To an American, there’s something about Canada. If you’re walking down the
street and you stop in mid-stride, you probably won’t hear three people sighing and grunting
in frustration behind you. If your meal is late, you might find yourself
laughing about it with the waiter instead of raising your collective voices until someone
is threatening a lawsuit. If the subway isn’t working, you could very well see
a handwritten note on the wall that reads, “We’re sorry for the inconvenience.” I don’t know what all of this says about the country, except that it ain’t New York.

And the Rogers Cup isn’t the U.S. Open, for better or worse.
There was a calmness around the site as the event’s opening day quietly and
humidly—and eventually rainily—got itself off the ground. In the time-honored
tradition of this blog, I’ll give you a glimpse around the grounds for as long as it lasted.

***

11:00 A.M.

“To the site, yeah, to the site.”

These are the words of a player—I don’t know who he is—as he gets into the transport car that will take us from our downtown hotel to the tournament. Ahead of us, getting in another, bigger car, is Fernando
Gonzalez. He’s already dressed in his blindingly white dry-fit tennis clothes, and has a monster racquet bag flung over his shoulder. I guess the pros get used to it, but I don’t think I would enjoy spending half my life or more dressed in ultra-bright, sponsor-designed
polyester gym wear, with shoes that look, as John McEnroe once said, like model
airplanes.

The player in my car, very tall and tan, sits up front, puts in his
earphones, and plays solitaire on his IPhone. I think of British tennis
journalist Richard Evans’ line about how much the tour changed with the
advent of the Walkman in the early 1980s. He said that, with that one little
invention, something of the camaraderie went out of the game. Meanwhile, our
driver, all business in her Rogers Cup uniform, puts on her shades and barrels
out of the city, past condo towers and scattered low-lying warehouses and not
much else. We ride in silence for 45 minutes. When we get there, the player takes out his
earphones and says in a surprisingly cheerful and friendly voice, “Thank you very much!”

***

12:00

“C’mon Richie!”

This is the sentiment of a young man in the center court
audience, and for the moment his support seems to help. “Richie” is
Canadian-ese for Richard Gasquet, and right now everything appears to be fine in
this sometimes troubled young man’s world. At 4-4 in the first set against
Sergiy Stakhovsky, he hits an ace for 40-0 and a vintage backhand winner up the
line for the game. Then, for no obvious reason, it all falls apart. Gasquet
flips a couple of forehands out, is broken, and then flips a couple more forehands even
farther out to lose the set. Twenty minutes later, already down a break in the
second, he pushes a drop shot that doesn’t reach the net, and then miss virtually every ball he hits until the match is over. I’ve seen Gasquet
choke, I’ve seen him come up soft, I’ve heard him lamely back out of matches.
But I’ve never seen him cave so transparently. We may hear about an injury,
but, like I said, all was well in Gasquet’s world, until it wasn’t.

***

1:00

“Maybe we should go somewhere else.”

“Yeah, these two aren’t very good anyway.”

These are the words of an older couple sitting in the
Grandstand. The two players who they’ve decided
“aren’t very good anyway” are Tommy Robredo and Jarkko Nieminen. 

Nieminen, who is getting blown out, and quietly
enraged in the process, throws the ball up for a second serve. In the distance, the stadium
court PA is playing Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl.” It drifts loudly into the
Grandstand. Niemenin hears it, catches his toss, thinks about saying something,
thinks better of it, breathes deeply, and double faults.

***

1:10

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, I can’t sign, I can’t sign, can’t
sign. I’ve got to go on court in five minutes.”

This is the voice of Gilles Simon speaking to a small army
of autograph seekers as he leaves the practice courts. He’s friendly
and calm, but his manner is tense. He really does have to get to center court
in five minutes. Behind him is Sam Querrey, who has just been practicing with
Simon. Throughout their session, Querrey has been loose and smiling, while
Simon has looked grim and a little anxious. This may be the difference between a
guy who is playing in five minutes, and someone who is scheduled to play later
in the afternoon. Or maybe it’s just the Querrey way at the moment. After a few days off, he practiced for
something like five hours on Saturday, and he looks disappointed having to
leave the court after 45 minutes today.

Watching Simon, I can see another element of the
professional game that I would have trouble handling: the 24/7 tension. Yes,
these guys are well paid and well adored, and they spend time playing video
games and lying around expensive hotel rooms and chasing women. But for any real professional, there’s no escaping the
tension. When you’re in season, and especially when you’re at a tournament,
your life, your sleep, your food, your thoughts, your energy are all
orchestrated around your next match. You even have to avoid serious mental
stimulation, because it will drain you—the “dumb jock” is an unfortunate but
necessary creation. That’s a lot to give to a sport. Like Marat Safin said in
his last U.S. Open press conference, “It’s a great life, but you have to pay for it.”
Like Simon, his eyes narrowed, says to the fans today, the fans he couldn’t engage even if he had wanted to: “I have a match to play.”

*** 

1:20

Squeak squeak, squeak squeak.

These are the sneakers of Max Mirnyi, the most intense and
impressive player on the practice courts. The seemingly ageless doubles master turned 33 a month ago (it seems like he’s been around much longer),
but his footwork is stunning as he rushes the net after a serve. He makes
innumerable and uncountable tiny adjustment moves while covering just a few feet of
ground. There’s an awesome sharpness to the way he gets around a court.
Consider it reason three why I, along with most of us, could never be a pro—we simply could not do that.

*** 

1:30

“It’s Star Wars!”

The young fan is right, the theme from Star Wars is playing
over the loudspeaker in the main stadium. It’s the same music that was played when Pete Sampras and Roger Federer entered Madison Square Garden for
their exhibition a couple of years ago. Bombastic as it was, it made sense there.
I hate to say it, but it kind of feels like overkill as Mikhail Youzhny and Simon enter the court today.

That might be because Youzhny and Simon are wearing exactly
the same brown and white Adidas outfit, right down to their shoes. I’ll repeat an old request here: In these cases, the lower-ranked player should change clothes. In this case, the uniformity doesn’t do justice to a stylish match-up.
There’s something uncanny about each of their backhands in particular. They seem to make
time slow down just before they strike the ball. No matter hard-hit their
opponent’s shot, they always look like they have plenty of time.

