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Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About America's Greatest Tennis Tournament.
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The Internet is absolutely wild with facts, figures and trivia about the US Open. A quick search for “US Open Trivia” results in approximately 10.5 million links for golf stats. Revising the search to “US Open Tennis Trivia” results in exactly 174,000 Google-searched webpages. After scouring the depths of the interweb, I have found some astounding facts about the greatest tennis tournament in the history of these United States of America. USA! USA! USA!
Jimmy Connors, Roger Federer and Pete Sampras have won the tournament more than any other player, at 5 wins each. John McEnroe holds the record for most Open-Era records at 4 Singles and 4 Doubles Crowns. However, Martina Navratilova holds the record for most-wins in all competitions with 4 Singles, 9 Doubles and 3 Mixed Double Crowns. That’s great and all, but who can eat the most dogs in the world? American Joey Chestnut. And who has the smallest waist in the world? American Cathie Jung. USA! USA! USA!
Taylor Dent holds the record for the fastest serve in US Open history at 145 MPH. A few friends and I recently hypothesized at how much it would hurt to be hit with a 145 MPH ball and went out to a freeway to test our luck. With radar gun in hand, no cars were going fast enough, so we bought last minute tickets to Germany. AIR TRIP! Most of the Volkswagens and Audis were peddling at a modest pace. The occasional Bugatti would come by, but handicapped itself by going a mere 130. We returned home, defeated and intact, only to realize the potential of American classics like slingshots and Red Ryder BB guns. My friend Johnny squatted in the driveway while our buddies Chad and Andy prepared the slingshot. A small potato was loaded into the rubber shoe and after my count down, the potato was launched. I was covered with small potato skin flecks and Johnny yelped like a small puppy. He said it hurt, and now he has a welt the size of a frisbee. In the end, I’m glad we experimented in this act of American ingenuity and came out with some conclusive results about what it would feel like to be hit by Dent’s power serve: it would hurt. How many times can I say it? USA! USA! USA!
The US Open currently uses floor product by the name of Deco Turf. The synthetic hard court flooring is composed of rubber, silica, acrylic and is placed on a bed of either asphalt or concrete. The court is then lightly brushed with a coat of Acetaia Leonardi’s Balsamico la Corte balsamic vinegar and λ /lambda/ olive oil before soaking in shallow pan of 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild Jeroboam and braised with thin rue in a nonstick pan. Not one of those new nonstick pans though, but rather something more classically nonstick like a nice piece of cast iron cookery that has been glazed in oil for a fortnight. This allows for the court to reward a serve-and-volley technique and was used in both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. Deco Turf, in a similar vein to Houston Astro’s Astroturf, will soon show up on your grandparent’s patios and your nephew’s indoor-soccer stadiums and is undoubtedly going to change the game. Players will hire chemists to break down the floor, test its durability, density and dynamism (every chemists’ 3-D’s) to find out the secrets which lie inside. Don’t doubt a full-scale ATP and WTA investigation into the legitimacy of such experimental manufacturing practices – I’ll go ahead and say now that 100:1 this is the death of tennis as we know. What’s next? Tennis on bouncy castles? Tennis on trampolines? Tennis on the beach? Tennis on carpet? Tennis on a bed of nails? Tennis on a bed of RED HOT nails? Tennis on the moon!?! Get ready to buy your Nike interstellar breathing apparatuses, because this stuff is getting all kinds of wacky.
USA! USA! USA!
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/1/2010 11:47:47 AM | with 1 comments
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Beatrice Capra is your favorite player too???
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The recent upset of number-18 seeded Aravane Rezai by number-371 seeded Beatrice Capra brings about a great question: Who is Beatrice Capra? By now you’ve certainly read her WTA bio, which lists her as a 5’9” Floridian who would probably be a journalist if it weren’t for her tennis knack. But who is she really? There is no budget to make expensive plane flights or phone calls, so there will be much speculation. This is, if you will, a WTA-CSI.
Her mother, Laurie, a college tennis player herself, undoubtedly pushed this young talent onto the court at a young age. 9 is both the age at which she began and the number of years she has been playing. I will not let this become a perverted textual version of Kevin Spacey/Brad Pitt’s Se7en, nor will it resemble anything like Jim Carrey’s experimental 23. But really, who can deny the existence of something suspicious? Against Rezai, the score was 7-5, 2-6, 6-3, which if the numbers are added up, is 29, which added together (2+9) is 11, which added together (1+1) is 2. Now take Capra’s rank: 317. If those number are added up, you get 11, which added together (1+1 again) is 2. NOW DON’T TELL ME THERE ISN’T SOMETHING GOING ON!
Tomorrow, American wildcard Beatrice Capra will face number-14 seeded Maria Sharapova. Much like the American upsetter Melanie Oudin of 2009, this could be an interesting game. If you remember all the way back to last year’s US Open, Oudin, ranked 70 th at the time, crushed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, beat number 4-seeded Elena Dementieva, upset Maria Sharapova, and narrowly won over Nadia Petrova, only to lose against the number-19 seeded Danish Caroline Wozniacki. Not bad for a woman ranked 70 th in the world! But let’s get back to the present – the past is dead and gone. What has happened back then is great and all, but I have a new iPhone that can do things that the iPhone I had last year could never do. In the 2010 US Open, Sharapova beat Jarmila Groth in the first round and went on to beat Iveta Benesova 6-1, 6-2. Now, if you take those and add them up, you get the numbers 7 and 8. Now, if you add those numbers up, you get 15, which added together (1+5) is 6. Looking back at Beatrice Capra’s most recent match, she scored 7 in the first set, 2 in the second and 6 in the third. Adding up those numbers gets you 15, which added together (1+5, once again) is 6. Number 6 versus number 6. YOU CAN’T SERIOUSLY EVEN THINK TO DENY THE COLD HARD FACTS THAT WERE JUST BROKEN DOWN FOR YOU. Tell everyone you meet on the street that you heard it here first – three tie breaks.
