Yeah, the ESPN coverage was focusing a bit on the deer-in-headlights aspect Oudin found herself in, suddenly waking up to the flash photography of overnight fame. Kournikova was a semi-finalist at Wimbledon, and even in her singles droughts was one of the best doubles players of her era. Her reputation as a tennis failure is ill-deserved. But yeah, the sarcasm wasn't directed at you; I am poking fun at the media tendency to chew up / spit out adolescents, in a sporting landscape that regularly complains when football/baseball/basketball players don't stay for all four years of college. Most notable victims: Jennifer Capriati / Daniela Hantuchova. (In what other sport do we force professional athletes to develop eating disorders?) Kournikova also found herself having to live up to outsized expectations; that she had a highly successful though unspectacular career is regarded as failure is a sign of skewed expectations. We remember Todd Martin as one of the best players of the last generation, yet regard Kournikova a failure. Their actual, on-court accomplishments aren't that far off.
She certainly was a good tennis player. You don't get to #8 in the world without extreme talent. Just dissappointing that she couldn't win a singles title. She just wasn't the great player people wanted. Look at Serena. She has been the best female for a while and people complain that she should be doing more if she just focused on Tennis.
This is the frustrating thing about Men's tennis outside of Federer and Nadal... there's so much talent but no one really has the ability to put it together. No one out there has the killer instinct to compete with the consistency of Roger and Rafa.
I don't know. Murray has beaten Federer 6 out of 8 matches. Roddick gave Federer everything he could handle at this year's Wimbledon. Djokovic has shown flashes of his talent being on par. I'll give you that they're not as consistent, but on any given fortnight I think those three can win a major, even with Federer & Nadal healthy and in the same draw.
But of course when it's during a major, Roger beat him 3-0. All of Murray's victories have come in 3 set matches. I don't give much precedence to performance outside of Grand Slams, kind of why I don't take Dinara Safina seriously as a #1 seed. I'm also happy Wozniacki won today, it's good to see pretty, feminine athletes doing well. Sometimes I watch Serena play and wonder if she puts animal hormones in her protein shakes. Same with Mauresmo.
To me, a match is a match, whether it's played in front of 20,000 or 2. Safina deserves to be #1 because Williams simply doesn't play the rest of the calendar. Correction: Murray is 6-3 versus Federer (I missed last month's match.), but Federer has only beaten him once in a Grand Slam, last year's US Open. Well, that's catty. Isn't this a Martina Hingis quote from one of her biodegradable moments, circa 2001/2002?
Again, it's because they've only played once in a grand slam. You're kidding yoruself if you think Roger puts the same amount of preparation into the Qatar ExxonMobil Open as he would a Grand Slam (especially at this stage of his career). Look how easily Roger handled him when it mattered. For the sake of ratings and getting the youth involved... otherwise why watch women's tennis when you have men's?
Terrible terrible terrible way to end the Serena vs. Clijsters semi-finals. Phantom foot fault call by the lineswoman leading to Serena losing her composure and defaulting on matchpoint. As Andy Roddick said, "Stay in school kids, or you'll end up being an umpire."
Her emotions got the best of her but to call TWO foot faults in a semi final of a major tennis championship is being very picky. Of course I didn't see the first foot fault but that second foot fault is very questionable. What the sport needs is for the players to challenge those kinds of calls. I mean, if they are able to challenge whether a ball was in or out, why can't you challenge a foot fault? The line judge facial expression after getting chewed out by Serena just says "Oops, I totally blew that one".
So getting angry at a horrible call in the semi-finals trying to hold serve on a possible match-game is classless? It was the second foot fault called on Serena when that rule is rarely called if ever. I agree that the profanity was uncalled for. She shouldn't have smashed her racquet after dropping the first set, either. Serena lost her composure in a high-pressure situation due to bad umpiring, but after cooling down, she was classy in the postgame conference and showed no anger towards the umpire. She blamed herself for the loss while praising Clijsters who played an excellent match. Serena Williams is no way a classless jerk.
fyi: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sm-Mj0vjJ_s&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sm-Mj0vjJ_s&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
i just saw the highlights of it, i've never seen serena get that pissed. that was pretty ridiculous and over the top...classless jerk, nah, she was just keeping it real
If she foot faulted, she foot faulted...... But to make that call in that situation...wow....that was a lack of understanding of an umpire's role imho. DD
I'm not sure how you guys are expecting her to react. She was over the top, but it was a bogus call that put her in a position to face 2 match points. Basically, Serena's US Open run was in serious, serious trouble b/c of the mistake of a lines judge. She overreacted, but to end the match that way sucks for everyone involved, including Clijsters.
