Our Media Confrontations With Players

What I believe Hartt might be saying is that Novak looks like a male version of the villain from 101 Dalmatians.

Djokovic does look like Cruel-a Deville for sure. I’m still amazed Djokovic has been able to win so much and pass the Sampras record while being in good position for the all time records. I’m not sure if he coasted off his talent – he worked hard a long time ago with many development coaches, so his game is always going to be pretty steady.

I’m beginning to truly question tennis development in the states, mostly because beyond Serena Williams and her sister Venus, both products of the early 1990s, we have had a slam champ on the women’s side in Sloane Stephens but no one else! Maybe women’s tennis in the US is in the doldrums also. That’s even considering the great efforts of Keys and Kenin.

I wonder if we should base a country’s tennis success so much on number of Slams won. Looking at the top 20 WTA rankings, the US has 4 women, the highest number, followed by the Czech Republic with 3 and then Croatia with 2. What is striking is the variety of countries represented.

We celebrate winning a Slam because it is so tough to do, so it’s not surprising there aren’t many Slam winners from any one country.

Jon, maybe you’re right, that we emphasize the wrong things in the states. Maybe also the athletes that become pro tennis players aren’t the ones that may want to become pro tennis players. It would be interesting to see what the media is like in Czech Republic for example, or how players find tennis. In Serbia, Djokovic’s dad was a skier, so there was some interest in athletics. Sampras family all played tennis, so maybe being in California it was cultural – the sport was readily accessible and the whole family played so Sampras had hitting partners or at least examples around him that told him he was doing the right thing by finding something in the sport.

Probably the most upsetting thing to me is the lower popularity overall of tennis. I remember tennis being a big deal, and not because it was expensive because we had cheap racquets available at Kmart I think (the Jay Berger Prince Pro racquets, aluminium!). But kids played and because they played, we played. No big deal.

With so many kids playing, a number played very well, and they were good athletes that hit a fine ball. Of all of them a few could go pro at the challenger level – mostly because they had resources but they were also excellent athletes. Of the girls, it was more rare to have a high calibre player. I don’t know why that was where we were – maybe what was emphasized. In soccer the female athletes would go after each other mercilessly. If that approach had been for tennis I’m sure the better athletes would have taken up the game.

We’re talking a hot bed of tennis too. Maybe because the girls didn’t see other girls playing. My “day” at Macci’s didn’t convince me otherwise either, the parents speaking of their kids didn’t seem to grasp that the Williams girls were many, many, many, many light years ahead of their kids. It was so blatantly obvious that they were, and maybe they were jealous of them or concerned they were spending so much money out of pocket while their kids weren’t that much closer to a college scholarship anywhere.

Jon where are, not Boca? If Boca maybe look up Reed Rafter at St. Andrews. He’s a good guy.

Andrew – re the Czech R – tennis is everywhere there and a long history of the game and many idols to follow. The Sparta Club in Prague is where everyone trained, an historic site. Drobny won Wimbledon representing Egypt but he was still a Czech.

No use looking on the WTA site for entry lists for upcoming tournaments and other useful information – you won’t find it. Not unless Gauff is playing.

Andrew, it is a fun place to play tennis. At the park right next to our house there are 4 isolated hard tennis courts. Almost no general public plays there, they play at the Har Tru tennis center in town for the most part.

So these courts are nice and private. In the past year or so Serena, Venus, Opelka, Lauren Davis, Jay Berger, Cori Gauff have all shown up at various times to hit there.

We have played some tournaments at St. Andrews. Amazing school and facilities.

Jon, Scoop, if you’d like an interesting perspective Reed Rafter at St. Andrews in Boca is a good guy. He played on tour before his sponsor died in a freak accident, which grounded him. Hits every shot out there. Again there are so many like him out there and especially in South Florida, superb players grounded for one reason or another that have left their mark on tennis in other ways (Mr. Rafter is the coach of the St. Andrews HS tennis squad).

Catherine, the promotion for the Citi Open, which is months away, has “Coco’s Back!”

I just finished listening to the David Law interview with Larry Stefanki a second time. From what Law said, it must have been done shortly before this year’s USO.

David asked Larry what assignment would bring him back, and he said that he likes a lot of what he sees on the women’s side. He mentioned Kerber in particular, saying she won Eastbourne the same year Andy Roddick won it. He said she is a great athlete and a great competitor, without all the hoopla. He did not understand why she was doing so poorly this season.

30 years ago, not 40…Venus is not that old yet! Andrew, several of my daughters friends play for St. Andrews. They won a title last year in high school tennis.

Stefanki, in that interview, said he is coaching 3 junior girls. He is very impressed with them, saying something like they would run through a wall for him.

catherine, its hilarious you asked how many knew Venus! This was a huge group of kids that arrived together on buses the day before the Little Mo matches start. They had several coaches and parents there who put them through some drills on the basketball courts at the park and then they played some informal soccer games on a field right next to the tennis courts.

