Sunday Brunch	02/27/2010 - 8:14 PM

Mornin', everyone. Y'all will excuse me while I move snow this weekend. On the way up to the farm, Luke and I had a unique experience: a triple-whammy on the "no good deed goes punished front."I stopped to help a neighbor, Eric, who was struggling with his small tractor, trying to pull another neighbor, Laura, out of a ditch. Laura got stuck because she ignored the weather to go out and feed the cats for yet another neighbor, who was away on vacation.

Eric's small tractor, lacking chains, wasn't up to the job. Laura ended up sliding into his stone wall and taking out his mailbox. It seemed easy enough a job. I hooked onto her, but as I tried to put my vehicle  into gear, my shift lever (its an automatic) traveled freely without moving the shift indicator. There I was, in neutral, the shift  indicator on "D" but freely moving with no effect on my transmission. Long and short of it: Eric had to call a tow truck to come haul me away. I'm sure that the problem is minor; a broken cotter pin or something similar, somewhere in the shift linkage. But it was nothing we could figure out on the spot. So three of us all ended up in a jam, just trying to be decent neighbors, and had a good laugh about it.

It all kind of made me wish I were in Dubai, where rain has halted Novak Djokovic's attempt to defend his title. Well, that will give y'all something to watch today, although I plan on taking my very first peek at the Olympics - Canada vs. the USA for the hockey gold medal. I missed all the Alpine skiing, which I regret. It's just hard to turn on the television or computer when there's something more fun or important to be done.

And how about that Alisa Kleybanova? She had a good Australian Open, a good Fed Cup weekend, and now she's in her first WTA Tour final, against countrywoman Elena Dementieva. Granted, her road in Kuala Lumpur wasn't exactly filled with speed bumps, but don't for a moment think that diminishes the satisfaction Alisa must feel. Do we see an upset in the making?

Have a good Sunday, everyone.

-- Pete

The Deuce Club, 2.26	02/26/2010 - 5:00 PM

By Jackie Roe, TW Social Director

What's up, TWibe? I'll be honest, I haven't been paying much attention to tennis this week, as the Winter Olympics have once again taken over my life. But it seems I've missed quite a bit; some of the week's results have been rather stunning. Indian Wells is shaping up to be an interesting tournament and should reveal quite a bit about where the top men and women are at physically (and mentally, too, I suppose).

But I digress.

Watching the Olympics night in and night out, I can't stop wishing I were there, witnessing all that action up close. But though I'm stuck watching on TV, some of you have been lucky enough to attend the Games, including our special guest this week - Jenni! She was gracious enough to provide a write-up of her time in Vancouver, giving us a chance to learn about what the experience is like in person. Here it is ... enjoy!

Day 4 - Wednesday, 2/17

Garden of Earthly Delights	02/26/2010 - 12:45 PM

by Pete Bodo

Snow day, for the second time this month!

Not only that, but both of these recent winter storms hit New York on Thursday, translating to a three-day weekend. I spent this morning cleaning off the truck (no need to screw around with snow shovels when you have four-wheel drive and the off-road suspension package), although I'm not sure how even the estimable Blue Whale (my extended cab Chevy Silverado) will like the 30-plus inches that await us in game-rich Andes tomorrow.

And on Monday, of course, we have the Billie Jean King Cup, at Madison Square Garden. I almost perversely wished that the exhibition would have taken place last night, so we could have a re-enactment of that legendary 1947 Madison Square Garden exo, which took place during a snowstorm that paralyzed the city of New York. Yet over 15,000 Manhattanites braved a severe snowstorm that shut down the rest of the city to witness Jack Kramer's debut as a pro (he lost to Bobby Riggs).

It's a pity that Riggs is better known for losing to Billie Jean King in that bizarre but astonishingly resonant spectacle in the Astrodome in 1973 than he is for cleaning Kramer's clock that night in '47, because it helped ensure that Riggs would remain probably the most underestimated of pre-Open era champions.

Live by the Sugar Daddy, die by the Sugar Daddy, right?

As most of you know, we will not have a Venus vs. Serena Williams battle for the BJK Cup on Monday night, and that's a good thing. It's hard enough for the sisters to play each other at major events; when you pair them in an exhibition, almost all your hopes for a combative, high-stakes, leave-it-all-on-the-court throwdown go right out the window. How on earth can you expect either of those women to muster the kind of intensity that plays so well to New York, with nothing but a slight difference in the cash payout on the line?

