Saturday, June 28, 2014

Rain delay miscellany

Wimbledon: Where it rains all the time but there is no play on the middle Sunday. All rational thinking brought to you by the All England Club.

Pat Cash had to withdraw from the legends competition because his shoes had some color on them. These are the only shoes that Cash can wear that will prevent injury to his feet, but apparently that meant nothing to Wimbledon officials. The former Australian star said that some of the WTA players were told to remove their bras because of color. Naturally, at her press conference, the very first thing Simona Halep was asked about was the "bra issue." Since the WTA would never dream of speaking up about the constant harassment--overt and otherwise--of the Romanian player, I'm ready to Simona to just stand up and punch out the next "reporter" who wants to talk with her about breasts and underwear.

Caroline Wozniacki called the checks of WTA players' underwear "pretty creepy." No kidding. Where, oh where, is Tatiana Golovin when you need her?

I can barely tolerate Wimbledon, as readers of this blog know. The "rules" and "traditions" are generally either totally player- and fan-unfriendly (and make no sense), or they are used to thinly disguise bigotry and delusional values. In some cases, they are not even followed correctly by the officials.

We're still in the first week, and the baseline grass has already disappeared on the courts.

Eugenie Bouchard and Andrea Petkovic have never before played each other on grass. Petko has won all three of their matches, two of which were on hard courts, and one (2014 Charleston semifinals) of which was on clay. Whether they play today depends up on the weather.

Update on Sloane Stephens: As of Thursday night, Sloane Stephens' agent had confirmed that Stephens was still working with Paul Annacone. Annacone neither confirmed nor denied the rumor that the two had split. Saying that Stephens is "still working" with Annacone sounds to me like the agent was just grabbing at a technicality, perhaps that the new coaching arrangement doesn't begin until after Wimbledon.

3 comments:

Eric said...

LOL, Diane.

Seems you're not the only one:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/wimbledon/10926722/I-hate-Wimbledon-says-racquet-smasher-Benoit-Paire.html

I really don't know why they didn't move Ivo/Lis to Centre...I mean what's the point of building it, if you don't use it?

Diane said...

I have no idea why they didn't move that match to Centre Court, other than the standard Wimbledon reason--it makes too much sense.

Todd.Spiker said...

They probably didn't want people who paid for a ticket to see three matches actually get to watch a fourth for "free."

CAN'T have that, now can we? ;)