Marcelo Rios was involved in a nasty crash last week in Chile with his orange mcclaren sports car but was uninjured – I was sent a short video of Marcelo cursing at a Media guy who was videotaping the scene just after the police arrived – Rios is still Rios — I was fortunate to play doubles tennis with a former Indian Davis Cup captain on Sunday and he revealed insights about the Leander Paes – Bhupathi relationship: Mahesh Bhupathi is the captain of the Davis Cup team now but has a jealousy of Paes popularity and success and is blocking Paes from being able to break the Davis Cup doubles wins record by keeping him off the team and saying Rohan Bopanna (who just won the doubles in Monte Carlo with Pablo Cuevas) is the better doubles player now – He even did a last-minute tease on Paes by having him fly all the way to India last year for a tie but not determining the team roster till the day before the tie and he left Paes off — Sat with Nick Bollettieri during the Sarasota Open Challenger final of Tiafoe vs Sandgren and we discussed my doing a book about Nick and his historic academy in the similar format of my Rios book of interviewing tons of players and coaches etc who attended or trained at NBTA and having them share stories and memories about Nick and the academy which there are tons and tons and tons of incredible stories and anecdotes 🙂 Really excited to start doing this book which will be a colossally fun read but also a lot of work to track down and interview all the people all the characters who have connections to NBTA — Jim Pierce (father of Mary) passed away last week RIP: Jim (real name Bobby) was a great guy and a funny witty intelligent man though his image is one of a madman who used controversial and perhaps unsound methods of motivating his daughter to tennis greatness – But I spent a few hours with Jim at the Eddie Herr tourney (he lived around the corner from it in Bradenton) three years ago and he was so fun to talk with and he was a very funny clever guy – Jim was pretty active on Facebook until health issues affected his life about a year ago- I recall Jim talking about his current wife Sveta who was from Czech Republic and how loving and caring she was how she would caress his hand while driving he really loved her – Also Jim shared a story about spending time with Richard Williams and when in tough times financially Richard would give Jim a thousand bucks cash to help out – Please understand Jim was a great guy too and not just the crazy tennis father that the media portrayed – Really happy to have chatted and interviewed Tennys Sandgren who reached the finals of Sarasota Open and I can tell you he is one of the best interviews in tennis – Stay tuned for the Tennys Sandgren Biofile later this week —
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Dan Markowitz · April 25, 2017 at 9:14 pm
Sandgren is an interesting looking cat; looks like he was in the movie The Big Lebowski or Magnolia. Amazing he’s still at it and is progressing unlike his Volunteer teammate, who’s name I can’t even remember.
Scoop, the Bollettieri book would be something. But I would make this a prose book because I think you could add so much more than just an interview book by rounding it out with some prose.
Sorry to hear about Jim Pierce. He was a true character, good and bad, but I remember Spadea saying he was the best coach he ever had and he convinced Vince he could win the French Open (even though he only made it a couple of times to the third round).
Sorry to hear about Bhuphathi-Paes rift. I can see where people might find Leander too full of himself, but every time I’ve met him, even once at a fellow tennis teaching pro I knew apartment, when Paes was dating the beautiful sister of this pro’s wife, he was very gracious.
Scoop Malinowski · April 26, 2017 at 8:50 am
Dan; You mean Rhyne Williams and I think Rhyno is still out there grinding – Nick specifically said he thinks my Rios book “is excellent” and he would like it to be done in that style – Of course I can add some narrative – Nice words by Vince about Jim Pierce – Leander Paes is one of the best things about tennis – One of the greatest ambassadors the sport has ever had – Every tournament I cover and he is playing I always must go and watch Paes play and practice because it’s always great value entertainment –