Mesh Tennis

Q. Can you talk about how nervous you were at the beginning? Were you very nervous? How did you experience that?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: You know, it’s very tough. I think the match was much closer than the score, for sure. And, you know, like I always say that ‑‑ and I’m gonna say it once more. To beat Justine, she’s No. 1. When she plays her best game I have to play my best game. I didn’t play my best game so that’s why I lost. And I had so many opportunities ‑‑ not so many, but with these players like her, so high level, you just have few opportunities, not many. If you don’t use them, there’s no way I gonna win. I had so many of them. I felt I just didn’t move to the ball well enough because I was pretty tight. So I think I got to learn a lot out of this final and just see ‑‑ take many times and improve it. There is something about my game I have to work.

Q. She’s had moments in the recent past where as great as she is, she’ll get a little conservative at times, mental lapses. Is she at a point now where she’s not going to have any mental lapses, because she seems so aggressive?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: No, I’m not agree about it. We’re not machines. Everybody, we’re players. We are humans. And she is also, you know. She is No. 1 now and I think she deserves it. She works very hard to receive. She’s very professional. She still had some ups and downs today, and I just didn’t use it, you know.

Q. Considering you didn’t play much in the summer after Wimbledon, was this a surprise to get as far as you did? Did you expect to play well?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: You know, I didn’t play many tournaments, but I did train a lot, you know. I really trained hard. I was improving some things. But next step I have to do some improve during the matches, you know. It’s not about the training on the court. Just when I go to play finals I wish I play at my best, and today I didn’t do so.

Q. Do you feel like the No. 2 player in the world, which is what you’ll be on Monday?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: It’s very hard to say, you know, because I think player No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, it’s not about only ‑‑ some people Justine, because of the quality, you know, she’s No. 1. She has unbelievable quality. Like you take another player like consistency, like Jelena, you know, if I’m there, the system is like that, I think I deserve it.

Q. What’s the toughest part about playing Justine?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: I’ve been asked the question just now about if she gets a lead she sometimes get a little bit weak. But for me it’s tough. Like you get a little bit ‑‑ like she get a little bit like a break or something, I think she’s getting more relaxed and she plays better. This is very tough. She play pretty unusual game. I didn’t play nobody like that in this tournament. All the girls I play play totally different tennis.

Q. Are you going to train tonight? I know you like to hit the ball after the game.
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: No, no, no. I went to hit in 2004 because I had doubles next day. I hope to have few days off.

Q. Would it be a good comparison if we say that Justine plays like Roger?
SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA: I don’t know. I think women and men, you can’t compare. I don’t know, no? I don’t know. I think she No. 1. She deserve it. For me, I mean, Roger, he has all the records possible. I think it’s a bit different. Justine, she’s No. 1. athlete. She deserve it.

FastScripts by ASAP Sports

Um, the match was NOT closer than the score reflected.

This is some more old news, but I am catching up, like my last post.

The secret to beating Anna-Lena Groenefeld is being passed around the women’s tour by her former coach, the German player said Tuesday.

Groenefeld, who has dropped from the top 20 to No. 109 in the WTA rankings, lost for the 13th time in 17 matches this season when 185th-ranked Nika Ozegovic beat her 6-3, 6-2 in the first round at Wimbledon.

Groenefeld split from former coach Rafael Font de Mora last year, and on Tuesday she accused him of helping her opponents.

“He still thinks he’s the man of the world,” Groenefeld said. “It’s not easy right now. He goes up to my opponent, and someone is coming up to me and telling me, yeah, he gave them all the tactics how she had to play me today.

“When you know that, it’s always in your head and you just can’t throw it away.”

Groenefeld said she worked with Font de Mora for three years and always had a good relationship with him.

“I think that’s just his way of dealing with it,” Groenefeld said. “It’s sad to see that after such a long time he’s like this. But I don’t want to go down to his level. It’s just sad to see a guy doing things like this.” findlaw.com (cached on Google)

Tennis Magazine commented that the real reason might be that she is fat.

This news is old, but I missed covering it and figured that now is a good time to catch up on some gossip for the archives.

cheerleading coach at the prep school founded by tennis star Andre Agassi has been arrested in an undercover prostitution sting, Las Vegas police said Friday.

Police said 36-year-old Esperanza Brooks was arrested Wednesday night in a Las Vegas restaurant after agreeing to deliver three prostitutes and drugs to undercover detectives at a hotel-casino.

