Clay Court Season Won't End, 3 Angry Men Explode
at WTT
SUN DAY, JULY 19 - It’s high time that the post Wimbledon clay court
season ended and that the players began competing in US Open Series hard
court events. On Sunday, the began to wave goodbye to the most irrelevant
part of the year, when Flavia Pennetta won Palermo over fellow Italian
Sara Errani 6-1 6-2, Jeremy Chardy bested Victor Hanescu 1-6, 6-3, 6-4
to take Stuttgart, lefty mom Sybille Bammer overcame Francesca Schiavone
7-6(4), 6-2 to win Prague, and Robin Soderling won his home country event
by defeating Juan Monaco 6-3, 7-6 to clinch the Swedish Open, his first
ATP win on clay. "I don't know what to say...I wouldn't trade this
one for a Grand Slam," Soderling said.
Indianapolis kicks off the US men’s hard court season on Monday,
with Dmitry Tursunov, Dudi Sela and Sam Querrey now the top four seeds
with Andy Roddick’s withdrawal. More on Roddick, who spoke to the
press on Saturday, in a couple of days….There are two more WTA clay
events next week in Portoroz and Austria.
The World TeamTennis season is winding down with the undefeated Springfield
Lasers (Raven Klaasen, Liezel Huber and Vania King) and New York Sportimes
looking good to clinch their divisions. Two US teenage hopefuls took the
court in Sacto’s victory over Philly, when the Coco Vandeweghe (Capitals)
beat Madison Keys (Freedoms) 5-1. Playing fro Philly, Andre Agassi dropped
his singles match to Newport Beach’s Ramon Delgado.
FRIDAY, JULY 17 - The Washington Kastles versus the New York Sportimes
may not be the Yankees v. Red Sox, but on Thursday night in DC, the clash
brought out its own version of Don Zimmer against Pedro Martinez.
Believe it or not, the conflict involved the usually volcanic John
McEnroe (remember when he cursed out Mashona Washington in WTT
last year?), the widely disliked Leander Paes of India
(who was fired by his own Davis Cup players when he was captain), the
temperamental Robert Kendrick (who once tore his shirt
in half on court after losing a junior match) and the not-usually-angry
Scott Oudsema.
With the Kastles' Paes and Oudsema leading McEnroe and Kendrick 4-3, Paes
nailed Kendrick in the chin with a volley, and then Kendrick hit Paes,
who was not the receiver, with a first serve a few points later. McEnroe
and New York coach Chuck Adams (the father of Ashley
Harkleroad’s child) crossed the net to yell at Paes, and received
a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct. The Kastles' Olga Puchkova
screamed at Kendrick, who according a Yahoo report then threw the B-word
at her. Some fans observed that McEnroe was actually playing the role
of peacemaker. A Yahoo report claimed that Kastles coach Murphy
Jensen was furious with the chair umpire for losing control of
the match.
"Basically, it was a great match, probably one of the greatest World
Team Tennis match ever played, maybe the greatest," Sportimes owner
Claude Okin told the Washington Post. "All in all,
I thought it was a great night. But the incident? Paes went at Kendrick,
intentionally hit him with the ball pretty much as hard as he could, and
that's scary. You can hurt somebody that way. Our coach and players defended
their teammate verbally, and then Kendrick went back at Leander with his
response, and it's what it is, but it started with Leander going at Robert.
We have no idea why he did. Leander said he was gonna do that, he said
'Somebody's gonna get hurt out there,' and then he hit him. "So we
went a little crazy, because we just don't see that as being a necessary
part of the game. But otherwise, by the end of the match, John spoke to
Leander, Robert and Leander shook hands at the net, embraced each other,
and everybody involved in both teams, from coaches to players to owners,
had hugs and handshakes.” Andy Roddick pulled out of Indianapolis citing a right
hip flexor injury.…Five Italian players suspended and/or fined for
minor gambling infractions have filed a lawsuit against the ATP, including
Federico Luzzi, Giorgio Galimberti, Alessio DiMauro, Potito Starace
and Daniele Bracciali… Prague winners
were Timea Bacsinszky, Francesca Schiavone, Iveta Benesova
and Sybille Bammer….Swedish Open winners were Andreas Vinciguerra, Robin Soderling,
Juan Monaco (who won when Fernando Verdasco retired) and Tommy Robredo….
Fabio Fognini upset Nikolay Davydenko in Stuttgart and
Victor Hanescu also won….Winners in Palermo were Flavia
Pennetta and Sara Errani.
The Gasquet Case: Desperately Seeking the Mysterious
Pamela
THURSDAY, JULY 16 - In all the hand clapping over Richard Gasquet’s
return to the tour post the light sentence given out by the ITF for 'inadvertent
contamination' due to allegedly kissing a woman who had supposedly ingested
cocaine, has anyone stopped to think what the moral of the story is: if
you kiss someone you just met at a nightclub, you do so at your own risk,
perhaps a greater risk to your reputation than say, bailing out of a key
Davis Cup match v. Andy Roddick.
Gasquet got off very easy, and perhaps rightfully so if his story was
true: that he never did the drug and the only way that it got into his
system was a little romantic mouth to mouth with a French woman named
Pamela, whom he met in Miami at a performance by the
French DJ Bob Sinclar at the Winter Music Conference,
which, by the way, the ITF called “an event which, though the player
did not know it, is notoriously associated with use of illegal recreational
drugs including cocaine.” Then Gasquet, Pamela and friends went
to see Sinclar perform at a club called Set. It all went downhill for
Gasquet then, who was allegedly unaware that his new female companion
was snorting coke. Exactly where was our anti-heoine?
