Andreescu has superhuman, magical powers

I’m sorry, maybe I’m too sensitive, but for a 19-year-old who’s just won a match against Serena because Serena retired, to call Serena an “(expletive) beast” is a poor choice of words. And if you asked Serena, if she wasn’t sobbing on her chair when Andreescu said it to her, I would think she’d say, “Hey, watch the ‘beast’comment.”

Serena’s a wife, a mother, I don’t think she wants to be referred to as “a beast.” If a guy said that to Nadal or Murray, it would rile their feathers, but I bet Serena didn’t like hearing Andreescu call her a beast.

Just saw possibly the worst women’s singles match I’ve ever seen, Sharapova v Riske. The Pittsburhian has possible the worst forehand I’ve ever seen on a top–what is she–30 player. She basically faces the net on it and arms it. Her serve at least in this match was atrocious. She had like 10 double faults in a two-set match. Sharpie wasn’t much better, hitting some double faults halfway to the baseline.

Obviously, I’ve said this before, but women’s tennis is in bad shape. Once Serena retires, I don’t know if it’ll get much attention. Andersen is a breath of fresh air, but Barty and her are not exactly the lithe winsome players who attracted attention in the past, Wozniaki, Sharapova and even Azarenka. There are many young American women emerging but players like Kenin and Anismova aren’t much on the charisma side. It looked promising for a while with Stephens, Keys and Vandeweghe, but they have all disappointed for one reason or another.

I think men’s tennis in the US is obviously going through a tough stretch too. Tiafoe has charisma, but his game has swooned. Opelka is about as charismatic and likable as a hit man and Fritz, Donaldson when he still played and Mac Mac are all duds on the personality side. If you took a player like de Minaur and said he was from Detroit, he’d have the potential to be a real crowd-pleaser at a place like the US Open because he plays so hard and so well, but instead we’re stuck with the Sandgren’s and Harrison’s and Sock’s who are all dislikable for the most part. Of course, the group before them of Izzie, Querrey, Johnson and Young weren’t exactly illuminating either on the personality side.

Dan, I am a bit bewildered that you are so offended by Andreescu’s “beast” comment. She simply meant that Serena is a strong woman in the sense that she has overcome difficult times in the past and will do so again. It is just a figure of speech, not meant to be taken literally. It is the same idea if you make a comment and I say “You’re crazy.” I don’t mean that you are insane, or that you should be offended by my response.

In this context, I think Bianca said it with affection. I am beginning to wonder if “beast” is used in a different way in Canadian English than in American. Here it can be an obvious exaggeration, and as I said, used with affection. I could say to a friend who is getting a lot accomplished, “You are a real beast today!”

This has to be the stupidest discussion of all time. Beast is a common compliment that young athletes say all the time; kids love using this.

They say this in the NBA all the time. “Steph Curry is a beast, dawg!” “LeBron is a beast, yo!” “That James Harden a beast, my man!”

This is how kids talk all the time. How old are you Dan? You sound like an 80-year-old who isn’t around the youths these days.

Amazing that they don’t re-seed after the 2 seed pulls out. Kukushkin not only gets in as a lucky loser, but he gets a bye into the 2nd round.

Wonder if Nadal timed it to the point it was too late to re-seed. That kept Fed on Djokovic side. Fed would not have been able to pass Nadal for number 2 seed in USO.

Kerber out first match in Cincy to Kontaveit SS. Angie has dug herself into a deep deep hole and just like 2017 I can’t see any bottom to it.

Kerber’s reached the point of total indifference from the media – her name’s hardly mentioned any more. It is very sad and I just hope that, like before, she can find a new coach and some inspiration for the new year.

Jeff,

I do t care how old you are, no women wants to be referred to as a “beast.” Yo can’t compare NBA players with WTA players. Is Serena a beast? Absolutely, but I’m sure no one in her camp especially her husband uses that word to describe her and Andreescu was out of line in doing so.

It’s common among young people, who use language from sport very freely it seems to me and I can assure Dan that many young women wouldn’t mind at all being called a ‘beast’ in the sense Bianca used it. I’d be very surprised if Serena, who is actually no longer young, despite being a wife and mother, took it as anything but a compliment. The Markowitz Book of Etiquette seems a little archaic in 2019.

I agree with Jeff that this is the stupidest discussion of all time.

And it’s ‘Andreescu’ not ‘Andersen’. And I’m also sure that women’s tennis will go on attracting attention after Serena retires. There’s always someone around the corner.

Kontaveit is very good – she’s got a nice game. Seriously Estonia must be proud of her, I’m not familiar with anyone from the Baltic republics beyond Gulbis. Kanepi too is from Estonia, I didn’t know that either.

As for turning that cauldron of potential into big titles. Yeah I stress caution. So many many many players show a world class game on the WTA tour only to come undone on the biggest most grand stages. That’s even in this free for all era.