Simon hits his backhand straight-armed, very deliberately,
and with no more knee bend—or motion of any kind—than is absolutely necessary.
All of that makes for a deceptive and unusually versatile two-hander. Youzhny’s
backhand is a two-hander that has been converted into a one-hander. He still brings his
left hand along for the ride. Like Simon, he can do anything with the shot,
change speeds, change directions, change spins.

Youzhny wins the first set; Simon goes up 4-1 in the second.
The Russian, as always, plays as if he’s on the verge of bursting a blood vessel. His
anger seems to lodge itself in his neck, until he lets it all go and punctures the
silence in the stadium with a scream. For his part, Simon is still as tense as he was on the
practice court, though you wouldn’t know it from his body. His intensity is always gathered around his eyes.

A nice contrast in styles, and all the more
reason they should be wearing different clothes. As Youzhny and Simon walk off the court
together in the rain, you might think they were brothers, or clones, or
video-game avatars, or Star Wars storm troopers on summer vacation. Anything but highly individual and, in their own ways,
artistic tennis players.

More later, I hope. 

by Bobby Chintapalli, Contributing Writer

I’m in Cincinnati this week for the Western & Southern Financial Group Women’s Open, where main draw matches start today. (As you’ve probably heard this will be a combined WTA/ATP event starting next year.) I’ll be writing a few ‘notebook’ posts in addition to researching other pieces. This first one fills you in on some of the goings-on around the practice courts this weekend.

Ana Ivanovic is, well, you know

Adjectives don’t win tennis matches, even when they’re ‘pretty’ and ‘gorgeous’. Especially when they’re ‘pretty’ and ‘gorgeous’. And certainly not for a Grand Slam winner and former No. 1 who other players likely hear described that way early and often.

By early I mean five minutes, which is how long I was at the tournament before I heard those words used to describe the winsome Ana Ivanovic, who’s still struggling to win some matches. (She’s currently No. 60.) At the first practice court I stopped at on my way to the snazzy, new media center, Ivanovic was hitting with Dinara Safina. As Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova sat on the side of the court watching them, a lady next to me asked me their names. I told her, she looked over then asked, pointing to Ivanovic, “Which one is this?” As Ivanovic rallied on, with Azarenka and her coach still watching and discussing closely (Azarenka and Ivanovic play each other in the first round tonight), the words spilled out of the lady, effortlessly as a Serena Williams ace. Ivanovic’s looks don’t go unnoticed by fans and sponsors, and you have to wonder if, indirectly at least, that just makes her a bigger target on court.

Sabine Lisicki’s back, and she’s having fun

After being out with an injury since March Sabine Lisicki makes her comeback at this tournament, and the proof is in the beer glass. But we’ll get to that. On Saturday, sharing a practice court with Elena Vesnina, she moved well enough and was pounding that serve and forehand. Too much so in the case of one wayward shot that found its way to a plastic beer glass a fan placed in a tray by the fence. The shot hit the glass, and the glass exploded, spraying beer all over its owner before falling into the court. Lisicki and Vesnina looked over and laughed along with the guy who lost half his beer.

Perhaps grateful to be playing again, Lisicki had a good time out there. Vesnina, who always seems to find a way to enjoy herself (especially when she’s not playing an actual match), joined in the merriment. After a bit of hitting and a few minutes of chitchatting, the two prepared to start practice games.

Vesnina asked, “I start?”
Lisicki playfully retorted, “Oh, you don’t want me to start, huh?”
Vesnina replied, “No.”

At one point the man with Lisicki, likely her father/coach, walked over to the beer guy and said jovially, in reference to the beer incident, “You’re watching the wrong court.” But it was exactly the right court if you wanted to see professional tennis look like what it is for millions of recreational players – fun.

Victoria Azarenka & Yanina Wickmayer don’t play around

I finally got the matchup I’d been waiting to see for more than a year now. No. 12 Victoria Azarenka and No. 16 Yanina Wickmayer, who I’m convinced are too good – and too fiery – not to win a major someday, finally played each other. For points. So what if it was on the practice courts? They faced off on inconspicuous Court 10, from where you can see a half dozen John Deere tractors and hear men emptying dumpsters, and it was fierce. Not that many fans would know – hardly a dozen occupied the bleachers, since Maria Sharapova was in the middle of a hitting session on the next court. Set against a chorus of ‘whoopee’s, ‘whoo’s and Sharapova grunts, their practice games were “practice” games.

Before receiving serve Azarenka sometimes turned her back, practiced her strokes and held up her hand when she wasn’t ready for Wickmayer’s serve. And, yes, she grunted as loud as ever.

Wickmayer was quieter but perhaps more… intense. One game ended with a shot Azarenka called wide. Wickmayer looked over at her, and Azarenka gestured that the ball was, in fact, wide. The game ended. Azarenka walked to the other side, taking a longer look at the mark as she passed it. Wickmayer walked to the other side too, hitting her racket on the ground along the way.

Later, seeing a tennis ball roll near Wickmayer as she prepared to serve, Azarenka put her hand up and said, “Yanina, watch out for the ball… sorry.” Without a nod, a turn or further delay, Wickmayer pushed the ball away and proceeded to serve. This isn’t to say Wickmayer doesn’t stop to enjoy herself. In fact, I saw her smile – twice in two sessions. (Yes, I counted games too, but a lady never tells – especially not in The Queen City.)

If Vesnina practiced like it’s fun and Safina practiced like it’s work, Azarenka and Wickmayer practiced like it’s not practice.

Maybe you’ve forgotten this; maybe you’ve conveniently
forgotten it. But I’m on a roll when it comes to picks. Granted, it’s a short
roll, consisting of one tournament, Wimbledon. And granted, I earned it by
having the foresight to predict that the two No. 1 players in the world, Rafael
Nadal and Serena Williams, would win that tournament. Still, there it is. A
roll.

