There’s a lot of history here at the Laurel Oaks Country Club, the site of this year’s edition, the tenth Sarasota Open ATP Challenger.
A long time figure here clued me in on several stories and anecdotes I had never heard before. Let me share some…
Martina Navratilova once played an exhibition for kids against David MacPherson, the former ATP doubles player who is the coach of John Isner and the Bryan Brothers. It was contested about seven years ago and this battle of the sexes did not go so well for Martina. Navratilova was competitive with the Australian, but the pattern of the match was that eventually her short balls would allow MacPherson to drop shot her and those drop shots were, too put it mildly, not taken well by Martina. She eventually lost the set 6-0 and let it be known with a raised voice that she did not appreciate MacPherson’s drop shots or felt they were fair play. But when you give up short balls, you are tempting drop shots, and so they were fair play. Navratilova accused MacPherson of making her look bad in front of the kids. But then she hastily left without signing any autographs for the kids.
Monica Seles used to live within walking distance of this club and trained at her home where she had two courts on her adjacent lot, a hard and clay. She also played exhibitions and did clinics at the Country Club. Seles used to pay Jimmy Arias or whoever her male training partners were that week, $70 an hour. One day she hit with Jimmy’s younger brother Kevin. She wanted him to hit serves for two hours so she could work on returns. Seles would usually train for 2-3 hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon. Arias hit serves for her but after about twenty minutes he began to tire and he started to miss. Have you ever tried to serve to a top player for twenty minutes straight? Let alone two hours? Arias tried to carry out his end of the bargain but struggled mightily. His failures were not taken very kindly.
Seles said she received a note from most of the other top players after being stabbed in Germany but Steffi Graf never sent anything.
I met a former pro here from Germany who said he beat Marcelo Rios in a $25,000 event in Germany just weeks before Rios played at Roland Garros against Pete Sampras in 1994. He said he won his first match that day in three and a half hours then laid down in the shade for an hour before playing the nineteen year old Rios. But he played the match of his life against Rios, in the zone, making every shot, and Rios cracked. Rios gave the middle finger to this player and his wife and eventually quit down 6-4 4-1.
Andreas Siljestrom, the giant doubles specialist from Sweden, told me about his pocketing $50,000 for winning a special ping pong tournament in Manhattan at Freedom Tower last year just before the US Open. He beat Donald Young and Sam Querrey, by 21-7 and 21-11 respectively. He said Young has a lethal two handed backhand in ping pong. Siljestrom is still in the doubles here at Sarasota Open, teaming with Guilherme Clezar of Brazil.
After discussing my book Facing Safin with a certain player, he told me that he was told by a respected insider that Safin had a private meeting in his hotel room with his four Safinettes BEFORE his Australian Open final against Thomas Johansson and not AFTER, perhaps the reason why his legs ran out of gas after winning the first set vs Tojo.
Scott Lipsky told me he suffered a knee injury late last year, and had to have surgery for a torn miniscus. It was the worst injury of his career. Guess how it happened? Playing a pro-am in November in Palm Beach. Scott said he didn’t warm up properly. He played this year’s Aussie Open but he was only 60%, he says now he feels closer to 90% fully recovered.
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« Previous 1 2catherine · April 23, 2018 at 2:42 am
On videos – Lendl used to watch videos of his best matches during tournaments to psych himself up. I wonder if other players did/do that ?
Hartt · April 23, 2018 at 8:30 am
Catherine, thanks for the congrats. That tie had more drama than most plays!
To be fair to Genie she enjoys playing on a team. She was a stalwart of the Fed Cup team for several years before she had to concentrate more on her career, and she plays for one of the teams in the event that takes place in the US each summer. She said that being on a team was one reason she was keen to play in this tie, that the focus wasn’t all on her. She plans to play in some small tourneys, saying she wants more match play, but also to play away from the spotlight.
As I’ve said, I am not a fan of her one-dimensional game. But do feel sympathy for her, especially after the concussion. And it is sad to see a talented player struggle for so long. So yes, let’s hope that her very good play this past weekend helps her turn things around.