Will this right-handed 18-year-old from Maryland with a twin sister and of French decent really go on to win this year’s WTA US Open? The answer, faithful readers, is a resounding yes. Yes, she will.
Now, you’ve read all the way up to this point, so you’re obviously already wearing a Beatrice Capra shirt that you ironed on your self last night and have mortgaged your house and stolen all of your mother’s money to place illegal US Open bets, knowing that Beatrice will be crowned champion of the 2010 US Open (your mother will thank you for what you’ve done), I recommend this to you: forget everything you’ve ever heard about tennis or learned about tennis players – there is only one: Beatrice Capra. The name will sound from the hilltops and you will tell all of your friends that you were the first to predict it. Well, after me that is. You’re welcome.
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/3/2010 11:49:17 AM | with 0 comments
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The History Behind Review Technology
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You know when the players ask them for a play review? You know how it doesn’t really make sense when you see it? You’re like, “Wait, how’d they do that?” Well, Hawk-Eye is how they do that.
Hawk-Eye was essentially created after Serena Williams’ 2004 US Open controversial quarterfinal loss to Jennifer Capriati. Since 2006, the technology has been implemented in various tournaments with varying levels of success. Several high-profile matches are cited as hinged upon the technology: 2007 Australian Open’s Amelie Mauresmo match, 2007 Dubai Tennis Championship’s Rafael Nadal match, 2007 Wimbeldon’s Roger Federer, and 2009 Indian Wells Masters’ Ivan Ljubicic and Andy Murray match.
The technology was originally developed in 2001 by a couple of British research engineers for a airplane-RADAR firm, but has since been acquired by the television company Sunset + Vine and renamed Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd. Specifically, the technology is based on the visual and timed triangulation of several (4 or more) high-speed cameras. By calculating the exact position of the ball through each camera angle, a 3D position is mapped. To make a call, the cameras need to compare the position of the ball in 2 or more of the angles. Additionally, the technology can predict the future and see where the ball will travel. Oh, and it also invented existentialism and knows the exact day that you will die. Oh yeah, and it can also see you in the shower and understand complex emotions like contempt and rapture. With all of the data it has created and it has been given, the Hawk-Eye technology can track and analyze players’ statistics and playing trends. It, surprisingly, doesn’t make calls, but graphically displays the replicated 3D play for the audiences/judges in real time. This is where you see that ball that flies and creates a little ellipse-shaped tennis ball shadow. And actually, upon the implementation of this tool for tennis, the designers were stumped when it repeatedly showed the mark as several centimeters off. Then, they realized that a tennis ball doesn’t create a circle when it hits a hard surface at a rapid speed – it creates an ellipse. Problem solved.
With all of this information pulsing around in your cortex and firing all your synapses and what have you, I ask you this: has Hawk-Eye made tennis better, or is it another example of a sport becoming too technologically dependent? While I wouldn’t suggest doing away with all technology like in soccer, where stray goals are often scored before the very eyes of blind and negligent referees, should there be any changes to this Hawk-Eyed challenge ability of tennis players? I can’t say yes or no, but I will say yes and no. The ability to challenge close balls is indeed a good one, but where will it stop? Perhaps we will next strap players with RFID tags and monitor their exact foot paths to control foot faults. Or perhaps the lines can be replaced with lasers which will sense not only the exact movement of the player, but the ball and the racket. Too, maybe tournaments will force each player to wear microphones and hire lip readers to both listen for obscenities and look for hushed-breath curses. In this dystopia-like world, we will certainly exist as obese aliens, simultaneously bloated and shriveled from the lack of both exercise and nutrition. We will not attend tennis matches in person (it is too difficult), but will watch them on the small, electric handheld computers powered by the sun which we long ago blocked to store energy and slow global warming. The tennis players are the gladiators of our time – the losers being destroyed and recycled as Soylent Green. Welcome to the future – tennis is awesome!!!
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/6/2010 1:17:16 PM | with 0 comments
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Is she worth all the hype?
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So this morning I was reading the Bleacher Report and read that Caroline Wozniacki is the savior of women’s tennis. Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know if that’s true. First of all, I didn’t really know that women’s tennis was in jeopardy. Those Williams seem to be doing well and are still popping up everywhere. Also, there are bunch of fine ladies that are always showing up in Maxim magazine and on the covers of GQ and Sports Illustrated. Plus, isn’t Andy Roddick married to a woman? Whatever it was you meant by that segment, Bleacher Report, I dismiss it. I would instead like to show you what you’re doing. You’re hyping up something that won’t be hyped. Here’s a taste of your own medicine:
New Coke. This failure of a product was “the next big thing”, but quickly become the thing that did itself under. Coke is (and was) without a doubt the most popular brand in the world. Coke thought that it would be good to redo the taste that so many people already enjoyed. This was a failure (and Wozniacki’s drink of choice).
