“Arise Sunshine, and kill the Envious Moon”

 

 

 

 

Congratulations.

 

 

 

No seriously.

 

I don’t remember Dinara or JJ receiving a presentation or this much publicity when they made the top spot  (correct me if I’m wrong) – they’re clearly not the media darlings you are. But while I may have some remaining pent up ire at the media about that, be assured that none of it is directed at you.

 

 

 

You remained healthy whilst others succumbed to heat exhaustion, fractured joints and bad breath.

 

You played way more than the requisite number of events whilst others found reasons not to play their minimum quota.

 

And, whatever anyone else might say, your game does at least appear to be headed in a more aggressive direction – which, after all, is at the root of what seems to offend so many people.

 

In other words, you did everything required of you and are still getting shat upon for succeeding in a rankings system hordes of haters can offer up no way to fix – if indeed it is broken (I don’t think it is). That, in particular, is usually enough to get me on board.

 

 

For all of that (and more) you deserve any and all accolades coming your way. And you deserve the number one ranking too.

 

I’ll probably be back on your case if you falter in your quest to

increase the number of winners you hit over the course of a match – I only counted one in the first set – Kvitova hit 24 UFEs, familiar story?

 

And you really need to attend to that Slam record of yours against the very best if you expect to be taken seriously as a top player. Who knows, you might even find you don’t need to play as many events as a result (a good thing by the way).

 

But I think you already know that.

 

So for now, let there be sunshine for 72 hours. Caroline sunshine.

 

Uninterrupted, as I say, by Kanye West styled cameos on who “the real number one” is or should be.

 

…and let it “kill the envious moon”.

 

No agenda. Promise.

 

(Images: Getty)

The “second best” world number one.

 

 

 

 

1) Delpo lost. Twice.

 

UPDATE: Delpo lost 6-3 6-0 to Feli in the opening round of Tokyo. Most of what follows (written after his loss in Bangkok) remains valid.

 

He came. He played. He served 16 aces. He lost. In straights. To a guy that should, by rights, be in a different weight division.

 

His wrist still appears to be intact. “Perfect” even.

 

"I'm just happy to be back on the circuit and I hope I get better and better. I need to work hard to get back into the Top 10.

"Of course I would love to be back there soon. The most important thing for today is my wrist - and it's perfect. I hope to play five or six more tournaments between now and the end of the season. We will see how it goes."

 

Still, part of me wishes he’d been exposed to more than just two sets - a couple of rounds would have been ideal: we’d get a chance to form a real opinion on his game, but more importantly be assured he can survive the demands of back to back, if not back to back to back to back, matches.

 

Delayed reactions are a bitch - and then you die. Or at least your ranking does.

 

 

-- Caz won Tokyo and will, if she makes the Beijing quarters, be crowned world #1

 

Just so you know, and you probably already do, you’ll not likely live to see the day I root for Caz. So I suggest you stop holding your breath.

 

This is less about wanting to sneer as it is about feeling strongly enough to take an ideological position against her style of play – the way you might against, say, fox hunting.

 

There’s probably a certain type of “steely-lite” about her for which, I guess, she deserves credit and she’s certainly not shy of hard work.

 

It’s just that, as far as I’m concerned, that approach has no business winning Slams.

 

The number one ranking? Different story altogether.

 

Let's face it, the hunt for major titles and the No. 1 ranking aren't what they used to be, partly because the two efforts are no longer as closely related as they once were -- especially on the WTA side, where Dinara Safina and Jelena Jankovic recently held the No. 1 ranking without having won a major event. The "even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes" approach seems to have become something of the norm, which is partly why a nice girl like Wozniacki can be so cavalier about her pending ascent to the top spot.

…

Maybe that No. 1 ranking isn't all it's cracked up to be, which is a theme that Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Rafa Nadal and others have hammered away at for years. It's often taken as a disingenuous position, reflecting a desire to ward off pressure. But at times like these, I'm more inclined to take seriously the claim of those players, that they have only one goal -- to win major tournaments.

It follows that being ranked No. 1 is actually the second prize in tennis. Looked at that way, second prize is about to be awarded to a truly deserving candidate on the WTA side.

-- Peter Bodo, ESPN

 

 

You can probably count the number of times I’ve agreed with Pete on one hand – of a worn old fingerless glove.

 

Though there’s no way out of conceding that, with this particular article, he’s right on the money.

 

I get that for some people the #1 ranking symbolises greatness, history and the type of gravitas we associate with Serena, Henin and the like.

