Passing shots

Venus and Serena Williams have both withdrawn from the French Open. This is not unexpected, given the health problems they have experienced in the past several months.

Kim Clijsters has not yet decided whether to play in the French Open, but her participation is looking more likely than some thought.

The latest Backspin Time Capsule is all about Monica Seles. It brings back a lot of memories.

Mary Carillo will join the broadcast team for Tennis Channel for both the French Open and the U.S. Open. In Paris, Carillo will host Tennis Channel's live network desk, do interviews, provide analysis, and do some selected play-by-play commentating.

Here is a brief preview of Adidas fashion for the French Open.

Quote of the day

As a woman, I cringe when I see top ranked multi-millionaire athletes needing on-court instruction on how to hold serve. How anyone thinks that imagery is good for women's tennis is beyond me.

Mary Carillo

Quote of the day

"I have sounded like this match two times in my life, and both times--at the end of it--I produced children."

Mary Carillo, listening to the screaming of Azarenka and Sharapova

(The day's other great quote can be found here.)

Forgotten Lewis Carroll manuscript found in NBC studio

Ted Robinson: "I realize I've been pronouncing her name wrong. In Australia, they called her SAFinuh, but I think it should be SaFEEnuh."

Mary Carrillo: "No, actually, we always called her SaFEEnuh, and when we asked her 'how do you pronounce your name?' she said 'It's SAFinuh.' So I don't know WHAT to call her."

Pardon me while I get my head to stop spinning...

A good feature story on Mary Carillo

In the St. Petersburg Times.

Thank you, Mary Carillo

Yesterday on NBC, during the Djokovic-Hewitt match, the commentators were discussing the pronunciation of the Serbian player's name. One of them said: "It's 'JOKE-a-vich'--I asked him." Which prompted Mary Carillo to say something to the effect of "Asking the player--what a novel idea."

Amen. It's easy to look pronunciations up on the tours' official sites (at least I know they are right there on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour), and it's just as easy to ask the players. I have written many times that I wish players were more assertive about this issue, but commentators resist being corrected. After being told how to pronounce Djokovic's name, John McEnroe explained that it might "take him a while" to learn this. Hello! He is paid--a lot of money, I might add--to talk about tennis players. How hard is it to learn how to pronounce their names?

A couple of years ago, ESPN did an entire feature on the pronunciation of Sesil Karatantcheva's name, which she kindly pronounced for them (and it isn't hard to say), and after the feature was over, they proceeded to--you guessed it--mispronounce her name.

And then there was the time that poor Claudine Schaul had the audacity to ask the commentators to pronounce her name correctly. Cliff Drysdale was just beside himself with anxiety, and Pam Shriver--no surprise--was sarcastic, and blamed Schaul for the fact that she and Drysdale were saying her name wrong.