Tennis Prose




Mar/16

31

All in a day at Miami Open

gugaAs a journalist covering tennis you can encounter and observe and hear about a ton of noteworthy things in a single day at a special event like the Miami Open. First let’s begin at the media cafeteria where there are some quirky characters – like the Serbian veteran scribe who is known for complaining about anything. Last year it was the tea water wasn’t warm enough and this year the paper tea cups aren’t big enough. And also this character was caught stealing extra sugar packets and Grey tea bags. There is another Chinese photographer who eats two Puntino pizzas and four cans of Coke/Pepsi a day every day for the entire tournament. And now he’s not a pound overweight either.

Of course I reported to you about the camera thief who stole the French photographers cameras valued at over twelve thousand euros. Another photographer told me about his nightmare experience at the Ecuador vs Peru Davis Cup tie in Peru where he turned his back on his expensive camera for but a few seconds and that was enough for someone to nab it and run. Covering tennis is not all strawberries and Lacoste gift bags.

Gustavo Kuerten was here today as the ambassador for Ltau bank of Brazil doing a meet and greet and singing for hundreds of fans just outside the stadium late afternoon. I was able to talk with Guga about his Facing Safin memories which were quite interesting. Guga admitted he had lost his first two meetings with the young Safin in the late 90s and then finally turned the tables by winning the Hamburg final in five sets over four hours for his first win over Safin. What was remarkable about that win was that Guga admitted he found the solution to beat Safin by accident because he was so tired in the match he had to use a different shot he didn’t normally use which he discovered that it made Safin play poorly. I won’t reveal the exact tactical change until the book or feature is released. Also Guga said that the Hamburg win made the difference that year in helping Guga achieve the ATP year end no 1 ranking and also interestingly Guga said he felt a bit sad for Safin that the well-liked Russian was not able to experience the thrill of being the year end top player as he deserved to enjoy that special experience.

Had the delightful pleasure to meet and chat tennis at the nightly media happy double hour (5-7) with Courtney Nguyen of the WTA web site and Forty Deuce Twits Twitter fame. She knows her tennis as well as anyone I ever met in this sport – and that’s an understatement.

Did you know the Bryan Bros had a huge blow up argument after their Indian Wells loss despite nine match points to Vasselin/Zimonjic in the parking lot? The word is the brothers are not getting along so well these days and their two wives do not see eye to eye about much – to put it mildly. The Bryans lost another heartbreaker today in the semis to Hughes-Hebert and ahut 63 63. The Frenchies will play the team of Raven Klassen and Rajeev Ram in the finals.

Would you like to know how Sugarpova candy is selling here? Despite the negative publicity about Sharapova’s positive drug test her candy is selling “very well” according to the cashier at the Ben & Jerry’s sweets tent where the candy is available. He said one in five buyers cracks a joke about what ingredients are in the candy.
One of the photographers from Los Angeles told me he was playing at local courts near Hollywood and two courts down was none other than Andy Roddick playing with Shaquille O’Neal. Shaq even dared Roddick to serve all out but the results were expectedly not very good by the NBA legend who did not get good wood on any of A-Rod’s rockets.

The Nishikori vs Lamonf match was one of the best battles of the year – the last three games and tiebreaker took about a half hour to finish and every exhausting point was as tension and stress filled as a Grand Slam semi or final.

A reporter who lives in LA said Pete Sampras has still not overcome his shyness – when he picks his kids up at school he does not interact with other parents. Well that’s about it – I probably left out a dozen things but it’s past eleven and it’s eleven days in a row of tennis – Good night!

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16 comments

  • Michael · April 1, 2016 at 4:29 am

    “Gustavo Kuerten was here today as the ambassador for Ltau bank of Brazil doing a meet and greet and singing for hundreds of fans just outside the stadium late afternoon.”

    How’s Guga’s voice ? Transposing just two letters makes it sound much more interesting than the standard autograph session.

    PS, I sure hope the Miami tourney doesn’t try to move (the lease has about 8 years left) with the 2012 voter approved facility expansion now scuttled.

    It’s a great event even with it’s older facilities. In fact, don’t you prefer to watch on smaller courts then new mini-stadiums ? I do.

    And, frankly, Miami as a destination is much better than any of the places the tourney has pretended it might move to as it continues, I assume, to negotiate with the Matheson controlled committee that is holding the tennis loving residents of Miami-Dade hostage.

    Free Crandon Park. Make America Great Again for Tennis !

  • Dan Markowitz · April 1, 2016 at 4:43 am

    Scoop, you’re the Iron Horse of tennis journalism. Your stamina is as commendable as is your eye and ear for a story. Kind of sad to hear the Bryans are going after each other. I wonder if that happened w Luke and Murphy later in their careers too? They always seemed to like each other so much and share the same competitive but zany outlook. The Bryan’s have had much better careers than the Jensens, but maybe not as much fun.

