it’s the season ending, indoor swing – which should, by rights, be Big Rob’s best chance at winning just about anything – it also happens to be when my virile rooting interests are at their most prurient.

 

Alack Rafa. When you were overwrought by Gilly-Glopez in Bangkok, we turned a blind eye to your malfeasance, blaming it on the capricious whim of destiny, the spiritually sanctioned “law of averages”.

 

Coming into this, I dared suggest you might actually be beginning to find yourself on a surface, and at a time of the season, we normally reserve for big-swinging reprobates.

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Yet, for every step Jurgen took in, you haplessly gave way - for every ball he took on the rise, you shunted one back hopelessly short. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen before, and it’s really not all that surprising with the year Jurgen had been having.

 

All the same, it shows you can still be beaten on this surface (by a relative lightweight on aggression alone) – despite being uninjured, despite being relatively fresh and exuding so much confidence there’s a very real danger of it being re-classified as a banned substance.

 

Not content with desecrating the legacy of individual players, I turned my hand, now, to clay court tennis itself.

 

Did I pay attention to the fact that Daveed Ferrer had only just cracked the top ten?

 

I did not (although in my defence, neither, it seems, did anyone else).

 

Only to see a poor-man’s-Daveed snuff out Rafa’s conqueror before coming unstuck against Muzz in the semis. Still, it’s worth nothing that it was Pico, rather than Dasco, Wawa or indeed Rafa, that made it out of that section of the draw alive.

 

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For what it’s worth, I still think that clay-court tennis best functions as a cultural remnant of it’s heyday back in the late 80s and 90s- just like Merchant/Ivory productions of the same period.

 

But that shouldn’t mean clay-courters don’t hold their own alongside big-budget, all court tennis – however little might “remain of their day”.

 

 
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