So get this: Ubaldo Scanagatta, the outstanding Italian journalist and subject of my recent post, "They're All Ova the Place!" comes by with a tip:
“On a day when Govortsova and Shyedova and Pavlyuchenkova are in action, it would be easy to overlook the doubles match featuring Kramperova and Vankova vs. Frankova and Kleybanova.”
I kid you not; they were on today's schedule, exactly like that.
Ubaldo went on: “The funny thing is, in Italian, the word for “egg” is “uova.” So we potentially have unlimited opportunity to make jokes about chicken, omlettes, everything . . .”
The exchange made me think of a line by Walter Duranty, the New York Times Moscow correspondent who defended Joe Stalin's Communist regime and the atrocities it committed in the name of Communist idealism with the famously callous line, “You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.”
The customary rejoinder has been, “Well, we see an awful lot of eggshells, and no omelet.”
Tennis is different of course—the sport has been making omelets galore with Navratilova, Kuznetsova, Sharapova, et al.