Andy Roddick Was Good at Tennis. That's It!

Wimbledon might be over, but the tennis world keeps spinning. Let's talk about some things that have happened in the past week or so:

1. Hall of Fame: Kim Clijsters and Andy Roddick are the newest inductees into the Tennis Hall of Fame. Let me say a few things about Roddick first, because I've spent a significant amount of time on him in this blog over the past decade. Here's one of my favorite old posts about him. Roddick was the shot of personality that tennis needed in the early aughts. There was nothing better for a while there than Andy Roddick playing tennis at night at the U.S. Open. He was the first significant sign of American male tennis life since Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. He won a major. He was No. 1 in the world for a minute.
He totally does not deserve to be in the Tennis Hall of Fame.
You can't (or should not) get into the Hall of Fame if you came in second a lot. You should be great, and not just good to get into the HOF. Think about this: Chris Evert is in the Tennis Hall of Fame. Sampras. Navratilova. Agassi. Arthur Ashe. I mean, really?!
I was a little pissed about this for a few days, until I finally decided to find out exactly who is in the International Hall of Fame. There are more than 200 members -- and this includes not just players, but broadcasters and others who contributed to the sport in other ways than picking up a racquet. Here's the list. I clicked on the first name I didn't recognize that caught my eye: one Mal Anderson. He actually was never No. 1 in the world, but was No. 2 and he won one major -- the 1957 U.S. Open. He was on two winning Davis Cup teams. So Mal Anderson is not great, but good. Like Roddick.
Then I realized that the Tennis Hall of Fame is a lot like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I mean, it used to be a big deal for someone to get a star. And then a couple years ago, Paul Rudd got one. Right. Exactly. It's this guy:

Rudd was pretty good in "Clueless," and is an OK Antman, I guess. H'es good, not great. We have a theme.
So now I get it and my mind is de-boggled. It's worth noting at this point that Clijsters is absolutely deserving of this honor. This woman left the tour to have a baby and then came back and won a Slam. She was a force in women's tennis for a long time and hit a clean ball. I loved watching her play. I still remember when she faced off against Jennifer Capriati in the final of the French Open in '01. Tracy Austin was doing on-air commentary before the match and she actually said these words about Clijsters: "She doesn't have anything to hurt Capriati with." That was when I realized that commentators don't necessarily watch tennis until someone pays them to do so.

2. Agz Radwanska got married. Congratulations! Let's work on that serve now!

3. OK. Let's talk about Bernard Tomic. Everyone else is, and it's not for a good reason. Tomic has been taking his pity party on the road lately. It all started at Wimbledon, when he acknowledged that he was bored and couldn't get himself motivated or interested in winning. He also may or may not have entirely bailed on his match. That lost him his Head sponsorship, which takes some doing, especially when you realize that Head is happy to stand behind an admitted drug cheat. But we've had enough tangents here, so let's push through my heavy eye-roll. Tomic last week said he was playing tennis just for the money, but is still trying to find some joy in tennis.
It is super easy to go off on Tomic and point out that he gets paid to play a game. It's probably true that if someone walked into my house and told me I could play tennis for a living for any amount of time, I'd leave a note for the family and hit the road. Here's what else is true: There are an awful lot of people who feel exactly the way Tomic feels about their own jobs. And a good chunk of those people are not afraid to tell you just how much they hate their jobs. Believe me -- I've worked with them. So I really just feel sorry for Tomic if he hates his job so much. I've been there too, and when you get out, it's like getting rid of a heavy weight from your shoulders. Tomic has a varied game that shouldn't bore him, but if it does, I hope he finds something else to do, because if he doesn't want to be out there, no one is really going to want to pay to watch him, either.

4. Davis Cup: A couple of weeks ago, the ITF announced some potential changes to the Davis Cup and Fed Cup formats. One was having men play best-of-three, because who wants to see five sets of tennis when players are representing their country, and not just themselves for once? So silly.
Whatever on that. BUT there is one other thing on the agenda -- having the Cups play their final ties at the same place and time, starting in 2018. It would be called the World Cup of Tennis.
When I saw this, it made me feel like that homeless person in those crisis movies, the one who stands on the street corner holding a "THE END IS NEAR" sign. Except that instead of everyone ignoring me and throwing nasty looks, someone stops, hugs me and says, "You guys we should listen to her because she is totally right and Davis Cup and Fed Cup have been flawed for a long time and gentlemen we can fix it we can give it a structure and give fans a reason to care about it instead of having it be at random times on the calendar which makes it appear to be an afterthought and if even the sport of golf can make it work surely we can because tennis is much more interesting to watch than golf so let's get this new format rolling like now and someone get her a shower because she stinks."
I'm just saying it's a start.

Wimbledon '17: Musings from the First Week

So that was some week. Let's just dive right in:

• Here are my draws now. I haven't seen this much red since that one time I checked my bank account in college! 

• Minor point: Venus Williams has won Wimbledon five times -- and zero-times Grand Slam finalist Johanna Konta is now the oddsmakers' favorite to win Wimbledon. I. Am. Just. Saying. 

• I kinda can't believe Victoria Azarenka is still in this tournament. Same with Angelique Kerber.

• I have a pretty strong stomach, but I took one glance at Bethanie Mattek-Sands after she fell, and I closed the browser window. Best of luck to her.