Six weeks later and it feels like, if we haven’t entered an
entirely new season, we’re beginning a second half that’s been disconnected from the first.
We’re on a new surface and a new continent, and virtually everyone is starting
fresh, with at least the promise of good health. And the Top 3 players, who
are all making their North American debuts this week in Toronto, aren’t coming
in with a lot of momentum, either positive or negative.

So far in Toronto, Nadal has beaten the (admittedly ridiculous) traffic
by helicoptering over to the courts, and Roger Federer has talked about losing
to girls in tennis and crying. What’s next for the big two, and for the rest of the
field? It’s time to keep the roll going.

First Quarter

There was some talk right after Wimbledon that Nadal
would miss this tournament entirely because of his knee treatments. But that seems like a long time ago at this point. He’s been fine physically, and his draw as
it stands now could be worse. He’d open against the winner of
Dancevic-Wawrinka, and the highest seed in his quarter, Roddick, has been
feeling “lethargic”—so lethargic that as I write this there’s a chance he might
pull out of the event, which would shift the draw around.

The one obvious hurdle in this section is Sam Querrey,
who Nadal might get in the third round. Querrey, as we know, has been climbing
this season; he’s at No. 16 now, and he’s coming off his biggest career win,
over Murray in Los Angeles. He’s also played Nadal tough in the past, taking
him to four sets on clay and at the U.S. Open a couple years ago. Querrey
matches up well with Rafa. He’s tall enough to handle the topspin, and he can
hit through the court from anywhere with his forehand—the down the line in
particular has worked for him against Nadal in the past. The only problem for
Querrey is that when Nadal is challenged by a big-hitting lower-ranked guy—think Monfils at the Open last year;
Tsonga in Key Biscayne this year—he tends to rise to it.

Semifinalist: Nadal

Second Quarter

Here we have the tightest bracket: The No. 4 and 5 seeds,
Murray and Soderling, are slotted to play in the quarters. Each will be
coachless this week, as Murray, the defending champion, has split with Miles
McLagan, while Soderling will have to make do without Magnus Norman, who has an
Achilles’ problem (are we going to start seeing coaches pull out with injuries
now?).

In between them we see names like Malisse and de Bakker, who
have been surging to a degree; Monfils, who is always not quite dangerous;
Gulbis, who is struggling in his return; and the best first-round match-up of the
tournament, Ferrer versus Nalbandian, who has found the old form once again
this week at the Legg Mason. The question is, will he have the energy to use
that form in Toronto?

First-round slugfest to watch: Monfils vs. Gonzalez

Semifinalist: Soderling

Third Quarter

This is where things get a little strange. Who is this
person at No. 3, his name ignominiously lodged in the middle of the draw?
That’s right: It’s “R. Federer.” While he’s in a new spot, his draw looks
awfully familiar. Federer might get Falla in the second round, and Berdych in the
quarters. In between could be a date with another guy who is never quite as a
dangerous as he should be, Nicolas Almagro. If the mid-season break was a positive from a
physical standpoint for Nadal, the same should be true from a mental standpoint
for Federer. He’s had time to shake Wimbledon off and begin to hear a new
coaching voice. By all accounts, he appears eager. The question, I suppose, is how
long will it take for him to internalize what that coach, Paul Annacone, says and put any new
ideas and directions into his game. Federer doesn’t change with the wind, that
we know. But I don’t think it will take long. He knows his career, and his time
at the top, aren’t going to last forever.

What about Berdych? How will the Wimbledon finalist handle
the new attention and the pressure that comes with it? Things didn’t go so
well in Washington, where he lost as the top seed. His road to Federer in the
quarters could pass through Gasquet, Dolgopolov, Petzschner, Simon, or Youzhny—a who’s who of the lower second-tier. That’s the tier that Berdych escaped at
Wimbledon. We’ll see if he’s left them behind.

Semifinals: Federer

Fourth Quarter

Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic comes in as one of the quietest
No. 2 seeds in recent memory. He hasn’t reached any major finals this year, and
he’s not surrounded by any controversy. He’s had success in Canada in
the past, winning the title in Montreal in 2007; and looking at his draw
there’s no reason he can’t have success again this year. There are steady laborers here—Verdasco, Melzer, Benneteau, Hanescu, Stepanek. There’s also another guy
who’s been surging in D.C., Baghdatis. Though like Nalbandian, fitness has
never gone unquestioned with him, so you have to wonder about his prospects in
Toronto. Finally, at the top of the this section, there’s Nikolay Davydenko, who has spent much of this year
proving again that he won’t be around when it counts. Is there any reason to
expect that to change heading into the U.S. Open?

Semifinals: Djokovic

Semifinals: Nadal d. Soderling; Federer d. Djokovic

Final: Nadal d. Federer

You remember that old Saturday Night Live video, Lazy
Sunday, right? Two white guys go nuts on $20 cupcakes and rage their way through
Manhattan. Well, this Sunday was even lazier in Toronto, and while I was certainly overcaffeinated, I had a hard time imagining anyone going on a rampage through the innocent merchandise tents and serve-speed cages at the Rogers Cup. It was gray and
rainy here, and the tennis world was still looking elsewhere, to D.C. and San
Diego. For most of the day, the closest we got to real-live entertainment was
watching Ross Hutchins try to roll the court dry so his doubles partner, Andy
Murray, could get in a little practice. (I guess if you want to
play with someone in the Top 5, you’ve got to work for it.) Unfortunately, as
soon as the court was dry enough for Murray to set foot on it, the rains came
again.

It took a photo-op to get the locals revved up. Canadian national hero—or god, or some previously unseen combination of both—Sidney Crosby presented Roger Federer with a birthday cake in the press room. I had trouble recognizing Crosby, a
professed Federer fan, under a baseball cap, but that wasn’t the case with the people working at the tournament who
happened to be in the room. Their reaction to seeing him was
simple and uniform: They stopped walking, stood still for a second,
and covered their mouths with their hands.