Williams sisters + Exo = Yawn. Unless, of course, you've never been lucky enough to see Venus and Serena engage in combat in a meaningful context, in which case getting a glimpse of either of those icons, alive and in person, is reward enough. But while they aren't an ideal exhibition pairing, Madison Square Garden has shown a few times over just how valuable exhibitions, done right, can be to tennis.

Madison Square Garden is often referred to as the mecca of indoor sporting arenas. I never understood that except in the narrow sense that New Yorkers tend to assume that anything they do, think, embrace or have is. . . the best. The highest (or is it lowest) embodiment  of that sensibility is the person of one Donald Trump, who abuses the word "best" with unexpected and irritating creativity. Who knew the word "best" could sound so, well, offensive?

But while I find it hard to put the New York Knicks or Rangers (the two main pro teams that have called the "mecca" home) up on a pedestal, the Garden has done pretty well when it comes to boxing and - tennis.

Ignore for now the plethora of great matches once produced by the Grand Prix Masters (the forerunner of the ATP World Tour championships) or the Virginia Slims finals, both winter extravaganzas that allowed tennis to shine in the media capital of the world. The exhibitions held at MSG deserve a place of merit on their own.

In addition to that Kramer-Riggs showdown, two other exos of historic significance were played at the Garden. In 1939, the redoubtable Don Budge drew over 17,000 fans to the Garden for his debut as a pro, against Ellsworth Vines (whom Budge hammered). And in 1970, the Garden hosted that epic, $10,000 winner-take-all match that more-or-less became the defining moment of the rivalry between Rod Laver and Pancho Gonzalez. Sloughing off the liabilities of a 41-year old, Gonzalez taught the whipper-snapper Aussie a lesson, winning a thrilling five-setter. It's easy to take a crowd of 15,000-plus for granted these days, but given the times, all three of those exos were nothing less than astonishingly successful.

With no chance of Venus and Serena meeting in the final on Monday, we might yet see a great match (Kim Clijsters vs. Venus, anyone?). I tend to doubt it, though, because these aren't your grandfather's exos. Back in the day (of Budge, Kramer et al), almost all of pro tennis was exhibition-based, and those gifted outcasts from the official game played exos as if they were Grand Slam finals. For them, they were comparably critical. But as the Open era unfolded post-1968, "official" tournament tennis (with a few select exceptions) became, or positioned itself, as the only legitimate form of the sport.

That's a pity, in many ways. For a meaningful menu of exhibitions could do the sport a lot of good. If and when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal play exhibitions these day (the same holds true for any player renowned enough to be offered exo opportunities), it's understood by everyone that they're glorified practice or hitting sessions. But I have to wonder, wouldn't it be great if some entrepreneur signed Federer and Nadal to a best-of-3 series of exos to be played over a comfortable period of time in the winter months, at sites chosen to level the playing field (clay, hard, indoor)?

I can see the inherent problems and confusion that might sow. And it's hard not to attribute some of the success of those famous Garden exos to the fact that those 15,000 fans had no chance to see any of the top pros, who were also the world's top players most of the time, in action at Forest Hills, or Wimbledon. But as the drudgery of week-in, week-out ATP Tour competition takes its toll on Federer, as well as his younger rival, something like a meaningful series of exos might enable us to squeeze a little more juice out of the Federer-Nadal orange.

And you know how it is with those two - you can never get enough.

A Flood of Federers	02/25/2010 - 3:56 PM

by Pete Bodo

Good afternoon, all you screen-based life forms.

I was struck by a two-pronged complaint at yesterday's "Long Knives" post, and I think it's worthy of exploration in a separate story. It's the notion that Nick Bollettieri, his academy, and his teaching philosophy are somehow responsible for the decline of American tennis, as well as the death of serve-and-volley tennis. This caught my eye, because it leads to some conclusions and unavoidable facts that might surprise the authors of those comments, or at make them feel  less comfortable in their prejudices.

Let's start with this: If Bollettieri ruined American tennis, did he also at the same time shape and corrupt, at long-distances and with the use of enormous telepathic powers, the games of such stars as Novak Djokovic, Marin Cilic, Juan Martin del Potro, David Ferrer, Rafael Nadal, Fernando Verdasco, Nikolay Davydenko and Marat Safin? I mean, those players are not American, yet each of them plays a lot more like Andre Agassi or Jim Courier (both Bollettieri proteges) than like Pete Sampras (who never had anything to do with Nick).

