While looking around for a few good metrosexuals, I explain why I don\u2019t think Serena and Roger will win the French Open<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Serena Mucks Around in the Clay<\/b><\/p>\n
When Serena Williams<\/b> and Tsvetana Pironkova<\/b> left the court in the pouring rain today at the French Open, Pironkova was ready to serve for the first set. Serena had stumbled around the court and gone down 5-2 before fighting back to 5-5 only to lose her serve one more time.<\/p>\n
Six and a half hours later, Pironkova served out the first set and broke Serena to start the second set. Finally, Serena calmed down and warmed up then took the next nine games losing only one more game in the 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 victory. Despite a groin injury and a wet, heavy court, she\u2019d kept her unbeaten streak in first round matches at grand slams.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m now going to take my life in my hands and predict that Serena will not win the title here. It\u2019s a foolhardy prediction because Serena could meet Justine Henin<\/b> in the quarterfinals and that would be their first meeting at the French Open since Justine made Serena mighty angry.<\/p>\n
It was the semifinals in 2003 and Serena was serving when Justine held up her hand as if to call time out. Serena continued her serve \u2013 a double fault \u2013 and Justine proceeded to deny that she had raised her hand. That should provide more than enough motivation to unleash Serena\u2019s unparalleled fierceness on the tennis court.<\/p>\n
Serena probably doesn\u2019t need such motivation, this is a slam after all, but she\u2019s still rehabbing from a groin injury and clay is her worst surface. Paris is damp and wet and that makes for a heavy ball. I could be wrong, Serena beat Justine in the Miami final this year, but this is clay and Justine is the steeliest competitor our there next to Serena and she\u2019s injury free at the moment and that could be the difference.<\/p>\n
A Few Good Metrosexuals<\/b><\/p>\n
I watched Serena at an altitude of 37,000 feet on a Jet Blue airplane courtesy of ESPN2. I was lucky because ESPN sold most of its French Open coverage to The Tennis Channel since it was tired of losing money. ESPN2 reaches about 75 million households in the U.S. while The Tennis Channel reaches about ten million households. That means most of the French Open will now reach 65 million fewer households. On a similar note, CBS recently renewed its contract for the U.S. Open but reduced the contract from $30 million to $24 million per year.<\/p>\n
These are both signs that tennis is sinking in the U.S. and I have a suggestion: hire Victoria Beckham<\/b> (the former Posh Spice) to market ATP and WTA stars in the U.S. David Beckham<\/b> is the epitome of the global marketing brand and credit for that goes largely to his wife Victoria.<\/p>\n
Victoria has Beckham planted in window displays and fashion magazines everywhere. His upswerved hairdo and one day beard have become the reigning style for fashionable young males. He\u2019s also comfortable being a gay icon \u2013 in other words, he\u2019s one of our leading metrosexuals. This softer image also appeals to women.<\/p>\n
Hire Victoria and put her to work creating crossover stars out of Roger Federer<\/b> and Anna Chakvetadze<\/b> and raising the Q ratings<\/a> of upcoming U.S. players such as Sam Querrey<\/b>.<\/p>\n One thing Victoria can do is study NASCAR\u2019s marketing model: every week NASCAR makes its drivers available to sports radio shows. I\u2019ve never, ever heard Federer or Maria Sharapova<\/b> or Andy Roddick<\/b> interviewed on the radio and I\u2019m warped \u2013 I listen to sports radio all day long.<\/p>\n You got a better idea? If so, bring it on.<\/p>\n Federer\u2019s 96mph Forehand<\/b><\/p>\n Since there was so much rain in Paris today, ESPN2 showed the third and fourth set of last year\u2019s Federer-Nadal final. At one point Federer hit a 96mph forehand. Wow, that is scorching. Federer was all aggression.<\/p>\n But Nadal was all consistency. He had only two unforced errors in the second set and four unforced errors in the third. And that is the problem with a five set final. Federer has to be very aggressive to beat Nadal and that\u2019s hard to do without making a lot of errors.<\/p>\n If Federer and Nadal both play the matches of their lives, it will come down to one or two points in a tiebreaker. The last time that happened, they played a five hour final in Rome and Nadal toughed out the tiebreaker to win it.<\/p>\n If Federer can take the first two sets he has a chance. If not, Nadal\u2019s consistency and mental toughness will defeat Federer\u2019s aggressiveness.<\/p>\n See Also:<\/b> While looking around for a few good metrosexuals, I explain why I don\u2019t think Serena and Roger will win the French Open Serena Mucks Around in the Clay When Serena Williams and Tsvetana Pironkova left the court in the pouring rain today at the French Open, Pironkova was ready to serve for the first set. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-french-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOpportunity Missed (last year\u2019s French Open final)<\/a>
\nFederer-Nadal VI (last year\u2019s Rome final)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"