Nintendo’s Virtual Boy. This next-generation console actually gave people seizures and made them nearly blind. After shoving your face onto a small screen, you used a small controller to move through poorly designed games while loud noises made you deaf. Advertised as a “portable system”, the console was not designed to be moved and needed a head-high stand to be used. Of the few games designed, all were monochromatic. Needless to say, it was a massive failure. I hear it’s Wozniacki’s favorite way to play.
Betamax. Touted as the “next big thing” for home video, this giant failure of a product pitted your grandparents against my grandparents as they fought over the format of the future. I guess my grandparents won. And guess who grandparents lost? Wozniacki. I hear rumors that her great-grandparents had massive stock holdings. I also hear that she herself invested in HD DVD and is only playing tennis to pay back her massive debts to Toshiba. Whatever.
The Hindenberg. Remember when helium was the next wave of air flotation stabilization? Neither do I. And indeed the creators of the Hindenberg didn’t either. Choosing to opt out of the stable element of helium and use the highly flammable element hydrogen, this was a floating airship disaster-waiting to happen like no other. Not to say that Wozniacki is anything similar.
All I’m saying is this: Don’t tell me I didn’t tell you so!
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/8/2010 3:24:00 PM | with 0 comments
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This is 3D Tennis, Right Here, Right Now.
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In reading the New York Times’ Straight Sets blog, I have already learned a new thing at 10 in the morning: tennis can be 3-D. This sounds absolutely amazing. Balls whizzing at my face, Caroline Wozniacki really really close up, ball fetchers running by – what’s not to like? Except the terror of Nadal up-close, the irate and semi-slave like attitude of the ball catchers and, well, the balls whizzing at my face. Still, it would be great to see everyone’s favorite sport in a third dimension.
And heck, maybe they’ll finally invent those fourth dimension glasses so I can finally see tesseracted tennis balls and three dimensional shadows. Yeah, you read that right – three dimensional shadows. Shadows are no longer puny 2-D displays, but tangible 3-D hologram-like things.
And shocks, while we’re at it, let’s check the fifth dimension. We could be watching tennis balls as triacontakaiditerons, complete with eighty triangle faces, eighty tetrahedron cells, and thirty two pentachoron hypercells. If that doesn’t make you get giddy about tennis, you can just go ahead and move your mouse to that red thing in the corner and click it – this sport isn’t for you. It’s hard to deny that the future looks amazing, especially when you’re looking at in a new dimension.
But back to the boring three dimensions of the US Open. Apparently Panasonic created a small viewing room near one of the stadiums in Flushing Meadows and used it to screen the broadcasted matches in 3-D. While obviously a gimmicky thing to do, the real question (and the question asked by the article) is: Is it worth it? The article mainly discusses how they might use the technology for teaching tennis. Personally, I find it much more enjoyable to watch action movie explosions and whizzing tennis balls. And Caroline Wozniacki.
But back to my question: Is it worth it? Last Christmas, I went out with a friend and saw this movie everyone was going on about called Avatar. Sort of like a cartoon with the lady from Aliens, it’s about this company going into a new planet to use their resources. The people are transformed into Avatars so as to better coax them into letting the US Army pillage their land. The guy, who is wheelchair bound in real life, but walks and runs as an Avatar, falls in love with one of the blue alien Avatars and then things get complicated. Directed by James Cameron, it was touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread and the greatest use of the third dimension… ever. I don’t want to make too many enemies here, but I’m gonna go ahead and say it was just alright. 3D isn’t really 3D. It’s sort of the equivalent of using two cameras at once with different focal lengths. There’s a hazier background that looks further away and then the closer things look a little bit like their popping out. But it’s nothing like that Disney commercial where that snake starts slithering out of the screen, or that horror movie where some knife gets thrown out at your face. It’s just sort of different looking, I guess. Plus you have to wear these gigantic glasses that obscure part of the screen. And if you’re not directly in the center, everything looks a little bit like it’s shifted off to the side and the effect doesn’t work at all.
So, if you like your tennis slightly hazy, a little distorted and really expensive ($2,000-3,000 plus nearly $200 glasses), go get a 3-D TV and start watching tennis. NOW! How’s that for a sale?
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/9/2010 11:10:03 AM | with 0 comments
Are you planning on staying up late tonight to watch a tennis match? It’s very important that you both stay up and keep your television on throughout the entire event, turning the volume up especially loud during commercials. I watch tennis throughout the night, trolling the internet for replays, until the wee hours of tomorrow. But that’s me. I understand that staying up late can be taxing on old souls. For those of you with a penchant for early rest and deep sleep (for the weak), there is an new an interesting Wall Street Journal article on tennis stepping into late night. I personally enjoy switching between Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel (Leno is dead to me. Long live Conan!!!), finally resting my eyes on trivia of Jeopardy and my ears on the gentle voice of Alex Trebek. But I will glad hand that over to the ruler of Valhalla (Who is Odin?) and switch it up to watch the Swiss five-time US Open winner (Who is Roger Federer?).
As the crusty sleep forms around my eyes, I will dream about Swiss cheeses, Swiss chocolates, Swiss railcars, Swiss mountains, and of course, Swiss tennis players.
Happy watching tonight.
