This week's edition of ESPN the magazine dedicates a sizable chunk of print to France's Gael Monfils, the lanky Frenchman who was ranked as high as No. 9 in the world in 2009, but has slipped to the back end of the Top 20 of late.
The article pontificates that Monfils isnt reaching his full potential because he's more interesterested in being a showman than a champion. If I can draw a cross-sport comparison from 20 years ago, Monfils would rather be Dominque Wilkins than Michael Jordan.
Monfils is flashy and engaging on the court, playing to the crowd and using his 6-foot, 4-inch, 177-pound frame to bend and flex in ways that defy logic and return balls that seem destined for his opponent's score log.

He's recently pulled out of yet another tournament, citing injury, adding to his long list of maladies that have removed him from competition during his six-year career.
Being brittle is definitely not the way to succeed on the ATP Tour, but Monfils doesn't seem that stressed about it in the article, stating that "I love tennis, but the main thing in my life, is life."
At first glance, it seems like the statement of a precocious player, whose natural talent has gotten him to a certain point, and who doesn't realize that only hard work can deliver him the rest of the way.
But maybe there's more to Monfils than meets the eye. He definitely appears to be a man of multiple interests. He won't turn 24 until Sept. 1 and has already piled up just under $4 million in career earnings, not to mention cashing in on advertising deals with Nike among others.
Perhaps tennis is just one of his passions, one that he has a remarkable amount of natural talent in. If he treats the ATP like a pasttime where he sees friends and has fun, rather than a life event, where every ounce of his pain and sweat must be poured into, is he wrong or just different?

Calling someone the "greatest" in any sport is reserved for two groups of people.
1) Fans arguing, usually while consuminglarge quantities of BBQ, nachos, liquor or all of the above.
2) Magazines trying to sell their product.

Sports Illustrated naturally falls into that second category, and its ploy of putting Serena Williams on the cover two weeks ago tabbed as "The Greatest Ever" has done the trick, people can't stop talking, writing and blogging about it.
It's a pretty simple formula really, although not one that enhances SI's legitimate standing in journalism.
When you're a magazine that comes out weekly in a world where news is digested instantly through another medium, you've got to take bold steps to keep people plunking down money for your print edition.
In this case, it's hailing Serena as the greatest ever, a premature argument to make no matter if you agree with the statement
The story went out in a huge lull of time in the sporting world. Sports Illustrated needed a big, bold cover to move the merchandise. To be in mail boxes by Thursday, Sports Illustrated has an early-week deadline, which means it couldn't hold out to hear what team LeBron James was off to that Thursday night.
Nobody had pulled a big trade in major league baseball, the World Cup was a boring finish for Spain and The Netherlands and Brett Favre was still about a month out from starting his "Maybe, maybe not" shtick that we all love so much.
That means SI had to figure out another sport to bang the drum to, and tennis took center stage.
Let's face it, the magazine's long-standing East Coast bias and propensity to care infinitely more about the Big Three American pro sports means you're unlikely to make the front page of the 56-year-old rag unless you're 1) an American player, an attractive female player or the attractive girlfriend of an American player