 

I also get, therefore, that these people will object (and not always conscientiously) to a system that enthrones the Slamless at the expense of the enSlammed (twice over) with every cell in their body

 

A “system” gone to pot – that must, like any other malevolent autocracy, be brought down, as they say, “by any means necessary”.

 

Personally, I’ve never had a beef with it, even when it sees the #1 ranking going to a Slamless, wonderless workhorse.

 

And I’m not about to begin now, however many foxes Caz might skin in the process.

 

The trouble is that, at some point, we have to somehow quantify all that “greatness” and “gravitas” they’d like to see embodied in the #1 ranking.

 

And try as I may, I can’t fault using a rolling week on week measure of your performance over the past 52 weeks.

 

In an ordered universe (like, say, the ATP) the top dogs dominate, the nearly-men nearly make the cut, the also-rans also run, Bambi’s mum never dies and we’re all home in time for croissants and ‘The Antiques Roadshow’.

 

If the WTA persists in a culture of chaos brought on, in part, by injury, but also it must be said, a policy of selective participation by it’s top players, that’s no reason to blame the rankings system, nor, for that matter, to call for it to be rewired (rigged?).

 

I’ve heard many arguments in favour of barring players from the top spot if they haven’t won a Slam (that sounds too much like rigging an election and is, in Software parlance, what we call a “hack”) or weighting the rankings further in favour of the Slams (newsflash: they already are).

 

None of them persuade me very much.

 

And yet, something’s clearly rotten in the state of Denmark.

 

Which is why I quite like Bodo’s temporary rebranding of the #1 ranking as “the second prize in tennis” and, should she make it, why I’ll be happy to think of Caz as the world’s (second best) #1 ranked player.

 

 

-- Rafa’s loss to Garcia Lopez

 

Shocker.

 

And yet, it’s worth remembering Federer’s “Volandri” moment of 2007 followed a period of unprecedented success.

 

So not that much of a shocker then. In fact, very much the law of averages.

 

In any case, I’m more interested in why Rafa’s reverted to his back-to-back-to-back-to-back scheduling of old.

 

Bangkok, Tokyo and Shanghai may be worth millions in appearance fees. It’s not “smart scheduling” by any stretch of the imagination.

 

We started using that phrase when Rafa dropped Barcelona (all of ONE tournament) from his schedule earlier this year.

 

The only “smart” thing about it now is that it smarts

 

Has anyone asked Rafa’s knees what they think?

Asian Order.

I forgot to mention Youzhny yesterday, who's had something of an upturn in his fortunes this week.

And despite my future willingness to treat French tennis seriously being heavily dependant on the outcome of that French Proposition I put forth a few days ago, a small part of me wanted to see Youzhny pull through today, hopefully bringing to an end a particularly dank spell of form.

A season that’s seen him plummet from his top ten highs of early 2008.

(Photo: Getty)

But it wasn’t to be. Jo was nimble, Jo was keen, Jo-was-serving-like-a-dream.

And was rewarded, for his troubles with what looked like an item of 80s Phantasm Memorabilia.

Taken with Gael and Gilles' efforts this is now the most productive three weeks of French tennis I care to remember.

I’m tentatively back on board.

Similar story in Beijing.

A-Rad looked set to cap off a week of borderline top ten play.

But there’s few distinctions in tennis more worthy of my attention than the sight of one of it’s most skilled athletes intent on playing the house down, and even fewer than watching Sveta doing precisely that from her very first match.

The Pole did good, and has much to be proud of, though I think I still prefer the relative ‘order’ of the head girl beating up on the young fledgling.

Fortunately A-Rad seems to share my view of things.

(Photo: AP)

And in other news from the land of oversized cheques and trophies, Nole celebrated his recent ascension to world #3 with his best Rafa impression yet.

(Photo: AP)

…and by throwing his shirt in security’s face.

(Photo: AP)

Generally unimpressed with this outcome.

For Marin it’s another nearly-man result. And not an entirely distinguished one for Novak either, despite getting past some tricky opponents.

They’ll have it all to play for next week.

Wood Chippers, ‘from what I understand’, are all the rage in the Far East…

So quite a lot of this happened yesterday.

For those that still don’t know it, Marin knocked seven shades of minty-green out of Rafa, whose serve, from what I understand, has a lot to answer for.

I’ll be using the phrase “from what I understand” an awful lot over today and tomorrow.

And maybe even in the future; at least until that great British Broadcasting Machine stops pretending men's tennis doesn’t exist in between Flushing Meadows and Shanghai.

This Asian Swing, has taken shape in a way, I certainly didn’t see coming.

Beijing in particular.