    Interesting the two boxes in the Raonic-Kyrgios match. Kyrgios had no coach, but his fiery agent was up out of his seat in a boisterous mood, Moyà in Raonic’s box looked worried and Raonic’s dad looked like he would’ve liked to be somewhere else. Raonic had his smiling pretty blonde girlfriend in his box for earlier matches in Miami and I think that helped his image that he can attract such a beguiling gf.

    I played tennis w my 9-year-old son today and at one point he turned to me and said, “Tennis is brutal.” I think he’s seen me go through so many injuries and surgeries and he’s starting to realize if you play this sport hard for a long while and train like he is on hard courts, even for a 9-year old, the sport is hRd on your body. It’s also hard on your psyche, especially if you’re a parent. We went out to Bovota NJ last weekend for a 12’s event and Cal won two matches and got to the quarters against the boy who would eventually win the event and only dropped one set along the way to Cal. But I was like Spadea’s father, Vince Sr. At one point, watching the match on a tv because the facility didn’t have viewing for many courts, I got physically sick and had to leave. I couldn’t watch one more of my son’s mistakes. I walked all the way into Hackensack and had ordered a Hot n Sour soup at a Chines joint, when I got the two word text from my wife: He lost.

    Speaking of Vince, I talked to him today and he said he’s coaching Emma Stone who’s playing Billie Jean King in the Bobby Riggs movie that will begin shooting in Hollywood next week. I heard BJK say Stone had never played tennis before and Vince confirmed that. Steve Carrell is playing Bobby. Vince said he’s hitting the ball so well; his backhand slice, a shot I never saw Vince use in the pros, is murderous, his serve is better than it was in the pros and so are his volleys. I suggested a Paes-Spadea team and Vince liked the idea. Vince played a lot of doubles with different partners, but it’s interesting how some players like Vince, most actually, never consider a doubles career after their singles career is over. It’s like they know for them doubles was just mostly a diversion and a way to make some extra cash, but it couldn’t be their main focus even if it meant they’d prolong their pro careers.

  • catherine bell · April 1, 2016 at 5:58 am

    Dan –
    I really cannot understand why anyone would want to make a movie of the King/Riggs match. And why now ?

    It was a bit of 70s silliness (and yes I do remember it – wasn’t there but followed)- important to BJK in that she had to win for reasons of pride etc but meant absolutely nothing otherwise. She said so at the time.
    Why watch some actor pretending to be Billie Jean ?

    These projects are usually dismal failures.

  • Dan Markowitz · April 1, 2016 at 9:30 am

    I don’t know, Catherine. I’ll go see it even if it’s panned and the actors, Stone and Carrell, are good. And Riggs was such a character and Billie Jean such a groundbreaker. I think their stories could be good. Plus, the 70’s was such a daring time with athletes like Evel Kenevil, Muhammad Ali and Connors. You’ll never see a McEnroe v Serena match today because Serena would never take the gamble she might lose. But BJK took the dare and came up the winner. This was a day and age when players didn’t worry so much about their “brands.”

  • Andrew Miller · April 1, 2016 at 10:12 am

    Good for Vince. Vince may be the heir apparent to Lansdorp. Not the salesman like Bolletieri or his competitors, but a core teacher of the game.

    Who knows.

    Yeah, the Bryans! Makes me think that maybe they should be re-considered for Davis Cup. Their dad Wayne made a huge effort to keep them from turning on each other, having them take turns defaulting against one another in the junior finals they’d make. In more than 100 finals for the juniors they were set to play each other and the score read “default”.

    They thought it was smart, because otherwise one of them might quit the sport.

    Only when they turned 15 and the U.S. national coach (this is all from the New Yorker, 2009) insisted they had to play each other. They then played…to an 8-8 record. They clearly had a plan in place so that they’d stay even.

    With the bickering, I guess it’s when everything’s going well it’s going well and players smooth it out. But now they have something to compete over and other influences, so Wayne Bryan couldn’t prevent it.

    To me they could probably patch it up and stay ready to make another go at a big title and keep it together for Davis Cup. But if Sock keeps playing well and another U.S. player becomes a good doubles player, the writing’s on the wall. This is the Bryans last hurrah.

  • catherine bell · April 1, 2016 at 10:20 am

    Dan – yep I agree the 70s was a great time – I remember being quite poor (money-wise) and it didn’t matter at all. Last years before players across sports got buried behind the brands, the marketing, the entourages, the revolving doors of coaches. A ‘golden age’ indeed.

