Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Miscellany

Tennis X reports that, according to Ladbrokes, the odds for Justine Henin's winning the French Open are 7/4. Following Henin are Serena Williams (4-1), Jelena Jankovic (6-1), Venus Williams (11-1), and Sam Stosur (14-1).

Luke Jensen says that too many tour women "just fall off the map."

Be sure to check out the latest edition of the Backspin Time Capsule, which features Monica Seles.

Luke Crampton says that Roger Federer is the only player (both ATP and WTA) who never looks up at his box. No kidding...he really said that.

Caroline Wozniacki, via Eurosport, will publish a video blog throughout the French Open.

5 comments:

Overhead Spin said...

Diane, I am beginning to think that main stream commentators are now reading this blog and taking our talking points and putting them into their own words. The word is getting out and it is wonderful to see. Today's link - Sports Illustrated
http://tinyurl.com/2dmx7df

Diane said...

Interesting. I wish he'd gone even farther.

I, too, wondered why more wasn't made of the Federer whiff, but it didn't bother me that much because I think the only other outcome would be for too much to be made of it.

Anonymous said...

I don't get the part about "no kidding, he really said that." Do you think it isn't true? I don't recall seeing Roger look at his box, and I can't think of other players that don't look at some point during a match.

Overhead Spin said...

Even though I hate on court coaching there are a lot of men IMHO who could do well to use on court coaching if it was ever introduced on the men's tour. Have you ever seen people like Verdasco, Almagro, Roddick, and many others behaving way worst than the women. They smash racquets, they curse out the ball kids, they slam balls, and nothing is ever said about it. All everyone does is laugh it off, but get a woman looking at her box or smashing a racquet or heavens forbid saying the F word and all of a sudden she should be drawn and quartered. Enough already.

I have to say that I watch a lot of Federer matches and it is true he never looks to his box. Venus does not do it as well. If Serena cannot find her game she looks to her family like "where is it" and her mother and father usually look on quite closed faced as if to say why are you looking at us, did we look like we took it.

I watched the match. I maintain it was a bad bounce. The surface in Madrid was absolutely horrible. During the Serena/Nadia match it was really bad. The ball just kept jumping up into both ladies and made it really hard to control.

Diane said...

Well, Anon, Venus comes to mind immediately. There are other players who look at their boxes only to give a "yes!" signal, and I don't think that's what the author meant by "looking at the box."

Players who I think look pretty independent on the court--besides Venus--include Stosur, Serena (she makes self-deriding faces, which can hardly be called gestures of dependence), Clijsters, and Peer, to name a few.

Saying that Federer is the only player just comes across as a rhetorical fallacy, and I'm pretty sure it is. And not all "looking at boxes" is bad.