Two weeks ago, Sports Illustrated hailed Serena Williams the Greatest of All Time (GOAT). One week ago, Serena cut her right foot on broken glass outside a restaurant, forcing her to undergo surgery and meaning she will miss all the tournaments leading up to the US Open (Aug. 30 - Sept. 13).
Now Serena's status for the Open has been downgraded to questionable, which forces me to wonder if she's fallen victim to the never proven, never disproven Sports Illustrated "cover jinx," one of the greatest urban sports legends of the past half century.
The jinx got its start in the very first issue of SI back in 1954 when Milwaukee Braves Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews  graced the cover with his squad on a nine-game win streak. The day after the issue debuted, the Braves lost, a week later Mathews got hit by a pitch that forced him to miss a couple of weeks, and the team ended up finishing 11 games behind the Giants for the pennant.
The jinx has become such a part of Sports Illustrated's mythos, that the magazine itself did a complete cover story about it back in 2002 (see photo).
Obviously, there are huge exceptions to the jinx. Michael Jordan appeared on the cover 31 times and seemed to do OK.
But it seems that the jinx really targets cover newcomers, as it did twice in 1989. First, SI touted  Tony Mandarich as "The Best Offensive Line Prospect Ever."
The Green Bay Packers agreed, taking him with the No. 2 pick in the draft, then watching him bomb.
If you know a Packer fan, now would be a great time to mention to them the three players selected after Mandarich were Barry Sanders (Hall of Famer), Derrick Thomas (Hall of Famer) and Deion Sanders (can't miss Hall of Famer).
The jinx struck again a month later when Brenham (TX) High School pitcher Jon Peters was on the cover after improving to 51-0 in his career on the mound. He lost the next week, then hurt his arm in practice during his freshman year in college and never pitched again.
Certainly Serena could retire right now and be hailed as one of the greatest players of her generation, if not all time, so the sliced foot isn't exactly making or breaking her career.
But it does carry a measure of irony that two weeks ago was just her second time gracing the magazine's cover.
It's also a little pathetic that the women's game, if not tennis in general, is given such second-class treatment by the nation's leading sports magazine.
The last time a female player was on the cover was you guessed it, Serena, way back in May of 2003.
Before that, you have to go back to 2000 when Anna Kournikova made the cover for reasons having little to do with tennis.
Williams' sister Venus has made the cover exactly once, way back in 1997. I guess the 20 Grand Slam singles titles since then aren't as exciting as whatever blown out of proportion crap the Yankees/Red Sox/Giants/Jets/Mets/Knicks are going through at any given time.

It didn't draw remotely the buzz of the fairytale wedding ceremony shared by Radek Stepanek and Nicole Vaidisova last weekend, but there were wedding bells for Alona Bondarenko earlier this month.
The 25-year-old Ukranian player ranked No. 30 in the world wed her coach, Nikolay Dyachok, on July 8 in an extremely informal ceremony in Kiev.
The bride and groom both wore blue jeans and T-shirts that read "Just Married."
Their honeymoon was a bit more traditional, as the two recently returned from Crete.
Marrying one's coach doesn't seem like the greatest idea considering the blurring of the professional and personal relationship lines. It makes even less sense when you consider Bondarenko's other coach is her mother, and if there's one thing that history has taught us, it's that husbands and mothers-in-law always get along famously.
However, there's a definite chance for an upside to the relationship and Bondarenko's career. I envision some great motivational conversations between the new couple like "Hey honey, if you win the US Open, I'll do the dishes until the Australian."
While the news is definitely happy for most, there's no joy on this day for the 119 members of the Facebook group  "I want to take Alona Bondarenko home."

If I ask you who the most athletic family in tennis, chances are you'll tell me the Williamses or the Bryans. Sure, having two siblings on Tour is impressive, but those answers are so 2005.
Athletic ability goes far beyond the ability to compete on the court. While updating our Tennis Player Bios over the past month, I've been amazed how many players come from tremendous families of athletic endeavors across the board.
All these revelations led me to construct my own Top 10 list of Most Athletic Families on The Tour. We'll start with #10 today, and add to the countdown every week day until the big reveal at #1. Think you know who it is? Have any suggestions for the Top 10? Make sure and drop a comment below.

Vera Zvonareva blew up when she reached the finals of Wimbledon earlier this month, but playing in pressure sporting events is just a part of life for her family.
Her dad, Igor, played professional bandy, an odd form of hockey, for Dynamo Moscow. The squad won the USSR championship six times in the 1970s.
Her mother, Natalya Bykova, shined on an even bigger stage in 1980. As part of the Russian national field hockey team, Bykova brought home a bronze medal from the 1980 Olympic Summer Games in Moscow.
The Russians went 3-2-0, smacking India 3-1 in the third-place match.
At 26 years old, Vera has added a strong legacy to the family's athletic tradition. She's won three Grand Slams - one in doubles, two in mixed doubles, racked up 10 singles titles on the WTA Tour and is currently ranked No. 9 in the world, with caree earnings nearing $8 million.

Come back Thursday as we count down to #9!

