Del Potro and Raonic Headed To Delray Beach

Hartt –

Heh heh – did you see those pics that Bouchard has posted from her vacation in Puerto Rico ?

Why isn’t she on the tennis court practising away ? At least Simona won a match in St Petersburg 🙂

Re Bouchard, I try to avoid stories about their vacations, etc. (although Tennis.com is determined to feature Genie’s.) She is scheduled to play Acapulco between Dubai and Indian Wells so looks like she is taking a break now. Imagine she will be on the practice court soon.

Hartt –

I’m always amused by the way people nowadays send pics of their vacations etc all over the world and more or less invite comments –

Yes – tennis.com do seem to fixate a bit on Genie.Her boyfriend’s a hockey player it seems.

Glad to see Simona back in action in St Petersburg and would be good for her morale if she wins – has to get past Venus I think. I liked V’s comments about why she chose to go there.

BTW it looked to me as if Simona isn’t wearing adidas any more – couldn’t see the logo – but I may be quite wrong, just missed it.

All top players are entered for IW I believe but that doesn’t mean they’ll all turn up 🙂

It’s funny that the Jordan Caron boyfriend bit is suddenly news – they were first seen as a couple over 2 years ago. But she seems to have been pretty quiet about him lately until this vacation. Tennis.com finally forced me to read about it, managed to avoid it until now!

And one hopes that the young player thoroughly enjoys tennis. I am struck by how many pros say they first got interested in tennis when they were 3 or 4 years old. The racquets must have been bigger than they were!

My son was commiserating with me yesterday about how hard tennis is that if you want to be a pro like Djokovic you basically have to sacrifice your life to being a tennis player.

“You have to play every day for like five hours a day,” Callum said. “How do they do it? Why do they want to do it?”

“Because they have a passion,” I told him; we were in the midst of practicing at 9 pm on a Tuesday as I just got back from leading a yoga retreat for ten days in Costa Rica. When I leave on a trip, my wife doesn’t take him to tennis or when she does they’re late arriving for a lesson. I tell her how much lessons cost, but she says Callum dawdles getting ready for the lesson. This drives me crazy.

“They want to be pro tennis players,” I tell him. “If you don’t want to be a tennis player, nobody’s going to stop you.”

But then he wants to play more and a 45-minute hitting session turns into a 75-minute hitting session. I tell him he’s got to move his feet more (take preparatory steps), he can’t come up to the net from the baseline; he’s got to wait for a shorter ball and a better approach to come up on. I tell him he’s not fit enough; he’s got to get his jump rope out and start using it.

I basically have to lay out the line for how he’s going to become a top player, but it’s hard during this stretch when the USTA has banned him from playing 12 U tournaments because they want him (laughably) to go back and play orange and green ball events. This orange and green ball USTA progression is a joke. They’re trying to make more kids play tennis by dumbing down the game. Any kid with talent and hand-eye coordination can play at a good level with a yellow ball by age 8; they don’t need to be playing with deflated colored balls.

So he had a try out today for a scholarship at this local club (luckily they didn’t call themselves an academy like all the other places around here who have a smattering of good junior players) where this gent from Puerto Rico, Juan Rios, who was captain of the Davis Cup team and achieved a top ranking of no. 261 (not to knock Juan, but I love when guys who played on the tour tell you what their top ranking was, and then you look it up, and you see that it wasn’t as high as they say and their record on the ATP Tour was 0-2). Juan’s trying to build a program at this facility, but right now he’s got the dregs of the junior players here.

And Juan said he liked what he saw in my son, low center of gravity so he moves well side to side, big forehand, solid, but he’s got work to do. Then he says it’s so hard to make it on tour and the chances are remote for any kid, particularly one from Westchester County where the kids aren’t exactly hungry (like my son). But I don’t like to hear this. I don’t want to hear how it’s so hard for Callum to make it as a big-time player, I want to hear how it’s going to be done.

But my feelings are, yes, you have to want it, you have to have talent, but the hunger comes from playing tournaments and getting beaten. Then if you want to show how good you are, you work. You have a goal, you’ve got other players and tournaments up ahead that you set your sights on beating and winning. If you can’t play tournaments like Cal can’t until he turns 11 (damn you, USTA) you’re basically in a tennis netherworld because you don’t know where you stand. You can’t feed the fire with competitive knock me down’s and pick me ups.