Brooks was a cheerleading coach, but not a faculty member at the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a charter school for at-risk students founded by Agassi in 2001, school spokesman Rob Powers said. cbsnews.com

In case you hadn’t known the history between these two…

At a Davis Cup match between Switzerland and Serbia last September, Federer was riled by what he characterized as dubious medical timeouts by Djokovic. “I think he’s a joke when it comes to his injuries,” said an unusually cranky Federer at the time. “The rules are there to be used, not abused…I was happy to beat him.”

Undaunted - and at the time winless against Federer - Djokovic spoke confidently of beating him someday. “Why should I be frightened?” he said. “For me, it’s a totally normal thing. If I go out on the court thinking positively, I think I can win against anybody. If you go out with the white flag, what are you doing there? You know what I mean?”

To actually witness Djokovic saying such things, you sense no animosity whatsoever. He’s just a remarkably self-assured kid without a trace of petulance or mean-spiritedness. The quotes do look bold in print, though. Almost jokingly, Djokovic predicted that Federer was “going down” before their fourth-round match at this year’s Australian Open (Federer won in straight sets). A month later at Dubai, where Federer made it a perfect 4-0 in the career matchup, Djokovic was asked about a possible feud.

“We’ve never had a bad relationship,” he said. “It was just that one situation at the Australian which was really bad. The press asked me if I was going to play my best tennis, and I said, ‘No, I’m not going to just play my best tennis. I’m going out there thinking that I can win.’ Then people said that I was arrogant, cocky, and I don’t know what else.”

Djokovic never apologized for any of those remarks. He figures if he isn’t absolutely set in his mind that he can beat Federer, it won’t actually happen. Then came the second week of August, at the Rogers Cup tournament in Montreal. That’s where Djokovic made his career breakthrough, becoming the first man in 13 years to take down the world’s top three players - first Roddick, then Nadal, finally Federer (a 7-6, 2-6, 7-6 final) - in successive matches.

Before that match, when journalists asked Federer about Djokovic’s game, he said he “wasn’t that much impressed.” Coming from Federer, who seldom has a bad word for anyone, the comment was telling. And after Djokovic had pulled the upset, Federer called the result “insignificant.”
sfgate.com

Some of these quotes are from the interview, which I already published a copy of, but it seems more info is emerging on exactly what is going on with Venus.

Scenes in the corridors under Flushing Meadows’ Arthur Ashe stadium were even more alarming an hour after the 7-6 6-4 defeat. Venus cut a frail figure as she leaned on her boyfriend, PGA Tour golfer Hank Kuehne, and hobbled back to the sanctuary of the locker room.

Price stood in attendance, her face racked with maternal concern as she revealed that her daughter had been diagnosed with anaemia when she began to experience dizzy spells during a tournament in San Diego three weeks after her Wimbledon victory.

Rather than allowing Venus to return home to Palm Beach Gardens in Florida, Price is insisting on an immediate series of extensive medical tests to be carried out at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

“Today I guess the anaemia came back,” said Price. “Venus feels like the ground is moving beneath her feet. Things aren’t right and we have to find out what’s wrong.”

Viruses have been virulent in tennis locker rooms this summer. Marion Bartoli, the young Frenchwoman whom Venus beat in the Wimbledon final, was the first to suffer.

Since then Daniela Hantuchova and Jelena Jankovic have been affected. Nicole Vaidisova was sidelined for six weeks with glandular fever, and in this US Open men’s seeds Richard Gasquet and Tomas Berdych were forced to withdraw, complaining of illness.

The problems for the 12th-seeded Venus seem more serious, although she was full of praise for Henin, who beat her for the first time since 2001. Difficult though it is to comprehend, the 27-year-old Venus admitted to suffering throughout her impressive win over third-seeded Jankovic two days earlier, when she recovered from losing the first set.

“I’m not sure what’s wrong with me,” she said dolefully in a wavering voice that could not have been more different from the fierce persona she likes to portray on court. “I don’t feel the way I would feel if I had just played awfully and given it away. I feel like I was fighting some circumstances that I couldn’t conquer.

“I didn’t feel 100% at Wimbledon, but it’s definitely all about desire and will. I really wanted it there and I wanted it here too, but I fell short. I’m disappointed, obviously. I feel like I should have found a way, despite everything.”