That’s one reason why I’d suggest to players – get better every week NOW, while you don’t know any better. A player can’t determine how high they rise or what they’re capable of without building their capacity now.

My favorite examples have to be Hantuchova and Ginepri. Hantuchova made such a huge huge move winning Indian Wells way back in 2002, no? And Ginepri found something special with his run to the US Open semifinals in 2005.

It wasn’t like they were competing in a weak era – they weren’t. Higueras somehow convinced Ginepri the hard work was paying off, and Hantuchova was proving her beautiful game could find the lines against the best.

They weren’t waiting for permission or for their time to come or any of that stupid stuff. There’s no wrong time to upset a higher ranked player.

As much as I love Agassi, it’s too bad Ginepri didn’t shut the door in the US Open semifinal against Agassi. Ginepri wasn’t going to top Federer but he would have equalled Agassi’s four set performance against Federer and probably would have had more confidence going into 2006.

Blake, same story. His results began tapering off significantly and slowly but surely dropped out of the top ten then far below it.

Some of this is the curse of not correcting parts of their game. But some of it is pretending that they have so much time to get better and climb the rankings.

Some tennis writers have referred to this as a lack of courage. I don’t know if that’s too far off – most of the time I think it’s true.

Yeah, I guess I’m done with the era of super champions. I’ll always like them. I’ll be the first to acknowledge how outstanding the big three have been, Murray, Stanimal, Serena and Sharpie. I marvel at their skill. Their stamina. Preparation. Coaching. But it’s high time for other generations on tour to have a better legacy than cannon fodder.

Wawrinka basically pulled a Kerber. He broke through the ranks of super champions. I’m sure he said it was worth it.

Scoop, Agassi deflated Ginepri, but Blake did fine afterwards – a career year in 2006 and a good 2007. Ginepri, arguably, was upset by Pat McEnroe’s decision to play Blake over Ginepri for Davis Cup, going with the strong but much lower ranked Blake, with Ginepri probably thinking, “man, I can’t win, no matter what I do…”

Here’s that context.

“It will be my feel based on who I think is playing better,” McEnroe said of his pick for the second singles. “It will probably be a camp decision, a decision I make there. I probably wont have them play challenge matches per say because I think they are both beyond that. Basically what I said to both of them is I want you to come in with the attitude that you’re going to play. This time I think they’re both playing well enough, they both deserve to come in with that mentality that they don’t have to prove something — they don’t have to prove anything. They’re proven it this summer with how well they’re doing.”

Dan, surely you know that Adler used the word “guerilla,” not “gorilla” and sued ESPN. He has been reinstated.

Adler didnt call Venus a gorilla, he said she was using gorilla tactics

OK I lied. One more thing. Lenny Krawitz has a hit song called “She’s a beast”

Please let’s move on and discuss something more worthwhile. Like Beatrice Bouchard’s Instagram! I found out she is in fact a paid professional model.

Meanwhile Kyrgios unsurprisingly added to Laver Cup. His three tweener per set antics are well suited for that, though I won’t mind watching Federer destroy him yet again.

Here’s a tweet from Tina Thompson calling Diana Taurasi a beast… https://twitter.com/iamtinathompson/status/767085329249689604

For some reason, it didn’t pass the moderators before.

Scoop you are correct, the 2000s was when it was popular. I remember Brandon Jenkins – the NY Giants running back – telling Eli Manning, “you a beast boy!” when the Giants slayed the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

It’s really big in basketball and Andreescu no doubt follows the NBA since the Raptors won the NBA title. Kids love that type of stuff, Kyrgios says it a lot too in practice.

Another good one I learned is “on fleek” It means something like really cool.

As you may guess, I teach in a high school so I first-hand hear a lot of this stuff in rap lyrics, conversations, whatnot. You gotta speak the language of millennials somewhat to engage them otherwise they will tune you out.

Dimitrov should have beat Wawrinka going away. Grigor has such a nice game. I’d like to see Grigor do better. He can start by winning these matches!

Too many rallies. But with Wawrinka it’s hard. Technically he should drop shot Stanimal. Again, players reluctant to “play like Kyrgios” and sacrifice some beauty for some points.

The outrage is justified, why would Sock get a wildcard into the main draw, he hasn’t won a match in ages, not sure he could win a first round qualifying match. He should have played some challengers and let’s see how he does. Steve Johnson is playing some challengers now, and he won one last week. Query played some challengers a few some years ago and won them all, let’s see what Sock can do. If he plays a qualifier first round there will be tremendous pressure on him, for his sake I hope it’s not Tommy Paul. There are so many other players who deserve and financially need a wildcard, why give it to Sock who will clearly get into the doubles main draw anyway, and could qualify for singles.