By Jackie Roe, TW Social Director

Evening, everyone! In just a little bit I’ll get into the crazy week that was at the AELTC. But first, I wanted to thank so many of you for the thoughtful birthday wishes via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter. It’s weird, but I can’t remember how I ever got along without you, my “tennis friends.” When I first started posting here, I was someone who believed “real life” connections were far more substantive, meaningful, and true than online ones. I never imagined it wouldn’t be so, never fathomed a relationship born on a blog (and rooted in tennis!) could offer so much gratification. And here I am now, realizing that in all the ways that really matter, they’re the most fulfilling bonds I’ve forged in years. I’m really blessed to have you guys in my life – know that your presence is valued beyond measure.

Enough with the sappy stuff! *blows nose* It’s time to talk Wimbledon. First up is a Suicide Pool update from TalkAboutTennis.com’s Mariya. Note that she sent this to me last night, so this doesn’t take into account today’s action:

On the ladies’ side, there were 46 people from the TWibe. The survival rate through Day 4 was pretty low, sadly; only 7 are through to Day 5!

“beautiful tennis” fan: Wickmayer – Zheng – Zvonareva – Azarenka
Bismarck: Kleybanova – Hantuchova – Petrova – Sharapova
cneblett: Flipkens – Rezai – Kirilenko – Pennetta
jbradhunter: Makarova – Rodionova – Kleybanova – Kanepi
Papo: Kleybanova – Pavlyuchenkova – Zvonareva – Pennetta
Peg: Groth – Errani – Kirilenko – Dulgheru
white line fever: Kulikova – Jovanovski – Petrova – Pennetta

The TWibe is faring better on the men’s side. There were 48 TW participants in the men’s pool and 16 are still alive at the end of Day 4:

“beautiful tennis” fan: Llodra – Bellucci – Kohlschreiber – Querrey
Beth: Hanescu – Petzschner – Kohlschreiber – Bellucci
Codge: Roddick – Isner – Monfils – Simon
Dave G: Llodra – Simon – Montanes – Bellucci
Gcatcee: Melzer – Simon – Kohlschreiber – Bellucci
GVGirl: Dent – A Beck – Hewitt – Bellucci
Jamaica Karen: Dent – Petzschner – - Kohlschreiber – Ferrer
Maedal: Fish – Benneteau – Lopez – Youzhny
Markic: Dent – A Beck -Brands – Petzshner
Mr. X: Llodra – Chardy – Hewitt – Bellucci
Musab: Lopez – Petzschner -Monfils – Querrey
Observer: Llodra – Simon – Melzer – Fognini
Sher: Davydenko – Tsonga – Kohlschreiber – Simon
Sokol: Melzer – A Beck – Monfils – Bellucci
White Line Fever: Kohlschreiber – A Beck – Monfils – Malisse
yello fuzzy: Lopez – A Beck – Hewitt – Querrey

Keep up the good work, TWibe. I hope we still see some of these names come next week’s Deuce Club. (beth, you’ve rebounded nicely from your RG debacle!)

This week, I considered doing the usual – soliciting your favorite presser quotes from Week 1, fashion hits and misses, biggest upset, that kind of thing. But as I started to draw it up, I just kept coming back to how odd the tournament has been thus far. Federer escaping a first round loss by the skin of his teeth, the James Blake vs. Pam Shriver squabble, and of course, *that* match. What event surprised/shocked/unnerved you the most?

Rhetorical question, maybe. If you answer with anything other than the Isner-Mahut marathon, you’re lying. We’ve talked about that record-shattering battle for days now, but I haven’t seen very many “where were you when it happened” accounts, and you know me, I’m more interested in that than in match analyses. So let’s use this space to share how we experienced the Isner-Mahut epic. Where were you? Were you watching, scoreboarding, or neither? How did you react to what was happening?

Here’s my story:

Wednesday. I remember being late to check scores since I was having major computer issues that morning. When I finally did, I noticed the Isner-Mahut 5th was somewhere in the teens. Whoa! A few e-mails came in about it, including one that referenced Mahut’s 24-22 victory just a few days earlier. I thought, “No way they’re going to hit that, but boy, it’d be cool if Mahut could make it happen twice in the same tournament!”

Ha.

Right then I remembered I had an 11 AM meeting. Convinced the match would end any minute, I asked my friend (aka our resident Julien fangirl) if she wouldn’t mind sending me e-mail updates while I was in the meeting. Just let me know when it ends, I told her.

No e-mails. Well, none aside from “This may go on all day.” Indeed, when I came out of the meeting, it was almost as if nothing had changed in that hour. The match was still as deadlocked as ever.