The suits cannot be well pleased at having missed out on televising what might well turn out to have been the best ATP 500 event this year. And you all thought the tour couldn’t survive the absence of Roger Federer.

That’s the second top four player disposed of, head first through the Cilician wood-chipper, in little over a month.

“From the beginning of the match until the end I didn’t let my level of play drop and definitely I came into the match really good,” Cilic said. “I was aggressive when I had to be.

“The best thing I did today: I didn’t back off, I was just stubborn with my style of play.”

(ESPN)

(Photo: AFP)

Following up opposite Juan-Marteen proved more difficult after his ‘upset’ of Andy Murray at Flushing last month.

I’d like to see him use more of that stubbornness, to follow up good n’proper this time round, even though I’d normally back Novak to break his finals curse. This is turning out to be something of a breakthrough year for Marin – and I think he needs a title at this level to underscore that. More so than Novak, whose interests would be better served at the Masters level – where he’s already made a staggering 4 finals this year.

Speaking of which, Novak played some pretty fine tennis of his own yesterday.

“From what I understand”, Big Rob was far from his best, but that in no way detracts from Nole’s performance; one that included more of that ‘grind’ I’ve found so unpalatable these past few months.

I’ve no objection to it being used in moderation provided it’s mixed in with those more aggressive bouts of play that should, under normal circumstances, be considered the mainstay of his game.

But there’ll be no Rafa Soderling final tomorrow. Rafa’s chipped to bits. ‘The Rob’ stops here. My ‘double-blind’ predictions saw to that.

***

Not to be outdone, the Sveta wood-chipper made equally short work of Nadia, racing to a one set lead before Petrova had even found her feet. From there on in, and understandably feeling the after effects of her three setter against Vera the day before, Nadia made an admirable commitment to a match she must have known was never going to be her own.

Not with Sveta firing on five out of four cylinders.

Nadia did however reinforce my conviction that no Russian serves anywhere near as well as her. You know who to hit with Elena. Another day, another opponent, and it might have been so very different.

"If I play my best game I think I'm to be the favourite but you never know," said Kuznetsova.

(SkySports)

No you never do know, but it’s A-Rad, rather than the favourite (and my favourite) Sveta, that I’ll be rooting for tomorrow..

She triumphed in straights over Bartoli, a result I would normally have expected to have gone the other way round; but perhaps not that unexpected this week with A-Rad seemingly set to go A-Rad 2.0, and not nearly as unexpected as the sight of Bartoli turning up to the match in what looked like a Matron’s castoff.

(Photo: AP)

A Grand Send Off

"I was surprised when he pulled out of Shanghai but obviously he has some problem with injury," said Djokovic.

"That's tennis. Rankings come and go, we are all quite close and it can turn around at any time. It's still not the end of the year."

(BBC)

No it’s not the end of the year. There’s still the small matter of those 1300 points he has to defend at the TMC.

But making the finals here will see Djoko reclaim the #3 spot.

And all that stands in his way to achieving that is Big Rob who, somewhat predictably, dispatched Ljubicic in straights today.

Like I said yesterday, I’m quite fancying Big Rob’s chances, but more to the point: Rafa v Sod - needs to happen.

Speaking of which.

(Photo by Feng Li/Getty Images)

No that’s no victory parade. Well it is, sort of.

No Hollywood scripts tonight though.

He lost the match in straights; but they gave him a send off fit for a king.

Djoko let slip to reporters that Marat is to return to his on-again off-again love of mountain climbing, with a trip to Argentina set for January.

That’s set then. Marat’s 2nd career will in part at least, involve the production of personality laden Mountain Mockumentaries/Road Trips/Video Diaries/Travel Shows.

In any order. Or all at once.

But all that will have to wait. There’s still Shanghai and then Paris.

“We’ll always have Paris…”

(FREDERIC BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)

I almost forgot. She came through. Two more matches to go girl.

Make that shithouse shine.

Beijing Quarters (WTA Edition) and some Retirement Speak

Williams praised her 27-year-old opponent and said: "I ran into a girl today who has never played so good in her life.

"I don't feel like I ever got into high gear ... I felt like in the second set I got one break and then I just made sure I held serve so I could go to a third set."

(BBC)

I only saw the closing stages of this match, including that controversial call.

But I can vouch for Serena’s comments: I can’t remember Nadia ever playing as well as that even back in her world #4 heyday. What I do know is she’s long been touted as having the weapons and the muscle to do exactly that sort of damage.

(Feng Li/Getty Images)

She also has one of the more powerful and surprisingly underrated serves out there – something of a rarity on tour. Peng Shuai seems to have this angle figured out on turning former world #1’s into her pigeon. Nadia’s no one’s pigeon, but is all too frequently her own.

