For Our College Girl!

Hey everyone - I'm back, dazed and confused from no sleep after a tear 'em up night in Denver, but touched by how many of you took the time to comment on all aspects of the new site. Before I clarify a few tech issues, this picture comes with a shout out from TW and the Tribe to Momofan, as she starts her first year in college, at Berkeley.

You're our favorite M&M (for some reason I think of you as a red one), and I'm sure you'll nail the college thing in nothing flat!  You've just got to cowgirl up for a bit, take your tribal uncle Matt's excellent advice (in the previous post's comments) about exploring, and stay away from the Kool-Aid the institution will try to pour down your throat in a million subtle ways.

And we'll be around to help with that term paper on the Conference at Yalta, or Amelie Mauresmo's backhand grip, if need be, although we won't allow you to pull a Jimmy Connors - he got kicked out of UCLA for turning in a term-paper that had been - get this! - mimeographed! (Whoops, I'm showing my age; mimeograph was a crude, early version of photo-copying).

Just kidding, of course. Not about Jimbo, but about you doing any such thing. Do us proud, girl!

I share all of your pain vis a vis this type-the-code final step we now require before posting comments; it's annoying, especially when you're shooting from the hip (not that any of you would do such a thing) or are all caught up in the middle of one of those. . . RAFA!  NO, TMF! . . . debates. That code duplication thing is strictly to keep us from getting spammed to death, it's the sole purpose. And I'm going to huddle with TIno and Steggy to see if we can, or can take the risk, of disabling it. I don't see it at  many other sites. Ultimately, the decision on that may be out of my hands, though.

Other things: yes, note that your log-in name and any contact information you choose to disclose now appears above your comment. My own feeling is that I wish we had the old layout/design for Comments, but with the new, more soothing look (enjoy it now, before the ad bombardment begins!) and more graceful fonts. I think a lot of this stuff can be customized, but I'm loath to experiment with it on the eve of our first Grand Slam in this new format. So please bear with us, the fine-tuning is yet to come and we've already been through a lot of the dodgy bits on the old site.

This program should run fine on Macs; please inform me if you have, or are continuing to have, problems with the display or layout (overlapping text etc.) Also, the "Remember Me" box that you check so that you don't have to type in your on-line name or other details each time you post a comment should be working fine now. I had trouble with it at first, too.

The bad news just doubled in the women's U.S. Open, with Lindsay and Venus both sidelined. While I'm sticking with Baghdatis and Henin-Hardenne as my picks to win, my back-ups are Rafael Nadal and Nicole Vaidisova. This will undoubtedly irk some of you Roger Federer and Amelie Mauresmo fans, so here's what I'm thinking:

Last year, Jet Boy practically told the Spanish press that there was no way he would win the Open; he was too tuckered out from his long and successful season (which included good hard court results). In fact, I wrote just that on the eve of the tournament, as part of my expressed desire to see Nadal transcend the One Trick Pony sensbility that so many clay-court specialists embrace.

Note that whatever else Jet Boy has done to prepare for Flushing Meadow, overplaying is not part of the program this year, to say the least. As someone famously said of Richard M. Nixon, "he's tan, rested and ready to run." That doesn't mean he'll beat TMF, of course. Maybe he's struggling, instead of lurking in wait. But I also don't think he'll be mailing it in this time.

As for Amelie, she had a spectacular first half, and as she' s not accustomed to this consistent degree of big-match success, it's hard to see her having the. . . stamina of the will?. . .  that enables the best of players to play at their peaks clear through the year. But who knows? Maybe that's exactly what she has developed, with her long-deferred but obviously much relished success.

Beyond that, I'm sort of in the camp that sees this as a wide-Open-open for the women. But perhaps Pez will put that trope to rest, but good, and put a final, huge, exclamation point to her amazing year as her present to Momofan.

Tomorrow, i'll be blogging live from Queens so let's get ready to bumble! Er, rumble!