Donnay invited Tennis-prose.com to their party on Friday night at Spin NY, a table tennis club on E 23rd Street. It turned out to be a smashing party.
They held a ping pong tournament at 7 and there were some stunning upsets. James Blake went out first round as did Jim Courier. The Rock had a lot of trouble with the Tennis Channel’s Toure who is very consistent off both wings. Toure had pinpoint placements too, at one point Courier said, “That’s cruel” when Toure was yo-yo-ing him. Courier did connect on at least one inside out forehand but his awkward double-handed backhand misfired a few too many to the net.
Blake’s game was impressive but didn’t use his world class speed of foot, preferring to camp in the middle and use his wristy spinny shots but it was not enough to get by his talented foe. I remember seeing Federer play his then-coach Peter Lundgren during a rain delay at the US Open years ago and Fed was, unlike Blake, running and lunging wide to reach shots. Blake was more in hang out mode and didn’t want to break a pouring sweat like some of us knuckleheads, me included (I had to change shirts).
A former grand slam singles champ was in the house and made an interesting remark about coaching. Darren Cahill and Brad Gilbert are very good coaches but he thinks they may be overrated. Why? Because it’s easy to take a major talent like Agassi, Hewitt, Murray or Roddick and adjust their games. The real trick in tennis coaching is to take a young talent in his teens and to develop and build them into elite ATP players. This is what is not being accomplished today by the leading American coaches.
It was great to see Miss Fit To Hit Danielle Dotzenrod in the house hanging out – and she really is fit to hit, the camera doesn’t lie.
New York Sporttimes coach Fritz Buehning attended the party, he was a top 10 doubles player back in the McEnroe era, and has a career win over Mats Wilander in singles. Fritz and his buddy Johan Kriek were talking about old times, like the time Kriek came out to watch Buehning play Wilander in Memphis and Kriek “coached” his pal to go forward with a slight hand signal. Fritz then began attacking the net on the first or second shot and earned the 75 75 win over the future world #1 from Sweden.
Kriek and Buehning also talked about the French Open and some of their matches in Paris, like Kriek’s win over Vilas. When Beuhning discovered Kriek made the semis of Roland Garros, Fritz exploded with a “You made the semis of the French Open! That’s awesome man!” And they shared high fives.
Then they battled it out on the ping pong table and you could see both masters still have their magical hand eye coordination. Kriek edged Fritz but both hit some dazzling shots, with Fritz booming several winners and then the popular exclamation point: “THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN BOUT!”
Kriek had a funny story about an opponent who got fined during the warm-up at Wimbledon. The guy obviously hated grass and during the warm-up, a ball took a bad bounce and hit him in the nuts, which evoked expletive #1. Then during volleys, the players somehow managed to hit himself in the eye with his racquet, evoking expletive #2 and the fine from the chair ump.
After a marathon day of attending qualies, taking a yoga class in the Village, our man Dan still possesses endless energy supplies, as he seemed to play about 25 matches, singles and doubles, all night long. But Dan was eliminated in the first round by a big time player but it was a tight match and finish. Tough draw Dan. I played the same guy in the second round – after defeating Kriek’s wife Daga 15-9 despite her repeated challenges for shot spot which went ignored by tournament officials – but could not handle his serve and got smoked 15-6. I could not return his first six serves which had a lot of spin. Daga Kriek, it should be mentioned, did not have the luxury of a warm-up as I got to hit for ten minutes with Toure beforehand, which really helped with timing and feeling consistent.
Victor Petrenko the former Olympic gold medalist figure skater from Ukraine, was there but unfortunately I didn’t recognize him. Thomas Blake was also there but he didn’t play. Other attendees: Cindy Schmerler, Tom Perrotta, Ed McGrogan, Richard Pagliaro, Bruce Levine of Tennis Magazine, Marcin Matkowski (ATP partner of Mariusz Fyrstenberg).
It was a great night and tremendous fun. Thanks Donnay and Bill Gray for a fabulous night.
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Thomas Tung · August 29, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Spin NY eh? I remember my cousin telling me about that place — he invited me there once, but I couldn’t make it.
As for table tennis, I grew up with a penholder grip, but also added in the more familiar tennis style one too … I’m no great shakes at the game, though. Really fun behind-the-scenes piece, Scoop. Dan looks like he put in some serious mileage. BTW, how was Federer at table tennis w/Lundgren all those years back? Did he play anything like his tennis game?