Monday, September 5, 2011

Passing shots

Women's Tennis Blog gives us a good look at fashion at the U.S. Open. Mattek-Sands' tube socks are the best ever.

There are 26 gold badge chair umpires, but only thirteen of them are officiating at the U.S. Open. The rest of them decided it wasn't worth it. They said that the U.S. Open pay less than the other majors, and this year, the umpires told that their pay would be cut by 30%. One official said "We've heard they spend more on the flower arrangements at the Open than they do on officiating."

Li Na and Yanina Wickmayer have withdrawn from the Toray PPO in Tokyo.

Get to know Anastasiya Yakimova.

Caroline Wozniacki, Maria Sharapova and the team of Kveta Peschke and Katarina Srebotnik have qualified for the WTA Championships, which will be played in Istanbul.

8 comments:

Todd Spiker said...

Hmmm, I wonder if it was a gold badge judge(s) that missed all three of those calls that Kirilenko had to challenge in order to reverse and get correct in that tie-breaker against Kuznetsova the other night?

Diane said...

Good question. Who was the umpire, do you remember?

Marija said...

Diane, thanks for the mention! :)

By the way, you have a little typo in the second row.

Keep up the great work with Women Who Serve!

Diane said...

The cursor has been flying lately. Thanks, Marija. And thanks for your kind words.

Todd Spiker said...

No, I can't remember who the umpire was for that match.

I guess that's what the replay system is for, though. In the Alves-umpired Capriati/Serena match that helped make replay a reality, a similar series of calls couldn't have been "checked." Of course, if I remember correctly, the big controversy with that match was that Alves was (incorrectly) overruling line calls from the chair. I guess the Stosur/Kirilenko shots were too close for that, but it's odd how all three calls (I think) were on the same end of the court, and at least two were on the baseline. I don't know if it was the same person making each call or not. Do the judges rotate in the middle of a tie-break?

Diane said...

The Alves controversy wass bigger than that, but the sports media covered it up. At the time, Alves had a silver badge, and the ITF violated its own rule by putting her in the chair--there was supposed to be a gold-badge umpire in the chair. She had worked for hours on end and they violated their own rule again by having her work even more extra hours. But the ITF got away it, and Alves became somewhat of a scapegoat. (And not to my surprise at all, the ever-inaccurate Tennis Channel has continued to present only part of the story.)

Diane said...

Ah, I forgot to address your question, Todd: I'm not sure at what point--if at all--the line judges rotate during a tiebreak.

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