With Federer putting off his press conference until
tomorrow, and lots of other players escaping the grounds, I was left to
contemplate the draw one more time. Looking past the bold-faced names and
potential match-ups this time, what sticks out most is the lack of brutal and threatening youth on display. In part this is due to the absence of Juan Martin del Potro, who finished last year as the
winner of the Next Big Thing sweepstakes. But scrolling down the names of both the Toronto draw and the current rankings,
it’s clear that this has been a year of consolidation, of slight shifts and
small up-and-back surges, rather than a year of dynamic runs upward. The tennis market has been stagnant, with no serious bulls or bears.

We talk about chaos on the women’s tour, but the men’s
hasn’t been much better this season. Cilic started strong, then went fragile.
Querrey and Soderling moved in the opposite direction. Roddick lost momentum at
the halfway point, while Simon and Nalbandian, talented former denizens of the
Top 10, have risen from the dead. Isner and Gulbis got tired around the same time that I started
to hear the term “Almagro bandwagon” cropping up—those are two words I never
expected to be uttered in the same sentence. Davydenko, Baghdatis, Giraldo,
Gasquet: The list of hopefuls who have risen and fallen and risen and fallen
without ever getting a sniff at a Slam, is endless. This is what happens when you play in the aforementioned Extraordinary Age, in which two guys, Nadal and Federer,
have combined to win an unprecedented 20 or 22 majors—you’re only going to rise
so far with them blocking the way at the top. Players move up, hit their head
against the ceiling, and flounder.

As the game gets taller and ever more physical, will it also become harder to predict? Will Nadal be the last teenage Grand Slam
champion we see for a while? This is an obvious trend on the women’s side, though no clear reason for it has been discovered. You never know
exactly when the next all-timer is coming down the pike, but the names Federer and Nadal were known to all of us well
before they reached the Top 10, or even the Top 50. As far as I know,
there’s nobody of comparable buzz and promise on the horizon. The two players
who have made definitive jumps in 2010, Berdych and Soderling, are both over 25
and over 6-foot-4.

While it might make sense that a taller player would take
longer to develop, there’s no evidence for it, mainly because there
haven’t been many Grand Slam champions of that height, whatever their age—del
Potro is the tallest ever. What may be easier to say with confidence is that
the taller the player, the more erratic the long-term results. There’s more body to
coordinate. There are defensive liabilities to overcome. And there’s still
something a little unnatural about playing tennis at 6-foot-6. Cilic, for one,
has shown these weaknesses, and none of the big guys approaches the fluidity
that has made Federer or Nadal so consistent.

Teenage champs on the men’s side have never been the norm.
But at this moment, with the top sealed off, it’s
even harder than normal for anyone else to make a mark. After a few years, hungry sure shots
like Djokovic and Murray end up a little dazed and disappointed. (In his pre-tournament presser today, Djokovic, while he said he was
re-charged, looked as subdued as I’ve ever seen him.) Former junior champs Thiemo
de Bakker and Sergiy Stakhovsky spend five years in the pro wilderness before
edging into main draws. A dozen other major talents come
and go. Today I watched another former highly touted junior, Philip Bester, lose badly in the final round of qualifying to long-running journeyman Michael Russell.

There’s always a Next, but only rarely does an older player make it “back” for more than a tournament or two at a time. Until the Next shows his face, or comes back from injury, we should keep
celebrating the surprise wins and comeback efforts that we get from the Nalbandians and Baghdatises of the world. But we should also remember that they’re probably going to come from someone completely
different the next week.

Mornin’. I don’t know how it is where you are at this moment, but here at the farm in game-rich Andes it’s a regular Rocky Mountain morning – the air is so sharp and cool you’d think it was distilled from an icy, clear mountain brook. And it’s bright, with a warm sun, as well.

As I scanned yesterday’s results, I recalled how, a couple of years ago, David Nalbandian was on a roll. At the time, he was wearing yellow-and-black, and looking a mite. . . portly. . . stimulating some wag to observe that he looked vaguely like a school bus (I pulled the old photo on the right, in which David looks kind of goofy, but also a tad magisterial).

Well guess what? The next stop for the bus (I sure hope Jerome Bettis doesn’t decide to sue for copyright infringement) is the Legg Mason Tennis Classic (Washington) final, where Nalbandian will try to run over another resurgent talent, Marcos Baghdatis. Rarely do you get such an intriguing, promising, but thoroughly unexpected final. It will sure beat watching some poor stiff get clubbed by Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal. . .

And rarely do you get such a great example of the genius behind nothing-for-granted, single-elimination, draw-based tennis.

No. 117 David Nalbandian vs. No. 25 Marcos Baghdatis. Who among you looked at the draw and penciled them in to meet today? I’m guessing that these two fellas are going to produce a whale of a match. I’ll have more to say about all this, as well as the Copenhagen final (where Caroline Wozniacki is fighting tooth and claw to win the equivalent of her home-town tournament) in my post tomorrow morning.

Right now, though, I’ve got to get the kids ready for church and an afternoon of swimming. Maybe we’ll make a fire and roast hot dogs by the pond.

- Pete

By Jackie Roe, TW Social Director

Hey there, TWibe! Today’s Deuce Club is jam-packed, so let’s get right down to business.

1) I’m Toronto-bound on Wednesday, attending the tennis from Thursday through Sunday. Then I’m headed straight to Cincinnati for a few more (glorious) days of tennis. Stay tuned for my reports, both in and out of the Deuce Club. (DCs will still go up at their regular time.) To all you Twitterphiles: I plan on Tweeting up a storm, so click here to follow me and/or check out my page. Reply often!

2) I just received the following from GVGirl:

I’d like to give a little shout out to TWiber sblily who helped my website, Global Village Tennis News (www.gvtnews.com) cover the Bank of the West Classic last week. A family matter came up so she took my place as media at the tournament. In addition to writing some articles, she also took over my Twitter account, @GVTennisNews. She did a great job! Note that my site will be doing the same type of coverage for San Diego, Cincinnati (both the women’s and men’s tournaments), Toronto, and Pilot Pen.

I second GVGirl – sblily, you did a fantastic job! Thoroughly entertaining reports and Tweets. Well done, and I hope you have the chance to cover another tournament soon.

