Drive-by Post

Hi everyone. I'm dug into the writing/editing bunker today, so there won't be a red-meat post. But the good news is that one of my chores today is writing up the lengthy meeting El Jon and I had with Toni Nadal during the US Open. I need to save the best stuff from that interview for an exclusive in Tennis, but we had such a surfeit of material that I'll get a (hopefully) fascinating red-meat post out of it instead of the usual teaser. Toni is about the most original tennis coach (at least of a top player) that I've ever come across. It seems that Rafa is on track to clinch the year-end no. 1 ranking this week in Madrid. I'll post the feature on Toni Nadal ASAP after that happens, family and weekend plans allowing.

Yesterday, Djamel Abed of *CoreTennis* dropped by our office to discuss various internet-based content sharing ideas. It was a good meeting. I wrote about CoreTennis over a year ago, to alert many of you to what is a remarkable and beautifully executed concept - a free website that gives everyone the ability to track every single competitor in a sanctioned tournament, anywhere in the world, starting with the top pros and going all the way down through the juniors. The site has a few interesting and unusual features - if you don't believe me, just go to the site, click on the Players tab, and enter the name, Federer.

When The Mighty Fed's  personal page opens up, check out all the features and links. Then  click on "position graph" and hold on to your armrests. You'll be shocked and if you're a round-the-bend TMF KAD, you may even be outraged. But it all makes sense - especially if you compare the graphics/stats with those of, say, Marin Cilic, or Gael Monfils. CoreTennis is a great site for all kinds of research, and their development team is in the midst of creating even more valuable features - many of which will be offered to people like equipment manufacturers and other player sponsors.

Why? Well, imagine you're a Nike tennis-marketing specialist, and the sales figures of your German division suggests that something is very wrong (or right).So you decide it would be helpful to track more closely and regularly how well your ATP, WTA and even junior German athletes are doing when they play in "home" tournaments. You'll  be able to build a list of players that you can track on a daily basis (with recent history included) in German events, to help determine if there's any relation over long term between their performance and your sales figures.

Or, if you're the French Tennis Federation, you can build a list of your top 20 juniors and then, with one click, see how they're faring wherever they happen to be playing that week, around the world. The possibilities are endless. Interested in how the best 14-and-under Serbian youths are doing these days? No problem, just track them via Core.

In terms that apply to y'all, imagine of you had a list of your absolute favorite players. With one click each morning, you can see how each one is doing (Core is updated on a round-by-round rather than day-by-day basis), whether it's in a Challenger, junior event, ATP Masters or WTA Tier III tournament. I'm not sure that all of those features that will come into the pipeline will be free, but would you pay a buck per player for a full year of access to the player database? Two bucks? Guess we'll just wait to find out.

CoreTennis also aims to create community among players, becoming something like a Facebook for competitive players, complete with all the social networking bells and whistles. We're hoping here at Tennis.com that we can build some great features for you in conjunction with CoreTennis, so stay tuned for news about that. Djamel is traveling to Florida to a Nike juniors tournament, but maybe he'll jump on here to say a few words to you all!

- Pete