Hey everybody - I'm on the homepage of theNew York Times; it's a piece they asked me to do in Ana Ivanovic's serve. Who knows how long it will be up, so get 'em while you can and enjoy. I'll be back shortly, just to catch up a bit as I get ready to tidy things up and head off to Paris.
Well, our Obama-grade fame was short-lived, although you can still read the story here in sports. We were knocked off as the lead by a piece on a female recruiter for Al Qaeda in Brussels; it's the way of the world, inn'it? Still, it was pretty shocking to see that, for a few brief and shining moments tennis, with a great big picture of Ivanovic, was the lead story of the planet's most influential newspaper. I'll fill you in on how that story Ivanovic story developed and provide additional insights and thoughts from Ivanovic's team later in the week. One thing that really impressed me was the fact that while Ana doesn't have a personal coach (Sven Groeneveld is officially her Adidas-sponsored mentor - meaning he doesn't depend on her for a paycheck) who travels full time, her Aussie physio (Scott Byrnes) is with her on a daily basis. This team has a really impressive long-term strategy in place for Ana.
I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend (I wish our friends all over the world could share in the exquisitely timed three-day holiday that pretty much kicks off the summer here in the U.S.). Our long weekend consisted of keeping an eye - I suppose I ought to admit it, half-an-eye, on the French Open. Meanwhile, we got the tomatoes planted, took the first swim of the summer in the pond (yes, it was frigid, but Cowboy Luke insisted on doing his usual launch off the big rock, into my arms), had a barbecue with friends over the hill (as opposed to over-the-hill friends), and took Luke for his fourth "official"riding lesson.
Actually, while I'm semi-Luddite when it comes to information and entertainment technology (I was one of the last to the cell phone party, although I was one of the first people to abandon the typewriter for the word processor), I found that it took so long to upload a video to email that I opened a YouTube account and posted the clip there. This made me think that maybe we (the Tennisworld Twibe) ought to figure out a way to have our own gathering place at YouTube, perhaps even appoint a designated curator who could more-or-less monitor our video community and make periodic announcements about the site.
I'll have to look into this and keep you posted, but for now my eyes are on a strangely quiet, wet, Paris. I'll be heading over there on Saturday, to cover week 2 of the event for you. Whenever it's subdued like this, I have a feeling that the tournament is going to pop to life with a day of seismic results (read: upsets).
Let's see what tomorrow brings. . .