Claiming to be having a "Britney Spears moment," Andy Roddick recently shaved his head, effectively circumventing Internet rumors that he is in fact going bald despite being a mere babe of 27.
Going with the shaved head look takes a lot of guts, and is lamentably, not a good look for A-Rod. The bald head lets you see that he has an excessive amount of forehead, something that was previously covered up by his many splendored 'dos.
Seeing the picture of Bald-Rod makes me think back to an answering machine message my brother left me after doing the exact same thing during his senior year of college. Weary of doling out money for regular haircuts, he went for the Telly Savalas look and immediately regretted it. During a recorded phone message that lasted about two minutes, he repeated the phrase "I shaved my head" in varying degrees of incredulity a dozen times.
You can't blame Roddick for trying to stir things up, I mean he hasn't won a Slam since that dream year of 2003. Plus, look what the bald look did for Andre Agassi. The guy was legendary for his wild hair, and then looked even cooler without any.
Not many dudes can pull off that transition, and I regret to announce that Roddick will not be invited to join my personal shaved head Mount Rushmore of Agassi, Bruce Willis, Moby and Mace Windu.

In the world of tennis, Rafael Nadal's uncle is named Toni, a guy who wears an Iberostar hat in the crowd and gets his nephew in trouble for lobbing advice down to the court when he's not supposed to.
To the hundreds of millions of football enthusiasts across the globe, Rafael Nadal's famous uncle is a legend on the pitch.
As popular as Rafa might be in his home country right now, he still is playing second fiddle this summer to the Spanish national football squad which won the World Cup for the first time earlier this month.
A huge fan, Rafa was not surprisingly on hand for the championship win over The Netherlands. Uncle Miguel Angel Nadal was one of the country's top players of the last 25 years.
Known as "The Beast of Barcelona" for his size and physical defensive style, Miguel played a lengthy career for his hometown RCD Mallorca, the more prominent FC Barcelona and took part in three FIFA World Cups (1994, 1998 and 2002).
Miguel helped PC Barcelona win the Spanish Supercup three times, the Spanish Cup twice, the Spanish League five times, the UEFA Super Cup twice, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup once and the European Cup once.
He was twice rumored to be sold to mighty Machester United, but it neer happened. He returned to his roots in Mallorca late in his career, and helped the squad to the 2003 Spanish Cup final before retiring at age 39 with nearly 700 matches under his belt.
Miguel's nephew isn't too shabby an athlete either - as the eight Grand Slam singles titles since 2005 will attest to.

Coming Friday, our countdown continues to No. 8!

If your family ever has some sort of dispute with the Tsonga family, a word of advice: Don't try to settle things with an athletic competition.
From father Didier to brother Enzo to second could Charles N'Zogbia, the Tsonga family tree is strong as oak when it comes to cranking out phenomenal male athletes.
The only thing more uncanny than Jo-Wilfried's resemblance to Muhammad Ali is the fact that Didier Tsonga was on hand for Ali's greatest fight ever, the "Rumble in the Jungle" in Zaire in 1974.
Living in the Congo at the time, Didier was one of hundreds of fans who braved crossing the Zaire River to see the fight. It wasn't the last time Didier would travel for the love of sport.
In the 1970s, he moved from the Congo to Lemans, France to pursue his career as a professional handball player. He also studied chemistry at university, meeting his wife, and having two sons with her.
The older, Jo-Wilfried, has become a top player on the ATP Tour, while the younger, Enzo, is a top-flight basketball player, having played for France's Junior National team on two occasions, as well as playing professionally in the country.
But all those pale in comparison with the success of N'Zogbia, a prominent soccer player who put in six seasons with Newcastle United in the English Premiere League, growing so popular that he was the recipient of one of the coolest cheers ever concieved.
Newcastle is in the Tyne region of England, and the fans began to chant "Zog on the Tyne" each time Charles entered a match or did something well, a clever play on the popular 1970s English song "Fog on the Tyne."

Check back Saturday as we count down to #7!

Until the age of 13, Lleyton Hewitt wanted to be just like his father.
Wouldn’t you, if your dad was one of the top players in your home country’s favorite sport?
Playing for the Richmond Football Club in the Victorian Football League (now called the Australian Football League) in 1973-74, Glynn Hewitt was never on the losing end of a game, as his Tigers went 13-0-2 in his 15-game career.
If you’ve never seen Australian Rules Football before, imagine a combination of soccer, rugby and American football, but with zero pads or protection. Glynn started his career in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL), playing for the West Adelaide Bloods.
Glynn returned to his home state of in 1978, joining Woodville and leading the league in goals in 1979. He then moved on to South Adelaide, scoring 86 goals in 78 games before retiring in 1986.
Glynn was hardly the only athlete in the marriage. Lleyton’s mother, the former Cherilyn Rumball, was a competitive netball player – a sport similar to basketball utilizing two teams of seven.
And lest Lleyton get too big a head for all his accomplishments (three Grand Slam crowns, back-to-back years at No. 1), don’t forget about younger sister Jaslyn proved that the tennis talent wasn’t limited to big brother. Jaslyn was Australia’s top junior in 2000, eventually winning one single and three doubles’ titles on the ITF Circuit. After retiring from pro tennis, she became a competitive professional bodybuilder, one of the best on the continent Down Under.