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/9/2010 6:02:46 PM | with 0 comments
The guy from Ace of Cakes made a cake for the US Open. I could stop right there and you would know everything there is to know about that, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll go on to tell you about the history of Ace of Cakes, hypothesize about why the guy from Ace of Cakes would make a cake for the US Open, and even more importantly, why I’m writing this. I can answer that last one right now, actually. I’m writing this because I know you’ll read this. Ace of Cakes is one of the highest rated reality food TV shows (while the Stanley Cup was on in 2008, the show had higher ratings) and has been on for something like 8 seasons. If I were a cake maker, I’d be like, “Yo, Food Network, let me do a television show on wacky cakes that I make and the trials and tribulations of making them.” And they should say, “Uhh, no,” but they would of course say, “This is start of something great – YES!” And then I would do the TV show for a season or two until I got tired of making cakes, got tired of being silly on TV, got tired of having cameras follow me around at work, got tired of people recognizing me on the street for being “the guy who makes cakes”, got tired of creating non-existent drama in a kitchen with a bunch of my friends, or something else. Either way, I’d probably get pretty sick of it after a year or two. But then again, I’m not getting thrown piles and piles of money to make cakes and act silly and create fake drama and become a real life star.
No, no I am not.
Come to think of it, I would probably do a lot of things to make piles and piles of money. Not anything, you know, but a lot of things. I would let Rafael Nadal hit me with a tennis ball SUPER hard, if I was paid something to the order of a few thousand dollars. I would not look at Caroline Wozniacki walking by if someone paid something like a few hundred dollars. I would talk to Andy Murray and act like he isn’t a baby if someone paid me several hundred thousand dollars (or pounds). But that’s me.
And back to cakes. As I promised, here is a little bit of history on the Ace of Cakes television show – Starting in 2006, the Ace of Cakes television show is a show about the cake bakery, Charm City Cakes, from Baltimore, Maryland. The show’s star and bakery’s head baker, Duff Goldman, creates unique cakes usually through unique processes. What does that mean exactly? Well, watch the show and find out: Tuesdays and Thursday 10/9c and 10:30/9:30c!! But I can tell you what that means. It means that they make cakes for specific places and events, recreating thing that traditional cake makers told you were impossible. Additionally, they use nontraditional tools to make them: saws, fires, and power tools. And in all seriousness, I can just list some of the more interesting cakes that they have right here: bagel cake, Yoda cake, calculator cake, sneaker cake, popcorn cake, sewing machine cake, camera cake, Tibetan monastery cake, rib rack cake, fire truck cake, iPhone cake, heart and pacemaker cake, Pacman cake, Hubble telescope cake, Lost (the TV show) cake, Kung Fu Panda cake, and our nearest and dearest US Open cake. That’s a lot of cakes.
But do the great cake-makers on the Ace of Cakes really tennis? No, probably not. A lot of people watch tennis and they knew that not only would this go over well on their television show, but a bunch of people who were watching tennis would want to watch their show/eat their cakes. And how much is a cake from this place, anyways? According to their website, the minimum price for a cake is $1,000. Minimum.
All I’m saying is, “Tennis, let’s watch our weight here, okay?”
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/10/2010 11:47:39 AM | with 0 comments
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Super hot heat and super fast wind.
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Like in most sports, athletes always think of some reason to blame their lack of skill and training on outside forces like extra wind, hot air or bright sun. But really, do a little research about the places where you’re going to play. Train in a wind tunnel if you need to. Practice in Saudi Arabia (or Qatar). Or rent a space ship and play near the sun. Because, really, you’re gonna be making beaucoup cash.
The opening days of the Open were extraordinarily hot. Extraordinarily meaning in the 90s. Victoria Azarenka’s collapse signaled to all the other players that the heat was nothing to fool around with. But do you know where Azarenka is from? Belarus. You can’t expect a woman from the former Eastern Bloc to really handle a New York City summer. I’ve seen Do The Right Thing and it certainly gets hot in New York. So hot that it will burn an entire pizza parlor down! Still, if you weren’t drinking enough Evian water out there, you might get dehydrated. Plus, there’s all the sweat that could drop onto the court and make you slip.
But the real killer of the Open was the wind. As the players saw balls whipping at them from directions they could never have imagined, we all realized that something was going on there. As Federer took out Soderling through a windstorm, it came to be realized that Federer is really a magician. And possibly a storm chaser. Federer took the reins of the game as though he were playing in his backyard, while Soderling looked like he was in Twister. Federer was quoted as saying, "When it gets windy, I don't struggle much." Indeed, boss. I’m certain that none of you out there have ever tried to hit a tennis ball swerving toward your face at 100 miles an hour, so there’s no reason to mock Soderling. In fact, there’s really only reason to praise Federer and his superior element-powered skills. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
With gusts of up to 30 miles an hour, the real danger was the flying beach balls and brown paper bags from outlying Queens. Calm down, New York, it’s gonna be alright. And pretty please, be nice this weekend.
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/10/2010 5:55:55 PM | with 0 comments
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Don't Say Prisoners Can't Like Tennis. They Can. And Do.
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If I were 17 years old and locked up in a children's prison in Upstate New York, I would want to watch sexy tennis ladies play on television. And apparently, a bunch of the inmates at the Cookham Woods Young Offenders Institution didn't like that they weren't able to watch the Women's Final of the US Open between Vera Zvonereva and Kim Clijsters. After lunch, many of the inmates wanted to watch the final, but the staff turned off the television before the match. Screaming, "We want TV!" 32 inmates held a riot for 5 hours, creating several thousands of dollars in damage. All of this due to the hypothesis that these young offender wanted to watch a sexy Russian tennis player lose to a Belgian one.
