Monthly Archives: June 2007

How Far Will Maria Sharapova Go?

Sharapova and Schnyder serve up the first controversy at the heretofore sleepy French Open.

By the end of her match between with Patty Schynder on Sunday, the crowd was raining boos down on Maria Sharapova. They were unhappy about an incident that was the exact opposite of Justine Henin’s hand-raising adventure with Serena Williams in 2003.

In that situation, Henin raised her hand to call time out as Serena was serving. Serena served a double fault and Henin refused to admit that had she raised her hand. Here, the score was 7-7 in the third set – no third set tiebreakers here, remember – and someone in the crowd yelled as Sharapova served. Schnyder raised her hand to call time out, the serve dropped in for an ace, and the chair umpire let the ace stand. Why? Schnyder didn’t raise her hand until the ball had crossed the net and that’s a bit late to be calling time out.

I don’t remember the incident in 2003 but I’m guessing the crowd supported Henin. She’s not only Belgian but her opponent was an American. Here, the crowd supported the Swiss Schnyder, and not U.S. resident Sharapova.

That’s not Sharapova’s fault and you can’t blame Sharapova for the chair umpire’s call but you could complain about her next act. Schnyder was serving to stay in the match at 7-8 and was up 40-15 when Sharapova walked over to her seat to get a new racket even though she didn’t have a broken string. It was an act of pure gamesmanship. She got a warning from the chair umpire for delaying the game but it was worth it. Schnyder didn’t win another point and Sharapova broke to win the match, 3-6, 6-4, 9-7.

There is no gutsier player on the WTA tour than Maria Sharapova. She’d fought off two match points in the third set. She’d beaten a clay court player despite an ailing shoulder for which she’s taken a cortisone shot. She’d made it to the quarterfinals despite missing all of the clay court season except for a Tier III event in Istanbul last week.

Yet the same naked ambition that got Sharapova through the turmoil turns people off. We used to tune in for John McEnroe yelling at chair umpires and Jimmy Connors rubbing out opposing players’ ball marks. Today, though, we like our champions to be polite and civil. They can have ambition but it can’t be naked. Today, if you raise your hand to call a timeout then later deny it, we’ll hold it against you. If you’re opponent has suffered from a controversial decision and needs only one more point to stay in the match, you don’t mess with their serve.

Last week, baseball player Alex Rodriguez yelled “Mine!” at an opposing infielder who was trying to field a pop fly. The poor guy backed away from the ball and it dropped in for a hit. Rodriguez was lambasted by the media and even his own manager for going too far.

Sharapova is the commercial star of the WTA but she won’t get the respect she deserves for her game until we like her a bit more.

Pollster: here’s the new poll (go to the sidebar to cast your vote)

Sharapova is into the quarterfinals and will play Ana Chakvetadze next and either Svetlana Kuznetsova or Ana Ivanovic if she makes it to the semifinals. Sharapova beat Chakvetadze here two years ago and has never played Kuznetsova or Ivanovic on clay. So here’s the question:

Sharapova got to the quarterfinals with a bum shoulder and a lot of guts, what are her chances of getting to the final? 25%? 50%? 75%? 100%?

Did you know, by the way, that Ivanovic outweighs Sharapova by 60lbs. No wonder Ivanovic reminds me of Jennifer Capriati. Kuznetsova outweighs Sharapova by 61lbs. Wow, that is two solidly built women.


See also:
B**tch And Sing Dept: At the French Open
Suicide Pools and Richard Gasquet
B**tch and Sing Dept: Springtime in Paris
Serena, Roger and Posh Spice
Familiar Final at the French Open (French Open preview)

B**itch and Sing Dept: At The French Open

A flood of TV coverage, but is it really great tennis?

We’re turning the corner on Saturday at the French Open, and all the ducks are being lined up in readiness for the Round of 16 on Monday. The networks are working overtime to bring this massive event to us, and today NBC got into the mix. Snoresville. I think I know the reason why tennis may be faltering in America.

Here’s how it works. NBC got what they probably thought were the two marquee matches of the day, Sharapova and Nadal. But they were playing nobodies, so the matches got extremely boring very quickly. Assume you are a would-be fan looking at the game afresh. You’ve heard tons about both these players but after a few games you’ve seen all there is to see about Sharapova. She is not the most attractive woman by any means in this field, you discover, her ankles are a bit thick, her body seems unformed still, she’s still getting pimples like a schoolgirl. And those shrieks. Oi! Enough already. Besides, she is just blitzing her opponent. Somebody from somewhere.

It was so bad even NBC couldn’t stand the torture: they picked the match up at the start of the second after Sharapova blitzed the poor girl 6-1 in the first. And this Nadal guy. He’s pretty big on the vocals too, and that hand to the backside is a regular enough shot, just like the guy’s forehand. A little bit goes a long way, our new fan may be thinking. We may have the personalities, but where in blazes is the tennis?

Personality only takes you so far. You need the beef. That’s the missing part. And that is why I kept turning away from NBC and going back to my earlier taping from The Television Chanel (TTC) portion of the morning schedule. TTC was showing a few interesting matches. With REAL tennis going on. But of course the personalities are unknown.

Would anyone bet that NBC might cut away from this chronic boredom to the lesser names who are playing REAL tennis? Not a chance in hell. And that’s a shame because their picture comes out best on my TV but I still don’t care about watching it. What was unfortunate in the top of the hour changeover from TTC to NBC was that we were left near the end of a fabulous-looking match, Djokovic and Patience.

They had just concluded the fourth set tiebreaker, and now we were headed into the fifth. Would NBC like to finish it for us? Ha, what land are you from, pray tell? Djoko got lost in the sauce somewhere. Surely TTC might show us the conclusion later in the day but you never know. Tennis should involve personalities but it still has to show some good tennis. The early rounds seldom produce both at the same time. We need the semis or the final for that. How do we communicate this effectively to the networks involved? If anyone has ideas, please step up to the plate(!)

