Tennis Prose




Dec/12

7

News & Notes From Around The Tennis World


Chile’s Christian Garin won the 2012 Eddie Herr 18s final by defeating Serbia’s Laslo Djere 06 64 75. Garin, the #8 seed, is the first Chilean to win the Herr title since Marcelo Rios won 19 years ago. Xavier Malisse and Brad Gilbert were in attendance to witness the exciting final which was played on Har Tru at the IMG/Bollettieri Academy in Bradenton, FL.

Other notable results were 15-year-old German phenom Alexander Zverev losing in the third round to Djere. Zverev, the brother of ATP player Mischa Zverev, recently made the finals in a $10,000 Futures event in Florida. Highly touted world ranked top 10 American junior Noah Rubins, based out of the John McEnroe Tennis Academy, played the event and lost in the quarters to Elias Ymer 16 64 64.

Novak Djokovic’s youngest brother Djordje also played the 18s event with a wildcard entry but he was defeated in the first round by another wildcard, 26 02 (ret).

Nick Bollettieri’s new book “It Ain’t Easy: The Unedited Life Of Nick Bollettieri” is about to be published and released. It’s written with David R. Legge. More info is available at www.BollettieriBiogrpahy.com.

I’ve just begin reading “Rafa” by John Carlin and it’s even better than I was expecting. Rafa is completely honest and candid and shares many many fascinating anecdotes. There are also fine contributions from Carlos Moya about his times with Rafa since he was age 12 and also the Seville Davis Cup final when the inexperienced Rafa was chosen to play the final singles vs. Roddick over the far more experienced and accomplished Juan Carlos Ferrero and Tommy Robredo.

Moya also remarked that he considers Rafa to be a contrast of both John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg: “The secret of the tremendous appeal he has worldwide is that you can see he is as passionate as John McEnroe was, but he has the self-control of Borg, the cold-blooded killer. To be both in one is a contradiction, and that’s what Rafa is.”

I particularly liked this quote by Rafa: “I don’t think there is anything in any area of life that gives you the same rush as winning in sport, whatever the sport and whatever the level. There is no feeling as intense or as joyous. And the more you crave winning, the greater the rush when you succeed.”

Brian Baker was spotted working out with former ATP top 5 player Todd Martin in Florida.

Bernard Tomic was dropped from the Australian Davis Cup team for the next tie by Captain Pat Rafter. Tomic is struggling, as his ranking dropped from 27 to outside the top 50. Tomic’s latest quotes were that he believes he can become one of the greatest players to ever play tennis. You have to wonder how much pressure those kinds of words will put on his shoulders, as well as a target for other players who surely will not be used as stepping stones by the talented but misguided Tomic. Lleyton Hewitt was asked on live TV on an Aussie news program to offer comments and advice for Tomic but Hewitt completely ignored the request and spoke about his family and being grounded, not directly mentioning or referecing Tomic who once blew off a chance to hit with Hewitt at Wimbledon two or three years ago.

Imagine the hype and TV ratings in Australia if Hewitt and Tomic matched up in the first round of the 2013 Australian Open in Melbourne?

4 comments

  • Scoop Malinowski · December 8, 2012 at 9:39 am

    Garin lost pretty early in the Orange Bowl. Unseeded American Deighton Baughman made the quarters.

  • Steve · December 10, 2012 at 9:26 am

    Scoop, what did you think of the bit in the Rafa book when he was injured and Uncle Toni had him hitting groundies while sitting in a chair on court? This stuck out most to me in the whole read.

  • Scoop Malinowski · December 10, 2012 at 11:51 am

    First thought was they got that idea from Muster. Maybe there is something in that drill, maybe it helps to solidify your upper body aspects of hitting a ball cleanly, then when you have your legs and feet back, you hit even better.

  • Steve · December 10, 2012 at 5:51 pm

    I imagine you levitated with joy when Uncle Toni told Rafa that Djoker was more talented before their first US Open final.

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