Agassi's Great Matches, Part 1

He confessed his long blond hairs were a wig, to have used crystal meth and to have assumed, as a junior, performance-enhancing drugs given to him by his father. His revelations launched new shadows on the ATP directors: have they hided the dark secret under the carpet to avoid the toy broke itself?

Anyway, Andre invented a new way of playing, gifted tennis fans the greatest rivalry ever and one of the best matches in the history of this sport. This tribute is to the player and to his most unbelievable and remarkable matches.

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No One Asked, Andre, So Why Tell?

Honesty can be cathartic, but certain things in an athlete's life are better left unsaid. Has the term "no comment" been lost on these men?

I understand the difficulty some of them face when writing their autobiography, because they want its content to reflect who they are. So they turn their book into a tell-all, revealing the foibles in their life and everything else.

But do readers need to know everything? Are they really longing for yet-another Dr. Phil moment?

(Continue to Justice Is Served)

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Agassi Makes a Confession

Andre Agassi confessed, in his autobiography that he tested positive to anti-doping tests but lied to the ATP to escape ban. The first player to complete the career Grand Slam in the Open era assumed an higjly addictive drug, the crystal methamphetamine: it’s not an enhancing-performance substance, but it’s meant for personal use, considered as a recreational drug like the cocaine.

He took the meth (possession of which carries a maximum five-year jail sentence in the US) in 1997, a period signed by doubts, falling form, and the ending of his turbulent marriage with the actress Brooke Shields. In his book, he so recalls the episode:

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New Lights on Marcos Baghdatis

Marcos Baghdatis is back. The Cypriot won the Stockholm ATP 250 over Olivier Rochus 61 75. Baghdatis, who hadn’t such a joy since February 2007 (in Zagreb, w. over Ivan Ljubicic) is the 10th unseeded player to clinch a title this season. Is this enough to talk about a Renaissance of the ex Australian Open finalist? Is this a sufficiently bright signal to turn off the critics of who considers Marcos nothing more than a meteor who lived only a summer of unexpected glory?

Probably not, although a victory is always a victory and should mollify attacks and oppositions. Marcos won a decent tournament, but surely not an astonishing tournament. The only top-10 in the main draw, Robin Soderling, withdrawn in the semifinal for an elbow injury, and gave up the hope of improving his ranking points replacing the 115 points of the success at the Sunrise Challenger. The quality of the event is testified by the semifinal between Olivier Rochus (who was the 21st best player in the world, has two career titles and, although his one-handed backhand and smart strategies would deserve more, hasn’t reached the fourth round in a Grand Slam event since 2005) and the Gstaad champions, the 21 year-old Brazilian Thonas Bellucci.

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Something Is Rotten in Denmark

Once upon a time, tennis was a sport for gentlemen. Then John McEnroe, Jeff Tarango arrived and a certain level of bad behaviour started to diffuse and be tolerated. Now that more and more people tend to associate "personality", "character" with sudden eruption of fury, the mood of Ilja Bozoljac or the Austrian Daniel Koellerer, whose motto is "If you respect your opponent, you have already lost", are becoming common.

And proliferate where the luxury and artificiosity of top-class events leave his place to the not-glamorous tournaments belonging to the second or third tier circuit, like Challengers or Futures. The last episode is only another confirmation of this stigmatizable evolution. If we should give a title to this story, the only suitable would be: "Something is rotten in Denmark."

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Bet on ... Davydenko

Nikolay Davydenko outclashed Rafa Nadal 7-6 6-3 to win the Shanghai Masters final and clinch his 18th title, in a manner of style even more impressing than the score would suggest. The Russian, renewed after the bet enquiry, the scandal and the suspects followed the sadly famous Sopot first round match against Vassallo Arguello in 2007, is now the most testing opponent to verify a player’s fitness. And Nadal, playing his first final for five months, showed to have some way to go to find his best form: he managed only nine winners to the 28-years-old Rusian’s 35. Davydenko is certain to finish the year outside the top-5 for the first time since 2004. And is now the player with the best result not to have played a Grand Slam final yet.

