My Golden Age…

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blake, clijsters, del potro, djokovic, espn, federer, gulbis, henin, ivanovic, jankovic, kuznetsova, murray, nadal, oudin, roddick, roland garros, safin, safina, serena, simon, soderling, Tennis, tsonga, twitter, us open, wimbledon

… is officially over and done with.

After the US Open, has the tennis gotten any better? Um, the short answer is a blatant “no.” The general consensus (at least from my point of view), is that the tennis is NEVER stellar after the US Open to begin with. All the players are pretty much just trying to make it through the rest of the year, some playing injured and whatnot. After all, they get FINED if they do not play some tournaments like Masters.

So, we’re left with them pretty much half-assing it out there, massaging the ball around. Well, I will not say that. These are athletes and by nature they are competitive. I know they will compete until the last ball is struck; or at least try to. But I think this year was one of those prime examples of why the tennis schedule is too long (more prevalent in the ATP than WTA).

Clowns and Clownettes: Part 1

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clijsters, del potro, federer, gasquet, gulbis, ivanovic, k. bondarenko, king, murray, nadal, safin, safina, serena, us open, venus

Whole lotta shakin’ going on at the US Open. Several clowns and clownettes were on the court.

Potato lasted exactly 30 games at the Open this year. That’s right. She did one worse than last year by losing to a sister. Admittedly, I might be biased towards ladies who are sisters (Williams, Radwanskas, Bondarenkos). I have two sisters myself and I am the middle sister (I have the necklace to prove it). Anysmoo, Dark-Purple People Eater lost to Kateryna Bondarenko… yesterday. Dinara Safina scrapped through a match that by all accounts she deserved to lose. I was actually rooting for her to lose; the tennis was just THAT bad.

Honestly, I cannot get over how bad the tennis was. It was pitiful. I just had to laugh. It was a battle to see who could hit more forehands out or double fault more. There was one particularly well-played point in the third set and that was it. Everything else was almost always decided on errors. So, Dinara Safina, your first round match was officially the worst match played all year on either tours.

55 Aces

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gulbis, hewitt, karlovic, querrey, roland garros

Here’s an interesting stat from Sunday’s proceedings at Roland Garros: Ivo Karlovic hit a grand total of 55 aces past Lleyton Hewitt… and still lost the match. The previous record at Roland Garros was 37 by Andy Roddick and the record at tour level was 51 shared by Ivo and Joachim Johansson.

Tsk tsk, Ivo. You officially have the worst ground game ever (though he did kill a forehand on one point).

In other news, there were five 5-setters to kick things off:
Hewitt d. (26) Karlovic – 67(1) 67(4) 76(4) 64 63
Petzschner d. Polansky – 57 62 76(4) 46 63
Ouanna d. Granollers – 75 26 36 76(2) 61
Kendrick d. Brands – 67(7) 75 76(11) 46 63
(7)Simon d. Odesnik – 36 75 62 46 63

Simon was made to work, as predicted. Unfortunately, Pong survived Chela. There was 1 retirement and only 1 love set. That bagel was dished out by Marin Cilic to Jan Hernych.

Oh, and Ernests Gulbis has remembered how to play tennis. He beat Sam Querrey 76(1) 61 36 61. Big serves and a lot of forehands. Let’s see if Ernie can win another…