Jimmy Arias Suggests Kyrgios Is A Bad Influence on Tiafoe

That is a pretty bold–and questionable–statement to make that Tiafoe shouldn’t hang with Kyrgios.

How about Fritz and his European clay court season knocking off Schwartzmann at MC and now Pella who’s been red hot on the dirt, in Rome.

It should not be a surprise that Weller Evans will be named to the ATP player council. Lapentti has no chance.

In reality, the key was to whittle down the field to this group to cement Evans’ status. Burke is too young, the job was too big for Nunn, Knowles never had the support and the two Nicolas were never going to be real factors.

Guys like Mayotte and Gilbert didn’t make the cut because they were threats to beat Evans. That’s why a guy like Brendan Burke was pushed in as a finalist – so Evans had little opposition. Not to mention that rabble rousers like Michael Russell never came close to understanding the politics of the operation.

I like Weller a lot and I do believe he is above reproach but there are strange undercurrents with the players at this time and it seems he is being installed to ensure of the agenda that is being set forth.

Scoop,

Just because Tiafoe hangs out with Kyrgios doesn’t mean he’s going to have the same low work ethic of Nick. Borg used to hang out a lot with Gerulaitis and maybe Vitas introduced Borg to drugs, but last count Borg had 11 slam wins while Vitas had zero.

This Anonymous cat, are you sure he’s not your alter ego?

Tennis Canada has a new podcast, Match Point Canada. Obviously their main focus is Canadian tennis, but they cover other stories as well. In their 2nd episode they had an interview with Tim Mayotte, just before the vote for the ATP board member.

He was concerned about the conflicts of interest, and said he was shocked to learn that Gimelstob, when a Board member, received a contract to produce videos for the ATP. He also thought that communication from the Board to the players had to improve. He thinks one way to do that is to make the Board position full time, so that the members could be on the road more with the players. The compensation would need to be increased so that Board members would not need other jobs in tennis.

He was asked about the remaining candidates. Of Evans, he said he is a “very respected person in the tennis community” who “really understands the sport.” However, he went on to say “there are some people who are concerned that he is really going to keep Justin in the loop.” He thinks that is what Novak wants, and it concerns him “to a certain extent.”

He thinks Weller will win and hopes that he will do job that is right for all the players and not just for a certain sector of them.

He thinks Lapentti has a chance at the position.

All this about the ATP Players’ Council makes Brexit negototiations seem like a gsme of tiddlywinks.

For once I prefer the WTA. I don’t even know if they have a Players’ Council. If there is one I bet it’s pretty toothless.

when I saw that Tiafoe was practicing with Kyrgios the day before his first round match in Rome, I predicted the loss.

I never thought I would defend Nick Kyrgios, but he is hardly to blame for Kokkinakis, who has had one injury after another.

It sounds like Tiafoe has a lot of friends on the tour. He and Shapo are chums, and Denis has to be a good influence! 🙂

In a long interview on No Challenges Remaining, Nick said he liked CSN a lot, and would like to play mixed doubles with her. I hope that doesn’t mean a slump for Carla. 🙁

Nick’s comments in the interview about Rafa and Novak have received attention in the media, although actually his comments about Verdasco were much harsher. As you’d expect, he is very complimentary about Murray and Federer.

One more story out of Rome was the incredible Novak Djokovic press conference the other day in which he wasquestioned on his role with the Player Council.

It was strange to see Novak answer publicly the reporter Ben Rothenberg’s pointed line of questioning when the ATP attempted to quell this topic. That created an opening for Novak to be asked directly about Roger Rasheed’s dismissal and he responded with an obfuscating non-answer. Many tennis observers were not happy that Novak chose to address this in this fashion since it demonstrates pretty clearly that the players see any person supporting the tournaments over their interests as persona non grata.

His behavior is more proof that the addition of Weller Evans – which has been known about since it became clear Gimelstob would have to leave – could be a poisoned chalice.

Trust Petko to rip off the the WTA ‘It Takes’ campaign.
She tweets her bit (‘nerves and a good physio’) and then claims ‘nobody asked me’.

None of the WTA marketing geniuses semmed to realise how open to spoof (and a lot more) that silly slogan is. I hope the whole thing becomes the laughing-stock it deserves to be.

Kiki has to play twice today – next up is Barty and I can’t see Kiki winning that – seems very unfair – wasn’t Kiki’s fault it rained.

Big crowd to see Marketa Vondrousova bt Halep in 3 sets. Vondrousova is a very promising player and maybe the one Czechs are looking for to follow the older generation.