“ They waited for Pamela to return from the toilet where she had
spent longer than expected. When she returned, she had replenished her
make-up and rearranged her hair. The group then left at about 5 am and
said their goodbyes outside. The player kissed Pamela on the mouth for
two or three seconds before boarding a taxi back to his hotel with his
coach.”
While the ITF never bought Martina Hingis’ explanation that she
didn’t know how she came into contact with cocaine in 2007 (and
consequently received a career ending two year ban), they did buy Gasquet’s
and only handed him a ban of two months and 15 days, which expired on
Wednesday.
Perhaps that because the French press pursued the Pamela story and the
woman did admit to some cocaine use during her life. However, she never
admitted to the French newspaper that interviewed her, Aujourd’hui,
that she took cocaine that night or kissed Gasquet on the lips (she added
that the matter had caused her difficulty because she was living with
a man). The ITF also incredibly cited a French radio report with an anonymous
witness alleged to have been present at the club and who said that Pamela
had taken cocaine that night. Pamela also denied to Gasquet that she had
used cocaine that evening. In the ITF’s decision, it cites two occasions
where Gasquet desperately tried (my words) to meet up with Pamela to revisit
the situation, but she never showed.
Essentially, the ITF chose to believe Gasquet not because the amount of
cocaine in his system was less than a grain of salt (the amount found
in Hingis’ system was even less than that), but because he left
a distinctive trail, full of real people, they felt that they could follow
and because he appeared to be telling the truth. Hingis never did that,
instead choosing to dispute the testing procedures. Had she given any
type of similar reason, that she was out at night and an identifiable
someone might have blown a few lines her way, she may have gotten off,
but she’s so full of pride and can be so combative that she and
her lawyers chose an impossible defense, one that cost her a huge amount
of money and sapped her of her energy. Hence a talented yet underachieving
player like Gasquet got off easy and a Hall of Famer like Hingis was shown
the door. By no means is the sport a better place because of it.
BTW: for those of you who never my October 2008 interview with
Hingis, which I believe is the last one she did in English, go
here.
NOTES FROM ALL OVER
The struggling Ana Ivanovic will head to LA the week
before the tournament and work with her new coach, Darren Cahill,
who has broadcasting duties at the men’s LA Open at UCLA….
Sania Mirza, now officially engaged, is set to play the
Lexington Challenger next week, even though she’s also entered in
the Stanford qualifying. How’s that?... How about this from Marat
Safin, who has been collecting guarantees faster than Dinara
has been gagging big Slam matches: after a 6-3, 7-6 loss to Nicolas Almagro
in Sweden, he said he’s burned out, even though he’s scheduled
to play another eight tournaments before he retires. "I'm tired of
the tour, tired of staying at hotels and tired of traveling...I've had
enough now. I am tired of everything that has to do with rackets and balls.
I want to do something completely different." Other winners were
Juan Monaco, Fernando Verdasco and Juergen Melzer… In Stuttgart,
German Mischa Zverev upset Gilles Simon 6-4, 6-2, although
Simon hasn’t scored a big win a long time…. Prague Open winners
were Timea Bacsinszky, Iveta Benesova, Zarina Diyas and
Kateryna Bondarenko….Palermo winners were Yaroslava Shvedova,
Patty Schnyder, Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Sara Errani.
Rafa Recovering, Keys Stuns Serena
TUESDAY, JULY 15 - Rafa Nadal underwent some new medical
tests on his sore knees in Barcelona today. He’s said to be slowly
recovering and will resume practice Monday. He’s planning on making
his first appearance since RG at the Canadian Open, which begins August
8….Somewhat as expected, Stacey Allaster has been
named Chairman and CEO of the WTA Tour, replacing outgoing CEO Larry Scott.
Allaster previously served as the tour’s president…No surprise
here from the litigious Hewitt family: Bec Hewitt (Lleyton’s
wife) is suing Australian women's magazine New Idea after it reported
a possible romantic link between her and an unknown man, who later turned
out to have been her brother…Huge surprise here: Rajeev
Ram won his first ATP title with a 6-7(3), 7-5, 6-3 win over
Sam Querrey in Newport… Agnes Szavay won her home country event
in Budapest… How about this result from WTT on Monday night: 15-year-old
Madison Keys, playing for Philadelphia, upset Serena
Williams of Washington 5-1. Triple wow, under any circumstances…Caroline
Wozniacki will represent the new fall/winter 2009 adidas by Stella
McCartney tennis range at the U.S. Open…Notable winners on clay
in Prague were younger sister Kateryna Bondarenko over
Alona Bondarenko 6-1, 6-3, and locals Iveta Benesova , Lucie Hradecka
and Petra Kvitova…In Palermo on dirt, Flavia Pennetta,
Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez (over the upper-slumping Alize Cornet 6-2,
6-2), Sara Errani and Anna-Lena Groenefeld…Two ATP men’s event
are also being played on dirt. In Sweden, Juan Monaco
and Kristof Vliegen won, while in Stuttgart, Gilles Simon,
Nicolas Kiefer and Philipp Kohlschreiber scored victories.