Now the Russian is seventh in the Year-to-Date and improves his odds to go to London for the World Tour Finals. All players can add points from the Atp 500 in either Basel or Valencia in the week of 2 Novembrer and again at the Paris Masters. But Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Nikolay Davydenko, Marin Cilic, Tommy Robredo and Radek Stepanek have all won two Atp 250 titles. And this could give some more chances for Robin Soderling, now n.9 in the YTD, now in Stockholm; because he won Bastad but has only 90 points from his second best performance in the ATP 250. So winning in Sweden, he could add 160 points to his ranking.

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Safin Refuses to Shake Hands

When you see Marat Safin walking with the shadows of his past glory beside him and with the end of his career approaching, playing against Mr Unstability Thomas Berdych, you could expect everything but a straight match.

The encounter filled up with the expectations. In the first set Safin dominated the match with 6 aces while Berdych was out-played and seemingly close to retirement. After that the Czech received treatment and finished to win the match.

Safin refused to shake his adversary's hand. Later, in the press room, he confirmed once again his genuinity and spontaneity of tongue and mind.

"Don't pretend that you are injured and then you start running around and start to hit winners and then all of a sudden you pull the hands up in the air after winning the match? ... So then of course the guy will say 'No, I've been injured but then I felt a little bit better'.

"Of course he will find 10,000 excuses. Still, it's not enough. You're playing or you're not playing”.

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Tennis News from the Orient

Novak Djokovic has won the ATP 500 in Beijing and is now certain to surpass Andy Murray, becoming the third best player in the ATP ranking. It was a “schizophrenic” final against Marin Cilic, with the Croat displaying flat groundstrokes with his feet well inside the backline.

But after an hour of rain delay the Djoker dashed and clinched the first set 6-2. The second set saw an alternation of breaks: 6 in all the match. Cilic near the net is quite disastrous and wasted an easy forehand to give Novak 3-3. Djoker lost serve twice in a row, but Cilic never succeeded in saving his and forcing the match to the third before losing the tiebreak.

Djokovic is now between the principal candidates for the victory at the Shanghai Masters 1000, where the Serb could clinch his fourth and most prestigious title of a not-so-memorable season. Anyway, Cilic failed to live up with the expectations, grew after he overpowered Nadal in the semifinals.

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The Serve in Modern Tennis

“Unless you're one of those rare mutant virtuosos of raw force, you'll find that competitive tennis, like money pool, requires geometric thinking, the ability to calculate not merely your own angles but the angles of response to your angles. Because the expansion of response-possibilities is quadratic, you are required to think n shots ahead, where n is a hyperbolic function limited by the sine of opponent's talent and the cosine of the number of shots in the rally so far (roughly)”.

If your thoughts on court are less analytical of David Foster Wallace's ones, the difficulties in answering increase. And the serve, as a fundamental of the game but principally seen as the stroke to start and determine your game, becomes more and more relevant. But how much? A possible answer, a first rough evaluation of the importance of service in determining the result of a tennis match, could arrive analysing the percentage of tiebreaks played out of the total amount of sets run off.

The data presented here consider this percentage only in Grand Slam tournament since 1980 to 2008, so considering also the not-so-world class last Australian Open editions at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club. This index has the advantage of being simple to be read and immediate to understand, giving a clear image without implying an excessive sacrifice to heuristic deepness.

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Davis Cup 2010: What a Draw!

Rafa Nadal against Roger Federer on the Spanish clay (the odds that Costa will choose the “red” to host Switzerland are great), Novak Djokovic in front of his Serbian supporters facing Andy Roddick. Those are just wo hot spots for the next Davis Cup first round, programmed for the weekend before the Indian Wells Masters 1000.

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Umpiring Softball ... Much Easier

Without belaboring the Serena Williams situation TOO much, because I believe she is starting on the right path to having this judged as "one of those things that sometimes happens", I'd like to put a few situations I ran into as a softball umpire out there for consideration.

There are four or five particularly relevant moments that come to mind, and up front, arc or slow-pitch softball is MILES away from hard-core NBA, NFL or even tennis tournament umpiring. When you do leagues, you *almost* become friends with the players; the greatest compliment I ever got was the player who said, "I hate the way you call the high strike, but you call it the same all the time." That's essentially what both umpires and refs of any station should be shooting for, because there is NO doubt that players will always want to question your basic fairness if you deviate slightly either direction for or against us or them. You see an NBA ref that seems to be explaining things with a coach while watching a free throw, well, sometimes you have to invest some explanation time vs. just saying, "I made the call."