And if power baseline tennis with an emphasis on the forehand is such a bad thing, why has it become coin of the realm throughout tennis? Someone cited Roger Federer and Justine Henin as more appropriate models for, as I take it, the way tennis ought to be played - as if Bollettieri somehow single-handedly prevented a flood of American Federers and Henins from entering the game. Tell you what: You take a dozen promising juniors and try to shape them into Federers and Henins and check in when they're 16 to let me know how the project is coming along.

Even more stunning, to me, is the implication that Bollettieri is somehow a force merely in American tennis. Are Monica Seles, Agassi and Courier, Anna Kournikova, Tommy Haas, Kei Nishikori, Nicole Vaidisova, Maria Sharapova, Max Mirnyi, et al Americans? And does nationality mean anything at all in tennis anymore? I don't believe so. Those players - in fact, all promising pro players - are part of a group I'd call the International Tennis Elites - the community of players cherry-picked from all over the globe for their talent at a strikingly early age.

So I would say that instead of "ruining" the American game, Bollettieri has been very successful in helping to establish what I often have called the New World Game (double-entendre intended). And I don't for a moment believe that American tennis interests would be better served if, instead of Bollettieri, we had some guy running around trying to make players play serve-and-volley tennis in an environment increasingly dominated by fit, cradle-to-grave, European and South American pros who have developed a largely similar game that works on the most commonly used surfaces, and even on present-day grass. You're entitled to be sentimental about "the good old days," or something like that, but I think it's an error to say that the only reason the game of the past won't work today is because nobody is playing it.

Let me digress: Bollettieri hasn't taken a single player naturally inclined to play serve-and-volley and tried to transform him into a baseliner. Not a one. And try this experiment: go out to a local tennis center or public park and check out how the game is being played by dedicated 3.5-and-better recreational players who have neither the talent nor desire to make it on the pro tour. I think you'll find a preponderance of baseliners, and a small number of players who serve-and-volley (more, in fact, than on the pro tour). And you know what? It has always been thus. I hope some of you avid players weigh-in on this issue. So, did Nick Bollettieri somehow shape those baseliners, too? Deny them the joys of playing serve-and-volley tennis?

Of course not. The baseline game simply is the way most players - amateur and pro - find success. And trust me on this: no player enjoying a satisfying level of success in the competitive world of junior tennis is going to stray too far from that base. What Bollettieri has done - what any decent coach does - is take the clay of a six- or nine- or 11-year-old talent and tried to find the most efficient, successful game buried in it. He could no more turn a natural serve-and-volley player into a baseliner than he could perform the transformation the other way around.

What Bollettieri did do (and the Spanish have done this very well, too), is focus on strength maximization, and that was an important step forward - perhaps even the genie in the bottle of the modern game of tennis. Up until about the time that Nick got involved in the game, tennis was taught in a very by-rote way: you turned sideways to the net (no longer true), you stepped into the ball (no longer true), you followed through over your opposite shoulder (no longer always true), you tried to take the net (the Jack Kramer influence, also no longer true). You didn't swing too hard (no longer true). I simplify, but not by that much. The notion that there is a right way to play has been supplanted by the desire to play a successful way.

And at about the same time, because of the growth of professionalism, younger and younger kids all over the world were whacking a million balls daily (think Agassi) long before they would even have recognized the name Bollettieri. The reality is that the players who ended up at Bollettieri's academy, and most other elite academies anywhere in the world, were already semi-developed products. The idea that a player is a tabula rasa for a high-performance coach is nonsense. Besides, would anyone suggest that Agassi would have had a better career if, having arrived at Bollettieri's academy, Nick had said: Okay, kid, the first thing we have to do is work on your serve-and-volley game!

I somehow doubt it.

Much the same kind of evolution was taking place at the same time in Europe, although more subtly because of the Europeans predisposition to baseline tennis (Adriano Panatta and Stefan Edberg nonwithstanding). I'll leave that discussion for another time (Patrick McEnroe has some very interesting thoughts on that subject, but I don't want to steal the thunder from the forthcoming book I helped him write, Hardcourt Confidential).