Went to lunch with my co-worker Dominick, who also loves tennis (he was my Cincy partner-in-crime a couple of years ago). We couldn’t focus on anything but the match, manically checking the live scores on my phone as we ate. Take bite of pizza – hit refresh – gasp at score. Repeat. Before the check came, I put my phone away, and Dominick yelled, “What are you doing?!”, to which I responded, “Come on, you know we’re going to go back and it’ll be 47-all – you’re not missing anything.” I was half right; we were only missing one of the most historic matches of all time.

Back at the office, I was fixated on my scoreboard. At that point I decided to check out Twitter, and I was amazed by the amount of attention this match was getting. My feed filled up every 30 seconds with commentary, jokes, reactions, exclamation points. Yet there was no snark, no negativity, no raining on anyone’s parade, as is wont to happen on Twitter. Everyone was just in delirious awe of what was happening. I felt lucky to be a part of that communal experience.

I started off the day rooting for Mahut, considering he’d already been to hell during that Bogdanovic match (I called the 24-22 score “obscene” over on Twitter … more like child’s play now), and because he was the one serving from behiind. Then as the hours passed, I cared increasingly less about who I wanted to win, or even if I wanted anyone to win at all. I could only feel admiration for these two warriors who were busting their behinds and giving all of themselves to a first round match on little court 18. How were they still doing this? Who knows. They just were.

And I was proud to be a tennis fan, too. I marveled at the sight of Mahut and Isner as the top trending topics on Twitter and was pleasantly surprised to receive e-mails from co-workers who had never before watched a tennis match in their lives. Finally, everyone was seeing what you and I have always known – that, in the words of Andy Murray, tennis is “one of the toughest sports in the world.” If only it didn’t take a basketball scoreline for people to realize that.

Thursday was a little anticlimactic, after Wednesday’s drama. I pulled up the scoreboard again, prepared for a repeat performance. And then, in an instant (relative to the day before, anyway), it was over. Isner wins, Mahut loses. I guess I never wanted it to end.

I’ll stop there and save the rest for the Comments. Now tell us your Isner-Mahut story.

As always, feel free to go as OT as you please here. Have a wonderful weekend!

TENNIS.com gear editor Bill Gray and his technical advisers will answer your equipment questions every Friday. Click here to send one of your own.

As a USTA member and league player, I get regular e-mails from the USTA. Recently they informed me that Arthur Ashe Stadium court has been dug up and completely replaced this year. Will this new surface play faster or slower than the rest of the courts at the National Tennis Center?—Jennifer

All 34 courts at the USTA’s National Tennis Center are meant to be exact clones, Jennifer. The International Tennis Federation and the USTA go to great lengths to ensure that court speeds are identical, otherwise players would have to make small swing and timing adjustments as they move from one court to another during the tournament. The speed of a tennis court depends on how much friction there is between the ball and the surface—more friction results in a higher bounce that slows the ball down. The ITF tests court speed by firing a ball at the court at 67 m.p.h. and using infrared beams to monitor the speed. The DecoTurf hard courts used at the U.S. Open can be fine-tuned for consistency by adding or removing sand between the base asphalt of the court and its acrylic upper layers. The ITF classifies court surfaces into five categories, from the slowest clays to the fastest grass, and the U.S. Open courts are in the middle of the range for hard courts, according to the ITF’s Stuart Miller.       

And speaking of courts…

We heard from a couple of backyard grass-court owners who take issue with the idea that their favorite surface is high maintenance (“Field of Nightmares,” TENNIS, July/August 2010). It’s easy being green, say Richard Harton of New Jersey and Todd Dobben of Michigan. Harton uses a rye blend that he says is more durable than bent grass (the kind used at Wimbledon). He also uses diluted white latex house paint for the lines instead of the chalky variety that wears off quickly. Another key to lessen grass-court wear and tear is to cut it to within a half-inch, instead of the usual quarter-inch putting-green length, says Dobben, who runs his own grass tournament each year on his backyard court. “Some people cut their court too short and, hence, it gets dug up,” he says. Both owners say their courts get good bounce and that it gets better the more it’s used. Another thing they like about grass courts: They’re cheaper to build—about $1,500 compared to $12,000 for clay and $15,000 for a hard court.
 