3) Now, the highlight of this week’s DC … Legg Mason reports from TWibers Shelley and linz! I never tire of reading these fan reports; not only are they informative and fun, but they also inspire us to experience live tennis for ourselves. I think it was TWiber Annie who revealed that her trip to Indian Wells this year would’ve never come to fruition if not for our tournament tales in the DC (Annie, forgive me if I bastardized your sentiment!). I was so touched to hear that, to be reminded yet again of all that TW has done for us – importantly, fostering relationships and encouraging us become more involved tennis fans.

But I digress. Back to Shelley and linz and their terrific write-ups. Enjoy, everyone!

Shelley:

On the first day of volunteering in the tournament office at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, my fellow volunteers and I were trying to get used to the phone system and make sure we were giving callers all of the correct information. Funny enough, we actually fielded a few calls from people connected to players. For example, Fernando Verdasco’s brother, Marcos, called into the office looking for the transportation phone number, and Betty Blake, James Blake’s mom, called in looking for the hotel phone number.

I was able to get away for a while (there were 6 volunteers answering phones but only 4 phones and chairs, go figure), so I hung around the practice courts. Berdych hit with Stepanek; Troicki hit with Nalbandian, then Lu; Wawrinka played lots of tennis-soccer before practicing; Simon practiced with Benneteau. [JR: Shelley took the Gilles photo above. Great shirt.]

The second day of volunteering was more exciting. The tournament office just so happens to be right above the player’s locker room, which makes for some interesting sightings of random players throughout the day. I saw Marcos Baghdatis several times as I ran in and out of the tournament office. Gilles Simon and Julien Benneteau had just come in from a practice session when I was returning from lunch.

It was around that time that I ran outside to meet up with linz. We had arranged to meet up by the big “main draw sheet” by the Grandstand court. At first we weren’t sure if we saw one another and then I heard a “Shelley?” and was greeted with a hug! (It was great to meet you, linz!) linz was with Jules (@julesdc on Twitter), and it was so nice to meet up with two fellow tennis lovers. They wandered off to watch some practice sessions while I went back to my volunteering duties. I went out later in the day to catch some of Gulbis practicing with Baghdatis, then as I was about to go back into the office, who do I see practicing on Court 2? Fernando Verdasco! So, I called linz (a big Hott Sauce fan) right away to let her know. Then came the rain for about an hour.

I was asked to volunteer on Tuesday night so I went in after work for 2 hours. Got into the tournament for free! It was a great night of tennis; I got to see Simon, Roddick, Verdasco, and Isner. I spotted Roddick in the tournament office before he went out for his warm-up and tried to make it seem like I didn’t notice him(!), but he smiled at me and kept on moving along to the player’s locker room. Verdasco’s match was a rough one to watch but I was happy he pulled out the win. Most of the people in the Stadium court just wanted the Verdasco match to end so that Roddick could come on, but I was happy to see Verdasco play! After Verdasco finally won, I went over to Grandstand to watch Simon vs. Kunitsyn. Simon looked great. His forehand and backhand were finding the lines and he was able to win the match in under an hour (a good thing, right, Jackie?). After that I went back to the Stadium court to see a little bit of Roddick and to get a good seat for Isner’s match. By the time Isner came on, it was past 10:30 PM and I was exhausted since I had been up since 6:30 in the morning! So, I decided to leave after the first set, which Isner pulled out despite showing some frustration.

I didn’t go to the tournament on Wednesday (needed a break, if you can believe it) but I went on Thursday and I will be there the whole weekend fulfilling my volunteer duties. After that I get a week off from live tennis, but then it’s on to Cincinnati where I will finally get to meet up with Jackie! You can follow me on twitter, @shelleyellie, if you want updates from Legg Mason or from Cincinnati.

linz:

Hey TW! I was lucky enough to get to the Legg Mason Tennis Classic last weekend for just 2 days and had an absolute blast. I know you’ve heard this before, but if you have any access to a tournament at all, GO!  It’s beyond worth it, even if it’s just for qualification rounds like this was. Here are just a few tidbits from my weekend:

- I got to sit in on a Roddick practice! [JR: For those who don't know, linz is a Roddick devotee.] He was practicing on a match court and so I actually got to sit on the bleachers 10 feet away from him – no fence in between! He was practicing with (the scarily skinny) Mardy Fish and it was so much fun to see/hear them interact. They were playing a tiebreak and Andy won a crazy point after he flubbed a shot down the middle, tripping up Mardy. After Larry smirked and Mardy clapped, Andy said, “Yup, that’s exactly what I meant to do. A mishit forehand down the middle. Confuse and conquer.”

- I got my picture taken with Verdasco (in the RAIN) and he was incredibly nice. And gorgeous. And accommodating. And gorgeous.

- Clement and Schuettler practiced right after the rainshower on Sunday, and Clement was actually drying the courts with a squeegee while Schuettler just watched and waited! So much for the glamorous life.

- Ernie practiced with his dad throughout the rainshower. Afterward they left a mess which I raided with my partner-in-crime Jules. Now I have one of Ernie’s practice balls in my “random stuff” collection!

- I was watching Nalby and Mayer practice when a phone started ringing inside the fence. The ringtone was “Temperature” by Sean Paul and it was really loud! I looked in front of me, spotted the phone that was ringing, and saw that “Steve Nalbandian” was calling! So, apparently Nalbandian has a Blackberry Pearl and likes Sean Paul (see why you should go to tennis tournaments?).

- As always it was a blast meeting up with tennis folks. I briefly met Shelley from TW and spent all of Sunday with Jules who I met through the tennis community on Twitter. [JR: That's them in the photo above. Jules on the left, linz on the right.] Nothing like enjoying tournaments with other tennis fanatics! I can’t wait to meet some of you guys at the USO!

Thank you for the awesome reports and pics, ladies! I’m thrilled you both had such a great time. Shelley, I can’t wait to meet you in Cincy, and linz, here’s hoping for a reunion at the Open!

That’s all for now. See you here next week for the Toronto edition of the Deuce Club. Have a great 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.

