Blogging update: Tino Persico, the hardest working IT person on Planet Tennis, has been busy designing the “new” TennisWorld site. I got my first look at the work-in-progress this morning and I’m all jacked up – it will be a much more pleasing and artful, in appearance if not actual content (who cares about content anyway?). We’re even changing the pictures up in the banner at the top.
The Comments box will now have preview function for editing, but the rest of the bells and whistles aren’t in place yet. I’ll keep you posted, but be warned that I may be posting sporadically next week, as we try to iron out all the kinks. Plus, Steggy and I are still planning to create a separate web space where those of you who wish can get to know each other (or each other's dachshunds) a little better, via pictures, correspondence, etc.
In the “Why didn’t I think of that?” department, today I came across this this short piece by Trois Riviere’s very own Tom Tebbutt (no, Tom, I'm not doing accent marks - they're un-American!) He's one of the most astute reporters in the game, and a total Roger Federer Kool-Aid drinker, which will please many of you. (hat tip to the indispensable Kamakshi, webmistress at the most un-rememberable URL of them all, for the link).
Why haven’t any of the major sponsors thought of this before? Sven Groeneveld, the Adidas sponsored coach, is a very savvy and thoughtful guy (wouldn’t you have to be, to have coached Anna Kournikova?). His could prove to be an especially valuable role now that the all-show-and-no-go WTA higher ups have embraced, at least on a trial basis, on-court coaching.
Tebbut is a very happy and hard-working camper these days, as Canada has been the focal point of tennis for a few weeks. Here’s some more deep intel that should warm the hearts of all you shivering Francophones, although it comes from that other chilly north-of-the-border nation, the Republic of Quebec. Anybody else think that Canada has the coolest flag on earth (Brazil doesn’t count because its own flag actually portrays a solar system not our own).
But getting back to the coaching issue. It’s times like this that make me glad that the tournaments that matter the most are not run by the player associations. I just can’t see the ITF Grand Slam Committee endorsing on- court coaching at majors. It's radical departure from the wonderful tradition of making every man and woman with matches the hard way: by themselves.
Now I see that Larry Scott is talking about cutting back on player commitments and the number of compulsory tournaments the stars must play, mostly for fear of injury. Great. What a bunch of hooey. It's just caving to the divas, who want to play as few events as they possibly can once they attain star status. It's funny, but before they get there, they seem not only perfectly content to play 18, 20 or more events a year, but I guess you really start pulling muscles and straining lumbars when you've got to haul off all those bags full of money, or pull on mules before attending the big Hollywood premieres.
Pretty soon, Kate Moss will be wild-carded into the Open on the grounds that she elevates "interest in the game." And we all know that cute little spoon in her cute little Prada thermal racquet bag won’t be for ingesting wheat germ on the changeovers.
This is making me cranky, shall we change subjects?
In the “Why did I think of that?” department, here’s something for you trivia nuts. I noticed a short debate in one of the recent entries on whether it was Andre Agassi or Marat Safin who first said, “Grass is for cows.” It was neither. If you want to wrack your brain for the correct answer, feel free. I’ll answer the question at the bottom of this post.
Wait. This is the bottom of this post. I would never merely tag on Miguel Seabra’s report from Portugal’s Geezerpalooza (hat tip to my wife, Lisa, who helped coin the term to describe some of her get-togethers with college friends). Stay tuned for that one later.
Answer: the first guy to make the crack about grass being for cows was Jan Kodes, the Czech clay-court wizard (you want to talk beautiful backhands?) who unexpectedly made the U.S. Open final on grass at Forest Hills in 1971. How do I know? I heard him say it. As TW’s Hillbilly Princess might say:
Shudders