Scoop, I think Kokkinakis is injured yet again. He had to withdraw from Monte Carlo and I have not seen any sign of him since then. Earlier this season he was out for 3 months with a right pectoral injury.

Speaking of Kyrgios, he “defaulted” himself today in his match with Casper Ruud, after splitting the first two sets:

https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/bpcjz6/i_thought_id_seen_it_all_nick_kyrgios_default/

Close up of Nick (you can hear him clearly) here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/bpcvfa/close_up_view_of_kyrgios_swearing_and_losing_it/

Nick’s behaviour was so OTT, even for him, that I hope he gets suspended. Before he threw the chair he threw his racquet. Some time he is going to hit a line judge doing that.

Simon Briggs, in a recent article, did provide info on Wimbledon’s profits.

“It had been thought that the LTA’s 2018 income would be affected by the construction of Wimbledon’s No. 1 Court roof – and a consequent drop in the tournament’s annual surplus – but this did not turn out to be the case. The All England Club contributed just over £40m to the accounts, up more than £7m from the previous year’s figure.”

Despite this, the LTA had a loss of 8.8 million pounds in 2018. (The organization has a sizeable reserve, so can absorb the loss.)

I can understand that Wimbledon has a responsibility to the LTA, but what a difference it could make to lower-ranked players if even say, 10% of that money went to prize $ for Challengers.

Om Match Call Migrants we decided these women are made of spun sugar or tissue paper.

I am so irritated. I added 2 TV channels, at considerable cost, to get some WTA matches and now there is hardly anyone left I want to see. Because they are Quebec channels, the only plus so far is improving my French. 🙁

Hartt – I think some of these women are overtraining and also running around doing so many things they don’t give themselves time to recover. Blame the WTA.

Perhaps you’ll have to choose new favourites as your previous ones fail to flourish or simply grow old. I’m already looking ahead a couple of years and getting used to the idea that Kerber and her generation won’t be around any more. At present I like Vondrousova as a coming player – which means she’ll no doubt do a Sabalenka on me. For some reason I can take or leave Naomi.

Just think of that money as enriching your cultural life if not your tennis fandom – and cross your fingers for Bianca 🙂

Well Vondrousova will lose to Konta today because I have jinxed her – so I’ll be quiet in the future 🙂

I get quite a lot of streams here and a few highlights and full length matches from the WTA and ATP highlights and I find that’s enough for me. Wimbledon is the worst – virtually no streams. But it’s always been like that.

Well, some people don’t like Kerber at all, or not unreservedly, except maybe a few of her more demented fans. She’s not Pollyanna in any shape or form but I don’t know if phoniness was/is at the bottom of it. Angie’s the little girl who could be nice and horrid. I’d say her behaviour is ‘honest’, maybe even ‘authentic’ in the WTA’s latest bit of PR speak, in the same way as Jimmy or Mac presented themselves. Mac could say some awful things but it got boring in the end and he occasionally regretted his missed opportunities. But I never heard ad hominum outbursts from either Jimmy or Mac, not like Nick.

Andrea Petkovic did a bit of a patch job on Angie’s tattered image at some point but actually I prefer her the way she is. You’re always looking for the cracks – the whining, the swearing, the chucking racquets, the sulking. Instead of stuff about rivalries she should have referred to herself. The phoniest thing is the smirking marketing image I blame, once again, on the WTA.

Nick doesn’t do that – I’m not saying throwing chairs around is good but it’s better than dissimulation which is something he really doesn’t go in for.

Catherine is right. Nick has no control over his behaviour, whereas McEnroe kept track of his violations and would stop in time.

In that at match it wasn’t just throwing the chair, but yelling obscenities at a fan, and throwing his racquet in the general vicinity of a line judge. It is just a matter of time before he does hit, and injure, someone.

Also in the comparison to McEnroe, John did care about performing well and was not tanking matches.

Perhaps he is purposely trying to be controversial when he makes cutting remarks about some opponents, like he did in the No Challenges Remaining podcast. But during the heat of a match I doubt that he is even thinking about the outcomes of his behaviour.

Casper Ruud, his opponent in the Rome match, said Nick became angrier and angrier. Ruud thinks that Kyrgios should get a suspension, and claimed other players agreed.

There is a comparison to Shapo, who was a hothead when he truly was a young player, with that horrible incident when he his ball, struck in anger, hit the ump near his eye. Denis was truly mortified, took responsibility for his action, and vowed he would never do anything like that again. And he hasn’t, outside of the occasional racquet smash, although he doesn’t throw his racquet near people, the way Nick sometimes does.

Denis is still an exciting player to watch. He doesn’t have to go in for dramatics and bad behaviour for fans to want to support him and flock to his matches.