Nalbandian is now repping Topper attire, apparently Yonex has dropped the Argentine veteran. Yonex has two new endorsers in Bernard Tomic (racquet) and Stan Wawrinka (attire and racquet).
Is Philipp Petzchner the first player in ATP history to wear his white socks pulled up to his knees? Could be. If you missed it, the German is wearing blue shorts, blue shirt and high white socks.
Wish a speedy recovery to Mats Wilander who suffered a kidney injury after a fall at his apartment in Melbourne. Hope Mats will be able to attend the Delray Beach ATP event in late February, he was a big hit last year there with his Wilander on Wheels program.
Darren Rovell of CNBC did a poll asking his Twitter followers if they would say they follow the ATP and or WTA Tours regularly? Out of 203 polled, 76.4 answered ‘No’ while 23.6 said ‘Yes.’
If Ito and Nishikori win their second round matches to reach the third round it will mark the first time in history that two Japanese male players have reached the third round of a grand slam.
I did a Biofile with renowned tennis author, journalist and former editor of World Tennis magazine Steve Flink who named his favorite tennis books: “”Handful of Summers by Gordon Forbes was a beauty. I loved the Fireside Book Of Tennis. It culled all the great articles from newspapers by Allison Danzig, the British writers, Bud Collins, it covers the spectrum, from the 1920’s to the 70’s. That was a treasure. I still love to go back to it. Joel Drucker’s Jimmy Connors Saved My Life was a great book. And I thought Steve Tignor’s book High Strung (Bjorn Borg-John McEnroe and the Untold Story of Tennis’s Fiercest Rivalry) was beautifully done and the best written tennis book I have ever read. I thought it was excellent.”
Justin Gimelstob called David Ferrer “a bantamweight who consistently beats heavyweights.” I enjoy his analogies and color commentary on The Tennis Channel.
Brad Gilbert predicting Andy Murray will win two majors this year and achieve the #1 ranking is one of the most stunning bits of punditry I have ever heard in the tennis realm. We’ll see about that. But Murray is looking very sharp.
Pound for pound, rank for rank, I think Alex Bogomolov’s ascent last year (and perhaps even higher this year?) is even more remarkable than Andre Agassi or any other ATP player in recent memory. Nobody could have ever predicted or foresaw what Bogie has done. Who knew he had this kind of talent, drive and ability to win matches on the ATP Tour? Nobody. Bogie is the all time ultimate Rocky Balboa tennis story, emerging from a teaching pro job to become a top 40 ATP player.
Will Hewitt’s showdown with Roddick be his final appearance in the Australian Open?
Whatever happened to ATP players tucking in their shirts? The last ones to do it, unofficially, were Radek Stepanek and Michael Llodra but they no longer tuck.
There’s been an uproar on facebook about Nalbandian getting robbed on that overrule call in the Isner match at 8-8 in the fifth and not being allowed to challenge the overrule, but this controversy pales in comparison to when Serena got robbed my chair ump Marina Alves at the U.S. Open in the infamous Jennifer Capriati match.
Milos Raonis is looking really, really good so far. Watch out Djokovic.
Bethanie Mattek Sands wore the same get-up she had on at Key Biscayne, white shorts and green top. Might she be running out of zany color combos?
1 comment
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Dan Markowitz · January 19, 2012 at 1:57 pm
Hate to bypass Hewitt, but I think the Raonic-Djoko match will be the highlight of the young tournament. I don’t think you can call any match Isner plays in “a highlight” because his style makes the play streaky and spotty. (Scoop, didn’t see the controversy. Could you or someone else explain what happened to Nalby?)
Raonic and Tomic are the trend-setters in this event with the old guard of Fed and Nadal looking good and Djoko just looking off the charts. On the women’s side, there’s really only interest, as I see it, in the three colorful ex-champs, Serena, Clijsters and Maria, playing well. As good as Kvitova is, she doesn’t have star power.