    BJK played Riggs basically to shut him up after Margaret Court had failed to do so.(Margaret always mentally a bit frail.)
    Of course BJK won – she was 29, in her prime, and Riggs was 55. No contest. She just knew what to do and did it.
    Serena’s great but she’s not BJ. Doesn’t have BJ’s total focus and confidence in herself ?
    BTW – BJ did a tennis book, Tennis to Win, when she was in her 20s. Still worth reading. Can’t see anyone doing that these days.
    I wrote a lot about BJK – she did the best press stuff, gave a lot – and you could talk in those days.No lurking WTA police.

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 1, 2016 at 10:27 am

    Guga’s voice is great – he got very animated talking about Safin too – really was a major score to talk to Guga about Safin – golden content – it’s not looking very good for the tournament to stay in key biscayne michael – matheson won the court order and he does not want img to build and make any advancements on the grounds despite img wanting to grow and modernize the venue – I keep hearing two more years then Orlando or maybe one more year – I’d say the event looks to be on thin ice right now – we will see – hope I’m wrong —

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 1, 2016 at 10:30 am

    Every day here Dan and it’s grueling with the heat and yesterday I did a bike ride to Coral Gables a good twenty five miles – today to South Beach and back – you were in Bogota and Hackensack which is my neck of the woods – those courts are annoying because you can’t see the courts from the lounge area – that’s a long walk over to Hackensack – did you see the old Oritani Field club clay courts? They closed the club last year to build housing – that club was over a hundred years old and Ashe Laver played there and even Rafa did a photo shoot there early in his career –

  • Andrew Miller · April 1, 2016 at 12:05 pm

    Key Biscayne = great venue. Epic loss if it’s adios. Probably one of the few inspired venues in U.S. tennis. Who else offers that – it’s part of a huge park with a view of the water. Monte Carlo maybe? Not many places.

    It would also X florida off the tennis map. Miami’s the last stand for pro tournaments there (sorry Delray).

  • Dan Markowitz · April 1, 2016 at 12:24 pm

    Definitely walked past the Oritani Field Club, but didn’t look in and see the red clay courts. Yes, I was a little disappointed with Court Sense in Bogota. I’d heard a lot about it with Gordon Uehling owning the club and I guessed it would be a nicer club. But I liked the Play Station that had on each court which videotapes the match and gives you all kinds of stats.

    Callum lost to the boy who’s father is the General Manager or head pro at the club, Nikoloski is his last name. Do you know him?

    I remember cycling out to Key Biscayne. Nice ride but even from Miami Beach quite a truck, especially when coming back at night.

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 1, 2016 at 9:10 pm

    Orlando is still FL but it seems like a different state – South Florida with zero pro tennis events is hard to imagine – but then again Souther n Cal has no events now – America is struggling with zero superstars – USA tennis desperately needs a huge star to build the sport back up again here – I think the drying up of pro events has to do with the post Agassi/Pete decline –

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 1, 2016 at 9:12 pm

    I dont recognize that name Dan – Bogota is not the nicest club and Bogota Hackensack are not upper class towns – I didn’t know Oritani did not face the wrecking ball yet –

  • Stephen Warren · April 2, 2016 at 9:35 am

    These Miami missives are impressive. Breadth and depth. You’re a one man bureau Scoop. Also love the concept of straight-out asking pros can Novak be solved. It’s almost gotten to that point though. Who wins a masters series final ‘love and two’? Rafa is barely top 20 material, Roger’s hobbled, Andy’s 25th (and most severe) Oz Open final loss might have been a fatal blow to a waning post-op self belief. I don’t want to keep going down the list actually, as Stan’s year has just been plain confusing (two tournaments in succession he was a breath away from losing to Stakhovsky). I hope Kei plays his best and offers some oxygen to everyone ranked lower than one. Coz a dominant win tomorrow and Novak is starting to snuff out any sense of hope.

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 2, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    Thanks Stephen – so so so much happens at these tourneys that it’s just impossible to track everything – I try to focus on the periphery and unobvious – Kei has a heavy burden on his shoulder – if he endures another shellacking like Raonic did in IW the balance of power will shift even more to Djokovic’s favor – we could be looking at a Djoknopoly of the ATP season –

  • Bryan · April 3, 2016 at 6:24 pm

    “One of the photographers from Los Angeles told me he was playing at local courts near Hollywood and two courts down was none other than Andy Roddick playing with Shaquille O’Neal.”

    Public courts or a club? If public I’ve gotta think that’s the Hollywood Hills which are actually far from Hollywood itself. I run the stairs up there when in LA and it’s virtually segregated from the rest of LA.

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 3, 2016 at 7:56 pm

    Bryan: He said it was courts close to the Fox Sports studio – cant recall the name of the courts –

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