Suffice it to say that it's really outdated to think of tennis in parochial, nationalistic terms, in any sense whatsoever. The general muting of the difference between surfaces is but one proof of that. And I'm sure that it's a mistake to think of development as a style-driven process. Spain gave us Juan Balcells at the same time that it gave us Alex Corretja. Balcells was a serve-and-volley player, even on clay. Spain will continue to give us such players, and so will the U.S.( or Argentina, or Thailand) - but only as long as there's a kid with a natural, effective serve-and-volley game out there. So there's been no more of a conspiracy to kill serve-and-volley tennis as there was in the NFL to replace the T-formation with the shotgun-style offense (sorry, non-Americans) - the latter once being almost exclusively the domain of the lesser, college game.

The way I see it, the keyword in tennis for the past two decades has been "globalization." And with the accelerated pace of digital communication, cable television, and international travel, a specific approach to development has quickly emerged, producing a basic, practical, global style  that translates well on various surfaces. The number of players who pursue that style is borderline astonishing, yet players with other proclivities still pepper the ranks (does the name "Federer" mean anything you you?). This process has been aided and accelerated by the extent to which players are developed long before any formal coach gets his hands on them. That may suppress the development of serve-and-volley players, but not in a final way. Every coach I've ever observed at work has paid attention to the volley game, and kid with a knack for it pursue the style as far as it takes them. It just doesn't take them as far anymore.

We have a wonderful example of this entire evolutionary process in the form of Rafael Nadal, who in some ways truly is the anti-Federer. Now, does anyone think that Rafa would have been much better off if Toni had taught him to be a different kind of player, stylistically? Had tried to make him more like Roger? I'll hazard the guess that if Toni Nadal had shipped young Rafa off to Bollettieri's to put the finishing touches on his emerging game, some people would be ripping Nick for making Rafa develop a workmanlike, high-effort, relatively un-aesthetic game. Which begs the question, Is Toni Nadal just as bad for tennis as some of you think Nick is?

In my opinion, tennis in the past few decades has been liberated from stylistic formality (is there anything in tennis quite as formal as the serve, followed by the split-step, followed by the volley?). The bar for playing effective serve-and-volley has been raised to a dizzying height, partly because of the superior athleticism of today's baseline players. I find it hard to describe that as a net negative - and most of you know that I'm a big fan of the attacking game.

What are we to do, pass legislation against the smokin' hot forehand service return? Make all baseliners hit one-handed backhands? The one thing you can't teach people is talent, which is why Federer and Henin can not only survive but flourish. And good luck teaching that, on either side of the Atlantic.

    ***************

On a related note, comment poster Pam asked me to elaborate on my statement that Nick B. and Andre A. had experienced similar "journeys." Well, Peg, there's not much to elaborate on there - it just seems to me that  both men, over time, have undergone parallel transformations. Both were reviled or dismissed out-of-hand in the early stages of their respective careers (of course, Agassi was just a kid, Nick by then was a mature man) but over time both have emerged as substantial figures in tennis history. And they didn't do it through an image makeover as much as through a consistent, continual record of achievement. It's really as simple as that.

The Long Knives of Newport	02/24/2010 - 2:29 PM

by Pete Bodo

Nick Bollettieri has confirmed that he was bypassed for induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, that odd institution situated in the once-formidable bastion of the America's elites, Newport, R.I. The town was a playground for the rich and well-born of the Gilded age, those Astors and Vanderbilts, whose spectacular stone mansions still line Bellevue Ave., within walking distance of the ITHF. But it was a Navy town for a period as well, and today, as a kind of quirky resort town, it's an interesting hodgepodge of historical and cultural values.

I write "odd" because the ITHF, housed in the Newport Casino, is a shrine still (and appropriately) enveloped in the honeyed glow of the game's patrician roots. But it has striven mightily to remain relevant in the new, Open era (if anything 40-plus years old can be called "new"). Anyone can book a court and play on the grass courts of the Casino, and hosting an unabashedly commercial event like the Campbell's (Soup) Hall of Fame Championships (the ATP 250 that takes place right after Wimbledon), certainly doesn't smack of hoity-toity elitism - although one suspects that one or another Campbell must have at some point put his feet up in one of those spired mansions. Belcourt Castle, perhaps, or Rosecliff?

