Carling Bassett-Seguso Has High Praise for Andreescu

Kenin v Stosur. I think Kenin wins this against a newly inspired Aussie champ.

Sounds as though Harrison, losing to Koepfer at US Open qualies, and Kozlov, losing to Gerasimov, lost to guys playing much better that were better players. An ATP semifinal post US Open qualies is very good. And Koepfer totally outperformed. So Harrison, Kozlov with some improvement again and some match wins even in table tennis will fill up that confidence tank again, I hope.

MTO in Osaka at match point Naomi v Putinseva but I don’t know from the score who’having it. Will know soon enough.

Mertens sweeps aside Giorgi.

Draw out for Wuhan. Pretty packed but no Bianca.

Andrew, you’re repeating the myth about Nadal’s family being wealthy. When Rafa was born, they weren’t. Like Roger’s family, they were solid middle class and because the Nadal family was so established in Mallorca (since the 14th century) they were highly respected and held various positions in their town such as mayor and orchestra conductor.

It was Rafa’s dad who made them wealthy. He was (is) such an astute business man he grew a window business into an empire of construction companies and real estate holdings which the whole Nadal family participated in and benefited from. So yes, Rafa and his family are very rich now but they weren’t always.

When Rafa was born, they lived in an ordinary apartment across the road from the tennis club. That’s one of the reasons he was able to practice and play tennis so much from such a young age. The mansions didn’t come until later.

Angie didn’t show any more fight than Sloane Stephens. And Angie usually loses to Sloane. Work that out.

Catherine, shortly after the USO Bianca’s team announced that she would play only Beijing and, if she qualified, the WTA finals. Presumably they wanted her to have some preparation time after her media obligations, etc., were over.

Scoop -I saw the match live and it was pretty poor. Pavs won although she didn’t play very well but Angie was really subpar. Might look close but it wasn’t, not after the first set. Sumyk probably told Pavs just to keep going and Kerber would lose, which she did. Her serve once again let her down.

Their H2H is about even but Pavs is clearly better now. Or Angie’s worse, whatever.

Jeff – I thought we’d left all this behind. I think it’s very unlikely Carling has any feelings of jealousy. She has a very full life with a lot to occupy her far away from feelings of jealousy regarding a player she never even met on court. I didn’t find anything unusual about Carling’s comments. Serena Williams was completely irrelevant to the discussion, which was about Bianca. It’s a bit of a presumption IMO and I imagine Carling would think so too. Just a throwaway remark.

Osaka d. Putinseva?! Proving doubters like me wrong. Thought Yulina would extend her perfect record.

Coric vs. Gerasimov/Medvedev winner for the St. Petersburg title.

Scoop – I have it on good authority that Angie accidentally spilt coffee on a computer and the match’s transmission was erased 🙂

Scoop, that sounds about right down here. You can literally go to a green dot ball tournament and find 9 year olds with a head coach, hitting coach, hitting partner, nutritional advisor, massage therapist, and 4-5 of dad’s companies employees there to support the golden child and earn some brownie points.

Its a different world. Every weekend there are multiple tournaments from West Palm Beach down through Miami. Many of the kids go to academies and almost all the parents are either doctors or business owners. A few billionaire’s kids here or there such as an heir to the Ziff publishing fortune.

Typical story, my girl played another in a 10s tournament. The girl had a coach from Russia with her. The mother told me they took a trip to Europe and the coach was teaching at a resort there. Their daughter really liked him so they hired him away from the resort and rented him a town house near their home. He was the daughters full time head coach to supervise her team.

The arms race in juniors here is astounding.

Sheesh the arms race thing makes me want to pull a Toni Nadal and coach for free at public parks. Sorry it’s so out of hand. I’ve seen many tennis parents. Their kids aren’t better players just because they have an armada of an entourage. And they won’t be the next Andreescu either.

Did people here watch Laver Cup? I was pleasantly surprised that Isner beat Zverev – he has a poor H2H against AZ.

Fed vs Nick was a close, entertaining match, but Roger won the match TB, making some terrific shots in the process.

What will Serena do post tennis? Guest announcing? No wonder she doesn’t want to leave the sport.

Andrew – normally there aren’t press conference at some of these tournaments, just on court interviews with the winners. I can’t see anything. So we won’t know what Angie said, or thought. I never find them very interesting anyway. She’s probably on her way to Wuhan by now, getting ready to play Puig first match.

Your comments about observations and making changes are relevant to Kerber. It’s what she’s not doing. Unless a tweener in midcourt counts. It went in the net.

Andrew, I don’t think Serena will lack for things to do when she retires from tennis. She is very in fashion and has had several fashion shows, the most recent right after the USO.

She has been investing in start up companies. And of course her family life has to be very busy.

Harold, Stan was invited to play but he wanted too much $. He had to withdraw from St. Petersburg with an injury, so it is just as well he wasn’t slated for Laver Cup.

Moonballs are fair game. Drop shot serves are fair game. I’m waiting to see a player one up Kyrgios on this stuff! Nobody counts it against Nadal when he hits shots around the net posts, so we should hope players become more strategic by giving opponents crazy balls.

That said I think this playing like Medvedevs playing makes players go a little bonkers.

The Laver Cup sold out in the blink of an eye. They did not need Stan to sell tickets. There were several reports that Stan wanted too much $, and it would hardly be fair to the other players if he received an amount that wasn’t in keeping with his ranking. He doesn’t have the star power of Rafa or Fed, who presumably were both paid a huge appearance fee.

Anyway, as I wrote earlier, Stan withdrew from St. Petersburg with an injury, so he wouldn’t have been available to play LC in any case.

Sock and Kyrgios defeated Rafa and Stefanos in doubles, so Team World is still alive, with Team Europe leading 7-5, and the matches with 3 points each being played tomorrow.

I was just relieved that Milos got through his match without getting injured, although of course Rafa won.

Scoop, Rafa played hardly any junior tennis so there’s nothing to deduce. His highest junior ranking was 145. He played nearby events in the summer but his mother wouldn’t let him miss school for tennis. He played and won a couple of European events similar to the Orange Bowl and a Nike sponsored event where they flew kids from all over to S Africa but basically, he had a very limited junior career. The only junior slam he ever played was Wimbledon when he was 16 (reached semis) and he was on the Spanish team that won the Junior Davis Cup at 16.

Instead of junior tennis, he turned pro at 15 and played Futures events around Spain during the summer, moving up to Challengers at 16. He got a WC into the Mallorca Open and won his first ever ATP match but lost in the second round. By the end of that year, at 16 1/2, he was playing ATP regularly and was the ATP Newcomer of the Year. He was such an amazingly talented youngster, he didn’t need Junior.