But is that what happened? Of course it wasn’t. The young offenders actually are huge tennis fans, having followed the Clijsters through the entire 2010 US Open. Having printed their own t-shirts and popped several pounds of organically grown popcorn, the young inmates merely wanted to cheer on their newly adopted mascot and favorite tennis superstar. Evidently the prisoners had followed her since her loss to Zvonereva at the 2010 Rogers Cup in Montreal.
To think of the poor, young tennis enthusiasts, locked up, their tears ruining the ink on their newly printed t-shirts – the thought is sickening. What more is there to say?
ATTICA!!
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/13/2010 6:02:51 PM | with 0 comments
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Everyone is Trying to Bring Down the Son of the Highest.
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An Open Letter to Novak Djokovic:
Novak, I’m so, so sorry – I think you should have won. You had the determination, the passion and the entire world behind you. Or at the least the entire part of the world that matters. I too am tired of the Nike-emblazoned, bandana-wearing pretty-boy image so instilled in tennis today. I tire quickly of the pompous and the arrogant, neither of which you are. You are a true tennis player, through and through. A man who’s father comes to his matches, wearing shirts with his son’s face on it. My dad doesn’t do that (though I bet he might if I asked). But I bet you didn’t even ask, did you? Amazing.
Moreover, I’m annoyed by the fact that everyone says, “Oh, he’s so young – he’ll get his chance.” Well, I’m sure you will, but that’s not the point. Really, the point is that you could have won this time, but tennis has devolved into such a state where big rackets and “classy” players win. And I mean “classy” pejoratively, not in the way one might use the word to describe a nice restaurant they ate at, but more referentially to classism, or the breakdowns of socio-economic classes and social dynamics. That said, I believe the claim that it is acceptable that you didn’t win due to your age to be thoroughly ageist and is equitable to calling a senior citizen a geezer. How does anyone know what you should be doing a few years from now? Perhaps you want to get this professional tennis thing out of your system and experiment with other career paths, like say, construction or butchery. There’s something wholly respectable about an ex-tennis superstar being a butcher. And if you ever do, remember: I like my bacon sliced thick. And if you can, try and get grass-fed beef. I know it’s a little bit more expensive, but all things in moderation and grass-fed beef falls under the category of all.
But really, and this is where it gets down to the nitty-gritty, I bet you wouldn’t bite your trophies. I know you’re good friends with Rafael Nadal (I saw the two of you in a hot tub together somewhere), but why does he do that? It makes me think he has issues about becoming intimate or an iron deficiency. But in all seriousness, I think it’s a ploy to trademark an action. Other people will undoubtedly fall to the ranks of NADAL, biting trophies and not-so subtly giving homage to Nadal’s legacy. And do we really want a world full of Nadals? Well, no, of course we don’t.
I know you tried your darndest and that you didn’t give up. I just wanted to say sorry that you didn’t win and thanks for being a great sport. Even being down in the final set, you cracked a smile and belted a laugh at the luck you were given after the ball hit the net and dropped over to his side. Thanks for that. Best of luck.
Tell your dad to start selling those shirts – I’ll be first in line.
And remember, I want THICK slices.
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/14/2010 11:32:22 AM | with 0 comments
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Ratings of Most Attractive WTA Players
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Sorry prison - I guess you were wrong. The kids just love tennis.
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/14/2010 11:55:26 AM | with 0 comments
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Ines Sainz as a Tennis Reporter
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What if Ines Sainz was a tennis reporter? Ines Sainz, the Mexican sports reporter, has been making headlines as of recent for her run in with the New York Jets at their September 11 th training session. While interviewing players in the locker room, players were hooting, cat calling and ogling her. While she was standing at the sidelines, the coach of the Jets threw a pass in her direction, which a player caught and proceeded to run closer to her. This is another incident for the NFL, what with reporter Shannon Sharpe stepping down from NFL Today due to sexual harassment charges from Georgia woman Michele Bundy.
While it is not my place to put judgment on the situation or the actions of the players (or is it?), I am curious to know how she would fare as a tennis reporter. The TV Azteca reporter is informally known as the “Sexiest Sports Reporter in Mexico” and was chosen by the men’s magazine FHM as the 5th sexiest sports reporter in the entire world. But she is famous for being a football reporter and football is objective different from tennis. And an analysis of this situation necessitates a comparison of basic ideals, which, while easy to stereotype, is not easy to pinpoint. So let’s paint these stereotypes with a very large brush.
Football players are brutes. Tennis players are refined and genteel.
Football is a team sport. Tennis is not. (With regard to doubles, all football stereotypes apply).
Football players are dumb. Tennis players are well-read and educated.
Football players drink Cristal. Tennis players drink Cristal. (Though to be fair, football players drink Cristal because of its reputation Veblen and bourgeois product, therein limiting their real appreciation for it. Tennis players drink it because it tastes good, duh.)
Had Ines Sainz been a tennis reporter, she would be much more respected. Players would lay their sweat towels over puddles so her shoes don’t get wet. Tennis players would allow her to measure their biceps, as she did during the Super Bowl last year (Antonio Smith won), but they wouldn’t be weird about it and in fact, they’d probably not flex all the way, allowing their innate modesty to get the best of them. When she would ask them in press conferences after the game if they really foot faulted before they yelled at the lineswoman, they would politely lie, but wink to let her know the truth, as tennis players cannot tell a lie. Tennis players would ask her about her philosophical leanings, probing to see if she has read The Stranger yet or an esoteric book like Prousts’ Sodom and Gomorrah, but not in such a way that makes her feel inferior if she hasn’t read them yet. Tennis players would also do research and talk about things she has an interest in, say like they would know the fact that she has a law degree and ask her something about the complexities of Queretaro penal codes.
