The OTher Thread (OT)

Howdy, Tribe. Well, I had thought I was going to see Unstrung with El Jon Wertheim last night, but it didn't really work out for us. Check out the impressive website for the movie; two of the "stars" (Sam Querrey and Donald Young) are pictured here. The theater was crowded when we got there and all the seats were taken (by people or coats), or roped off, reserved. The place was crawling with celluloidistas, so figured we'd just sit down in the aisle, but at the last moment a clipboard-bearing girl approached and told us we had to find seats - sitting in the aisle would be prohibited because of fire laws.

El Jon looked at her, pointed to me, and, sounding all high and mighty, asked: Do you know who this is?

The poor girl blanched. "You're not the producer (Mike Tollin), are you?"

"No," Jon said "This is Jimmy Connors. . . Do you know who Jimmy Connors is?"

"No," she admitted sheepishly.

Then we told her Connors was some old washed-up tennis player and we were just kidding anyway. We shrugged and left; thats the Film Festival world for you. We repaired to nearby Uncle Jack's Steakhouse (34th St. and Ninth Ave.), where we had GEs and one of the best New York strips, ever. So things worked okay.

As it turned out, Courier had to watch his own flick from the entrance hall, craning his neck to see the screen. When I emailed him to say we were sorry to miss him (there was a round table discussion after the movie) and explained what happened, he was greatly embarrassed. But hey, his good pal Michael Stipe (sings for the band, REM) had to sit in the first row, looking straight up; Chuck Wepner (the original Rocky, who once fought Muhammad Ali) sat with his back pressed up against wall in a very narrow back row.

Other Persons of Interest we bumped into at the screening were U.S. Davis Cup Pat McEnroe, Bonnie DeSimone (she'll be reviewing Unstrung on Monday at ESPN), the USTA's Lesley Poch, and Liza Horan; I'm sure the roundtable portion would have turned up some other familiar faces.

Mike Tollin, the producer of Unstrung, called this morning and I'm going to try to catch the movie with him next weekend. So the review will have to wait for now. But you can expect a fair amount of buzz to build about this documentary about junior tennis as the summer rolls on; I expect some of tennis's Mr. and Ms. Bigs to get behind and support Courier, and I'm hoping Unstrung gets a wide release. I look forward to reading Bonnie's review.

Bizarre fact: One of the first feature stories I ever wrote for a newspaper was about a Chuck Wepner New Jersey Heavyweight Championship title out, long before he got to fight Muhammad Ali. In our conversation, Tollin noted the irony in the fact that today Ali, who always prided himself on his "pretty", unblemished face, is virtually incapacitated by Parkinson's.Syndrome Yet Wepner (known in his heyday as The Bayonne Bleeder, because he was from that New Jersey city and never met a boxing glove he couldn't bleed all over) is loving life and happy as a clam. Go figure.

So this will be your OT post for today. Talk amongst yourselves, and here's Ed McGrogan's latest By the Letters feature to kick off the discussion:

T. . .welve of the thirty-two participants in the Grand Prix Hassan II (Casablanca) are of French descent.  Not surprisingly, Frenchmen comprise half of the quarterfinal slots (they are Sebastien Grosjean, Marc Gicquel, Julien Benneteau, and Paul-Henri Mathieu).

E. . .ight point seven percent increase in total prize money gives this year's Wimbledon the largest purse of any tennis tournament to date.

N. . .ineteen winners were made in the Roger Federer vs. Rafael Nadal  Monte Carlo final, but Federer had double the amount of unforced errors (38) than Nadal (19) in his fifth straight loss to the Spaniard on clay (6-4, 6-4).

N. . .ine points on serve is all that Nadal has dropped during his first two matches in Barcelona (against Kristof Vliegen and Thomas Johansson).

I. . .ndependent film showcase Tribeca Film Festival will include a documentary called "Unstrung", which follows junior tennis players seeking stardom and accolades.  Sam Querrey and Donald Young are both featured in the film, which debuted on Thursday.

S. . .weeps (5-0) by the United States, Russia, France and Italy were the story of the first round of the Fed Cup this past weekend.

W. . .imbledon will be the last Grand Slam event that Kim Clijsters will take part in, as the Belgian has opted to skip the U.S. Open.

O. . .ne-handed backhand maestro Gaston Gaudio said that it was possible that he had played his final career match (against Robin Soderling, whom he meekly lost to, 6-1, 6-0, at Barcelona).

R. . .eturning to the ATP Tour for the first time since the 2005 U.S. Open (due to injuries and skin cancer), Felix Mantilla won his first round match in Barcelona against Farrukh Dustov, before falling to Carlos Moya in the second round.

L. . .ucky loser Olga Savchuk continued her fortunate streak, advancing to the quarterfinals in Budapest by getting a walkover from the number one seed, Tathiana Garbin.

D. . .euce, as mentioned by Ruth in the TennisWorld comments this week, is a play about a doubles team reuniting after years of separation. Starring Angela Lansbury, it is currently playing on Broadway.

--Ed McGrogan