Djokovic Dad Says Federer “is envious” of Novak

Great story on the ATP site about Jan de Witt, Gilles Simon’s former coach. More top players should hire this guy. I can’t imagine a Tiafoe or Fritz working under a coach like this, however.

https://www.atptour.com/en/news/coaches-corner-jan-de-witt-feature

Do you actually watch Fed,? fed and 75% of male players, change racquets on new balls. Fed doesn’t like to use a new racquet with new balls so he changes on 6 or 8. Tons of players follow the same routine..

Did he take more than a minute, Djoker changes too, how come it’s only stalling when it’s Fed.

Faked a 15 minute injury timeout. Got a massage.. Early in Djoker career he wasn’t as fit. The next time was losing to Nadal, retiring in the match for no one knew why, yet in the presser, says he was in control.Down 2 sets, or two sets to one..

Respect what he turned into .. Thought he was a good foil to Fed and Nadal. Easy to not root for.

Lendl started the whole racquet change thing. Not serving with a new racquet came many years later

How long can the injury timeout be? I think that one was close to fifteen minutes. Half hour? Played points like he was fit, and dying in between. It’s not fair to the opponent. It’s not a battle to death, if you can’t go on, I understand the players side, but in an individual sport, a player getting a massage, stretched, while the opponent has to decide, do I jump rope, hit with a ball kid..jog..I’d immediately call for my massage.. it’s a bad look for the sport, never saw a golfer get a massage, and their backs go fast

Playing possum is one thing, two, ten minute breaks is over the top. You want to play mind games, play Chess

Also how about Sloane Stephens? She seems on a course to be one of the biggest one-Slam wonders in history? What happened, is it injuries, married life, something else?

I imagine Sloane played in Acapulco because she’d get some appearance money and she wouldn’t have had a hope in Dubai or Doha. If you’re going to fail like that best to do it away from the limelight.

Kvitova bts Penko in 3; Kuznetsova gets a w/o from Anisimova in Doha. Can’t predict a winner from here – but it won’t be Sabalenka. Barty ? Haven’t seen her play yet.

Not a fan of anyone getting a 10 minute break, if Fed did it, it would bother me just the same..

I have one question. Tennis apparel has come miles in years with advancements..yet, I look back to the old days, guys weren’t sweating through their shorts in one set, shirts soaked after warm ups..does a Seinfeld imitation “ What’s up with dri fit? Doesn’t keep you dry, shouldn’t it be called wet fit”..leaving the court for full changes. Nadal looks like hes most worried about his bald spots, yesterday, VW took so long, I’d swear she jumped in a shower to cool off

Never a fan, but she’s getting in the HOF, probably go in alone, and make it all about her.. Newport will be filled for that weekend..the Ben Rothenbergs in the media in will lead her enshrinement..

Quiz – who was Maria’s opponent in her last official tournament match ?

Her last match was with Donna Vekic at the AO.
TBH, I know this because Jimmy48 posted a photo of the 2 shaking hands at the net, and Donna responded with 4 crying emojis. I wish I could post the photo here, it is a nice one.

Christopher Clarey wrote a good article about her retirement for the NY Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/sports/maria-sharapova-retires.html

Petra, as you’d expect, had some kind words.

Hartt – yes I saw Donna’s tweet, good pic. I wasn’t a great fan of Maria’s but I did think at the time (and I still think) there was a fair amount of hypocrisy around among the players and certain other people re the drug stuff. Plenty got on their moral high horses without much justification, possibly because they just didn’t like Maria.

As I said, she got attention for the women’s game. And she held it for quite a while.

I’ll read Clarey’s piece if the NYT will let me.

Oh Sharpie…fair or not, her career ends on downer, and I am definitely surprised there’s no final set of tournaments.

As to the Vanity Fair piece – seems to have the hand of a PR pro or a ghost-writer. Not trying to be mean: it’s pretty smooth, and I remember Open from Agassi with J.R. Moehringer, how his co-writer/ghost writer helped Agassi express himself about a hundred times better than he could have otherwise.

In Sharapova’s words I see a hidden hand as well. The choice of venue, Vanity Fair – not the usual place to announce a retirement and a nod to glam, “Hey, I have more time for modeling shoots! Seriously, I need something to do.”

The decision to hire someone else to help out is a good one. A good writer brings out the best of a good athlete, otherwise we wouldn’t have sportswriting. Glad she had someone help her out.

Andrew – Maria’s already written a book – with or without a ghost I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. (Hartt’s read it but I haven’t.) Not many sports people have the ability to do books or articles on their own – no one I can think of. Maria’s English is probably ok but all magazines etc edit. Need to get the style right.

Sharapova’s piece appeared in Vogue and Vanity Fair. The long lead times of magazines suggests that she had made a decision to retire before the AO. And no farewells like Wozniaki. I imagine she has plenty to do – although she’s getting a bit old for modelling. Glamour has always been pretty much her world, parallel with tennis.

Maria’s interest in architecture (hope she’s a whizz at maths) is probably on a par with certain players who call themselves ‘fashion designers’ – which basically amounts to doing a few sketches and then hiring a properly trained clothes designer to actually produce them.

Scoop, no doubt. Rublev’s in Barcelona (I had no clue). My observation only that Russian top juniors with the pros on their minds leave Russia for higher level training – there is a “Russia to Spain” pipeline of great juniors to top shelf professional tennis players. You noted this on Medvedev, whose parents brought him to Nice, France, and I remember Safin trained in Spain as well as Kuznetsova.

re: the holes in Safin’s game, to my eye it was always his frustration and inability to focus, sometimes on court moodiness. Maybe a player that was too smart for his own good – I don’t know. Plagued in other ways – a guy who maybe could have benefited from “not having it all” aka the distractions that come with being a top pro that “has it all”.

The Bajin podcast with Pantic at first, I thought it was a little unfair. Then if someone listens to Pantic she ALWAYS asks players what their lives are like on tour or after matches and how they deal with things – so she asks the same question every interview. I was wrong, she isn’t baiting anyone. She just asked about all dimensions of players: how do you prepare for big matches, and also what’s your favorite restaurant?

She’s good. Recommended. Takes a few listens to get into it, but she’s a “player’s interviewer”. I think because players are comfortable speaking with her they say MORE than they would otherwise, she does a good job of breaking/melting the ice.