Ready, Set, Hold
Want a shot at beating Rafael Nadal? Here’s your chance, only you won’t need your racquet. The International Olympic Committee is running a contest, “The Best of Us Challenge,” where Olympians take on a challenge and then anyone can try to top them by sending in a video of themselves doing the challenge. Rafa, who won the gold medal in singles at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, took on the challenge of seeing how many tennis balls he could hold in 30 seconds. He grabbed 24. You have until Nov. 15 to enter the contest to beat Rafa. Or, you can create your own challenge.
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The Courtship of Maria
*Word on the Internet is that Maria Sharapova has split from Charlie Ebersol, the son of NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol, and is now dating Los Angeles Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic. Apparently, she was seen canoodling with the Slovenian player, nicknamed “The Machine,” at a U2 concert recently. Sharapova dating a Laker isn’t all that surprising. She was a fan of the team before she started dating Kobe Bryant’s backup. In fact, here are photos of Maria with Charlie at a Lakers game last season. Gee, I wonder what was on her mind during the game.
Darn Those Seniors
This is a warning: Next time you go to your tennis club, make sure you have the proper ID or else you could end up in the slammer. Two players, both in their 80s, were arrested and spent a night in jail after an altercation with police at a club in Sun City West, Ariz. According to Greg Couch at FanHouse.com, the whole situation started when George Morell, 85, presented a photocopy of his membership card instead of the real one when he and his friend Ray Moore, 82, showed up to play some tennis. An argument broke out and things got so heated the police were called in and the cuffs came out. The two were held for trespassing and hindering a police officer. The funny thing is, these guys are regular members of the club and go there all the time. Sounds like they messed with the wrong club attendant that day.
Seen and Heard
Aranxta Sanchez Vicario and her husband, Josep Santacana, went to see the musicalBeauty and the Beast in Barcelona with their adorable nine-month-old daughter. … Elisabeth Shue, Jon Lovitz, Gavin Rossdale and Jeffrey Donovan (star of USA Network’s “Burn Notice”) were just some of the celebrities who participated in Chris Evert-Raymond James charity event in southern Florida last weekend. … The New York Post reported that Andy Roddick and his wife Brooklyn Decker were shopping for a condo in the Brooklyn neighborhood of DUMBO last week. …Serena Williams is ready for her close-up. She wants to be an action star someday. “I can do a real mean chop and a kick and I can jump high and run fast and cartwheel,” she tells the New York Daily News. Yes, every action star should have cartwheels in their repertoire. On Tuesday evening, she appeared on “The Daily Show.” She did a nice job holding her own against acerbic-witted host Jon Stewart. … John Travolta recently took up tennis, as he told Ellen DeGeneres while promoting his new movie Old Dogs on her daytime talk show. He plays at a local tennis court around midnight (“vampire style”) because those are his hours, he said. … Andre Agassi has been everywhere plugging his new autobiography, Open. Appearances included “60 Minutes,” “The Today Show,” “Live with Regis and Kelly,” “Late Show with David Letterman,” “Access Hollywood.” But so far no Larry King or Oprah.
About What I Said…
Martina Navratilova was on “Access Hollywood” Wednesday evening clearing up what she originally said about Andre Agassi when his book came out. In the interview with Billy Bush, she said she never called Andre Agassi a “cheater” and that comparing him to Roger Clemens may have been wrong (although she still feels they are in the same league as liars). Then the little guy brazenly went for it: Bush pointed out how she always looked “physically stronger” than her opponents back in her day, and asked if she had ever taken anything. Navratilova got her guns out, figuratively speaking. She said absolutely not, that she’s naturally muscular. For proof she flexed her super toned arm, and said she hadn’t been to the gym in three months.
Happy Birthday “Sesame Street”
“Sesame Street” celebrates its 40th anniversary this week. And in those four decades the children’s show has made room for tennis. Players who have appeared on an episode include Venus Williams, Arthur Ashe and Martina Navratilova. While the resolution on a couple of these clips is not that great, you can still tell Martina was going through her big blonde hair days. Enjoy!
Sarah Thurmond is an associate editor for TENNIS. Follow her on Twitter.