!89713629 Howdy. Well, it finally feels like summer here in upstate New York, after the coolest, wettest June and July in memory. It's swimming weather, and the new pond is clearing up nicely and in the old one the cattails are becoming a bit of a problem. Still, you don't need air-conditioning up here, just open windows and doors, and even if you go to sleep at night atop the covers, by morning you find that at some point it was cool enough for you to crawl under.
It would be a good place and certainly time for Flavia Pennetta to visit, because the 27-year old Italian can sure use a break before the US Open. Her midsummer run was finally ended yesterday in Cincinnati by Dinara Safina, who did to Penetta what Venus Williams did to Safina in the recent Wimbledon semifinals: she destroyed her in a lopsided semi, two-and-oh. That's the harsh tennis food chain for you. Yowee!
But the match wasn't as close as the score indicated, mainly because Pennetta fell victim to a common problem faced by solid if unspectacular players when they happen to catch the wind and go on a career run: exhaustion. By the time she struck her last ball in the semi, she was badly blistered, stiff and sore in every joint and muscle. And it's a tribute to the Federers, Roddicks, Nadals, del Potros, Williamses and - yes - Sanfinas of this world that they can sometimes go on a roll lasting two, three, four weeks or more without finding the shock of success so debilitating.
If you read the Associated Press report on Cinci, you'll see just just how taxing a run like this can be on someone like Pennetta, who can be called an involuntary part-timer on the main tour (that is, he or she customarily gets only two or three days real "work" at a tournament; in this context, the considerably gentler game of doubles really doesn't count as real work).
Anyway, I was glad to see Pennetta catch fire; I've always admired her great combination of dogged professionalism, personality, and a no-baloney attitude toward things. Thus, Pennetta will break the top 10, something only two Italians of either gender, Adriano Panatta and Corrado Barazzutti, had previously accomplished. And those two men played way back in the 1970s.
I've been fond of many of the Italian WTA players, and always wished there were more of them around. I've watched (somewhat enviously) their relaxed, jocular interactions with their native journalists, most of whom are pigs (the rest are the women). I say that with no fear that Ubaldo, Vicenzo, Rino or Paolo will bop me on the head, because pigness is something of which most Italian men are proud, and most that Italian women have learned to live with, navigate, and often outwit in most graceful fashion.
Perhaps that's why the Italian WTA players have always struck me as tougher - in the way certain kid sisters are tough - and more. . . sophisticated than so many of their international counterparts. I use that word in a meta sort of way; it isn't about knowing Monet from Manet or hobnobbing with dot.com millionaires; it's about understanding the world around you and operating in it in a way that never invites others to wonder why you're so weird, difficult, or out-of-touch.
Many Italian women players over the years have been strikingly down to earth, and isn't it intriguing that given the contributions of Italy to fashion, music, film et al, there hasn't been a single Italian female tennis player who's set up shop in the same territory as, say, Anna Kournikova?
I was happy to seem the Italians win the Fed Cup a few years ago (you don't really good team spirit among complicated or demanding individuals). And I always find their frank and often fearless ways in press room really refreshing, given that players in that environment often act like deer in the headlights, and spend most of their time evading or dissembling.
These are generalities, of course, and ought to be treated as such. But the Italian women always seemed more steely and less inclined to preen than the men. They've been appealing as pro athletes and personalities, rather than alluring or complicated or high-maintenance tennis players. And it's made me wonder how, if these women come from a culture so theoretically "sexist," it turns out that way - while many women from societies that seem so much more pre-occupied with gender equality keep turning out players who seem to fit more easily into old-fashioned gender stereotypes.
Maybe a lot of these folks are just more comfortable with who they are (the most under-appreciated quality of personality) and more honest about what they really want, and therefore less inclined to cast around for roles to play. But I guess that's a discussion for another time and place.
Anyway, nice run, Flavia! Enjoy today's tennis from Montreal and Cinci, everyone, you know what to do next.
-- Pete