Obviously, this woman should be working in tennis. Tennis would never do a person wrong.
C’mon, Ines. Pleeeease.
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/15/2010 12:28:57 PM | with 0 comments
There’s been a lot of talk about Rafael Nadal being the GOAT of tennis. GOAT, of course, standing for Greatest Of All Time. However, I think that this is a wildly ignorant, as much of the assumptions made contemporarily, assumption about the history of tennis. Really, have we already forgotten about Pete Sampras and Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe and Rod Laver? These four men changed the game of tennis in their time and shouldn’t be leveraged from history by the likes of a young Spaniard.
Pete Sampras turned pro at the age of 17 and immediately won a Grand Slam at the US Open. Over the span of his career, Sampras won 14 Grand Slam titles and maintained a number-one ranking for 6 straight years. Also, he married an ex-Miss Teen USA, which I think gives him some serious props.
Bjorn Borg, in addition to having the coolest name in the history of tennis, is also one of the greatest tennis players the world of men’s tennis has seen. He won nearly half of every Grand Slam tournament that he entered and won nearly 90 percent of the matches he played in those tournaments. He has won the French Open 6 times, and won Wimbledon 5 times in a row (and during his 1976 road to victory didn’t lose a single set). Moreover, his story is compelling. He didn’t marry any young teen pageant winners, but married a few ladies and bought a penthouse in Monte Carlo and a Swedish island. The concept of his coming out of retirement should be wiped from the public’s collective memory, though the way he did it should not. Confronted with new, state of the art racquets, Bjorn strapped his sweatband on and played with wooden ones. It’s doesn’t matter that he failed. You’ve got to respect the man’s hustle.
John McEnroe may not be one of the greatest players of all time, but he certainly elevated the presence of tennis. While he may not have won a tote full of Grand Slams like Federer, he captured his share with 7 singles Grand Slam wins a few more with doubles. Most famous for his on-court outbreaks, this is the original “bad boy” (that’s what my mom says, at least) of tennis, and shouldn’t be disregarded as on the most important players and people to step on the court. Also, the guy still plays a mean game and throws fits like none other.
Australian Rod Laver is an old great. With a career spanning both the Amateur Era and Open Era, Laver won all the Grand Slam titles 2 years in a row and was the number 1 player in the world for 7 years straight. But beyond that, he’s got some really cool adidas that my aunt and uncle still sometimes wear around when they are doing yard work, and really, what could be my GOAT than that?
So let’s go ahead and not speak too soon – relative to the entire space-time continuum, this is but a inconceivably miniscule blip. Compared to the number of years Nadal has been ranked number 1, the universe is about 6,875,000,000* times more important. Just a little perspective.
Happy Friday.
*Using a measurement of the Universe as 13.75 ± 0.17 billion years old.
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/17/2010 11:59:23 AM | with 1 comments
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Rafael Is A Magician, Among Other Things.
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You know, I really hate to do this, but I’m gonna have to talk about Rafael Nadal. After cruising the internet for over 4 hours this weekend, I found innumerable articles of the greater-than-thouness of Nadal, the “Is he the best, ever? Yes! Yes he is the best!”, the “He has always been my favorite player, obviously” and, of course, the “He is so hot!” of Nadal. But is he any of those things?
The answer, fair readers, is no.
I understand the difference between objectivity and subjectivity and I can comfortably and easily say that Nadal is objectively not any of those things above. Also, subjectively, but that’s not why you’re reading this, is it? You’re reading this for cold, hard facts. Well, here they are: Nadal was born on a Mediterranean island, similar to the bewitched one in the same body of water, Lesbos. Thereby, Nadal is a wizard or something. He also has the ability to make balls curve in and out of the court, seemingly by his own will. He has strange rituals before each and every point. Off the court, he has a totally nice demeanor and appears quite personable. One time I even got an autograph of his. But do you know what happened when I got home? The autograph was gone – totally vanished from that large novelty tennis ball. Rafael Nadal is a using voodoo: FACT.
Even though he’s obviously witch spawn, he shouldn’t be winning every game. Therefore, he is bribing the officials for every single game he plays. Has Nadal ever once gotten upset during a match, so much so that he threw his racket and cursed? No, he stays generally calm and collected. Even when he does get upset, you can see the twinkle in his eyes that lets you know everything is going to be okay – he will win. And why? Because he is cheating, bribing and witching his way through matches. Rafael Nadal is a sneaky conniver: FACT.
Nadal is the physical incarnation of Nike. I have never once laid my eyes on the man when he was not wearing at least a single article of Nike apparel. Sometimes I wear Nike, but not always. The fact that this is all he wears tells me something about both Nike and Nadal: Nike clothing must involve rare elements from Jupiter’s moon Europa. Europa is notorious for its potential for extra terrestrial life, what with its under-ice oceans and subsea hydrothermal vents. Adding to the conspiracy is that fact that Nadal loves Evian water. Evian? Europa? Very similar. Nadal? Nike? Very similar, again. The obvious conclusion to draw here is that Nadal is a subsea dweller from the depth of Europra's oceans. Nike has satiated his Euopra mineral needs by employing them in it’s cloth. Evian, likewise, has drawn water from the depths of Europa’s largest ocean, near its concentration of black smokers (subsea vents emitting large concentrations of sulfur). Rafael Nadal is an alien: FACT.