I was very interested to read on your site that Donnay is bringing back the ultra-thin 15-millimeter beam that Wilson released briefly in the 1990s. Why didn’t the skinny beam catch on the first time?—Gregg

The Wilson 5.5si thin-body came—and quickly disappeared—in 1996, largely a victim of the misperception that this thinnest-ever frame (the size of some badminton racquets) just couldn’t withstand ball impact. In fact, our playtests showed it could hold its own, but players back then were still infatuated with the power-mongering wide-bodies like the Wilson Profile and thick-beam versions of Wilson’s Hammer and Sledgehammer that were bestsellers throughout most of the 1990s.

The 5.5si did have a comparatively low power quotient because of its thin beam, but it was only intended for advanced players with fast swings who generated their own power. The advantage of the thin beam was more maneuverability and racquet-head speed because there was less aerodynamic drag during the swing than with clunkier frames. “The aerodynamic principles of the 5.5si are sound, and the playtests we documented showed most everyone felt their spin potential increased when they used the racquet,” recalls Wilson’s Bill Severa, who designed it. We’re currently putting the Donnay version of the 15-millimeter frame through its paces (the X-Orange is pictured at right) and will give you a full report soon on TENNIS.com.

I’m a 3.5–4.0 player and am turning 16 soon. I use a Wilson K-Six One 95. My coach has advised me this is not the ideal racquet for me as it is very heavy, especially when I try to snap my wrist on the forehand. He thinks I should get a lighter racquet. What do you recommend?—Mahesh

We agree with your coach that a 12.3-ounce heavyweight like the K-Six is a bit too much racquet for a player at your level and age. We suggest you take the Wilson Pro Open BLX out for a spin. It’s more than an ounce lighter, and produces such a comfortable feel without compromising on the feedback and control you’re used to with the K-Six.

I still play with my high school racquet from 1992, a Head Atlantis 660. It’s a great racquet, but it’s time to get into the 21st century. I’m a 4.0 all-court player who likes to hit topspin. Any suggestions?—Jim

TENNIS.com racquet adviser Bruce Levine suggests you try one of the newer hybrids that combine a lot of the attributes of game-improvement and player sticks. Since you’re already in the Head family, check out the YouTek Extreme MP, along with the Babolat Roddick Pure Drive, the Babolat Aero Pro, and the Dunlop Aerogel 4D 500 Tour. And welcome to the second decade of the new millennium.

I was at a major sporting goods store in Manhattan where I get my racquets strung. An employee in the tennis department told me to try a 16-gauge string for more spin, saying it was thinner. I thought the opposite was true, that the 18-gauge is thinner. Even after I showed him the thicknesses stated on the packaging, he wouldn’t back down, and said that the 16 gauge would actually be thinner than the 18 gauge when both were pre-stretched. Is this true? These are people I normally turn to for informed advice on equipment, but now I’m wary.—Ernie

That advice is more than enough to make you wary—it’s downright scary. It should be good motivation to solicit expertise from a pro shop, tennis specialty store, or this Mailbag. Two good shops in your area are Mason’s Tennis Mart and Grand Central Racquet. At some retail outlets, clerks are transferred frequently from department to department. My guess is yours was probably selling baseball bats the week before.

Howdy. Most of the news today came out of the Legg Mason Tennis Classic (Washington), where they’ve experienced a severe tropical storm and tsumani that last night washed away nearly an entire generation of U.S. players. If you want to check out my thoughts on that, go over to the ESPN tennis home page, my post should be up shortly.

—Andy Roddick’s case is particularly interesting. He’s down to No. 9 now, and it’s pretty clear that he’s struggling to keep his place in the tennis elite. If you graph Roddick’s results through his career, you get a pattern of surge and decline. Nobody has so consistently and intelligently re-invented himself in his ongoing quest to remain in the hunt at the top, nor found the slope so slippery. But I give him great credit for repeatedly coming up with ways to catch a new puff of wind. This is one guy who won’t retire and be haunted by “what ifs?”

At 27, Roddick is nowhere near the end of his career. But you have to wonder if there’s any more progress to be made by this seasoned, salty competitor who defined himself for a decade now as a work-in-progress. What can anyone bring to the table that hasn’t already been supplied by his succession of coaches, starting with Tarik Benhabiles and ending (thus far) with Larry Stefanki? I come up blank when I ask myself that question, but who knows. . .

My feeling is that Roddick is at that stage where he just needs to keep the faith, stay in absolute top shape, pick his spots, and make the most of any opportunity that presents itself. It’s a watching and waiting game for him now, and I still believe that he’s got the competitive character to make the most of any chance that comes his way at any major but the French Open.

Sure, it would help to roll into Flushing Meadows with a final or semi from Toronto or Cincinnati under his belt, and he’s more than capable of achieving that. But even if he has a mediocre hard-court season, I think he can still be a force at the U.S. Open—as long as he believes it himself. I see certain parallels between Roddick and Roger Federer in that regard, although Federer is undergoing the process on a different, higher level. The Mighty Fed hasn’t had to expend all his energy and options to keep his position at or near the very top (the new bullet in his gun is Paul Annacone). It’s always helpful to a player when he’s got something new and promising to try.

—You saw that Coco Vandeweghe upset Wimbledon singles and doubles finalist Vera Zvonareva at the Mercury Insurance Open (San Diego). This is the first tournament Zvonareva has played since her terrific Wimbledon, but I’m left wondering if Zvonareva is feeling as good as she ought to about her Wimbledon feats. If I’m not mistaken, this thoughtful, emotional young lady cried as she saw the doubles title slip away the day after she lost the singles final to Serena Williams. This tells you something about Zvonareva, who’s always seemed happy to see a glass half-empty when she could just as soon see it half full.

I can see how Zvonareva might feel a little bitter, a little hollow inside after coming so close only to falter at the final hurdle at the two main Wimbledon events. Maybe she’s feeling like a failure, or that she got screwed over at Wimbledon. And that kind of negativity is always poisonous. Zvonareva will feel greater pressure now to build on what she achieved at Wimbledon, and she’s never handled expectations especially well. Somebody needs to sit her down and convince her that Wimbledon wasn’t the end of something, and the end of Wimbledon wasn’t a final grade. There’s no better quality in a tennis player than toughness, and the ability to see the positive side of every experience.