I really like polyester string but I break it every two to four days. When I use a string saver it only makes the string last one more session. I need something that’s more durable. Any suggestions?—Anant Mundra

You sure somebody’s not using your racquet for batting practice? Polyesters lose tension but seldom break. The only string tougher than polyester is Kevlar, the kind of stuff they make bullet-proof vests from (it’s not exactly easy on the arm). String guru Bob Patterson says you might try switching racquets. “Chances are he is playing with a frame with an open-string pattern,” Patterson says. “The best help for a string-breaker of this magnitude is going to a dense pattern with the thickest and best poly, which, in my opinion, is Luxilon Big Banger Original 1.30 mm.”

by Bobby Chintapalli, Contributing Writer

Venus Williams is going through a (tennis) midlife crisis. I’m sure of it. Not sure of it in the way I might be if Venus told me so herself. More in the way of someone who’s watched Venus for a while, someone who knows turning 30 can make a woman want to try something new, someone who wants to start this piece with more pizazz than ‘maybe’.

Being Venus

One of five former Grand Slam singles winners left in the Wimbledon ladies’ singles draw, Venus reached the fourth round today with her win over No. 26 Alisa Kleybanova. She may be the only major winner who won’t play another major winner in the fourth round. Kim Clijsters will play Justine Henin, and Serena Williams may play Maria Sharapova.

But let’s talk about Paris, because that’s what got me thinking about this. And by Paris, you know what I mean. Not Nadia Petrova, the woman who beat Venus, or even Francesca Schiavone, the woman who beat everyone. I mean Venus’s tennis kit, that black lace number with nude underpants that was “about the illusion of bareness”. It was supposed to be like it wasn’t there, yet it’s the only thing about the French Open some ever saw. This dress and a few before this one got me thinking about Venus… and what Venus must be thinking about Venus as she enters her 30s. (She turned 30 last week.)

Her tennis made me wonder too, of course. Venus has been playing more this year and winning more too. In February she tweeted that she needed matches – then she lit it up. She won 15 straight, which took her to the Dubai and Acapulco titles and the Miami final. She has the highest winning percentage this year (85% compared to 84% for Kim Clijsters and 82% for Serena Williams). For her efforts Venus is once again a spot away from the No. 1 ranking she first reached eight years ago. Justine Henin 2.0 emerged after unretiring. I’m thinking Venus Williams 2.0 emerged before our very eyes, and I’m digging her.

Playing Venus

What must it be like to walk onto a court at Wimbledon to play this woman? She has more Wimbledon singles titles than any active player and more than any Open Era player but Martina Navratilova (9) and Steffi Graf (7).

I looked for the answer on the face of Rossana De Los Rios, Venus’s first-round opponent. The 34-year-old is one of eight women in the singles draw who’s older than Venus. De Los Rios turned pro the year Victoria Azarenka was born. She’s been on the tour a while and would know what to expect going up against this force of Wimbledon nature, right?

I got my answer on the first point, an unreturnable serve from Venus. It took De Los Rios aback, in more ways than one. Venus walked to the ad side of the court. De Los Rios stood there, at first likely to process the force of the serve, then to determine if the serve could possibly have been in. She challenged. The gigantic screen came up, the ball flew across it and fell in. The serve was good. You didn’t think about physics and technology – in this case, Hawk-Eye seemed an ode to Venus’s serve. But the show must go on, and it did with Venus serving three more unreturnable serves to wrap up the first game. Maybe De Los Rios scoured the WTA website the night before her match, maybe she knew the exact speed of the fastest-recorded serve on there (Venus’s at 129 mph). Watching her receive that first serve though, you sensed how different it is to know about that serve than to feel it from the other side of a tennis court.

De Los Rios (in the picture at left) managed to win a few games eventually and got into a comfortable groove for a while using body serves and more. For the most part though she didn’t believe in herself and Venus, with 27 more winners and four fewer unforced errors, didn’t let her.

Watching Venus

On ESPN2 Mary Carillo and Mary Joe Fernandez used some of the cruise-control match to chitchat. There was discussion about the Paris dress and this Wimbledon dress, which Venus says was inspired by Tina Turner.

Fernandez, on the French Open dress: “A little too much going on.”
Carillo: “Was it too much for you?”
Fernandez: “A little bit, yes. But I like this one.”
Carillo: “You do like this one… the flapper thing?”
Fernandez: “I do like this one.”
Carillo, laughing: “It’s flirty, it’s friendly… it’s everything I believe in. Yep, the people have spoken.”

There’s talk about tennis too, of course. Carillo and Fernandez had this discussion after Venus came back from 0-40 at 6-4, 4-2 in her third-round match against Kleybanova today.

Carillo: “Look at that – another recovery from Venus Williams. On this surface Venus can ignore the scoreboard, ignore 0-40 games…”
Fernandez: “She seems to recover faster from those little bad patches that she’ll have in a match, whether it’s the serve that gets her out of trouble or just one swing of the racquet on a return.”