As well as experiencing dizziness, Venus reported feelings of nausea and a general lack of energy. Although the temperatures and humidity in New York have been unseasonably high for mid-September, she did not blame the weather and pointed out that she prepares in the fierce heat of Florida. She could not remember what the trainer said to her courtside. “I was like in a zone. I was just hoping she had a magic pill. She gave me some jelly beans. I tried to eat them, but I was still feeling dizzy. It hasn’t been as much fun playing under these circumstances, because when you don’t feel good, it’s not fun. And I just want to feel good.” Although Venus has been a more consistent and mature competitor than her younger sister Serena, she has regularly suffered long absences because of injury.
Times Online

Anemia is often a symptom of an underlying problem - sometimes something as simple as diet, but it can be an indicator of many conditions that are more serious.

He’s done it before, and Bud Collins thinks that Novak Djokovic may be about to do it again - beat Roger Federer. I’m somewhat less hopeful, but I hope to be tuned in to the match to see just that result.

The U.S. Open men’s final on Sunday between top-seeded Roger Federer and No. 3 Novak Djokovic is likely to be very entertaining. But I think Djokovic, in his first final at a major, will pull an upset, halting Federer from winning his fourth straight title here. msnbc.com

Do you think nerves for Novak will be a factor? What about Davydenko’s comment that Federer seems tired?

Well, by now you know that David Ferrer will not be going to the US Open men’s final - Djokovic will be filling that spot. The US Open did some interesting coverage about David - did you know he quit tennis to be a construction site worker? Didn’t think so.

While today Ferrer is acknowledged as one of the best on clay, at 17, he was so uncommitted to the game that he would show up for practice some days and give 100 percent and some days, zero percent, according to his coach, Javier Piles. About a month after they started working together, Ferrer won a satellite tournament at home in Valencia – famous for hosting America’s Cup sailing in 2007 and 2009 – and Piles saw that Ferrer could be something special.

“The guy doesn’t want to practice, but when he fights, he wins,” Piles remembered thinking at the time.

Still, after a few months, Ferrer was ready to quit again. He said he felt guilty for his parents who were paying $4,000 a week for expenses when he wasn’t winning. He actually gave up tennis and became a construction worker – but the stint only lasted one week.

When Friday came, and it was payday, his boss handed him $30 for the week. That Monday, he called his coach and said, “Hey Javi, I go to tennis.”

Piles worked on his game and his mind – but Ferrer’s attitude didn’t change overnight. “It took two to three years,” Piles said. Several times, Ferrer would show up, hit for five minutes, then start his rant about quitting – to the point where Piles would lock him in a closet where the balls were kept for the duration of the three-hour practice, giving him only a piece of bread and a bottle of water. At noon, Piles would ask if he wanted to come out and do his conditioning. .

Still, Piles said, “We’d play challengers, and he’d want to go home again.” With Piles repeatedly coaxing him back onto the court, Ferrer broke into the Top 100 when he was 19. From then on it was easier.

Now, according to Piles, “When David is in good shape, has good mentality, it’s very easy. But I have to remind him of smaller things like how to start a match. He’s a player who wants to put 200 percent in the beginning. His serves are not one of the best. But we never talk about returning.”

Roger Federer has called Ferrer, “the best returner in the game.” When reporters told Ferrer, “Thanks Roger,” was his humble response.

Off the court, “Ferru” is an avid reader and very quiet – so quiet that a Spanish publication recently called him “Jekyll and Hyde” for the disparity between his on-court and off-court persona.

He has smashed all but three racquets he brought to North America for a month of tournaments in Montreal, Cincinnati, New Haven, and Flushing Meadows. While Federer has been taking eight to 10 racquets on court for the US Open, Ferrer has been using his last three the entire time because they’re an old Prince model that can’t be replaced in a shop.
usopen.org

No mention if he and Nadal use the same hairstylist though…

There’s video on the site here.

Q. What’s the one thing that makes Roger Federer so tough?
NIKOLAY DAVYDENKO: Lucky. He’s lucky sometimes. You know, like if he gets a chance in the third set, I think everybody see like I try winning by 5‑4 and double set point, okay, one returning bad. But play from baseline, you know, hitting like, like happening not first time against him already. Like happening Australian Open. I have set point and I hitting, play from baseline rally, and like try, you know, move him, and you know, make some little bit mistake like today. But by 5‑4, I was just try, you know, concentration like hundred percent. Just keep all my power, you know, winning third set. And then like I losing 5‑5, and I lose game and set.