Actually, it's easy to go all Monty Python on historical Newport, but here's a telling fact that sums up the past hundred or so years in tennis: the tiebreaker wasn't the brainchild of some savvy former player, television executive (although Bob Monsbach of CBS still sacrifices a virgin daily in sheer gratitude for it), or pushy ITF type. It was thought up, promoted (to deaf ears, for quite some time) and ultimately sold to the Lords of Tennis by James "Jimmy" van Alen. Now there was a guy (Jimmy, that is), for whom Belcourt Castle itself might have seemed like nothing more than a cozy guest house somewhere at the back of his property. Somewhere along the line I heard that van Alen was heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune, but I can't confirm that.  But his blood lines certainly were blue.

Van Alen gave the USTA the Newport Casino in 1954, and yet another national landmark was saved from becoming a parking lot (that's the literal truth). Once you get over asking yourself, Why couldn't he give it to me instead?, you can see the beauty in the gesture. Van Alen was what you might call a progressive patrician, in that he was eager to see the game of tennis outgrow places like the Newport Casino, and he wholly supported the idea of opening up the place to the public. That helps put into context his stroke of genius, the tiebreaker. Van Alen's original version was a sudden-death, nine-point affair, with the players alternating two serves each. If the score reached 4-all, the receiver had choice of court in which to take the final serve.

I'm old enough to remember the days when the umpire would take out a little red flag and plant it in the chair, indicating that a tiebreaker was in progress. And at that point, if van Alen was present, he would rise from the chair in his court-side box (he was an elfin man with a shock of white hair and a florid, cherubic face - not exactly an image that evokes the word, "patrician") and rather dramatically wave to the crowd.

There you have it, the old world of tennis helping to shape the new. A very welcome symbol of continuity in a sport that was in some other ways buffeted and torn asunder by professionalism. It's a distinctly American story, I think, and a tribute to flexible society where lines of class and other imposed distinctions (like degree of wealth) are not as clearly drawn or as difficult to cross, one way or the other or even back and forth, as in many other societies.

Which more or less brings us to Bollettieri. I can't for the life of me figure out how he was not selected for induction into the ITHF without pulling at the loose threads dangling in the paragraph above. Bollettieri was nominated in the Contributor category, which acknowledges the value of selected administrators, officials, coaches and even members of the media. The enshrinees in those categories are not selected by a vote (as are those in the "Recent Player" category, to which I annually contribute my own vote), but by an "International Masters Panel" that includes enshrinees as well as "individuals who are highly knowledgeable of the sport and its history." (That's from the HoF's own copy.)

I suspect that this panel is just another variation on the Old Boy Network, and that the long knives of prejudice were out in Newport when it came time to discuss Bollettieri's nomination. Bollettieri has certainly been a controversial figure through much of his career, if less so now. Yet he's always been ignored or villified less for anything he did (presuming we've gotten beyond that simplistic notion that tennis academies are evil incarnate) than for his personal style and image. The genteel selectors presumably don't have a taste for mirrored shades, or for the kind of guy who has sat bare-chested on the balcony of his room in Paris's George V hotel, taking the sun with his portable reflector.

The Contributors category includes a pile of journalists, but few people I can identify by name as coaches (Harry Hopman is an outstanding exception). And I know that a fair number of enshrined contributors lobbied vigorously for enshrinement, while others - Rex Bellamy, anyone? - have been ignored, probably because they didn't push themselves or work their contacts on the panel hard enough.

I point this out because I imagine that one of the impediments Bollettieri faced to enshrinement is that he has lobbied vigorously - he'd love nothing more than to be recognized by the ITHF. One of Nick's better qualities is that he isn't afraid to admit that. But if others have helped promote themselves into the hall, why should Bollettieri be shunned for doing the same? The only real answer I can come up with is personal  prejudice against Bollettieri - something like the animus that kept Graham Greene from being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature (if you believe the literary gossip). That's what happens when a "panel" picks and chooses whom to honor, and whom not.