Sometimes they say less. This exchange during the De Los Rios match, like the 64-minute match itself, was quick.

Carillo, on De Los Rios: “Is there anything she can do better than Venus Williams?”
Fernandez, without hesitation: “No.”
Carillo: “OK. Just checking.”

They meant no disrespect to De Los Rios, a woman who’s won an impressive 445 tour matches in her career. What they meant is that – whatever the version, whatever the dress – Venus is Venus.

In my old brownstone-filled neighborhood in Brooklyn, you
can see into people’s ground-floor apartments as you walk down the street. From
that vantage point on a hot day, every living room looks temptingly black and
cool. But none looked as tempting as the one I glanced into about 10 years ago, while straggling back from a jog in the park on a humid July afternoon.
Just inside the open window, there was a big television set—big for those
pre-flat-screen days, anyway—that was tuned to Wimbledon. Centre Court’s green
grass glowed in the dark, and the pop of the balls and polite murmuring of the
British crowd seemed to come from some other, more civilized world. I’ve never
been so close to knocking on a stranger’s door and inviting myself in. If
there’s a sporting venue more perfectly suited to television, I haven’t seen
it. The show courts at Wimbledon fit the playing surface inside the
screen, while keeping up the illusion that the grass might go on forever
outside of it.

The last two years I’ve spent the first week of the tournament on the other side
of that screen, walking around the grounds. This time I’ve been back on the
outside, but I’ve felt almost as surrounded by the event here, across the ocean. The ESPN crew is already at it when I wake up, I can get four
different matches on my computer at work, and the players stop by to
chat on the Tennis Channel in the evening. These days Wimbledon seems to be
made, and played, for TV. I’m not complaining. If nothing else, this week of tennis has helped me get the sound of the vuvuzela out of my head.

After all of that scattered watching, listening, and
reading, here’s what stuck in my mind from the opening days.

***.

Speaking of having the stars stop by to chat, I’m still
amazed by how often tennis players are asked to talk about themselves. They do
press conferences in multiple languages, and then make the rounds of various TV
networks from different countries. It makes me think of what Andy Roddick said at one of those borderline-useless
pre-Davis Cup press conferences. He was asked what surprised him the most about
being a pro. Roddick, with a half-serious, half-joking sneer, said, “I never thought I’d have to answer so many [darn] questions.”

My two favorite Q & A sessions from this week involved Roger Federer on ESPN, after he’d met the Queen, and Justine Henin on the
Tennis Channel after her second-round win. Federer, hunched low in his seat and
wearing a striped Wimbledon member’s tie, looked like a happy schoolboy. As he was
describing what the Queen had for lunch and laughing his goofy laugh, I thought about what a different type of
person and star he is from a guy like Tiger Woods. The weekend before, Woods
had been ice cold in his post-U.S. Open TV interview, to the point where it got
a little awkward. Granted, he had just let a major slip through his fingers, and
Federer never would have shown up on ESPN if he’d already lost at
Wimbledon. Nevertheless, there’s something appealingly disarming and
un-Olympian about Federer’s demeanor in these situations. In the days of Borg
and McEnroe, it was said that the No. 1 player had to be a society to himself,
closed off and above his fellow players. It was one reason why the very social
McEnroe didn’t thrive there at first. That stayed true during the Sampras era,
but from all accounts Federer doesn’t operate that way. He doesn’t need to
distance himself from his fellow denizens of pro tennis, and you could see that in his interactions with Mary Carillo and Pat McEnroe.

As for Justine, her TV interviews always bring her normal side out to me. On court, she can appear to be a tightly-wound freak of
athletic intensity, so it’s always surprising to see that she can be smiling
and comfortable and relatable on camera. There’s distance, of course, an
un-American distance. But I like hearing her say she “felt the passion” of Wimbledon again (instead of saying, “it was great”), and that the time she spent on a horrid-looking reality-TV show in Belgium was “fantastique.” She sounded
like she was reminiscing about a beautiful love affair. It’s true: Life is drama and drama is life for Justine.

***

Should we complain about the TV coverage? These days, if you don’t like it, you can always squint at the Internet instead. Still, you wouldn’t be a tennis fan
if little things in the broadcasts didn’t get to you, little things that you would do
differently. Take Friday morning. Yes, I was interested in how John Isner was
doing in the match after the longest match, but once he went down two sets and
showed how little gas he had in the tank, I wanted to leave him and see Henin
vs. Petrova on Centre Court. It felt like ESPN was pushing the Isner phenomenon
one step too far, abandoning the tennis fan for the casual drive-by viewer. But
then I saw that Henin had won the first set 6-1 anyway, so I really had nothing
to complain about. Ah well, there’s always next time.