The method by which they make Grand Slam trophies is a fiercely guarded one. Japanese smelters melt Faberge eggs and Kazak lead and steel to a high temperature in a clay oven. The oven is kept at a constant temperature by the master smelter for 3 days straight. After it reaches its proper consistency, the foreman sends the orders for the oven to be dismantled and the resulting metal to be collected. Specialists then craft the trophies in ways that I do not know, they I hear they use Black Sea water, Dead Sea salt and Nepali sand. But why does this matter? To you, or any one else besides Nadal, it doesn’t. But have you ever been to Nadal’s house and seen his trophy collection? No, you haven’t. This is because he doesn’t have a trophy collection. Rather, he re-melts the precious metals and intravenously injects them in his left arm. Apparently the Grand Slam trophies are his life force and without them, he is powerless. Rafael Nadal is a mutant: FACT.
So I’m really really sorry to have to break it to the poor souls out there who follow him, but the fact of the matter is that Nadal is not only not a human being, but a lying mutant, alien, witch. So go ahead and keep saying that he’s the best you’ve ever seen, but remember, you might as well just be cheering for Voldemort.
Sorry.
And sorry this isn't real.
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/20/2010 10:17:43 AM | with 0 comments
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Andy Murray is getting so crunk right now.
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Tennis is so nice. I’ve been reading the news and recently, it just seems like most professional athletes are pig-dogs, bent on sexual harassment, getting high on drugs, or racing cars at dangerous speeds while under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicants. The players of tennis have a sense of responsibility and dignity. Andy Murray doesn’t have a dog fighting ring or support animal cruelty (other than say, making his dog run really far when he hits tennis balls to it). You don’t really find many tennis players dead, hanging out in strip clubs and taking shots of everclear – tennis people just don’t do that.
Football people run gambling rings and go jail. Baseball players shoot up steroids and lie to millions of people about it. Basketball coaches beat their players. Golf players are vicious adulterers. NASCAR drivers used lead-based gasoline in their cars (which average 2-5 mpg). Hockey players beat each other up on the court. But tennis players – they sometimes argue at the referees.
And certainly there should be a bit of recklessness in tennis – it really makes me question whether or not there is a mass conspiracy among tennis players; a sort of under underground lair of sin and adultery. One where Roger Federer guzzles Swiss-chocolate liquor, Rafael Nadal arranges bladed rooster fights, and Novak Djokovic deals PCP. But really, I can’t see that happening. Instead, these guys and gals hold charity fund raisers, put together youth camps and are all around pretty big role-models.
What’s wrong with them? They aren’t getting blood transfusions, using performance enhancing drugs like tetrahydrogestrinone, or even eating anything other than sushi. There’s always something disturbing about a pure person because, like it or not, we are a species drawn to bad. Maybe not evil-bad, but fun-bad. This isn’t to say that we’re all out, beating baby seals and tricking the poor, but rather that we like to get things for free and sometimes drink a little too much on Friday nights. There’s nothing wrong with being bad, and in fact it makes us quite normal. I’m sure we’ve all had a few run-ins with meth kitchens and nuclear arms dealers – I know I have! – it’s all a part of character building. If I hadn’t, for instance, broken a bunch of police car headlights when I was younger, I would probably have a lot of built-up anger and several fewer stories.
So here’s what’s up tennis: start getting crazy, but just by a little. Nadal, have some racy pictures leaked. Federer, have a little stomach from eating too much milk chocolate and cheese. And Murray, keep it up.
Let’s get rowdy, tennis.
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/21/2010 5:59:38 PM | with 0 comments
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Tennis players have real nice bodies.
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Though tennis players are of the most responsible athletes around, this says nothing about their fans. From streaking to yelling just before a serve, to actually fighting at games, tennis fans are totally rowdy. But even worse than tennis fan are the idols of hot tennis players. Without a doubt, after some searching around on the internet, you’ll find various reports on “nadal shirtless”, “serena williams butt”, “ana ivanovic sexy”, etc. The internet is the home of pornography, so why wouldn’t even such a thing like tennis – such a pure thing like tennis – be touched by it. Skirts are getting shorter and shorter. Shirts are being taken off at an alarming rate. And spouses of top tennis players are being considered stars themselves.
Perhaps this is problem of celebrity-dom in and of itself, but let’s not stoop to that level, tennis! The obsession with not only creating the idolization of a single person for sometimes worthless reasons (Snookie? Have you seen The Jersey Shore? I have.), but the attempt to manifest such “greatness” into our very our lives is disease. To live one’s life with the goal of becoming famous or achieving public greatness is to live a vacuous life. Searching for fame, worthless fame, is not only superficial, but completely caustic and detrimental to the state of humanity, so chill out about it.
But does it indeed mean something that there are so many attractive tennis players? Well, yes, it does. It means that tennis is a very athletic sport – a very rigorous sport that requires much cardiovascular ability and general peak physique. Also, there are a lot of East Europeans and Spaniards that play, and those people are usually pretty attractive.
So true tennis fans, get these people out of our club. Grab your white shirts, white shoes and white slacks and get a club, or, I guess, a racquet, and show these phonies who the bosses are. They’ll probably be glued to their computer screen, staring at the new Anna Kournikova Maxim spread (in 3D), covered in fake tanner and totally ugly.
Bye, bye, fakers – we’re coming for you.