Simona out of St Petersburg with knee problem (again). Seems like she would do well to take a real, extended break or she could become one of those players whose chronic injuries blighted their careers.
She’s 25 – still time. Shame though.

Hartt –

Talking about Simona and chronic injuries, how do you see Milos’ career going ? I think you mentioned his body build having something to do with his frequent leg injuries – he doesn’t seem to be able to play for more than a couple of consecutive tournaments without being affected.

Scoop –

Think you might be right – particularly as Simona apparently claimed she was pain-free after her first match. So what happened ? Can’t fathom it.
Also, as far as I can see from photo of her Simona wasn’t wearing Adidas branded clothing in St Pete – strange. Has she been dumped ?

Radwanska certainly gives the impression of just not caring any more. Her recent results have been dire.
But I still believe with different coaching maybe she could have got a big title.

For WTA will this be the year of failed promise ?

Yes- I’ve always liked Radwanska’s style although I missed a lot of her early career. Just sorry she couldn’t get further than W’don runner-up.

(I think her sister plays in the WTA not the ATP !!)

Small points but just to correct info about Halep I wrote above – she did have pain after her match and she’s still wearing Adidas. So no change in knee or apparel.

However, Simona said she did enjoy her trip to St Petersburg,visited many places of cultural and artistic interest and hopes to return 🙂

I am anxiously waiting for the Davis Cup tie between Canada and Great Britain to start (in about 20 minutes). Neither Murray nor Raonic is playing and Canada is a huge underdog. But I am curious to see 17-year-old Denis Shapovalov play – he is in the first match against Dan Evans. Denis has never played in a best of 5 match and he is ranked 234 as opposed to Evans at No. 45. So he is definitely over-matched. But he is a gutsy kid and I look forward to see how he manages this situation.

That is such discouraging news about Simona. Hope they can deal with that injury soon so she can be back playing her best tennis.

Davis Cup always has surprises. Shapovalov showed his inexperience and was obviously nervous. He had some brilliant shots but too few of those and way too many UFEs. Dan Evans played solid, consistent tennis and was especially good on the big points. Have not seen much of him and was impressed.

But the big surprise was Vasek Pospisil. After what seemed like a never-endind slump he played very well, like the Vashy of old. He served well, with 19 aces I think it was. He won 7/10 net points. The Canadian captain, Marty Laurendeau, said Vasek has been too uncertain in his shots lately and this fast court would force him to play the aggressive style he needed to use. Vasek is a guy who truly loves DC and often plays his best tennis there. I hope this is the start of a long-awaited turnaround for him.

Today’s doubles, with 4 excellent doubles players, Jamie Murray and Inglot for GB and Nestor and Pospisil for Canada, should be a fun match.

Opelka is Jerzy J? I think it’s the most apt comparison. He’s more thunderous than Isner and Karlovic in terms of his earth shattering game. And also prone to guys that can run him around.

The podcast, Tennis With an Accent, has a recent interview with Petr Korda (just before the Fed vs. Stan AO match). He talks about his 3 kids, his 2 daughters who are pro golfers and son Sebastian who is a junior tennis player. He said he was not keen for his son to play tennis, thinking it is very difficult for a kid to play a sport his parent (or in this case both parents) was very successful at. But when Sebastian was 10 he wanted to give up hockey to focus on tennis and his father was impressed with how much the kid knew about tennis history.

He also talked about coaching Stepanek for many years, although he did not travel with him outside of the USO, saying he was more like a “horse trainer.” He thought the idea of using former top players as coaches was a good one, because the former stars knew, in a way no one else truly can, what it is like to play those big matches.

I did not know much about Korda, so looked him up. It won’t be news to people here, but had not realized Korda was banned for doping.

And Harrison…well, like I said I thought he’d pull rank and INDEED he did down in Dallas. This is no setback for Mr. Fritz, instead it’s a validation of Mr. Harrison’s sticking to the program.

Talk about a big moment. 17-year-old Denis Shapovalov of Canada will play the 5th (and deciding) rubber against Britain’s Kyle Edmund. Denis lost against Evans so he definitely needs to play better today.

shapovalov down 2 sets just got broke and slammed a ball intending it to hit the stands but beaned the chair ump in the face, he is now icing his face and Canada defaulted. Don’t know if shapalov will come back from this in the near future. His game looked out of control anyway, bring on Felix next time.

By the way Tommy Paul wins futures tournament this week, in his way back?