Serena Williams turned up in Carson despite hurting her knee in Stanford last week and Patty Schnyder and Jelena Jankovic put in an appearance too.<\/b><\/p>\n
Tennis Diary is on a roll. I\u2019m at the WTA event in Carson just south of Los Angeles this week, Mike McIntyre is in Toronto, Nate Cunningham will be at the Cincinnati event next week, I will be at the ATP event in Los Angeles the week after that, and John Keeley, who writes for MVN partner site On Frozen Blog<\/a>, will be at the Washington Kastles match on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n The Washington Kastles are a World Team Tennis franchise and that match is important because Justin Gimelstob<\/b> plays for Washington and Anna Kournikova<\/b> plays for their opponent that night, the St. Louis Aces. This is the same Justin Gimelstob who called Kournikova a \u201cbitch\u201d and \u201cdouche\u201d and made a few other equally unpleasant comments<\/a> on a radio show last month. Personally, I think Gimelstob should be Kournikova\u2019s ballboy and he should have to retrieve balls on all fours for the entire evening.<\/p>\n I talked about Gimelstob with players at the media session in Carson today in light of Ashley Harkleroad<\/b>\u2019s appearance in this month\u2019s Playboy magazine.<\/a> Harkleroad appears on the cover and has an eight page celebrity spread inside. She doesn\u2019t appear totally nude in any one image but she does show everything. Harkleroad should be able to freely express herself but I did wonder if her Playboy spread might result in further demeaning statements, such as those that came out of Gimelstob\u2019s mouth, because she\u2019s advertising her body, not her game. That was always the rap on Kournikova: she looked good but when was she going to win a tennis tournament.<\/p>\n The media had already flocked to Serena Williams<\/b>\u2019s table by the time she arrived. I was very happy to see her for a number of reasons. She retired in her semifinal match against Aleksandra Wozniak<\/b> last week in Stanford when she hurt her knee and I was afraid she\u2019d pull out this week. Her father and one of her doctors did advise her to take the week off but there is no structural damage in the knee, just inflammation, and she seems really inspired to play a lot of tournaments this year:<\/p>\n I’ve been doing really well all year and I’ve been playing a lot. What I want to do is play tennis and play tournaments for this year and several years. I just feel like that’s all I want to do.<\/i><\/p>\n One big motivation is the Olympics. More than once today she said that her Olympics doubles gold medal from the 2000 Olympics is her favorite trophy and that\u2019s the one trophy she\u2019ll pull out and show visitors to her house. To that end, she and her sister Venus have played doubles in three tournaments this year, including Wimbledon where Serena picked herself up after losing a tough final to Venus and went out and won the doubles title with her. By the way, keep in mind that the Olympics are in Beijing and the two doubles matches the sisters lost this year were to doubles teams made up of Chinese players.<\/p>\n I was also happy to see Serena because I wanted to ask her a few questions. When I asked her about Harkleroad\u2019s Playboy appearance, she had the same answer as all three players I spoke with today: it\u2019s Harkleroad\u2019s decision and she should make whatever decision she\u2019s comfortable with. Playboy has also asked Serena to pose but, and Serena collapsed into giggles as she explained this, she was somehow too \u201cbusy\u201d just around the time they asked. And that\u2019s another reason I was happy to see Serena: she can very gracious and engaging when dealing with the media.<\/p>\n We know that she wouldn\u2019t pose for Playboy, but she\u2019s also an actress so I asked her if she\u2019d accept a role that required partial nudity. The answer is that it depends on the part. If it were a part in something like Monster\u2019s Ball<\/a> – Halle Berry<\/b> does a nude scene with Billy Bob Thornton<\/b> in the movie, that\u2019s one thing, but otherwise she didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n Interestingly, while Serena is familiar with the Gimelstob incident \u2013 she knows him well and played doubles with him on the Washington Kastles the week after Wimbledon, Jelena Jankovic<\/b> and Patty Schnyder<\/b> didn\u2019t know anything about it when I asked them. Not only that, but they hadn\u2019t heard any talk about it in the locker room.<\/p>\n