Some little girls’ fathers are doctors. Some are salesmen. Some are lawyers.
Tsvetana Pironkova’s dad was a Bulgarian canoe champion.
Before he began her tennis coach (when she was all of four years old), Kiril Pironkov was among his country’s elite athletes, albeit in a sport that doesn’t quite attract the same crowds that Tsvetana did after shocking Venus Williams in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon this summer.
As has often been the case in the course of this countdown, Tsvetana’s mother brings just as much athletic prowess to her daughter’s gene pool as dear old Dad. Her mom, Radsoveta Nikolova was a professional swimmer in her home country.

Come back Monday as we roll on to #5 on the countdown!

Overdosing on prescription drugs doesn't seem like such a shock to followers of Jennifer Capriati anymore.
The entertainment web site TMZ.com has reported that Capriati dated a male adult film star with the, well, possibly not legitimate name of Dale DaBone from 2003-2009.
DaBone, who has a staggering 443 films to his credit , recently spoke to the web site, claiming that Capriati's accidental overdose came as a result of her depression on leaving tennis and his decision to return to the world of adult movie making.
DaBone said he did not think Capriati ever contemplated suicide despite the overdose.
Lifelong friend Justin Gimelstob told reporters that Wimbledon and other large tournaments always depressed Capriati, reminding her of her former life.
Capriati took the tennis world by storm in 1990, making the final of her first professional tournament at the tender age of 13 years, 11 months.
She beat defending champion Martina Navratilova in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon the next year and beat Steffi Graf for the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Games.
After troubles on and off the court, Capriati made an amazing comeback in 2001, winning the Australian and French Opens, and reaching the No. 1 ranking in the world.
She added another Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in 2002.

There was little doubt that the children of Piotr and Anna Wozniacki were going to be athletes, it was just a matter of picking a sport.
Piotr started off as a professional soccer player in Poland, while wife Anna played on the country’s national volleyball team.
Piotr played for both Miedz Legnica and Zaglebie Lubin in his home country, then for another squad in Germany. The couple move from Poland to Denmark in the late 1980s with their son Patrik when Pitor went to play for the Danish soccer club B1909, located in Odense, a shipyard town of 166,000 people and former home of Hans Christian Andersen.
In 1990, Caroline was born, and started emulating her brother athletically at almost every turn. Both kids learned to swim at a young age, and when Patrik started playing soccer, Caroline followed suit.
When Patrik added tennis to his activities, so did Caroline, and that’s when her parents noticed how quickly she enveloped the skills of the game.
Patrik kept up with his soccer work, and now plays professionally for Bolklubben Frem as a striker. Piotr began practicing with Caroline and coaching her for several hours a week, and by the age of nine she could beat both of her parents, themselves amateur players.
She also won a 12-and-under tournament national tournament at age nine without losing a single game. Now ranked No. 4 in the world, Caroline has seven singles titles on the WTA Tour and one Grand Slam finals appearance.

Coming Tuesday, we’re up to the #4 most athletic family in tennis!

We’ll re-visit this list in 2028 or so to see what sport Jada Ellie Lynch (born Feb. 27, 2008) is dominating.

For now, Lynch’s mom, Kim Clijsters, will have to settle for No. 4 on the most athletic tennis family countdown.

Clijsters’ father Leo played professional soccer and was named Belgium’s Player of the Year in 1988.  He was a prominent member of the Belgian national team, competing in the 1986 and 1990 World Cups. He also led  KV Mechelen to the Belgian Cup in 1987, as well as the UEFA Cup Winnters’ Cup and the European Super Cup.

He went on to coach a number of sides, including Mechelen. His coaching career lasted from 1993 to 2008 before lung cancer forced him to stop, and ultimately claimed his life in 2009.

Clijsters’ mother, Els Vandecaetsbeek (say that three times fast), was responsible for her daughter’s impressive flexibility, having won the Belgian national artistic gymnastic championship in her youth. Cancer touched her life as well, but she beat it with a liver transplant and chemotherapy.