I'm got going to bore anyone with a recitation of Bollettieri's credentials; they are manifest and multi-faceted. Whether you like his style or not, his track record speaks for itself. But I will make one point that strikes me has highly ironic, given the presumption that Bollettieri's image as a vulgar fellow (in the dictionary sense of the adjective) is an obstacle to enshrinement: Nick has always promoted a Harry Hopman-esque brand of discipline and he tolerates no on-court misconduct. Andre Agassi, his most renowned protege, certainly had his innings as a screwball  early in his career. And look where he stands in the public eye now (curiously, I see a parallel in the "journeys" taken by Andre and Nick). A few other Bolletteri-ites have had their moments, too. But that's all they were. Is there a better citizen of the tennis community than Jim Courier? Or Monica Seles? if you make a list of the most controversial players of this era, you won't find a single Bollettieri protege graduate on it.

In other words, Bollettieri has represented values that can be said to be desirable in and appropriate for a coach aspiring to earn a place in the HoF (although there's no "morality" clause in the nomination guidelines).

Or think of it this way: Bollettieri represents continuity in tennis much more convincingly and even honorably than many of those who deny him admission might like to think. That just adds another insult to injury. It's nothing less than perverse to deny Bollettieri a place in the HoF, and when you look at the names of some people who are in as contributors, and compare their accomplishments in tennis to those of Bollettieri, it just adds to the suspicion that the admissions panel operates in an imperious and self-interested manner, blind to its own mandate.

I'd like to think that Jimmy van Alen himself is rolling over in his grave. The same "traditionalists" who think Bollettieri is too much of a self-promoting showman (while ignoring the conflicts, self-interested motives, or other flaws of some enshrined contributors) also tried to stop the tiebreaker from "ruining" the game.

Flip-Flop Fun	02/23/2010 - 4:40 PM

by Pete Bodo

Howdy, everyone. Just got back from Vieques and Culebra late last night; it was a wonderful trip (except that part when I spilled a full cup of scalding  coffee in my lap on the flight home, while seat-belted in. Want to talk about torture?). If you like beaches, that pair of tropical gems ought to be on your must-see list. And you don't have to deal with too many grim, binocular-toting eco-tourists in their zip-off pants and windbreakers, whom so many natives despise because they're not very friendly and cheapskates to boot.

Apart from having a great week with my family, I especially enjoyed a few early mornings spent wading the bonefish flats or fishing for tarpon that had cornered vast shoals of bait fish in a small bay. It was a round-the-clock slaughter. There's nothing like seeing half-a-dozen gleaming, 50-pound silver tarpon suspended in a green wave as it curls right before breaking on the beach. If you've never seen a school of big fish hammering bait, well, it's a sight to behold. One thing nature has taught me is that we're awfully prudish about life and death. In nature, both are abundant, intertwined, and relentless, whirling together like a giant wheel of fire.

Enough of that, though. Let's get to the tennis. It's always instructive to take a break, because when you return you find how much actually happens, and how quickly. I'm still trying to catch up. So, Roger Federer has some sort of weird lung infection that will keep him out of action for two weeks - or more. I hope he's recovered in time for Miami, my next tournament. I've been anticipating the guilty pleasure of watching him bust up another racket. I kind of miss "angry Roger." Pitching a hissy fit is about the only thing the guy isn't very good at, but it's fun watching him try - kind of like watching most guys trying to play tennis when he's on the other side of the net. And, of course, there's the more conventional joy of watching Federer work his magic and asking yourself, Hey! how'd he do that?

And with Rafael Nadal pronouncing himself ready to go again, the prospects for the two big Spring hard court events are pretty tantalizing. It's high time we had another Federer vs. Nadal smackdown, right? It's always the same, and always new.

And now we can all watch said smackdown clutching a. . . Corona Extra!

I get a kick out of people who get all fired up about exotic beers, including any of the bewildering micro-brews, or those honey, wheat, soybean, chick pea or asparagus beers. I don't need no stinkin' artsy-fartsy beer with a cute name (Fat Tire, anyone?). Most of them are way too heavy and taste as if they've been filtered through one of Rafael Nadal's socks after he's just completed a long three-setter on clay. Give me a crisp, light lager any day. But even I was surprised by the results of this beer survey. You mean the Miller Lite, Coors Lite, Corona and Labatt's Blue I've been drinking all these years are actually considered good beers? I feel right superior. Always trust your, er, gut, right?