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Honour to Del Potro

The Goat (or what many considers as the Goat) lost to the best of his generation, beaten in the previous 6 meetings (also including when he went two sets up at the 2009 Roland Garros with 2 hours and a half of incredible tennis).


Federer-Del potro was not the most thrilling of the Grand Slam final, the game quality was a bit more than decent; but surely it has been the best U.S. Open final since 1999 when Andre Agassi surprised Todd Martin by coming back from 2 sets to 1 down (the last five setter before the yesterday's clash). This was anyway the most surprising final since 2000, when another first-timer, Marat Safin, stunned Pete Sampras. So Del Potro, 20 years and 355 days old, has become the fifth youngest player to win this tournament.

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Enough Serena Bashing ... Let It Go

You saw and heard what Serena Williams did at the U.S. Open last week, and you’re shocked and angry. Fair enough. But it’s not just that.

You think she’s a disgrace to her sport. You think she’s tarnished her reputation and her legacy. You think that she really did “threaten’’ the line judge, came at her with the intention of taking her life in front of a packed stadium and a national television audience. You think that if she’s said and done that “on the street,’’ she’d surely be arrested and thrown in jail.

You demand an apology, then another one, then another one, then berate her for offering it too late, or for the first being too weak. You think her fine should have been a whole lot bigger, like her entire winnings from the Open. You think she should be suspended, too.

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Opposite Ends of the Spectrum

Unbelievable as it was to see, Serena Williams *did* do and say all those outrageously bad things that ended her US Open match with Kim Clijsters, and nothing about it being a terrible foot fault call or the subsequent penalty point that ended things can overcome my dismay about the situation. For someone who is almost always a rock mentally and physically to go off in as public a display as Serena did is kind of unthinkable, close to that moment that Woody Hayes belted a Clemson football player for intercepting a pass that sealed a loss for Ohio State many years ago.

That long ago event is still stuck in my memory banks, and I have a feeling Serena's abusive acts are going to stay with me quite a while too. Soooo out of character, because the Williams sisters have done an exceptional job of being quality competitors and people. Whether you give their father credit for putting steel into them that allowed extreme calm or awareness so they wouldn't be overtly controversial, resulting in careers relatively free of finger pointing, they've weathered some career ups and downs. At one point it seemed they would totally dominate the sport with their speed and power, but they've always been diplomatic at all points. That Serena was obtuse and somewhat evasive during the post match press conference, I am just flat out stunned about the whole affair.

(Continue to Baseline Shorks)

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Classy Cilic Overpowers Murray

When Andy Murray hit the last forehand long ending his misery, Marin Cilic realized that he probably has completed his personal puzzle, found his missing piece and started filling his standards.

The Croat, thought by many as a future and bright star, had failed in big appointments (though recently he did defeat James Blake in a dramatic Davis Cup five-setter). But today he was simply perfect, enjoyable, powerful and precise. This was the best performance of his career. He gained his first Grand Slam quarterfinal and the crowd could rub their hands thinking to the clash between the two big-bombers of this decade: Marin Cilic and Juan Martin Del Potro.

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Oudin Steals the Show at U.S. Open

The Yankees have opened up a season-high nine game lead on the Boston Red Sox in race for the American League East.

The Giants and Jets haven’t started their seasons yet, and the Mets … wait, are the Mets still playing?

So it is against that backdrop that a 17-year-old girl from Marietta, Ga., has seized the September spotlight on the New York scene. She is enjoying her tennis Coming Out Party on the world's biggest stage.

When Melanie Oudin defeated Nadia Petrova in three tough sets in the U.S. Open Monday, she did more than advance to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open. She created a buzz in the New York consciousness, which is difficult to do for a women’s tennis player not named Williams or Sharapova.

(Continue to New York Minute)

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U.S. Open First Week: Ups and Downs

Roger Federer – Not extraordinary, not so bad anyway. He managed his energies on court enough to find his form. Devin broke him twice, he lost a set to Hewitt but Roger defeated the Aussie for the 14th time in a row. He’s the main candidate to win the title. Vote: 6.5

Rafa Nadal – Not so bad. He’s in the third round despite an abdominal injury against Almagro, who has to learn the difference between playing a series of beautiful strokes and playing a match. Rafa was broken five times, really too many, but the Spanish derby was exactly what the new, leaner Nadal needed: a straightforward three-setter that tested him enough ... but not too much. Vote: 6.5

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