• What am I missing? Why on earth, if you're Sloane Stephens, would you choose to play your first match in nearly a year at Wimbledon?

• Yo, if you can't get geeked up to play the most prestigious Slam in your sport's history ...

• I just also want to point out Head dropped Bernard Tomic as a sponsor for being honest at a press conference. Head also stood behind one of their sponsored athletes who got busted for taking a banned substance. *shrug*

• Damn, I hope Heather Watson wins a major in singles one day, for as close as she's come with the heavy hitters. Or at least Indian Wells.

• It's nice to see the American women step up at a major, not just the usual suspects. Shelby Rogers totally blinked and if she hadn't, she would have beaten the pants off Kerber. Cici Bellis stayed with Azarenka as long as could be expected. 

• During this tournament, I realized that my in-match tweets age about as bad as the average Trump tweet.

That's an Indian Wells wrap

So my last post was a little heated. I had to unload a bit about on-court coaching, and because I am often overtaken by my mini-rages, I lose sight of the good things. I mentioned a few of them early in my last post. Let us hit the way-back button to revisit Indian Wells, shall we? OK!

1. Roger Freakin' Federer. You might recall Federer taking some time off before, needing to rest his bad knee. It was at that moment that the Rolex-sponsored Retirement Watch began ticking in the minds of many. He sat on the sideline watching Rafa Nadal do damage at the Rio Olympics, Andy Murray become knighted and Novak Djokovic assert himself (kinda) as the world No. 1. Ol' Grandpa Roger must have really been motivated by what he was seeing. Even after the man won the Australian Open with his fishing buddy Rafa, commentators said, "Well, this is it for these guys. This might be the last time ..." And then Roger played Rafa in the fourth round here and beat him so bad I was wincing. Now I'm a big fan of Rafa and his sexy ass. So it was a tough one to watch:

Still, Federer looks unbeatable right now. He's running around tagging backhands like a teenager while Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray are pulling out of Miami. And let's give Stan Wawrinka a good amount of props, too. He made the final entertaining and had a couple key points gone his way, it might have gone to three. He also gave possibly the most memorable runner-up speech. So memorable that Mirka is probably gonna find him and wallop him upside the head with her purse.



2. I just don't even know what to say about Elena Vesnina.

3. Do you know what Maria Sharapova has done since she was ordered to serve an 15-month drug ban from tennis? She has:

a. gone to HARVARD UNIVERSITY for a specialized business program (that has a no-drug policy but whatever am I right?)
b. written and secured a publisher for her memoir
c. retained many of her sponsors, including Head, which congratulated her for getting time taken off her ban
d. appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine
e. received a wildcard into the Stuttgard tournament, which begins before her ban ends, but barely. That means organizers held a spot for her and set it up so she can start as soon as her ban is over, two days after the starting bell.

This should be obvious.
If you're someone, like me, who thinks she violated the rules and did it with some intention, then you're wondering how a drug cheat like Maria Sharapova ends up with the world on a string. Cheaters aren't supposed to win. But here Maria is, running the tables. Like big time. Even the WTA is embracing her with open arms. Well, at least the WTA's social media manager is. Er, was:

Good thing the WTA deleted this tweet. Wise move. Heck, Dominika Cibulkova probably hadn't even seen that yet.
I don't say this every day, but Alize is so many of us right now.

4. The secret plot to make Bernard Tomic and Nick Kyrgios love tennis and stop being babies: I'm gonna start with acknowledging that this is some real conspiracy-theory stuff I'm about to drop. That's not me usually, but I want this to be true so badly. So you know how Rafa Nadal usually plays doubles (when he plays doubles) with fellow Spaniard and gold-medal champ Marc Lopez? So this time, he took on Tomic. And then Nenad Zimonjic who usually plays with someone who will help him win a title, played with Kyrgios. And frankly, I have never either sourpuss happier on a tennis court. Also, if you're a sourpuss, you're less likely to be one while playing against legit Grand Slam winners. You will be on your best behavior. But still, this is odd for major champions to choose such unlikely partners. Even Nadal's countrymen had no idea why he was playing with Tomic. Now Nadal says it was because they were supposed to play together in Australia, but couldn't. OK, fine. But I think Nadal and Zimonjic did this for the good of the game. They might have even hatched this plot together. They know that Tomic and Kyrgios have the potential to be the future of the game, and because they're thinking big-picture, they're taking them under their more-experienced wing to show them that instead of murdering your racquet, you might consider taking a deep breath instead. So that's my theory. Rafa and Zimonij are geniuses, and not the evil variety, either,

OK, I finally figured out something to say about Vesnina. You know how people say, "Youth is wasted on the young?" It's meant to say that young people squander their physical assets or their time and when they're older they have less time and limited physical abilities. Vesnina is 30. She and her fellow Russian Indian Wells finalist Svetlana Kuznetsova (31) have been around for a long time. It's probably easy to think, even to yourself, that you have the ability to go through a murderer's row to earn your first tier 1 WTA singles title, especially when you see folks like Garbine Muguruza blow by and win a major before she's 20. But look at how Muguruza struggles to be consistent now. I think Vesnina, Kuznetsova, the Williams sisters, Nadal and Federer are living in tennis' sweet spot right now. They have age, but they also have experience, and as Eminem would probably say, their feet aren't failing them now. Youth is nice. Thinking young is impressive, too.