[Here is Ed McGrogan's latest By the Letters entry, with an interesting challenge thrown it! Enjoy the weekend, I'll be around and dropping in. . . Pete]
I love words, and I can tell from reading the Tribe's comments and posts that you do too; we have some great writers between the cyber-walls of this site. Testing my abilities with the dictionary and thesaurus wasn't the primary motivation for starting "By the Letter", but it's part of a process that I thoroughly enjoy each week when I sit down to produce ByThe Letters.
In keeping with that spirit, I'd like to invite anyone who wants describe the Tribe, and TW in general, in the format of the TENNISWORLD template I use every week to take a shot at it, posting the result in the Comments below. Who knows? One day at TW General Headquarters high above glamorous Madison Avenue in Manhattan, you may see your TW By the Letters submission engraved in a giant stone tablet above the lintel, or perhaps displayed in frame, kind of like some restaurants exhibit a framed dollar bill - the first one plonked down by a customer. So let's get it on: Today's By the Letters:
*
!Momo_2 T...op-seeded Sania Mirza lost in the first round in Fez, Morocco, this week to Maria Emilia Salemi. Amelie Mauresmo, the top seed in Rome, didn't fare much better, losing in round two to Samatha Stosur.
E...lusive Roland Garros title will be sought after for one Swiss, Roger Federer, in the coming weeks, but not for another - Martina Hingis - who withdrew from the year's second Grand Slam.
N...ew to the French Open, third set tie-breakers will be introduced into the men's and women's doubles competitions.
N...ovember 1990: a seventeen-year old Nicole Pratt reached the semifinals of a WTA tournament in Perth, Australia. A few weeks later in Dornbirn, Austria, Tamira Paszek was born. On Monday, the two played each other in the Italian Open, with the younger Paszek coming out on top 6-0, 6-2.
I...njuries have plagued Andy Murray ever since the hard court season concluded, and due to a right wrist injury, he was forced to retire in his first round match in Hamburg against Filippo Volandri.
S...eventy-seven wins on clay later, Rafael Nadal has won Barcelona, Monte Carlo, and now Rome for each of the past three years.
W...hether it was due to his recent defeats, or something else beyond that, the partnership of Tony Roche and Roger Federer is no more.
O...pting to skip the Hamburg Masters in favor of training in Houston, Andy Roddick has accepted a wild card in next week's Hypo Group Tennis International in Portschach, Austria.
R...ene Stauffer, a Swiss reporter who has followed the career of Roger Federer for many years, will be publishing "Quest for Perfection", a book about the world's number one, in September.
L...iterally at "15-all", Juan Carlos Ferrero won the next two points to win a second set tie-breaker 17-15 to oust Marat Safin from the Hamburg Masters on Wednesday. The tie-breaker lasted over 30 minutes in length.
D*...ouble duty was required of Svetlana Kuznetsova last weekend in Berlin, who on Sunday, defeated Justine Henin in the morning's semifinal, but later lost to Ana Ivanovic in the final.
Comments on one or all of these items are welcome!
--- Ed McGrogan