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It's 1996 all over again!
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The legendary Macarena dance had its 15 minutes of fame in 1996, a year in which Caroline Wozniacki was four years old and Victoria Azarenka was seven.
The two leading ladies of tennis brought the dance back into popular culture Sunday when they performed it together following an exhibition match in Hua Hin, Thailand, as part of the World Tennis Charity Invitation to raise money for the victim of that country’s floods.
Azarenka won the match 6-2, 7-5.
'Thank you so much for having me in Thailand,” Azarenka said after the match. “You know, it was the first time and I enjoyed my time. I hope everybody enjoyed our match and I hope to be back soon
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 1/2/2012 12:37:27 PM | with 0 comments
I’ve read a lot about the debate for modification of the current points ranking system in ATP and WTA tennis, and as crazy as it sounds coming off my fingertips, the most viable solution for me is to emulate college football.
That’s right, college football, which has one of the most screwed up ranking systems of all time.
Of course, it’s not the ridiculous BCS formula I want to adopt with all of its margin of victory and strength of schedule mumbo-jumbo.
What I want to see is the ATP and WTA stop punishing players for failing to live up to their previous year’s success and rewarding them for the here and now.
My anger at the current system hit an all-time high at the end of 2010, when Kim Clijsters won the US Open for the second straight season, and was "rewarded" by dropping from No. 2 to No. 4 in the rankings.
To that end, my proposed system would see no more defending of points from year to year. Let the past be the past, as my man 25 TA LIFE once said.
Where the ATP and WTA need to emulate college football is by not releasing any rankings until after the Australian Open is over, i.e. at the end of January.
In my vision, every single player starts the new year at zero points. The first few tournaments of the year are welcome to seed players however they choose – last year’s finishing rank, most followers on Twitter, whatever.
On the subject of points, the tournament weights need to be changed. The four Grand Slams are the top events in the world and should be treated accordingly. Bump up the winning player’s total from 2,000 to 2,500. The World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments can remain just that, but the 500s and 250s need to be downgraded to 250s and 125s a piece.
Winning four 500-point tournaments shouldn't be the equivalent of one Grand Slam. Very rarely is the field anywhere near as impressive, and there aren't as many rounds, nor are they best-of-five sets.
Players who like staying active and making some extra walking-around money will still have the right to play in as many tournaments as they wish during a season, but they won't be allowed to pile up the points doing so.
Only a certain number of 250 and 125-point tournaments will apply to a player's ranking. Remember those great college classes where you could drop your worst test grade? The same thing applies here.
Perhaps most importantly, the year-end championships don't have a point value. It's solely a cash grab for the players and advertisers and a joy for fans.
And finally, Challenger, Futures and ITF events don't count in the ATP and WTA standings at all. Those are the minor-league tournaments of tennis. Players who compete largely in these tournaments can have a separate rankings list that shows the best young players in the game.
What's your thought of what rankings system works best? What changes, if any, would you like to see the ATP and WTA make to their current formats?
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 1/2/2012 7:35:17 PM | with 2 comments
Look out tennis fans, the fun police are on the prowl early in 2012. A torrent of criticism has pushed Germany's Andrea Petkovic to her breaking point, and the fun-loving WTA star in the making has announced she will no longer perform her "Petko Dance" following victories. To add injury to insult, Petkovic has suffered a lower back stress fracture, which will cause her to miss the Australian Open, making the subject of the dance a fairly moot point for the immediate future.
Petkovic told the Sydney Herald on Wednesday that she kept getting asked the same question over and over, wondering if she felt it was disrespectful to her opponent.
She cited celebration dances and routines done by football (soccer) players across the world, but said that tennis' conservative nature was her celebration's undoing. While the dance will go on indefinite leave, Petkovic has promised to replace it with the "Petko Dunk," which she calls an homage to the basketball shot goal celebration of countryman Bastian Schweinsteiger, who plays football for Germany's Bayern
Munich.
Petkovic added that Schweinsteiger has promised her that he will pay homage to the dearly-departed Petko Dance next time he scores a goal.
Putting the pressure on an affable young player who clearly enjoys interacting with the fans is just one more reason that professional tennis struggles to compete with TV ratings, advertising money and space on SportsCenter.
As for Petkovic, on the billion-to-one shot that she's reading this blog, may I share with you some advice that was first given to me 30 years ago by Ivan and Stefan Doroschuk and Allan McCarthy, better known as Men Without Hats.
You can dance if you want to.
You can leave your friends behind.
Cuz your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance,
Well, they're no friends of mine.
Take it away, Turk.
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 1/11/2012 10:48:36 PM | with 0 comments
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Brother, can you spare 59 million dimes?
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If you didn't get what you wanted for Christmas, Mats Wilander has good news for you: He'd love to sell you his house.
Wilander, who won seven Grand Slam titles during his illustrious career, is selling his home, estimated at $5.9 million In Sun Valley, Idaho.
Wilander's house has a little over 10,000 square feet including a chef's kitchen, seven bedrooms, a sauna, wine cellar and a soundproof music room.
If 10,000 square feet seems like it might leave you not much room for a yard, no worries, it sits on an 80-acre lot with the famous Bald Mountain, a skier's dream with a 9,150 foot summit, in the background.
A pond outside the estate doubles as an ice rink in the winter, but there's also a normal pool and a hot tub.