Anyway, when I first read the release from the ATP I thought the "Extra" was some new, more expensive articulation of the Corona I've come to know and love. You know, an attempt to capture that upscale demographic that simultaneously sustains and haunts tennis in order to advance the mythology of some new designer beer. Actually, it seems that the word  "Extra" is irrelevant, if not exactly redundant (something I should have known, given how often Mr. Corona has lived his brief, happy life in my fridge). "Extra" is the only kind of Corona there is.  There's no Corona Regular, or Corona Ordinary. Like people, every Corona is "special."

And Kumbaya to that.

I may be especially vulnerable to the Corona mystique at this moment, having just returned from the islands, but I think this is a great hook-up for the ATP, as I say in our latest podcast. I've had it out the wazoo with luxury automobiles, financial services, and high-tech companies. I've got nothing against them, per se, and appreciate the roles they've all played. But all of them project a baby boomer vibe that leaves me cold, even if I am part of the target demographic. Hey, not every tennis fan out there is an practicing personal injury lawyer or orthopedic surgeon. Perhaps Mr. Adam Helfant has noticed this.

Corona, by contrast, brings a bit of Jimmy Buffett to tennis, and that's a good thing. Or at least a refreshing thing, if like me you've OD'd on the sight of yet another Angelina Jolie lookalike in a gauzy evening gown and tiara slipping into the passenger seat of a fancy car. All the associations I can think of for Corona are anchored in the basic idea of fun. Just-screwing-around, flip-flop fun (as opposed to training-for-a-marathon fun). And the Corona affiliation might even allow all my fellow aging baby boomers and the old squares and suits with whom tennis is still big to feel a little. . . young. And as the bard has said, "Everybody throw your hands in the air. .  ." .

Ask yourself: When was the last time I saw a guy in khaki slacks and a pink Ralph Lauren polo shirt ask for a Corona instead of a Michelob or a gin-and-tonic? Tennis sponsors have spent a lot of capital touting the the wonders and joys of the upscale consumer life, which is one that most tennis fans view, if they bother to look at all, with their noses pressed to the glass. Or one that leaves the sport tainted by snobbery. You know the difference between a Corona Extra and Lexus GX? Everybody can afford the Corona! That's not a bad thing for either the Corona or ATP executives.

Let's drink to that!

Monday Net Post	02/22/2010 - 1:56 AM

Good Monday, everyone. Saw that the comments were bulging at Jackie's Deuce Club post, so here's a fresh canvas for today. It was a weekend of good food (Yuca Bar, way over in Alphabet City) and good sport—what an impressive performance by the United States hockey team against the Canada. Anyone who knows me is aware that I have a fondness for the maple leaf; after all, the Canucks gave us hockey in the first place. (Plus, of course, the enjoyable spelling of words like "centre," "colour," etc.) I had no rooting interest in the game; I was rather looking for an enjoyable experience, something the New York Rangers have deprived me off for most of this NHL season. Evidently, I was rewarded with a fantastic tilt to close the preliminary round of play. Here's hoping for a Canada-Russia quarterfinal, followed by a gold medal match between that winner and the U.S.

There was some good tennis, too—six tournaments in all, with many notable winners, including Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova and Sam Querrey. But my McGrogan's Hero award—I guess you could say this is a Monday Net Post—goes to Juan Carlos Ferrero, who won his second tournament in as many weeks down in South America. Like Lleyton Hewitt, Ferrero isn't going away, and he'll continue to cause fits for players at tournaments as long as he's in top form. There's been plenty of talk about the potential of the current generation of young stars—Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, del Potro, et al—but the Federer-Roddick-Hewitt-Ferrero generation isn't done yet. Their staying power has surprised me, and if the newer kids can sustain their level of play for as long as their elders have, it's impressive in its own right.

I have some additional thoughts on the week that was in my First Serve column—check it out and let me know what you think below.

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This is your guest post for Monday; feel free to comment on the above, or in regards to any tennis goings on.

The Deuce Club, 2.19	02/19/2010 - 5:00 PM

By Jackie Roe, TW Social Director

Watching the athletes, I can't help but alternatively admire and covet their experience. I asked myself, what sport/event would I want to be a part of? I posed the question to my mom, and surprisingly, she answered, "Snowboarding! It must be very fun." (If you knew my mom, you'd be hard-pressed to picture her as a daring, throw-caution-to-the-wind snowboarder.) I'm not sure how I'd respond, though I know I wouldn't excel at those events with a high danger level, like skiing or luge. Speed skating could work - preferably long track, as the chaos of short track is more than my easily-frazzled self can handle. There's something about the gleam of the artificial ice, the clap skates, and the aerodynamic suits that appeals to me. If I had to pick one word to capture its essence, it'd be this: Pristine.

