What’s happening in Indian Wells, what does Jimmy Connors want, and how long will it take Europe to end the ridiculous U.S. ban on offshore gambling?
Indian Wells
Okay, so who is Barry Tompkins other than Fox Sports Net’s lead commentator for the Indian Wells broadcast? First off he mispronounced Jelena Jankovic’s last name, and worse, he’s not Patrick McEnroe or Cliff Drysdale. Mr. Tompkins is a storied sports commentator with a long history in boxing and football and I may eventually be happy to make his acquaintance, but right now I want my McEnroes. ESPN has dropped Indian Wells and Miami from its schedule and PMac and Cliffy are gone too.
Not to worry, though, I’ll be at Indian Wells in person on Monday and I’ll do my best to put you there too. Nothing particularly exciting has happened yet except that Donald Young won his first two matches and is now into the third round against Rafael Nadal. Also, I was surprised to see Janko Tipsarevic go out so easily.
Tipsarevic was in the same quarter with Ivan Ljubicic and Tommy Robredo so he had a good chance to get to a fourth round meeting with Roger Federer, and we were all looking forward to that because Tipsy almost took Federer out at the Australian Open. As far as Federer is concerned, if he goes out early in this tournament then he’s still recovering from mononucleosis. As far as everyone else is concerned, if he goes out early that means the feast will continue and all those titles that Federer used to gobble up are still fair game.
This is hardly news considering that Federer has lost two straight Masters Series events and a slam, but the ATP has a group psyche just like any other group and there will be a slight crack in the ATP psyche if the players let Federer float through this tournament and take the title because it means that the predictions of his demise are a tad premature.
On the women’s side, Maria Sharapova is cracking the WTA psyche. She hasn’t lost a match this year and while Justine Henin joins her as the only other player with two wins, Sharapova’s wins came at the Australian Open and Quatar, Tier I events, while Henin’s were both Tier II events.
Every top player on the men and women’s side got through their first match rather easily except for Tomas Berdych – he lost in three sets to Stanislaw Wawrinka. I suppose it’s not surprising because he lost his first match here last year too, but it’s pretty amazing how he manages to stay around the top ten so consistently without winning much of anything.
Novak Djokovic had a bit of trouble with Andreas Seppi. He lost his serve twice at the end of the second set and had to go to a tiebreaker, but he probably had more trouble with the wind than Seppi. I’ll be sure to pack my down jacket along with my sunscreen because even though Indian Wells is in the desert, you can often see snow on the mountains from the stadium and it gets bloody cold at night.
Jimmy and Andy
There’s a mixed message coming from the Andy Roddick – Jimmy Connors split. On the one hand, Connors said he retired because he couldn’t tolerate the international travel required to coach someone on the far flung ATP circuit. Now he says that he’d welcome the challenge of grooming the next American tennis champion.
Okay, but at what stage does he want to groom the next American tennis champion? Does he want to be like Robert Lansdorp – the coach who developed Pete Sampras, Maria Sharapova, and Lindsay Davenport from the time they were wee’uns? Or does he want to be like Marian Wajda – the coach who travels all over the world with Novak Djokovic?
Djokovic trained at Nikki Pilic’s academy in Germany but Wajda took over when it came time to travel the world and figure out how to win on the ATP tour. I can’t see Jimmy with a training academy – I think he’d intimidate the hell out of those little kids and besides, he’d have to spend too much time sucking up to zealous sports’ parents let alone placating them. And he says he doesn’t want to travel the world, so that leaves me wondering: What exactly does Jimmy want?
He reminds of ex-athletes who want to go into coaching to recapture the glory of their playing days but don’t want to work as hard as they did when they were playing. U.S. football coaches, for instance, are famous for working 12 hour days, 7 days a week. Family life be damned because it’s an all consuming job. Tennis is nowhere near as bad as that but Tony Roche had the same problem and Federer fired him because Roche wasn’t putting as much into the job as Federer needed.
I Want My Betfair
I told ya it was coming. Last year the tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua got a successful judgment from the World Trade Organization against the U.S. for banning its citizens from betting on Antigua’s online gambling sites. The U.S. doesn’t allow its citizens to gamble on offshore sites.
At the time, I told you European countries were likely to follow suit because the U.S. policy is an egregious example of protectionism. U.S. citizens can bet on horse races on U.S. based sites therefore it should allow other countries to compete in its market. The New York Times reported this week that the European Union has started an investigation into the situation because European betting companies are complaining.
You bet they are. In July, 2006, the U.S. government detained the CEO of Betonsports.com, a Britain-based gambling site, while he was changing flights in the U.S. Carruthers is, I believe, still under house arrest in the U.S. It wasn’t a very smart move because the U.S. had already failed to comply with the WTO ruling in the Antigua case. Almost by definition, every superpower in the world has a healthy disdain towards other nations, but this is bearing on the ridiculous.
I have personal interest in this matter for one reason and one reason only. My gambling addiction stops at fantasy tennis, but those betting sites stream live video of tennis matches around the world and I’d love to get my hands on those. Why shouldn’t I have access to them, everyone else does.