By TW Contributing Editor, Ed McGrogan
Last Week's & This Week's Tournament
Pacific Life Open (ATP & WTA - Outdoor Hard - Indian Wells, United States)
- Men's Singles Bracket
- Men's Doubles Bracket
- Women's Singles & Doubles Bracket
- Television Schedule
- Website
By the Letter
T...hirty-three years after defecting from the former Czechoslovakia, Martina Navratilova has regained Czech citizenship. Navratilova, who did not renounce her United States nationality, reacquired Czech citizenship based on her strong disagreements with U.S. President George Bush.
E...xhibition matches this past week: Roger Federer over Pete Sampras 6-3, 6-7, 7-6 (in front of 19,690 fans); Steffi Graf defeated Martina Navratilova 8-7 (10-5) in Tokyo.
N...ext exhibition matches for Pete Sampras: versus Marcelo Rios in Santiago on 5/18; versus David Nalbandian in Buenos Aires on 5/20; versus David Nalbandian in Sao Paulo on 5/25 (per TENNIS.com ticker).
N...amed hitting partner for the Australian Davis Cup team: Bernard Tomic, the 15 year-old Aussie prodigy who won the Australian Open boys' title in January.
I...nstead of playing in the Olympics, Andy Roddick has decided to defend his Washington title and prepare for the upcoming U.S. Open on American soil.
S...hahar Peer will be honored prior to the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami for becoming the first Israeli athlete to compete in an Arab country, after her appearance in Doha, Qatar in February.
W...imbledon warm-up tournament at Queen's Club will feature both Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. According to www.rogerfederer.com, he will play in Halle, after skipping the event last year.
O...nline plug: For DVDs of recent Grand Slam matches, go here - I attest to their quality and will likely be placing another order shortly.
R...ecently retired Martina Hingis will be playing in the Liverpool International - an exhibition/invitational tournament in June - along with Goran Ivanisevic and Pat Cash.
L...ithuanian tennis player Aivaras Balzekas, a Lynn University student killed in 2005, was back in the news after the drunk driver responsible was sentenced to one year and one day in prison.
D...ivision III college standout Eric Butorac reunited with a Murray this week in Indian Wells - Andy, not his old doubles partner Jamie. Both Murrays will be playing for a charitable cause this week.
McGrogan's Heroes
ATP - As soon as my local Fox Sports Net station cut out from the Indian Wells feed on Sunday to instead show a triathlon (while some parts of the country were still getting tennis beamed into their households), an all-too familiar motto reared its ugly head once again: "...the only sport that's easier to play than to find on cable television...the only sport that's easier to play than to find on cable television..." I was out of luck, and there would no more tennis for me after 2 pm EST that lazy afternoon. Obviously, I'm not a fan of ESPN/Tennis Channel ceding the Indian Wells rights to FSN.
But what made this black hole of tennis even more painful was that I missed a match that I was really looking forward to seeing - Tommy Haas vs. Andy Roddick. I hadn't seen Haas play since he took out James Blake in five sets at last year's U.S. Open., so I was due for a fix of one of the most elegant looking games in the sport. In addition, Roddick has been one of the hottest players on tour lately, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It added up to a nice contrast of styles, and possibly a very intriguing match, as long as Haas was 100 percent healthy. No matter what the rankings said, in a 96 player draw this was a second round match to salivate over.
Haas came into the match with some play under his belt from earlier in the week, as opposed to Roddick, who was given a bye into the final 64. The German won his first round match against Julien Benneteau 3-6, 6-0, 6-2, clearly finding his groove in the last two sets. His solid play continued against Roddick, and he needed only 84 minutes to upset the No. 6 seed 6-4, 6-4.
The American's serve is usually the more threatening of the two, but it was Haas who kept things steadier from the service line. Indian Wells' hard courts have been almost universally accepted as some of the slowest on tour, and that may have factored into the outcome. At 4-4, a critical juncture in the opening set, Roddick dropped his serve, allowing Haas to try to serve it out. He did so, and in the next set, followed the same formula, this time breaking Roddick in the seventh game.
Roddick and Haas have now met ten times, with Tommy leading in the lifetime tally 7-3. He's also won their last three encounters, dating back to 2006 in Houston. Haas, now under the tutelage of former Roddick coach Dean Goldfine, faces Fernando Verdasco in the third round. Looking at Haas' octet of the draw, a run to the quarterfinals isn't out of the question.
Oh, I forgot to mention - there's one good thing that came out of not seeing this match (per AP match report):
Roddick broke at least two rackets, hit a ball out of the crowded stadium and threw several small temper tantrums Sunday in a 6-4, 6-4 loss to Tommy Haas.
WTA - Ashley Harkleroad doesn't have a title in 2008 (she's without one in her entire career, actually), but on the whole, she's played just as well as some of her more notable American counterparts who have earned hardware this season. Aside from a first round exit at the Australian Open, Ashley's results this year have been very positive, and regardless of what happens during the rest of the week in Indian Wells, she's added another noteworthy line to her 2008 resume.
Harkleroad had to qualify to get into the main draw of her second tournament of the year in Hobart, and eventually she notched up six wins before losing in the semifinals. Virigine Razzano made Harkleroad's stay in Melbourne a short one, but she's rebounded nicely since then, excelling in non-WTA Tour events. Her biggest splash came during the Fed Cup, where she nearly single-handedly won the tie for the U.S. after winning both of her singles matches. All of this came with the added pressure of being behind in the tie, after Lindsay Davenport lost the first rubber.