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/22/2010 4:43:49 PM | with 0 comments
I’ve been spending a lot of time on YouTube recently, and upon searching for “tennis”, the most viewed videos of all time include the following: “Funny football clips with some streakers”, “TENNIS PRANKSTER (REMI GAILLARD)”, “Pixar – Tennis Commercial”, “Dinosaurs play Tennis with fat pig :D”, and “The Sexy Serbian Tennis Player Ana Ivanovic.”
Needless to say, this is a poor showing. The first one, with nearly 8 million views, really isn’t about tennis at all, but merely features a single tennis streaker clip.
The second one is about a guy disturbing a tennis game by acting like a player’s doubles partner and successfully returning the person’s hit. It’s quite shocking to believe that these professional players would play into this prankster’s idea of fun. He then decides to jog around the court for another minute or so, bowing and thanking his merciless audience.
The third of the five is a Pixar animation about two roosters playing tennis. Chicks (real ones, dummy) line the court and when one of the balls goes out, a rooster carelessly picks up one of the chicks and serves it. One of the other chicks gets out a Vizzavi-sponsored telephone and tells other laughing chicks about it. (Those chicks are all using Vizzavi phones, by the way.) Then there are some more chicks in front of a laptop, laughing. Finally, the ball-chick falls back by the first chick with the phone. That chick then gets picked up. Hilarity ensues. Well, really, a Vizzavi ad ensues.
The third one is by far the oddest. Another animation, this one includes two dinosaurs playing tennis with their tails as racquets and a pig as the ball. The quickness of the hits increases and then the pig goes into the larger dinosaur’s mouth. He falls over, seemingly dead. The smaller of the two dinosaurs walks over and jumps on the bigger dinosaur’s stomach a few times. Around the fourth time, the pig flies into the sky and comes down to hit the smaller dinosaur, who wavers slightly and finally collapses. That’s it. Yeah, I’m totally serious – that’s it.
The fourth one is about Ana Ivanovic and is completely understandable. It’s all about the “sexy serb” and touts “SERB-4-LIFE.” The entire photo montage is set to Eminem’s ‘Till I Collapse. The lyrics end with the lines: “I will not fall/I will stand tall/Feels like no one could beat me.” Sorry, Ana was at one time the number one woman player in the world, but has since slumped to the far thirties. So it might feel like no one can beat you, but they can.
There are no real tennis videos within the top fifteen – number seventeen is a highlights video. This is pitiful. I am embarrassed to crawl YouTube. I guess I’ll just have to go back to watching car videos and baby accidents, sorry.
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/24/2010 5:18:56 PM | with 0 comments
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This is seriously what it looked like.
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Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are now artists and tennis players. The only difference being that they are both really good tennis players and both really bad artists that utilize trite concepts for commercial gain. Sorry, fellas.
The latest shtick this time around is that the two of them, dressed completely in white suits bouncing painted balls against a thin piece of paper with a silhouette of a famous pose of theirs. Initially, the two of them are pretty into it, taking big swings and making it semi-interesting. But then they get closer and closer to the wall, just sort of tapping the ball against the wall. However, the bulk of the video, which is an advertisement for the upcoming ATP London Finals, involves interviewing the two of them post-“painting.” The interview goes something like this (and I paraphrase here): “It was fun.” I’m glad the two artists had such introspective ideas of the conceptualization and actualization of such philosophically-stimulating masterpieces. Nadal goes on to say, “Making […] artwork was […] something I’ve never done before.” Wait, what? He’s never even finger-painted or drawn anything? Or was he being deeper than that? Perhaps by “making artwork” he specifically means the act of bouncing painted tennis balls against a silhouette of himself. That sounds much more likely, and hopefully, believable.
More showcased than the London Finals or the art or the interviews or anything else is the RF Nike logo, which blazingly fills the majority of Federer’s speech. And despite covering up their expensive Nike clothing and shoes while “painting”, Federer chooses to leave his brand on his head.
But really, what can you expect from an art warehouse in Cincinnati? 
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/27/2010 5:18:30 PM | with 0 comments
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If Mickey Rourke is doing it, you shouldn't be.
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Ping-pong is a weird off-shoot of tennis. Fully embraced by both the short and the nerdy, ping-pongers are undoubtedly freaks. Tennis players are strong and powerful, full of charisma and dapper, leading their peoples through the thick and thin. Ping-pong players usually live in the basement, hang out in the garage and probably play World of Warcraft when they’re not begging their mom to let them use the Chevy Malibu to get more Cheetos and Mountain Dew. Some of them have adopted tennis regalia, strapped in sweatbands of all sorts and designer paddles. These people are losers.
In tennis, players viciously move side to side, running about the court, trying to hit back 100+ mph balls with carbon fiber racquets on clay and grass courts. Conversely, ping pong players put on Sketchers so that they may be able to move a foot or two each direction. The ball is small and is light, slowing down quite a bit during flight. The paddles are wooden and are embraced by fraternities.
There couldn’t be bigger differences between the mentalities of tennis players and ping pong players (if you can call them that), yet they will forever be linked by the basic concept. I would like for these ideas to be stricken – for the net to be changed in ping pong, for the paddles to be square, for the table to be round. I will no longer allow the term “table tennis” to be substituted for ping pong – you will call it ping pong.
Tennis players – STAND UP! Do not let these American cheese slice-eating, unathletic, Funyun-crunching, parent’s basement burnouts steal the glory of tennis! Never again will a ping-ponger call themselves a table tennis player! They shan’t speak the word tennis!
Posted to Tennis Stars Burning Bright by
Sean Bradley on 9/29/2010 12:33:08 PM | with 0 comments
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