While older sister Kim is better known in tennis circles, younger sister Elke dominated the courts as well, winning the ITF Junior Doubles World Championship in 2002.

Chronic back injuries forced Elke to retire in 2004. A similar injury had ended Els’ gymnastics career years before.

Kim made her tennis debut in 1999 and won two Grand Slam doubles titles (French and Wimbledon) in 2003. She also announced an engagement to Australian star Lleyton Hewitt that year, which might have put them both at No. 1 on our list, but alas the relationship ended in 2004.

She notched her first singles’ Grand Slam title at the US Open singles crown in 2005, one of her nine titles on the year.

Midway through the 2007 season, she stunned the tennis world by abruptly retiring while ranked No. 4 in the world, citing injury concerns.  Two months later, she married American basketball player Brian Lynch, who played collegiately at Villanova. Lynch played professionally in Europe from 2000-2009.

Less than a year later, the two welcomed their daughter to the world.

In March of 2009, Clijsters announced an immediate comeback to tennis and asked for a wild card to the US Open. It turned out to be a good idea, as she won the Open unseeded, shocking Venus Williams in the fourth round, then defending champion Serena Williams in the semifinals before mopping up Caroline Wozniacki 7-5, 6-3 in the final.

Just three stops left on our Top 10 Countdown! Come back Wednesday to check out the #3 most athletic tennis family!

There are few things in this world that your faithful blogger loves more than sports, but one is the best breed of dog on earth, the beagle.
In scouring the Internet for an appropriate avatar for our message forums, I happened to find a perfect photo of a scrappy beagle holding four tennis balls in its mouth at once.
Imagine my shock today when a reader sent me the following video, allowing me to see this fine specimen of beagle - aka Jack the Beagle - track down all four tennis balls and scoop them up for display, before settling down for a leisurely afternoon gnawing the crap out of them.
Good stuff!

Andy Murray, one of the top players in the game without a Grand Slam title, has fired coach Miles Maclagan according to Murray's management company.
Maclagan had been Murray's coach for the last 2-1/2 years. The Scottish-born player has been ranked as high as No. 2 in the world, first achieved on Aug. 17, 2009.
He emerged as the great British hope to snap the country's 74-year dry spell without a Wimbledon champion this year, but fell to eventual champion Rafael Nadal in the semifinals.
He had 14 ATP Tour event titles, and has finished No. 4 in the world each of the past two years.
While he seeks out a new coach, Murray said he will work with Spanish former player Alex Corretja.
While both Murray and Maclagan released press statements saying they had nothing but respect for each other, it's odd to part ways so late in the season, with three of the four Grand Slam events already in the book.
The fix was in as early as three days ago according to Murray's Twitter page, on which he wrote, " My old coach Pato Alvarez came to watch me and Feli (lLopez) hit today. So good to see him, he was great to me"

Let’s face it, at 6-feet, 6-inches tall and weighing in at a lean 200 pounds, Sam Querrey looks like the proto-typical American athlete.
Although he was introduced to tennis at age four by his mother, it’s no surprise that Querry also dabbled in basketball, table tennis and golf as a youngster.
After graduating high school, Querrey faced a similar crossroads that his father had seen a few decades before. A top tennis player, Querrey could turn pro and try his chances on reaching the ATP Tour, or he could go to college, on a full-tilt scholarship to the University of Southern California.
He chose the tennis route, based largely on his father’s regret for playing college baseball at Arizona after getting drafted out of high school by the Detroit Tigers.
Mike Querrey wasn’t just some late-round flyer pick by the Tigers, either. Detroit scouts loved his sweet swing and took him in the fifth round of the 1979 draft.
At Arizona, he led the Wildcats in home runs and runs batted in during 1981, but never achieved his dream of reaching the majors.
While Sam decided to turn pro, his sister Ellen opted to follow in dad’s footsteps, heading for Arizona on a volleyball scholarship. Ellen was a California Interscholastic Federation All-American outside hitter at Thousand Oaks High School, and shares the family gene for height, standing an even six feet tall.
Ellen didn’t play much as a freshman in 2009 for the Wildcats, but is expected to step into a larger role this fall for the squad that competes in the PAC-10, one of the toughest conferences in all of college volleyball. Currently ranked 20th in the world, Sam Querrey has five career single championships and two career doubles titles.