***

Dick
Enberg: How did he end up, in the middle of the Murray-Nieminen match, making
this statement: “It makes you wonder when the U.S. is going to have a female
president”? 

***

The Rog-Rafa report. Federer has settled in, after
a real scare in the first round, from Falla, and a tricky/wacky opponent in the
second named Bozoljac. I’d like to see more of the man in shades, with the
two-handed strokes, the wild and deceptive ball toss, and the go-for-broke game.
Federer struggled with his backhand against Falla and looked constricted in general.
We’ll see if it means anything.

As for Rafa, he was under the gun against Haase, who looked
like he’d been taking lessons from Isner and Mahut; he threw in two four-ace games
and was as relaxed as anyone I’ve ever seen who was up a set on the No. 1 player
in the world. For once, “wake-up call” didn’t sound like a cliché. Nadal had to play better than normal over the last two sets to win. It made for some energetic tennis
and might serve him well down the road.

***

Who else looks good? It’s too bad Serena and Maria are
destined to meet so early; each has been sharp, as has Venus, despite a few whiplash-inducing moments today—Kleybanova is a quality opponent, and Venus won when she needed to. She just feels more in command at Wimbledon, like she’s running around her backyard.

I’ve said many times that what Andy Murray needs more than
anything is a putaway topspin forehand. That’s just what he was trying to hit
against Nieminen. It’s still not a natural shot for him, but he had success
with it. Stay tuned to it, it could be the key to his tournament.

Justine vs. Kim? I’d be lying if I said I had any idea who was
going to win. I said at the start that I’ll take Henin because it’s a
major.

Soderling and Querrey: Under the radar spoilers. Could we
see them in a semi, instead of Murray and Nadal?

Alexandr Dolgopolov: I liked this guy’s game when he was a
junior, but he’d be a lot easier to watch now if he got a haircut. Still, he barely
lost to Tsonga and continues to make inroads with his touch style.

***

Friday’s match between Lleyton Hewitt and Gael Monfils was a
study in playing within yourself, on one side of the net, and beyond yourself on the
other. At first I thought Rusty might be in trouble. It didn’t look like he had any
way to hurt the rangier Frenchman.
But Hewitt found a way by sneaking forward at just the right times, a tactic he didn’t always have in his repertoire. Meanwhile, Monfils wasted crucial
points launching low-percentage bombs from behind the baseline. The tight
second-set tiebreaker told the story: Hewitt won it with another sneak attack,
and a deft drop volley. While Hewitt did a vintage lawnmower, Monfils was left jumping in the air, scissor-kicking
his legs in frustration, all that style and ability gone for naught once again.

***

One last thought on Isner-Mahut before we move on. Think about how the Frenchman must feel, if he stops to consider this: He won far, far, far more points than anyone ever has in a match, even his opponent. It ended up 502-478 in his favor. Call it the Bush-Gore of tennis. Shows you what points are worth.

***

The Queen’s visit: Memorable? Cool? Awesome? Underwhelming? I liked the
waves myself. One tiny one with the right hand to acknowledge the 6,000 people on that side of Centre Court; another tiny one with with her left hand to
acknowledge the 6,000 people over there. Good gig, being Queen.

***

See you on Monday, the most comprehensive day of the tennis year.

By TW Contributing Editor Rosangel Valenti

Good morning everyone. It’s looking like another sunny day in the leafy suburbs of SW19.

After the excitement of the first few days of the tournament, what’s in store today? The first match on Centre Court involves Justine Henin and Nadia Petrova, which could definitely pose a danger to Henin’s hopes of adding a replica of the Venus Rosewater Dish to her trophy cabinet. My top pick for ‘potential long five-setter of the day’ has to be……no, not Roger Federer versus Arnaud Clement, nor John Isner versus Thiemo De Bakker, but the lefty versus lefty encounter between Feliciano Lopez and Jurgen Melzer, For some reason I find it impossible to visuallise either man winning that one in straight sets.

The last match on Court 1 today might turn out to be Andy Roddick’s chance for revenge – this will be the first time he’s faced Philipp Kohlschreiber since the German put him out in a fine five-setter in the third round of the Australian Open in 2008.

Personally I’m looking forward to seeing Hewitt versus Monfils on Centre Court.

The tennis is now about to begin, so as always, enjoy the matches.