WTA YEC Crisis Center: Day 2

Mornin', Tribe. By noon today, I'll be on a plane heading for Texas, where I'll be exploring the Texas Hill Country, doing a little deer hunting, and finishing up Pete Sampras's autobiography. I'll be hooking up there with Mike P., a long-term, regular TW reader with whom I've had an email correspondence for about two years, mostly about things unrelated to tennis. Just another example of the kind of community we have created here at TW.

While I'm gone, Rosangel will be putting up WTA Championships Crisis Center threads, and Heidi and Ed wil be on the job, too. I will have Internet access, at least sporadically, so I'll be dropping by now and then, and catching some of the action when I can on television.

Meanwhile, I want to alert you to a new feature at Tennis magazine's website: the stats tab on the home page. This new feature is a joint effort by Tennis and our friends at Core tennis. If you didn't read my earlier, full-on post about Core tennis, you don't know what you're missing. Play around at the stats feature and you'll discover some truly amazing features, courtesy of Core tennis.

There were no big surprises yesterday at the WTA YEC yesterday, unless you count Ana Ivanovic's stirring win over Svetlana Kuznetsova in a tough, exhausting three-setter. It happened on Ivanovic's 20th birthday, and it was the ideal birthday present: a win in a grueling match over a former Grand Slam champion and perennial top player. At times, Ana has seemed a little "soft" on a big stage against a quality opponent (the French Open was the exception). This now points the way for the future.

Justine Henin and Maria Sharapova had a few hiccups on the way to their wins over, respectively, Anna Chakvetadze and Daniela Hantuchova.  But they got it done. Those who defend Sharapova, and I've always been one of them, always cite her toughness, dedication, and overall professionalism. She must be reading her positive press, judging from these comments she made after the win:

This plays right into the dominant Sharapova narrative. I know of few dissenters to this theme, even among those who are put off by the cool, tall, endorsement-magnet from Russia. Everyone seems to agree that Sharapova is a tough, hard-working, ambitions, steely competitor. But I thought my fellow Senior Editor at Tennis, Jon Levey, raises some great points in this utterly counter-intuitive, original, dissident piece, which ran as Viewpoint post at our website.

The money quote from Levey:

Every once in a while (or a lot of the time, if you're me), you read something and think, Dang, I wish I'd written that!  That's how I feel about this piece; it's a great bit of original, unbiased thinking, although Jon would be the first to admit that his analysis is speculative, an issue-raiser more than an issue resolver.

And don't for a moment think that this was easy for Jon to write; he has a friendship with Max Eisenbud, Sharapova's agent, that predates Max's linkage with Maria.

Jon may drop by later today to field any questions you may have about his analysis. Just don't bring up Michigan football; the guy bleeds blue-and-maize,the operative word being "bleeds."

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