Che Wilander has been on the market since last June, when it was listed for $8.5 million. Sun Valley boasts a full-time population of a whopping 1,406 people, but if you grab the house, you can rub potential elbows with many of its famous part-time residences such as Tom Hanks, Demi Moore, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, Ashton Kutcher, Richard Dreyfuss, Jamie Lee Curtis and Tony Robbins.
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 1/15/2012 9:01:37 PM | with 0 comments
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Now we just need a property tax website
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Tennis players make more money than you.
It's just a fact.
Don't worry, they make more money than I do too. In fact, any competitor who makes it to the fourth round during the next fortnight's Australian Open will pick up a check vastly superior to my yearly salary.
And while none of us are ever going to enjoy the life of luxury that our favorite tennis players do, we can at least take a sneak peak into what they're doing with all that money courtesey of the slick website Virtual Globetrotting, which combines the best of Google, Bing and Yahoo Maps with an extraordinarily impressive Custom Google Search engine to zoom you into anybody's backyard.
I found this lovely site while doing an earlier piece on Mats Wilander's Idaho estate being up for sale.
Since then, my wife and I have been typing in every celebrity's name we can think of to see where they're plopping down their big checks for housing.
Here are a few of my favorites.
Andre Agassi
John McEnroe's place on the beach in Malibu
Chris Evert's place in Boca Raton - note to Chris Evert, I am free to house sit, forever
Ivan Lendl's place in Vero Beach, a far cry from Czechoslovakia
Jimmy Connors, not a big fan of having neighbors in Belleville, Illinois
More to come!
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 1/15/2012 9:52:09 PM | with 1 comments
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I'm counting on you, Ivan Lendl!
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Now granted, the Australian Open started yesterday if you’re a State-sider like me, but considering that there almost no first-round upsets and given the fact that we’ve had dehumidifiers and fans running 24 hours a day in our home by way of a rusty nail in the water line, I think I merit a free pass on some tardy predictions.
So even as I type that I believe Andy Murray will win the men’s singles title at the Australian Open, I find myself thinking back over the past 18 months, and how I would have asked if I had lost a bet or somehow hit my head on the pavement as to the reasons I was taking said pick.
I’ve never been a Murray fan, but his move to employ Ivan Lendl as his new coach has me playing a different tune. Murray seems to have finally grown up, and realized that this tennis is some serious business, and while being in the Top 5 in the world is tremendous, anything but No. 1 is unsatisfactory.
To the point, he has dispensed with all previous coaches – Leon Smith, who led him from ages 11-17; Brad Gilbert; Miles Maclagan, head of his “team of experts” in 2007; Alex Corretja and even his mom, in favour of a man who knows how to win intimately, having done so at a time when some of the true greatest players of all-time were at their peaks.
In many team sports, being a great player rarely translates into being a great coach, as the NBA’s Magic Johnson and Larry Bird; the NFL’s Mike Singletary and MLB’s Ted Williams all found out at one time or another.
But tennis is a fiercely mental and psychological game, and neither one of those areas is something Murray has been well known for during his early years on the tour.
Here in Australia, he is the hottest player going, following his impressive victory at Sydney. Seeded fourth, he avoids facing a higher seed until the semifinals, where defending Novak Djokovic would await if he can avoid injury or upset from a host of would be regiciders including Milos Raonic, Andy Roddick, Janko Tipsarevic, Richard Gasquet and David Ferrer.
Murray’s route seems considerably less precarious after facing American man-boy Ryan Harrison in the first round. From there, he’s unlikely to face a real challenge into Gael Monfils in the fourth round or Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarterfinals.
The good news there is that if there’s one thing the British enjoy doing, it’s whipping up on the French.
If he can get by Djokovic or have someone else take out the top dog, he’s left with either Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal in the final – both of whom he has played particularly well against of late. Murray is 2-1 in his last three matchups with Federer and is 8-6 against the Swiss overall. He also defeated Nadal in the pair’s last matchup, at Tokyo near the end of 2011.
On the women’s side, the popular pick is Petra Kvitova (say that three times fast), so why do I find my thoughts veering northeast of her native CzechRepublic to mother Russia?
Yes, it’s Maria Sharapova that calls to me from the WTA field, despite her recent maladies and her difficult first-round matchup against drool-worthy Gisela Dulko.
If she doesn’t slip early, Sharapova has a favourable route to the quarterfinals. She could face some very good young talent – particularly German’s Sabine Lisicki and Angelique Kerber – but neither has the kind of big-time experience that Sharapova brings the table.
If she makes it to the final eight, she’ll probably run into fellow Russian Vera Zvonareva or rival Serena Williams.
If it’s Williams, Sharapova will have to be on her best to advance, as she’s not beaten the American in six straight attempts dating back to 2004, while things have come a bit easier if it’s Zvonareva, who Sharapova owns a 7-3 margin against with three straight wins.
From there, Sharapova could see Kvitova in the semifinals, followed by Caroline Wozniacki, or one of last year’s finalists – Li Na or the resurgent Kim Clijsters for the title.
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 1/16/2012 1:10:56 PM | with 3 comments
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Don't make Marcos angry ... you won't like him when he's angry
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In case you didn't stay up late / get up early to see Marcos Baghdatis take on Stanislas Wawrinka on Wednesday, you missed a sideline performance that was half John McEnroe, half Bruce Banner.
During his 7-6, 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 loss to Stanislas Wawrinka, Baghdatis let his temper get the best of him and smashed four straight racquets while seated during a change over.
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 1/19/2012 12:45:12 AM | with 14 comments
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