A week later, Harkleroad rode her momentum into the minor leagues of women's tennis - the USTA Pro Circuit. She entered into the $75,000 Midland tournament in Michigan, and reached the finals of that indoor event before losing to Laura Granville 6-1, 6-1. It was the first bump in the road for Ashley in some time. Strangely, Harkleroad hasn't been seen on tour since then.
After nearly a month off, the young American has continued her post-Melbourne resurgence with splendid play at the Pacific Life Open, where she has advanced to the fourth round. It's the farthest she's ever reached at Indian Wells, with her previous best performance being a second round appearance in 2006.
The road hasn't been easy - Harkleroad was placed in an octet flush with solid players, although there are no superstars in the mix. After breezing by Ukranian Tatiana Perebiyins in the opening round, Ashley met her first real competition in the form of the No. 26 seed Lucie Safarova. She handled the competition well, winning 7-6, 2-6, 6-4. Thereafter, another seed was in her way (a trend that will likely continue for the rest of the tournament), the eighth-seeded Dinara Safina. But like Safarova, the seeded player was upset, this time in straight sets, 7-5, 6-2.
I labeled Harkleroad as a "Randy Moss" candidate this year - someone whose career might be reborn. If Vera Zvonareva can reach the finals of Doha, you never know what could happen for someone playing as well as Harkleroad is at the moment, even at a tournament as prestigious as Indian Wells. Next up for Ashley is the tenth-seeded Agnieszka Radwankska of Poland, who will be her sternest test yet.
Tennis Theatre
Although we won't see Guga until next week in Miami, I got thinking about the soon-to-be-retiring Brazilian, and I found this good clip from 2000:
Beyond the Bracket
[Apologies for no BtB last week - but as promised, here is my report from MSG.]
After finishing our match at the nearby Har-Tru courts of Midtown Tennis, Andrew Friedman (Rolo Tomassi) and I started discussing the Roger Federer/Pete Sampras exhibition match we’d be seeing later that evening at Madison Square Garden. That’s when Andrew delivered the line of the trip:
“One guy is 36 and the other guy has mono. How good of a match can it be?”
I was wondering the same thing. Pete and Roger are two of my favorite players, but strangely, I wasn’t in a frenzied state of excitement to see them compete against one another. Rather, I felt that I should be there, but I wasn’t exactly sure why. Was it to pay homage to these greats of the game? To see the sport played professionally in New York City somewhere outside of Queens? Because the match very well might be talked about in the annals of tennis long after both men were dead?
I had many questions coming into the match, and I left with even more.
Back to Andrew’s somewhat obvious question – how good was it? Judging by the 6-3, 6-7, 7-6 score, it was a well-played match. Indeed, there were many exceptional shots hit by each player. Both men served well, with the edge going to Sampras for his healthy barrage of well-timed and finely-placed aces. The rallies that did ensue were competitive, with some capped off by dazzling shots that rekindled memories of each man’s best. Each player’s signature one-handed backhand was frequently on display, bringing forth a cascade of applause from the sold out crowd whenever a winner was struck.
Viewing this match from the “good for the sport” perspective, the match was a success. Still, I couldn’t help but feel that something was amiss. And exhibition or not, that takes away from the enjoyment of the tennis as a whole. Had it not been for a (painstakingly) hour long introduction to the match, the first set would have been over before many people would have arrived in their seats. The second set continued with in a similar vein at first, but eventually ended in a tiebreaker- which was the part of the match that I was most skeptical about. As for the third set – I even exclaimed to Andrew and Asad (Ray Stonada), after Sampras led 5-2, “is he actually going to win this?”
A number of scenarios bounced around in my head, ranging from how this was surely a contrived contest, to the irony of match-fixing currently being a hot-button issue on the ATP Tour. In what seemed like no time, Federer had reeled off three straight games to level the set at five. And wouldn’t you know it – we were headed to a tiebreaker.
With any exhibition match – but especially a dynamic one like this – you can beat yourself up by overthinking it. The significant question of “Who’s better?” is obviously an impossible one to answer at this time. But even narrowing down the match to singular points and asking, “Did he mean to do that?” – there are a limitless amount of questions that could be drawn from this match. I just don’t think there should be.
Exhibitions should simply be left as what they are – purely exhibitions. There is nothing that I have seen in the four matches played between Pete and Roger that has made me think differently about either player. I’m not saying they aren’t enjoyable – they are, but only to an extent. And that’s fine, because in any case I prefer to view these two players via the experience of actual matches that they have played.
(While we’re still on the subject of the GOAT debate, I also think that their encounter at the 2001 Wimbledon Championships is a very reputable case study of how their games match up. While it is true that neither player was in his prime years, each was roughly “apart” from that prime by an equidistant amount.)
For the record, I would like to see Pete play the grass court season. Sampras certainly still has enough game to compete with some of the field, and it’s only a three week long stretch. To get one more glimpse of Sampras on the Centre Court lawn – now that would be excitement. As for the never-ending ‘Federer vs. Sampras’ saga, we’ve had four chapters already. The point has been made, and I think it’s time to shelve it.
if...
You could own one piece of tennis memorabilia, what would it be and why? (This can range from lavish artifacts like a Wimbledon trophy, to smaller relics like Nadal's headband, to vast pieces like the entire net used at the 1983 French Open. Limitless possibilities here guys...)