But, for me, the big excitement is Bianca Andreescu. That kid has guts. She played the doubles with her calf heavily taped – along with the cramping she had a calf injury. She did not always make the right decisions in that match, but the fact that she and Gaby prevailed over a successful doubles team shows how well she played.
Folks at Match Call Migrants said the Fed Cup victory warranted a treat, and I concur. If nothing else, my hours of doing the match call for the tie are worthy of one! So a nice little pie seems in order. 🙂
As far as the future of Fed Cup goes, my big hope is that the proposal for Davis Cup will be voted down in August. One thing no one is talking about is what happens if the new event is not successful and the investors lose a lot of money. How long before they bale, and there is no Davis Cup whatsoever?
catherine · April 23, 2018 at 9:43 am
Hartt – I didn’t know that about Genie so she has my sympathy. It’s possible her game won’t change, ie won’t suddenly become full of variety, because that’s the way she is and that’s the limit of her ability, but she could have a moderate career nonetheless and play doubles and the team form. Nothing wrong with that – we can’t all win GSs and be No 1.
I truly hope the DC changes will be thrown out – for an object lesson in what happens when ‘they’ start fiddling around with formats look no further than cricket, which is being killed by a combination of greed, shortsightedness and sheer ignorance about what the public wants to watch. As a Canadian you won’t be aware of cricket matters but believe me it’s the same principle. End result – no one’s playing, no one’s watching and the coffers are empty. People can take only so much dumbing down.
Fed Cup is fine as it is. This year’s final, US v Czech R, I hope is played in Prague. Unbelievable atmosphere.
I was sorry Kerber v Kvitova ended with a whimper – I could see Petra was a bit surprised she won so easily. I’m sure she was expecting a replay of that epic 3 hr fight with Angie in 2014. But – ‘Ou sont les neiges d’antan ?’ Etc.
Hartt · April 23, 2018 at 9:45 am
My last post did not appear. Is there hope it will suddenly surface?
Bad news for us crazy tennis enthusiasts – Kohli has withdrawn from Barcelona. 🙁
Scoop Malinowski · April 23, 2018 at 9:57 am
Catherine, I’m surprised Lendl would admit to that. Most players would never show such vanity to the public, they’d keep that private if it were true. But I would guess players do watch their videos for not only inspiration but also self analysis. I would guess most top players like to watch their greatest matches.
Scoop Malinowski · April 23, 2018 at 9:59 am
Hartt, you deserve to eat a hockey puck for this monumental win by Team Canada. or maybe a Tim Horton’s 🙂 I really think this will be a turning point for Bouchard, if it’s not I don’t know if anything could spark her. Kind of like how slumping Fed got sparked by Stan in the OLY doubles that one year.
catherine · April 23, 2018 at 10:06 am
Oh, and once investers start losing money in tennis it will start a lemming rush. That’s the way things work.
catherine · April 23, 2018 at 11:24 am
Hartt – your longish post on Fed Cup (8.30 am) which I answered did appear then it disappeared again until I turned off/on my computer. This is a nuisance but I try to live with it.
Sometimes when Scoop is posting a new thread comments can disappear.
Scoop – Lendl watched his matches to get him in the right mood and remind him of winning strategies, which was probably a good idea. Ivan was not particularly vain I don’t think. Not about tennis.
Kerber could learn from watching winning videos. Be positive, even when you’re losing. If you’re going to sink, decide to go down with guns blazing and maybe your fortunes will change. That’s what her coaches have told her but Angie’s too inhibited. I remember Chris Evert telling us the reason she lost at Wimbledon one year: ‘ I was hanging back and not going for it. Maybe that was the problem there’. Angie started dumping shots in the net – he (she) who hesitates is lost.
This comment will probably disappear for a while but it’ll be out there in the ether somewhere and turn up again 🙂
Scoop Malinowski · April 23, 2018 at 11:52 am
Tennis pros and pro boxers are sneaky. Lots of pro boxers I have interviewed tried to claim they don’t even bother to watch any videos of their next opponent. It sounds macho to say that but no way it’s true. Some champions are far more honest. Like Klitschko used to have big screen TV videos running all day in his gym, so he could constantly look up and watch his opponent and see his tendencies and habits. I think it’s the same thing in tennis and lots of players watch videos of opponents and also themselves to refine their own games. But a lot of athletes will not admit to this because it diminishes their machismo and image.
catherine · April 23, 2018 at 12:24 pm
Try refreshing.