Kuzzie’s match with Alona Bondarenka yesterday, was of a similar high quality.

I’m not quite ready to forgive the Russian top twenty female tennis-playing population for that gutless debacle we saw at Flushing Meadows this year.

But if one of these two pick up this title, which is btw now anyone’s for the taking, I might just be persuaded to stop grimacing at them.

In the other quarter, I’m backing A-Rad over Elena.

Here’s why:

1) I’m still not on what you’d call cordial terms with Elena, partly because of her post-Wimby slump, but mostly because of her outlandish insistence that her extended post-Flushing guttural excursion has something to do with not having had enough recovery time.

2) Like many, I haven’t seen A-Rad play as well as this since 2007. Could this finally be her time to shine in the shithouse? Why not? Everyone else is.

She should at the very least be able to fashion a fairly secure top ten position on the back of this showing, but I’d like to see her do so much more.

Finally, Vera takes on Bartoli, after avenging her US Open loss to Flavlova. Flavlova picked things up after a horrendous start (including a comic spell in the third set where Flavs moonballed her way into Vera’s head), but was otherwise, essentially, out of town.

Vera’s capable of some extremely fine things on a tennis court. We’ve seen that both at Flushing and back in Indian Wells. Unfortunately, she all too often gets in her own way of achieving them.

I’ve sort of learned to live with that. I could do without the annoying tick she’s developed of holding her hand up before every point on which she’s receiving serve.

(AFP/Getty Images)

Vera, like Nadia is her own worst enemy, but is still very open to all forms of mental manipulation. A tendency Bartoli seems exquisitely well placed to take advantage of. Bartoli in three.

***

Some retirement speak I forgot to include in my last Marat post.

"I don't think today's match is going to be the key to my deciding to play another year, definitely not," Safin said.

"It's easy to play when you have nothing to lose, no points to defend, so you have no pressure at all so you can just play, just go for it.

"If I was playing and had to defend something, it would be a different matter. I would get nervous at some point."

(BBC)

I still do think he will call it quits at the end of the season, but this is a lot more ambiguous than any of his recent comments on the subject have been

Someone a little less ambiguous, on the same topic:

Mauresmo said on her Web site: “Since I came back from the U.S. Open, I’ve been trying to practice but I can’t find again the desire to come back to competition. I don’t want to rush or force things. (I will take) some time to think before making a decision regarding the remainder of my career.”

(Yahoo! Sports)

I shudder to think I may already have witnessed the last ball Amelie every struck.

Volleying is officially dead . But you already knew that.

Nadal on Blake’s Return

“He’s a very good player, I think he has one of the best returns of any player I have played.”

-- Nadal on James Blake after defeating him in Beijing

(Yahoo! Sports)

What you mean that thing he does, where he uses all your pace to flat ball a deep return back at your feet, before you’ve even completed your service motion?

Glad to hear he gave Rafa trouble and then some. Though I do fear that change in his coaching set up might be two years too late.

Jubilant Marat and A French Proposition

(FREDERIC BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)

Getty captioned this image “Marat Safin jubilates after beating Fernando Gonzales of Chile…”.

It’s the kind of jubilance I normally express at the thought of paying off my utility bills at the end of the month.

Perhaps the right approach given the circumstances. I actually can’t remember the last time he won back to back matches; certainly not against someone as illustrious as Gonzo. Though it does still feel as if he’s itching to leave the ATP party.

That said, a win over Rafa wouldn’t be the most improbable result in the world right now. Particularly if he is in some sort of groove. Or am I now being too jubilant?

This could also prove to be a very interesting week for Robin Soderling, who has much to gain from winning an event like this.

I know Nando-Djoko is the other big marquee match, but I’m rather liking (and preferring) Big Rob’s chances in this half of the draw, particularly as neither of those other two have been that inspired over the last few months.

I know he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I haven’t changed my opinion on his flat groundies. It would be positively spiffing, to see him qualify for London, particularly after what happened in RG.

It wasn’t my intention to follow Tokyo this week, but I’ve just realised that with Delpo’s early exit, the remaining top three seeds are all French. Scratch that. Gilles was ‘upset’ by Mikhail Youzhny. (Nice to see him pocketing a win again)

So here’s the deal.

What we have here is a Fedal-less event, where the top seed -- the US Open Champion -- has gone out in the opening round. Of the remaining contenders, I can only see one Stan Wawrinka causing any vexation.