And then there's the allure of figure skating, one of my all-time favorite sports. I've fantasized about being a pairs skater in the past (ladies, you've done it, too, admit it), of being enveloped in an achingly beautiful piece like Albinoni's Adagio as I glide across the ice as one with my partner (as gold medalists Shen and Zhao did). If you can't empathize with the feeling, check out The Cutting Edge and you'll understand!

That's all for now. If you haven't been following the Olympics, I hope I haven't turned you away! You're welcome to chat about whatever your heart desires here, including that ol' sport some of us seem to be quite fond of, tennis. Feel free to call matches here until we get another post up and running this weekend. Take care, guys!

Teleportation Devices	02/18/2010 - 10:45 AM

By Ed McGrogan

Hi everyone—apologies for not posting yesterday. It was a busy Wednesday in New York, and I had to scamper over to Jamaica, Queens for a prime seat at the St. John's-Seton Hall basketball game in Carnesecca Arena. It's no Carrier Dome, in bucolic upstate New York, where I'll be for next week's marquee tilt between the Syracuse and Villanova, but the price (free) was right.

Back to tennis, though. There's some fine women's matchups taking place in Dubai; the best of the bunch is Vera Zvonareva-Victoria Azarenka, which is underway as I type. Shahar Peer, denied entry into this event last year, is semifinalist this season after besting Li Na. And Venus Williams has a tricky encounter with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the quarters later on.

Otherwise, there isn't much to fawn over on today's slate. Sam Querrey and Andy Roddick will collide once again in the States if they can both win today, but as for the here and now, it's bleak on the ATP tour. If... (Remember that, from the Monday Net Post days?—If you're an old timer who does, thanks for staying with us.) I had to pick one match in the world to be teleported to, I'd go with the Marcel Granollers-Igor Andreev tussle today in Argentina. Neither player is going to win a Slam in their careers, but both have some attractive shots that are further accentuated on clay. Fans of long rallies (neither will serve their way to a win) might want to keep tabs on this one.

And, of course, the weather's great down there, although it's pleasantly temperate today in the Big Apple.

I'd be curious to see what match you'd pick, if such a teleportation device existed.

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This is your guest post for Thursday; feel free to comment on the above, or in regards to any tennis goings on.

Middle School	02/16/2010 - 2:13 PM

By Ed McGrogan

The weeks in February seem to repeat themselves, at least on the ATP tour. Do Costa do Sauipe, Rotterdam and San Jose 'feel' any different to you than Buenos Aires, Marseille and Memphis? Not to me.

It might be because of the inevitable lull that follows a Grand Slam tournament, but there's a tangible explanation for this monotony: The playing fields are generally the same, week after week. Seven of the eight seeds—and all of the top five—in San Jose are also playing in Memphis. There's lots of similarities in the European and South American events as well.

Although these draws have a sense of déjà vu, thankfully, many of the world's top men are participating. The only notable omissions have been Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, who rarely surface post-Oz until the Masters events.

What can we learn from this batch of tournaments? Nothing definitive about the tennis landscape, because the players are ostensibly separating themselves into three mini-tours. (For those of you—and I think Pete is one such proponent—who have called for the creation of smaller tours around the world that convene at the Slams, this is what it might look like.) But you'll sure be able to tell who's playing best amongst the group of Roddick, Verdasco, Stepanek, Haas, Berdych et al.

Is this a good or bad thing? I don't think that this sameness makes for the best entertainment for those following from afar on their computers. But it still works from a local point of view. February is the month of the year in which I lived down south, closer to these events. For a relatively cheap price, you can see very good tennis from an intimate perspective, without all the showy celebration that accompanies the bigger events. Plus, there's the improved weather. (Tonight, I'll be braving the snow and the 1 train on my way to the indoor courts on 218th St. in Manhattan.)

February reminds me of the first days of middle school, when kids from each of the area's elementary schools are lumped together for the first time—those who are familiar with each other tend to stick together. But eventually—come Indian Wells and Miami—we'll find out who the big men on campus are.

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This is your guest post for Tuesday; feel free to comment on the above, or in regards to any tennis goings on.