Q. Is luck something just happens or is luck something that you make?
NIKOLAY DAVYDENKO: I don’t know. I think Federer’s always lucky. Really, like some many points, like I was surprising how hitting. Like sometimes he make some great slice, you know, from cross. Because I try to push. Sometimes I try to make moving him like from right and left, and then just some points he just play like so good. You know, I don’t understand how you can. You know, guys running right, left, you get not so great control from baseline. He just keeping balls back. But he like sometimes plays so well and then you losing points. You like surprising because you don’t know how is possible. That’s was okay, but, you know, he’s play well. He try always to play very good, but, you know, today was windy. It’s pretty tough to play very good from baseline.

Q. On the second set point, how difficult was it for you to watch the ball miss by so little?
NIKOLAY DAVYDENKO: You know, like it’s was ‑‑ challenge was stupid to make because I like see it was out. I was sometimes surprising was windy from one side, and I hitting along line and wind like take this ball to the right. You have no chance. You don’t know what you need to do. Sometimes you just hitting, you know, not just in the middle because you don’t know how is be wind and how is the wind be coming, right or left. That’s was is pretty tough, you know, to play control. You don’t know how you need to play. Play to the line or just play in the middle.

Q. Do you think if you had won that set the day may have turned around for you?
NIKOLAY DAVYDENKO: I don’t know. Like I see Federer was also tired in the third set. Yeah, I would say I was also for me is pretty tough. You know, winning first set, physically we don’t know. Like depends, how still to how play how he serve. But I saw, okay, if he make good serve, it’s tough, you know, to break him. And my serve he was winning always, you know. I don’t know.

Q. How frustrating was that third set when you had the break ahead all the way through the set and just couldn’t hold on?
NIKOLAY DAVYDENKO: You know, like against Federer is tough to say, because this guy losing serve and then concentration to return and try to come back and winning match. And then he come back and already I think he just now winning, you know, serve back. And then I fighting from ‑‑ and then, you know, like for everything I most like winning from baseline. I have very good control from baseline. I play very well today, you know, like, say, play backhand. Because him always try to mix slice and topspin from backhand, and is pretty tough to get control. Moving him to the right and left, that’s was I always need to play to the backhand and sometimes to hit to the forehand. But like my coach say I play well. May play better and better. That’s was we’ll see.

Q. Losing always hurts. Some people think he’s the greatest of all time. Does it hurt less to lose to Federer than somebody else because you know he has this talent that is beyond almost anybody?
NIKOLAY DAVYDENKO: Yeah, against Federer to lose is ‑‑ I think just losing is ‑‑ doesn’t matter against who you lose, just is disappointing. You know, like feeling I have chance, I play well, and you losing some points. Bad luck. You know, all the match you just concentration every point to winning. Sometimes you have bad luck. Mentally you can be crazy. Like in the second set, I losing like straight 6‑1. I be nervous. Just already start concentration in first set.

Q. What do you think of tomorrow’s final?
NIKOLAY DAVYDENKO: It’s like Djokovic play very well from baseline and he beat him already in Montréal. But it’s five set match. I don’t know who be physically better, Djokovic or Federer. It’s like because I saw Federer was really tired in the first set. If he play long rally and moving right‑left, it’s for him also tough. That’s was if Djokovic can physically very well, like Nadal, just hitting baseline long rally, can get chance, good chance, to beat him.

FastScripts by ASAP Sports
usopen.org

No surprises here - the US Davis Cup team has been finalized with the usual suspects:

US Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe named Andy Roddick, James Blake, Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan for the four-man roster that will play Sweden in the Sep 21-13 Davis Cup semi-final at Gothenburg.

The last poll I saw indicated that the favored teams among the fans would result in a Russia - US final.

Just finished watching the match, and I am no fan of either Henin (still bitter about her 2006 antics) or Kuznetsova, but I really did feel bad for Kuznetsova - she just seemed way too nervous to get into her game. Henin seemed to start very strong, but then even she seemed to fall apart and get nervous, especially in trying to close out the match. However, she did do it, 6-1 6-3, and basically steamrolled Kuz.

Interview and pictures will be coming up…