Cue ball, Mr. Clean, there's nary a nickname a bald person hasn't heard.
The look worked for Telly Savalas, not to mention Lex Luthor and the bully in the "Friday" movies.
With Andy Roddick's recent conversion to the shaven head look, the number of relevant tennis players going hairless just might be at an all-time peak.
Andre Agassi made the look cool a decade ago, and Roddick has joined the ranks of James Blake, Nikolay Davydenko and Ivan Ljubicic sporting it today.
Of course, the shaved look isn't for everyone, and it takes a true leap of faith to try it out.
Doing so could be disastrous for professional players. A bad haircut means their stock as potential advertising pitchmen and women plummets, along with their face time during major tournaments.
To help a few of our favorite netters, we've taken the liberty of previewing what they might look like bald.
Submitted for your approval (or disgust) below, are a few of the more interesting finds.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga - Not terrible, but not great. He reminds us more of the old Superman villain "Brainiac" than anything. The bald head template comes courtesy former New York Knick salary-cap waste Stephon Marbury.





Venus Williams - Horrifying. Even that million dollar can't take away from the chrome dome up ahead. But props to Delroy Lindo for providing the head set.




Caroline Wozniacki - You just thought she would look beautiful no matter what her hair style was. Big mistake, Chachi. Buzz cut courtesy Natalie Portman.





Roger Federer -  The worst of the worst. We guarantee if Federer had worn this hairstyle for his entire career, he would have 6-8 less Grand Slam titles because the officials would have taken close points away from him for being so gosh darn ugly. And yes, that is Andre Agassi's dome on top of the Swiss peak.

Talk around the office early this morning centered on the return of the legendary Sega Genesis cult game NBA Jam, which debuted in 1993 just in time to lower my college grade-point average severely for a few semesters.

Instead of boring 5-on-5, 12-minute quarter hoops, NBA Jam took two players from every NBA team and turned them into superheroes, with the ability to leap 20 feet in the air, make slam dunks that defied physics and three-pointers that went in way, way, way too frequently.

There were no fouls, few goal-tending calls and absurd secret codes and Easter Eggs, including but not limited to the ability to play as then-President Bill Clinton.

A sequel to the game was recently announced and due out for the Wii in October.

Tennis needs a video game like this.

There are tons of tennis video games out there, include a few free ones that can get you through a work day right here on TennisNow.com, but nothing with that real pizzazz that made NBA Jam such a sensation 17 years ago.

Oddly enough, “Tennis for Two” was the first video game ever constructed, going way back to 1958 for its debut. Based on the video I’ve seen of it, it was a little less thrilling than Pong, assuming that’s possible.

One of the big video game producers needs to crank out a game where human players do super human things. Instead of being clocked at 155 miles per hour, Andy Roddick’s serve should break the speed of sound, and burn a hole through his opponent’s body on an ace.

When John Isner lunges his 6-foot, 9-inch frame out for a return, his arm reach should extend into the crowd at Centre Court and his racquet should accidentally smack the Duke of Wellington in the face.

And when Serena Williams misses a break point, she should smash her racquet three times – the first breaks the strings, the second the head and the third rips a hole clean through to the earth’s core.

In the meantime, suffer through the painfully slow evolution of video game tennis, won’t you?

4D Sports Tennis (1990)



Andre Agassi Tennis (1992/SNES)


Jimmy Connors’ Pro Tennis Tour (1993 / NES)



Outlaw Tennis (2005)

Oddly enough, one of the most searched tennis questions on all the Internets in all the worlds is the first half of the title of this blog.
It’s understandable of course, because Venus has been uber-popular for more than a decade, and because her full name is a bit unique – Venus Ebony Starr Williams.
Her younger sister got off early on the naming extravaganza – Serena Jameka Williams – is far easier to fill out on official forms.
Because we care about our blog readers, here are a few more answers to burning questions as reported by our good friends at wordtracker.com.

● Where does Rafael Nadal train?
Primarily in Manacor, Mallorca and Barcelona.

● Who won the Wimbledon Championship in 1955?
Not sure why this is so popular a topic, but it was the United States’ Tony Trabert for the men and Louise Brough Clapp for the ladies.