—After losing to Alisa Kleybanova, Jelena Jankovic floated the idea that her ankle, sore since she turned it in the Portoroz tournament, isn’t entirely healed. As a result, she said she may not be able to defend her title in Cincinnati. Kleybanova, though, was among those who weren’t buying the injury excuse. “She was actually moving pretty well today,” she reportedly said of Jankovic. 

I’m not buying the excuse either. Jankovic just needs a little drama in her life, which is fine by me because it makes our lives more fun. I say she shows up to defend in Cincy.

—I had to smile when I received an email with the subject line, U.S. Open Bigger and Greener. Turns out the “green” reference is to U.S. Open sponsor Esurance handing out free Metrocards (good for NYC subway and bus) to fans, to encourage public transportation. I guess that’s green, but forgive me for wondering how exactly this is going to work. It seems to me that nobody in New Jersey or Connecticut, accustomed to driving to the tournament, can make good use of a Metrocard, while those who are staying in the NYC are already obliged to use the public transport system. It’s a nice giveaway, but not likely to have much “green” effect.

BTW, did you know that when it comes to land requirements for energy production, the two most consumptive methods are biofuels (which require—by far—the most land) and wind farms? There’s been a well-informed backlash against biofuels and, more recently, wind farms.
It will take 128,002 square miles (an area about the size of West Virginia) to meet the federal government’s stated aim of producing 20 per cent of U.S. energy from wind, and that’s not counting the 20,000 new miles of high-voltage transmission lines that will required to get the electricity from windswept places to cities. Nor the lawsuits that will be filed over the degradation wind farms wreak on the environment. Even outfits like the Nature Conservancy are beginning to experience a touch of buyer’s remorse when it comes to wind power.

It’s tempting to slap the “green” label on any enterprise these days, but as always the principle of caveat emptor applies.

Jackie-Oh will be around later with a new Deuce Club. Enjoy the weekend, everyone.

– Pete

Chances are I’ve written this before, but it’s been quite a
mid-season break, hasn’t it? I’m usually sympathetic to player complaints about
the length of the schedule and the burden of the travel—I’ll take a subway ride to Chinatown rather than an around-the-world flight to Shanghai any day.
But this fall I might have a hard time stomaching any chatter about the
season being too long. What’s made the break even longer, from a
TV-spectator viewpoint, is that a tennis blackout seems to have been ordered in this country.
Jankovic, Roddick, Stosur, Isner, Berdych: I haven’t seen a point this week.

That will end soon for me, as I’m heading to Toronto
tomorrow. I’ll have a draw preview up sometime over the weekend. Before I get
there, let me take a look at a few of the developments from this past week, and what
they might mean for the near future.

***

Andy Roddick is talking about . . . retirement?

Well, not exactly, but he sounds unsure of his motivation at the moment, which is very rare for him. He’s had a tough start to his favorite part of the season.
Roddick lost to Fish in Atlanta and now Gilles Simon at the Legg Mason.
Afterward, he said he hadn’t been fully into the match, and later claimed he wouldn’t stick around for long if he wasn’t winning tournaments (he’s about to exit the Top 10 for the first time in years). I can only imagine that any speculation like this is a temporary product of disappointment, considering that he won’t even be 28 years old until the end of
this month. Then again, like Boris Becker said, a tennis
player’s life should be measured in dog years, and Roddick has been going at it pretty hard for
close to a decade. This loss aside, he doesn’t take matches off, and he’s had a career’s
worth of emotional ups and downs. This season alone has brought its share. He had
a highlight-reel moment when he beat Nadal and Berdych to win Key Biscayne, but
he’s lost his momentum since. One thing you’ve always been able to count on was his desire. The other was his
ability to beat the guys he should beat, like Gilles Simon and Mardy Fish. A tennis tour with
an uncertain Roddick would take some getting
used to.

***

Paul Annacone is going to do . . . what, exactly?

Annacone, as you may remember, came to the net on everything; he served and volleyed and he chipped and charged. He also coached one of the last of the great serve-and-volleyers, Pete Sampras. So you might think that he’ll start by getting Roger Federer to move forward more, to end points sooner, to find new ways to be aggressive and use his various skills. And I think he will try that. But it’s not necessarily that easy for someone like Federer, who is fundamentally a baseliner—not a grinder, but a guy who is comfortable winning with his ground strokes—to point his game in a different direction. For example, Federer has never subscribed to the old idea that he should just come in on everything to beat Rafael Nadal. He knows it’s not that easy to suddenly do something different, and any evolution in his approach with Annacone might at first be invisible to the layman’s eye

A few years ago, I talked to Annacone about Federer’s game for a Wimbledon preview article. I was impressed by the detail and authority he brought to his analysis. One thing he mentioned was Federer’s superior ability to create angles from the middle of the court, without taking huge risks; no one else at the time could get his opponent moving like Rog from a neutral position in a rally. I don’t know if that will be something Annacone emphasizes, or even if it’s something that needs to be emphasized, but he will be thinking about it as one of his strengths.

The other question, I suppose, is how well Annacone will fit with the established entourage that surrounds Federer. Jose Higueras had some trouble with this, but if anyone can do it without stepping on any toes, it’s the quietly studious and soft-spoken American.

***

Ernest Gulbis is . . . already tired?

I suppose the opposite of the Roddick situation would be true here: A tour
with an upbeat, rather than an ironically despairing, Ernests Gulbis would take some serious getting used to. Fortunately, it doesn’t look we’ll have
to worry about that any time soon. In L.A., Gulbis received a
point penalty (“This referee, his only fun in life is to give warnings”) for racquet abuse and looked unready for the American heat (“I got so tired”). In D.C., he retired from a match in the first
game of the second set, again due to the heat.

Gulbis is an interesting case to me. You could dismiss him as lazy. You could get frustrated with his underachieving ways. But I don’t want to do either of those things. For some reason, Gulbis makes me question
the whole idea of effort in the first place. Why do we care if he’s in shape? Why do we think “giving your best” is better than not
caring about whether you win or lose? I know we’re born with an instinct for
survival, but is a desire to “win” really the natural tendency of humans? Is
the person who tries harder morally superior to the one who doesn’t? Or has it
just been drummed into us over the last two centuries by the synchronized ideologies of capitalism and
Darwinism?

