Sunday, January 25, 2009

Australian Open tidbits

Abigail Lorge nicely sums up the Safina-Cornet match.

Speaking of Safina, some commentator--I think it was Pam Shriver--said that "She (Safina) has a new name now," referring to Dinara's request to be called "SAFina," rather than "SafEEna." That is the kind of nonsense we have come to expect from commentators (and especially Shriver) when they are asked to correctly pronounce a player's name. Safina does not have a new name--she has just become assertive about getting people to pronounce it correctly. In the past, she followed the Sharapova example of giving up before even making an effort. I wish players would not do that because I consider the act of dumbing down to be a cultural crime.

Here's a quick interview with Yan and Zheng.

For some of us, it was hard to watch the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships and the Australian Open at the same time.

Ana Ivanovic has decided that perhaps getting a coach is a good idea, after all.

Speaking of coaches, Ricardo Sanchez pleased Marion Bartoli with a nice gesture following her defeat of his protege, Jelena Jankovic. He went to her and told her how well she had played.

Bartoli, by the way, has added running to her already-grueling training regimen.

6 comments:

Sasha said...

Like JJ trying to get people to say her name as YELL-eh-nuh instead of Yah-LAY-nuh. I should really stop blog stalking you.

wtaoncourt.blogspot.com

Diane said...

Yes, I wish JJ would say something. And Kuznetsova, and many others.

rodgerlee said...

yes Diane.... i'm sure i speak for many others who want to find out how to pronounce all the russian/eastern european players' names correctly....it's so confusing....where is a reference/link for this info..???

Diane said...

Rodger, the link should be the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour site, but the site's player profiles do contain errors, so the site is not 100% reliable. However, it is the only guide with which I'm familiar.

Anonymous said...

Diane, unless you insisting on watching your sports live, why not get a VCR/DVR. It's wonderful, watch one, record the other. I don't know how I would've managed otherwise...of course, now I have a stack of about 10 DVDs with matches that I have yet to watch.

Speaking of Kuznetsova, how DO you pronounce her name? I was cheered last night (actually this morning) when Tiffany Cherry (from ESPN) right off asked Dementieva how to pronounce her name. It's de-MYENT-e-va.

Diane said...

I do want to watch most matches, live, yes. Once I know what happened, it takes most of the interest out for me--but not always. There are occasional matches I want to see--or at least see part of--just to know what happened. But I also don't have time to let matches stack up so I can watch them, so I just try to stick to live.

I have a Tennis TV subscription, so that will take care of everything but the majors. Alas, I hear Wimbledon Live is no more--I really liked Wimbledon Live. I could watch a match on TV and a match on the notebook at the same time.

I've been screaming for years to have Dementieva's name correctly pronounced. I'm now hearing a few commentators pronounce it right. My understanding--and I could be wrong--is that Sveta really is an OVA.