(Photo: AFP/Getty)

I’m not saying all is forgiven, but a win here for La Monf or Jo-Willy might just lead me to reconsider my troubled relationship with French tennis.

Consider all your French bridges burnt however, if you return with another loss.

Um….Nike? Rupert the Bear wants his pants back.

(Photo: Feng Li/Getty Images)

I actually like it. I’m not saying it’s the best combo I’ve ever seen.

But it’s daring without being garish.

It’s a subtle nod to retro golfing wear.

And it’s quite unlike anything he’s tried before.

“It says here my contract only covers yellow/black…”

The 'Real' #1 Returns and 'The Pre-Safinite Sisterhood'

Dinara ousted once again.

And with it goes that millstone of a #1 ranking.

(li xin/AFP/Getty Images)

What a welcome relief that now seems.

It certainly is for me.

One hopes being somewhat unwillingly escorted out of the eye of the storm, will allow her to get back to playing what seems like competitive tennis once again, something she last managed back in Cincinnati. Whether she’ll regain that top spot though, is very much up for debate, now that all three members of that Revivalist Movement known as the ‘Pre-Safinite Sisterhood’*, are active once more.

Oh and here’s some trivia for you before we move on.

Zhang (ranked #226) is now the lowest ranked player in WTA history to defeat a reigning world #1, a record previously held by Julie Coin with her defeat of Ana Ivanovic, and a record rather too neatly woven into the fabric of this tragedy.

How’s that for a career milestone on your way out?

And what of the woman that replaced her?

"Obviously I'm happy to be there because I've worked so hard this year to get there, I think I've earned it," said Williams.

(BBC)

You don’t sound too convinced. I wasn’t much convinced by her slightly muted post match celebrations either. After a season of soap-operatic trash talk, I was almost expecting her to burst open the bubbly on court. A likely result of that US Open cloud that continues to hang over her maybe?

The only other match I caught today saw Jelena Jankovic ceding a winning position of a break and a set up, to Peng Shuai eventually losing it 6-4, 5-7, 2-6. It was the wrist. Again.

But I couldn’t, for the life of me, work out what she was doing here in the first place. Or why she didn’t pull out earlier.

(Photo: AP)

It won her a lot of fans. Apparently.

The Vika Shaza clash, arguably the match up of the day, wasn’t broadcast. I gather Shaza mounted an epic comeback from 5-2 down in the second to win it 6-3 6-7 7-5. It sounded like they made a lot noise (from the adjacent court Serena was playing on), but though I didn’t see it, I kinda saw this result coming.

Vika has lost far too much of her belief since that Wimbledon quarter final, and that’s not a good place to be in for her. Especially if you’re considering playing a tennis match against Miss Brute-Belief-Force herself.

“The match isn’t over until we shake hands,” said the Russian. “I realised that I didn’t want to be going home. I just went forward and I kept being aggressive and stayed positive and that gets you a long way.”

(Yahoo! Sports)

I can only live in hope for the day that I’m able to will away all of the worst life throws at me, by simply deciding I’m not ready to go home just yet.

I’ve been a little neglectful of the gents this past week. But neither Bangkok, nor the ATP events in Beijing or Tokyo are being broadcast.

Meh. I have to confess I’m not fully engaged in this Asian swing. Maybe Shanghai will correct that.

Don’t expect me to go on the hunt for a live stream.

“All” I’ve missed so far are the early exits of A-Rod and Delpo.

But I’m loving these juddery-camera pics coming out of Beijing.

(AFP/Getty Images)

***

* The ‘Pre-Safinite Sisterhood’ (also known as the ‘HenKimPovites’) was a Revivalist movement with it’s roots at the turn of the Millennium. All three members (Henin, Kimmie and Pova) of this self-styled sisterhood took a leave of absence at the height of their very considerable powers through causes relating to burn out and injury.

They returned, perhaps in reaction to the perceived ‘mechanisation’ of tennis that had gathered momentum during their absence, and with a view to restoring some much needed credibility to the WTA (and the battle for the number one ranking in particular). An organisation that had become largely overrun by gangly, inflexible and significantly less creative baseliners , neither of whom seemed to possess the stomach for the #1 ranking - a battle taking place in an atmosphere of decreased and at times embittered competition.

Their period out of the game also saw the rise of one Dinara Safina to the #1 spot, whose imposing , if slightly one dimensional brand of tennis, quickly became an object of ridicule for those that sought a return to the old ways; because the movement envisioned such a return, and because their distaste extended only to the long line of similarly styled ‘Safinites’, and not to Safina herself, they were at first known informally only as the ‘Pre-Safinites’. Over time, the group became more formally known by the full name in use today.