ATP Slapstick: Janko Tipsarevic and Gael Monfils on the verge of qualifying for London

 

So here’s an experiment. Try standing in front of a mirror with your hands behind your back, staring eye-to-eye at your reflection, and saying ‘Gael Monfils, number one seed’ out loud 10 times without pause (keep looking at the mirror).

If you make it past ‘four’ without the trace of a snicker (and without the aid of some sort of biochemical suppressant), I put it to you that your synapses are wired the wrong way and that you should probably be kept away from young children.

That’s where I was (or rather wasn’t) with Stockholm all week. Any tournament with Gael, or for that matter Janko, as its top seed needs to go away and do some thinking. Unless you’re in the business of slapstick.


 
But credit where it’s due.

Both Janko and Gael and, incidentally, Dolgopolov were *and are* in contention for London. They knew it – tennis mathletes certainly knew it.

Normally, that kind of demand is Gael’s cue to slide into a bunch of line judges or to go jump through a window – anything but win the requisite number of matches.

But he didn’t implode, not by that or any other means – and neither did Janko. Both men, instead, somewhat untrue to form, went on to win events in which they were (however laughably) deemed by the numbers to be the top seeds. In other words, they lived up to their billing. And that deserves recognition.

That, incidentally, is Janko’s second title in three weeks – also his second overall. With an appetite like that he might actually wind up qualifying for London (straight face and keep staring at the mirror). This must be why those hoity-toitys at the top of the rankings want to shorten the season.

Dolgo, on the other hand, has just gone out to Dudi Sela in St Petersburg this morning for the loss of only four games. Just last week he lost his opener to Jeremy Chardy, also in straight sets. That deserves recognition too – if only because it’s recognisably stupid.

With all due respect to those other two, only a nincompoop loses that meekly when there’s so much at stake.

Either he doesn’t get it, or he just can’t help himself. Or both. He’s “not wired properly up there” either.

(pics: Getty)
Read More...

Voodoo Dolls for all Life’s Disappointments

 

1) WTA rebranded

 

 

Meh. It looks a little too Samsung-like if you ask me. Or like a regional broadband provider.

 

The old sonyericssonwtatour.com url – the one which you might comfortably fit all of Aesops fables in -- has gone too.

 

I take it Sony Ericsson are about to jump ship?

 

2) Federer d. Mayer 6-4 6-3 to win the ‘If Stockholm Open’

 

 

I’m no pimply nosed DC Comics enthusiast. BUT  I KNEW I’D SEEN THAT TROPHY SOMEWHERE BEFORE.

 

To date this year, Fed’s won a Slam, a Masters-1000 and, now,  a 250 event. Should he win the 500 event in Basel, the box set will be complete.

 

The last time he did that was back in 2006 – when it wasn’t presumably “all about the Slams”. And now, if you don’t mind, Superman wants his career memorabilia back.

 

3) Troicki d. Baghdatis 3-6 6-4 6-3 to win his maiden ATP title at the Kremlin Cup.

 

 

Viktor’s too good a player not to have a single title to his name. A handy reminder that even in this rarefied year of Career Slam excellence there’s an entire zombie-eyed subculture willing and waiting to get their name engraved on just one of these things – however proletarian it might seem in the grand scheme of things.

 

Moscow is the only event I’ve seen where players get to accessorize quite so freely: winning here earns you not one but two trophies, an expensive watch, a flower bouquet and a $170K cheque in prize money.

 

Not only that, but had Viktor won doubles with Janko later on in the day (they fell 7-6(8) 6-3 to Dimitrov/Kunitsyn), he’d have two of every one of those.

 

4) Also in Moscow, Azarenka d. MariaKiri 6-3 6-4

 

 

Happy to see Vika winning again.

 

Though, to be honest, I’d settle for a semi/quarter if it meant a guarantee she’d not come out flat in Doha next week.

 

I had her down for a breakthrough before Caz – which she sort of made good on by winning Miami last year (even if it was against a limping mummified Serena).

 

And were it not for Serena, she may even have made more of an impact at the Slams (she has been especially unlucky in this respect).

 

Still, it’s been pretty meagre since then by her standards. Next week’s a chance to put all that right. With not a Williams in sight.

 

5) So according to Tennis Magazine, “the biggest disappointment of 2010” is…

 

Dinara Safina.

 

Never mind that her back complaint meant she spent the better part of the year either severely compromised or out of action altogether.

 

It’s also wholly at odds with the type of press Ivanovic got during her little fall from grace – which was all about “what she must now do” to reassume what media-lovey-doves presumably thought of as her rightful place at the top of the game.

 

Newsflash: Ana played fantastically well, but still only won a Slam because Henin had retired that very month and because the Williams, quite frankly, haven’t been a factor at RG for a long time.

 

It’s a credit to her that she managed to do what neither Dinara or JJ were able to by taking advantage of that window of opportunity, but only the most feral of AnaKads will try and make much more of it.

 

And if you really want to talk disappointments, then how about  Marin Cilic? Who’s been practically extinct since winning Zagreb back in Feb this year. He has, in fact, made only one Masters QF in the last 12 months – and that was in Paris last year.

 

But he’s won Zagreb right? So that’s ok.

 

6) Roberta Vinci d. Julia Georges to win her 3rd WTA title in Luxembourg.

 

 

Voodoo dolls trump alien eggs any day of the week in these ‘ere parts.

 

Quite simply the most grotesque artefact ever awarded to anyone, anywhere. 

 

What exactly were they thinking?

 

Quite apart from anything else, it’s the sort of “thing” (what would you call it?) that might have been used as a prop in “The Wicker Man”.

 

I wouldn’t want to play Roberta now either. You might lose a limb. Or a family member.

Read More...