Hartt · April 23, 2018 at 12:26 pm
I am glad my Fed Cup post did appear. It is frustrating to do all that typing for nothing!
One change to Fed Cup that is being talked about is having one World Group of 16 rather than dividing it in two. It would be the way Davis Cup has their World Group. That change makes sense, but let’s hope it is the only one!
britbox · April 24, 2018 at 10:59 am
Graf visited Seles in hospital after the attack. I thought this was common knowledge.
Scoop Malinowski · April 24, 2018 at 11:03 am
Yes but they didn’t talk, they both just cried. Tense meeting and that was it. Thanks for your comment BB.
Scoop Malinowski · April 24, 2018 at 11:03 am
About the phantom comments or ghost lurking…
Hi Scoop,
Won’t have anything do with the sites demerging, more likely out of date or discontinued plugins.
Anyway, to try and figure it out, can ask the people who said posts went missing to give you the rough summary of what the post was? This will help identify if the post is in the database, but not displaying (theme/plugin issue) or it’s not been stored at all (another problem).
catherine · April 24, 2018 at 1:12 pm
Scoop – re the above, all I can say is that there’s nothing unusual or notable about what I write – it’s the same sort of stuff, just comments and updates and answers to other people here. I presume they are stored somewhere for a certain amount of time but I wouldn’t know. They are certainly around after they have been submitted because they are lurking but not visible.
What usually happens is I post a comment, which I’ll do now, and it won’t appear for a long time or may appear sometimes if another comment is posted directly below it.
Here we go.
catherine · April 24, 2018 at 1:14 pm
Oh – forgot to say the problem occurs when I leave the site. If I stay here the comment stays.
Loading comments is muchb slower than formerly, up to around 2/3 weeks ago.
catherine · April 24, 2018 at 2:01 pm
This is what I mean. Above comment disappeared.
britbox · April 25, 2018 at 8:51 am
Catherine, can you advise which comment you are talking about (as in what the comment says (roughly)). “my comment” or the “above comment is missing’ doesn’t help me investigate it because I’m not sure which one you are talking about.
britbox · April 25, 2018 at 9:28 am
But, this might be resolved now… as I think it was an old plugin “cacheing” pages. Let me know if you have any further issues.
catherine · April 25, 2018 at 10:22 am
Britbox – sorry, I didn’t see your comment until now.
There’s no pattern to comments. It’s simply that if I, or someone else here, posts a comment, either in reply or something new, it can disappear after submitting and not reappear for a long time.
Eg I’ve post a comment on the thread above and I’ve just returned to the site and I can’t see it. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, and it’s not just me.
This one may well vanish too.
catherine · April 25, 2018 at 10:28 am
My last comment not visible until I submit this. This is what’s happening all the time.
Scoop Malinowski · April 25, 2018 at 10:34 am
Thank you very much britbox.
britbox · April 25, 2018 at 6:50 pm
OK, I’m trying to fix this up, so you might get a few random comments on this thread as I test things.
britbox · April 25, 2018 at 7:06 pm
Test Comment 2
britbox · April 25, 2018 at 7:20 pm
Test Comment 3
Scoop Malinowski · April 25, 2018 at 7:21 pm
Britbox, I can speak for all here, thank you very much for your efforts to rectify this issue.
britbox · April 25, 2018 at 7:37 pm
Hi Scoop, Catherine…
Seemed to be a plugin that got auto-installed by the host that caused problems. Although Firefox still seems quirky. If you can’t see a comment then just Reload/Refresh the page in the web browser. CTRL & R keys together on a PC, CMD & R keys on a Mac.
catherine · April 26, 2018 at 1:24 am
I use Firefox mostly but I’ve noticed when I use Explorer the problem isn’t so bad.
So maybe I should use Explorer for T-P.
catherine · April 26, 2018 at 1:27 am
I refreshed the page in Firefox and that worked so I can do that.
catherine · April 26, 2018 at 1:31 am
I’ve switched to Explorer now for T-P and will continue if that’s ok.