Just asking. And just thinking out loud. And just wondering why
Ernests Gulbis, of all people, brings these sacrilegious ideas to my mind.

***

Isner, Querrey, Fish: Is the
American renaissance over before it began?

These guys started the summer with a bang, but they all went
out early at the Legg Mason this week. It was a valuable reminder that they remain solidly second-tier (not an insult). But when I saw that Querrey had gone out to
Tipsarevic, my first reaction was that this was a good loss. Querrey doesn’t like to play three weeks in a row, but he must have felt obligated,
whether by appearance fees or some other reason, to support these U.S. events.
Isner’s loss to Malisse is a disappointment, but again, when you live by the
tiebreaker—Isner had won two of them in his first round—it’s very easy to die
by it as well. As for Fish, his loss to Cilic isn’t surprising, but it is the
kind of match he’s going to need to win if we’re going to believe
that this particular resurgence of his will lead somewhere.

***

Why is Melanie Oudin listening so closely?

Oudin mildly complained this week that she gets annoyed when
fans shout things like, “Get it together, Melanie,” or “Wake up,
Melanie!” I’ve never heard a player make such a specific analysis of crowd
noise before. I agree, it would be irritating to hear that, and it obviously
comes from the high expectations she engendered at the U.S. Open last year.
She must want to say back, “I am awake! You can’t get to the quarters of the U.S.
Open and beat Maria Sharapova every week!” 

Maybe the best advice we can give would be: “Don’t listen to me, Melanie! Whatever I say, do not listen!

*** 

See you on Sunday

by Pete Bodo

Thomas Muster is, well, an unusual tennis dude. Wasn’t it just a few months ago that there was word that Muster, the former Roland Garros champion and acclaimed “King of Clay”, was launching a men’s fragrance? (Your first reaction probably was the same as mine: What’s it called, Eau de Sweat? . . . Grunt!  . . . Essence de Wet Sock?)

That little enterprise seems to have gone by the boards, but according to Muster’s website you can still purchase “Tom’s Eyewear” and “Tom’s Wine.” I don’t know when Tom went all fashionista, but it had to be sometime after he abandoned his post-career adopted home of Australia and returned to Austria. Down Under, Thomas was said to have spent hour-after-hour, day-after-day, winding out dirt bikes on his private moto-cross course. He also must have put in a fair amount of hard time at local tavern, because he ballooned out to what looked to be 210, 220 pounds.

Muster, 42, is again fit and back trying to play competitive tennis, but not on the Champion’s (senior) Tour. He’s taking a shot at the ATP level. He’s played two Challenger-level events thus far, losing his first-round match in both. You’ve got to respect the guy; he sure knows the meaning of the exhortation, If you’re gonna go, go Big!

My advice to Muster: consult Kimiko Date Krumm. She may have some pointers for you.

—Speaking of which: You’ve got to wonder how much worse things can get for Dinara Safina. Yesterday, she lost to Agnieszka Radwanska at the Mercury Insurance Open (San Diego). It’s not a horrible loss at face value, but for the numbers: 6-1, 6-3. That suggests that Safina was never even in it. And that’s a bad thing, because most players on the comeback trail get to the point where they’re competitive pretty quickly (at least in their peer group). The big hump to navigate usually is winning those 5-5 sets, or holding serve when you’re at a set apiece and even on serve, 4-5. I mean, what on earth would happen if Safina found herself in a close match?

Safina had a decent Australian Open (she retired with a bad back during her fourth-round match with Maria Kirilenko), but since then she’s been plagued by back problems and competition-related frustrations (the relationship between those two conditions being very difficult to ascertain beyond knowing that nobody enjoys playing hurt, nor achieves a whole lot). Safina hasn’t won a match since her “quarterfinal” finish in Stuttgart. I put the round in quotes because in actuality, Safina played just one match before she lost at that tournament (she beat Agnes Szavay).

After Stuttgart, Safina lost five consecutive first-rounders, including two to our player du jour, Date Krumm, a married Japanese lady who’s soon turning 40. They were Safina’s most competitive matches, both three setters. Given that Date Krumm is now 3-0 against former No. 1 Safina, does this make Date Krumm a candidate for GOAT-hood? 

At San Diego this week, Safina managed to collect a win over Alona Bondarenko, but then fell to Radwanska. So much for traction. Again, the losses are less disturbing than the ease with which they appear to have been inflicted.

—The result that caught my eye from the Legg Mason Tennis Classic (Washington) was Marco Chiudinelli ‘s 70-minute 6-1, 6-3 win over Radek Stepanek, who was looking for his first W since March (he’s been out injured). He was married a few weeks ago to former No. 6 Nicole Vaidisova. We all know Vaidisova’s story; let’s hope that whatever ailed her before her abrupt retirement earlier this year isn’t communicable.

—Also in Washington: It sure must have tasted like sweet revenge when Janko Tipsarevic eliminated Sam Querrey yesterday. Last week in Los Angeles, Tipsarevic had a match point against Querrey in the semifinals, but Sam slipped the noose. To add insult to injury, Tipsarevic was the ace machine in this encounter, coughing up 16 of them—pretty good for a 78-minute match ending 7-6 (3), 6-3.

—Did anyone else notice that the name of the Copenhagen WTA event is the E-Boks Sony Ericsson Open?  It’s an unfortunate sounding name. What is E-boks, anyway, Denmark’s domestic e-book publisher? Knock off Reebok athletic shoes, made in some mysterious southeast Asian factory? Well, from what I can make out, E-boks appears to be some sort of computing services provider, something like our own Typepad (you can try to figure out yourself at their homepage). All I know is that Caroline Wozniacki appears to be blogging under their flag, and that when I read Sony Ericsson I think of Miami.

And that Klara Zakopalova is on fire in Copenhagen, and that’s good enough to earn her bold-face placement in today’s news of the day.