Not one kid noticed Venus at first. In fact the kids that did watch in spurts at first were watching my daughter instead, I suppose since they were closer in age and tennis girls seem to all want to check out the other tennis girls. Also, Venus wears sweat pants and a sweat shirt and looks nothing in practice as she does in her match outfits.

Then I heard one of their coaches say “these kids are playing right behind Venus Williams and they have no idea who she is”. Then some parents started watching and gradually the kids did too. A few of the older girls knew her, but most of the kids watched because the heard she was someone famous. She makes her loud sound on every shot or serve in practice so that also attracts attention. Its funny because practicing next to her sounds exactly like when you watched her on TV!

The her father got tired and wanted to leave early. He tried to walk through the huge group and several parents were coming up and asking him questions. His health is not the best since he has a stroke in the past. Poor guy had to make it through a gauntlet of kids and parents to get to the parking lot.

Scoop – fascinating snippet about H Wightman. When she set up the W Cup she envisaged it becoming equivalent to the Davis Cup but for all sorts of reasons of course that didn’t happen, which is a pity in a way.

Caroline Wozniacki has announced she will retire, apparently following the 2020 AO.

Hartt – not entirely surprising. I think Caro’s done well to stay around as long as she has, what with injuries and arthritis.

Clutch of retirements recently. Anna-Lena Groenefeld also leaving the scene – good doubles player but never really made it in singles for Germany. Petko hasn’t mentioned retiring but I’d give her maybe one more year.

Wow, Wozniacki retires. Guess should have seen it coming with the executive education classes at Harvard Business School. Well Woz…you were…not Clijsters but still good. Will go down on history as one of Serena’s party friends!

Clijsters: a comeback so her kids watch her play. Unless something we don’t know, that’s the reason, bored parent that wants to set an example for the kids 🙂

re Venus Williams. The more I look at it, more I believe Richard Williams. He did something more important than coach his daughters, he paired them with good training such as the part time coach they had in Compton, who was himself an excellent tennis player. Did he play off people? Yes. Was he the most forthright guy? NO. Did he tell tall tales? Yes.

But did he and Oracene Williams, their mother, know what they had to do to get their kids better training?

Absolutely.

And what of the grumbling parents paying loads of money at Macci’s with lackluster results and Macci knowing their names not their games?

Jokes on them. They put up the big bucks but you can’t pay your way to slam glory. Motivation is a funny thing and drive is too. You give others same strokes and they won’t do as well, because the Williams girls were trained for shattering records. Just like Djokovic or Agassi the freak show. Or Sampras.

Venus in documentary said her dad kind of brainwashed them. But can anyone dispute what it did for the sport? Turning convention upside down? With no peers at all, outlasting Capriati and Co. and so many many more?

Probably. Wozniacki basically said: she’s tired of the tour. Traveling for better part of fourteen years straight. Won a good amount of matches.

Wozniacki had a very good, even excellent career, but I hesitate to call it “very fine” or “inspiring” – I think that wouldn’t be fair to Wozniacki. Collected her one slam a la Pennetta and Myskina. Goes down in record books as Denmark’s best player and I guess another in the pride of Poland outside of Poland!

I caught a Woz match. Can’t say it was a bundle of fun. She hit a steady stream of moonballs – she had some good shots that players should have.

A good match is an up tempo player vs the Woz, because otherwise you may fall asleep. We left the match. Stosur found her groove and Woz found a way to leave the match.

Generally, I was not a fan of Wozniacki’s defensive style of play, but sometimes she would be a bit more aggressive than usual and I enjoyed those matches.

Sherry- yes, Woz does resemble Sabatini a bit, although Gabriela retired much younger, mainly because she disliked the spotlight (something you couldn’t say about Caroline) and the lifestyle and didn’t see herself improving much as a player. And as you say she always had Steffi ahead of her. They had some great contests, particularly the VS final in ’88 (I think).

Gabriela still is a nice person – she’s never had a family but does a lot of charity work and received an award for that this year. She’s a friend of Federer’s and has a house in Switzerland near his.

My apologies to Woz – there were many messages to her but the usual online sites didn’t quote them. Or hadn’t when I looked.

Maybe players just text Wozniacki directly or call her. Not as if we the public need to know…we know about a percent of every player’s life. Social media isn’t reality 🙂

Some websites are searching for content because they are so unoriginal and lazy. I apologize for being so blunt. Some social media leads to actual stories, such as Kyrgios going after people (which is bad on his part) or fans sending hideous messages to players like Donald Young (yes, a very small number of people sent the worst messages to Donald Young, total bile and this was years before the ridiculous incident with Ryan Harrison, which ruined both of them over the past year or more). Totally unrepeatable things that were akin to me saying the worst things possible about anyone on this site (I try to be even but admit Jackson brings out the worst in me with the Nadal fact checking, sorry Jackson).