● Does Roger Federer have a girlfriend?
We imagine there are many young ladies out there who would like to claim this title, but Fed is happily married and his twin daughters just celebrated their first birthday.

● What was Venus Williams’ high school?
It’s a trick question. She didn’t go to high school. Both she and Serena were home school by their mother.

Before we go, here are two questions on the list so odd, there’s no way we could make them up.

● Are Borg on Star Trek named after tennis player Bjorn Borg?
No, but during Bjorn’s prime on the court, resistance was futile.

● What is Andy Roddick's home address?
This is the kind of question that is usually followed up by: "Why is Andy Roddick calling the cops on me?" followed promptly by "Why is Andy Roddick pressing charges?"

By the time you're done reading this, you won't be able to figure out why the Kuznetsovas aren't the No. 1 Most Athletic Tennis Family.
Until tomorrow at least.
Currently ranked No. 21 in the world, Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova has a long way to go before she eve becomes the top female athlete in her family, let alone the best overall.
Svetlana's mother, Galina Tsareva, is a six-time world champion cyclists and holds 20 world records. She won her first championship in 1969, and was still dominating the sport 10 years later, when she won her final world title in 1979. Her talents allowed her to see the world, as she took part in championships in Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Venezuela, The Netherlands, Germany and France. Galina's coach became far more than that over time.
Aleksandr Kuznetsov knew a thing or two about cycling, having trained five Olympic and world champions over the course of his lifetime. He and Galina ended up marrying and having two children, Svetlana and Nikolay.
Born in 1973, Nikolay followed in his mother's footsteps and was trained by his father as a cyclist. His hard work and dedication paid off in the summer of 1996, as he teamed with fellow Russians Eduard Gritsun, Alexei Markov and Anton Shantyr to win the silver medal in the Men's 4000m Team Pursuit at the Atlanta Summer Olympics.
Born in 1985, Svetlana was clearly pedaling to a different tune, declaring cycling "boring" early on, and focusing on tennis instead. At age 13, she was sent to Spain for better training and coaching, and overcame long odds as she turned pro at 16 in 2001. By 2002 she was ranked 43rd in the world, and won the US Open in 2004, ending Lindsay Davenport's 22-match win streak in the semifinals, then defeating Elena Dementieva in the final, eventually finishing fifth in the year-end rankings.
She came back to win the Australian Open doubles title the following year, and added the 2009 French Open title.

Coming Friday, the countdown culminates at #1!

All hail the Gulbis family, true athletic royalty!
Yes, the countdown of the most athletic families among ATP and WTA Tour players has come to a close, and the king and his court are the family of Ernests Gulbis.
I’m not just calling them royalty because Ernests’ father Ainārs is reportedly the third-richest man in Latvia and maybe he’ll throw some coin my way for this nice blog. Although that would be really great, Mr. Gulbis, if you’re reading.
Ainārs is an investment banker, and also a former basketball player, a passion he passed on to Ernests early in life. Gulbis’ mother, Milēna Gulbe-Kavace, became a passionate amateur tennis player after seeing it at a sports club. Oh, she’s also an actress.
There are five kids in the Gulbis’ family. Ernests has three sisters (Elina, Laura and Monika) who all play tennis as well. His brother Kristops prefers golf to tennis, and is decent enough I suppose – he’s currently attending Florida’s Saddlebrook Academy, for the low, low yearly tuition of $54,675.
Young Ernests has put together an impressive career for being just 21 years old. He’s currently ranked No. 28 in the world as a singles player, and made the quarterfinals of the French Open at the tender age of 19 in 2008. He won his first ATP singles title at Delray Beach in early 2010 over Ivo Karlovic, the first win ever by a native of Latvia.
That would surely make him the most athletically-talented member of the Gulbis family if it weren’t for his grandfather, Alvils.
Still spry at age 74, Alvis is a legend in Latvia as a basketball player, helping Armijas Sporta Klubs (Army Sports Club) Riga win three national championships (1955, 1957, 1958) as well as three consecutive Euroleague titles (1958-1960). Alvis was a starter on all three squads. The three Euroleague titles were the first three in the association’s history.
Only one other in the history of the Euroleague has ever won three straight titles.
Alvis’ genes no doubt help account for Ernests’ 6-foot, 3-inch frame. His flair for the dramatic likely came from his other grandfather, Uldis Pucitis, who has directed 16 movies and was a famous Latvian actor.