We don’t know the outcome of Djokovic and Patience, but we do know that Amelie Mauresmo bit the dust again before the home crowd. Lucie Safarova brought her big game today and Mauresmo faltered again in the nerve department, after getting up 3-0 in both sets. 6-3, 7-6(3) was the final score.

We’ve been singing Lucie’s praises since her breakthrough in Paris at the Gaz Open. She went on to dust Mauresmo at the Australian Open so I picked her to get by Mauresmo again. Lucie has a great game, in some ways it’s like watching Tomas Berdych play but without the angst and indecision-making that he goes through.

The two are dating and they bear an uncanny resemblance in their style of play. Lucie hit long, smooth, deep shots that move fast through the court pinning Amelie well behind the baseline. She served big today and made lots and lots of trips into the net. She plays with no fear and plenty of aggression. We could have hoped some of this would rub off on Mauresmo, this is exactly the style she needed to play. But her serving let her down in the third set, her forehand went astray and the nerves pretty much took over.

“I have been struggling for weeks now,” said Mauresmo. “And coming here I didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t really have a goal in mind – I was taking it match by match. It showed today that when you’re not prepared the way you should be, it makes it very difficult.”

The crowd seemed nearly prepared for the loss this time, they must be resigned. Amelie may be living in Switzerland now (like a number of the French players actually) but she clearly still feels the heat in her native land.

The other night I speculated on the draw and noticed how a storybook tale could be shaping up for Roger Federer: what if he goes out and dusts off Filippo (“The Laundry”) Volandri in the quarters, then Canas in the semifinals, and Nadal in the final? It’s possible, and after Volandri beat up Ljubicic in five sets, Volandri could meet up with Federer.

If ever a man had a clear shot at becoming the Luke Skywalker in this moment, it’s the Number One player. It would be great for tennis and it would be great for Roger. He should have to wade through the deadliest pack of guys out there, the ones who have caused him angst before. Are you salivating at the prospect, Roger? Does it keep you up nights? After all, if he is going to win the French for the first time, he should really really win it in style and crush all his enemies.


See Also:
Lucie Leaps in: The Gaz Open

Justine Henin Becomes Warmer and Fuzzier

Since the separation from her husband, Justine Henin has reached out to her estranged family and reassessed her reasons for playing tennis.

It’s weird I know but a few days ago I laid in bed wondering if Martina Hingis is disappointed that her fiancée, Radek Stepanek, is tumbling down the rankings. I remember someone asking Chris Evert early in her career if she would date a low ranked player. “Let’s not get ridiculous,” she said. Chris ended up marrying John Lloyd who did tumble down the rankings and would have been happy devoting himself to supporting Chris’ career. If I remember correctly, Lloyd didn’t even drive a car. That in itself may have been too much. The couple divorced.

Being married and being on the tour is tough enough. Consider the role of Justine Henin’s ex-husband to be, Pierre-Yves Hardenne. He usually appeared sitting next to Henin’s coach and father figure, Carlos Rodriguez. Maybe it’s because the camera found him often or maybe it’s because Henin is not exactly Anna Kournikova and yet here she was flying around the world with a model-handsome young man on her arm, but Hardenne came across as a boy-toy tagging along in Henin’s small entourage.

Being a tagalong must be a difficult job, especially for a companion of the notoriously closed off Henin. The one time I sat in the players’ lounge at a tournament, I saw exactly one player come up to Henin’s table and talk to her. Meanwhile players all over the room were interacting with each other.

Rodriguez has been protective of Henin to a fault. He made public statements criticizing the behavior of the Belgian Tennis Federation when Henin couldn’t play Fed Cup last year. He also said that fellow Belgian player Kim Clijsters and her father Leo accused Henin of doping.

All of this makes life more difficult for Henin who already gets criticized for being self-absorbed and aloof. If Kim had been in that players’ restaurant, her table would have been the epicenter of action. She is the warm bunny to Henin’s cold shoulder.

That will now change for two reasons. Clijsters has retired and Henin is becoming warmer and fuzzier.

Earlier this year Henin separated from her husband and she was so upset about it that she skipped the Australian Open. The combination of going through a separation and the possibility of having to answer more questions about her ill-fated final at last year’s Australian Open was too much. She had made herself persona non grata in the tennis world by retiring due to an upset stomach in her final with Amelie Mauresmo rather than playing the match out and giving Mauresmo her moment of glory.

Emotionally stressful situations can set off large transitions in life. Henin’s first transition was living through her mother’s death at age twelve. Her response to that was to distance herself from her father Jose. Her second transition was the separation from her husband and that has led her back to her father and three siblings.

Here is her public statement:

The important thing for me in tennis now is to share the very special emotional moments with the people that work with me and care for me. I can offer these people a part in these moments that are pretty unique. It is this which now drives me to win.

There’s that self-absorption again. She’ll be able to offer her family a part in the unique experience that is her life. It sounds like an ad for a vacation condo: “We can offer you a unique experience full of memorable moments….”

Still, it’s a change and change comes in bits and pieces. Maybe she married early to find a substitute for her family. Maybe she’ll find that there were valid reasons why she distanced herself from her father. Ultimately we learn that marriage can’t give us what we didn’t get from our childhood and our family is what it is and that will have to do.

I personally cannot imagine what it would be like to figure your life out as a public figure. Henin is now the face of tennis in Belgium and the scrutiny will be even worse. She’ll probably go through more transitions and with each one she’ll gain a greater sense of herself.

Today is her 25th birthday. Happy birthday Justine, I’m looking forward to seeing the new you.