Roger Federer in Shanghai Federer is inescapably beautiful, but most of the time he does nothing extraordinary. Then there is a shot that makes people let out sounds and imitate, with imaginary rackets, what they just saw. In a way, Federer is like a good novel—it does not try to achieve genius in every line, that would be amateurish; it is unafraid of the lull, accepts the importance of the ordinary, and then there is a sudden moment of greatness.
posted by dhruva
on Nov 24, 2012 -
16 comments
In January 2003, Esther Vergeer, a 21-year old Dutch wheelchair tennis player lost her singles match to Daniela Di Toro in the quarter-finals of the Sydney International. What no one knew at the time was that this was the end of an era. Now 31, Vergeer hasn't lost a singles match since. The
world's most dominant athlete in an individual sport, she's going for her
470th consecutive victory today, in the gold medal match at the Paralympics.
[more inside]
posted by Homeboy Trouble
on Sep 6, 2012 -
10 comments
Tennis player and coach Bob Hewitt is a member of the
International Tennis Hall of Fame who has held all the men's doubles and mixed doubles Grand Slam titles. Hewitt, who was
born in Australia but became a South African citizen by marriage, also captained the 1974 South African Davis Cup champion team.
The Boston Globe reports that Hewitt's lengthy coaching career in the US and South Africa has long been accompanied by allegations that Hewitt sexually abused
his female students, mostly adolescents but one as young as 10. Hewitt denies the charges.
posted by catlet
on Aug 29, 2011 -
13 comments
Perhaps doing a
live to camera from Andy Murray's local pub on the day he loses the Australian Open was not such a great idea. Especially since said pub had been open since 8am. (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry
on Feb 4, 2011 -
21 comments
Women's Pro Tennis Turns 40. Women's professional tennis was launched by
World Tennis magazine publisher
Gladys Heldman 40 years ago on September 23, 1970, with a tournament that had nine entrants and $7,500 in prizes. The
original nine were Billy Jean King and Rosemary Casals along with the lesser known Peaches Bartkowicz, Judy Dalton, Julie Heldman, Kerry Melville, Kristy Pigeon, Nancy Richey and Valerie Ziegenfuss. A year later, King became the first female athlete to earn six figures in her sport. In the '80s, Martina Navratilova became the first to earn $1 million. Today the
WTA Tour is an $85 million-a-year sport. "We wanted to make sure that any young girl, if she was good enough and if she wanted to, would have the opportunity to make a living playing tennis," King said.
posted by rcade
on Sep 24, 2010 -
14 comments
Bounce bounce bounce bounce/ thwackety wackety zingety ping/ hittety backety pingety zang/ wack, thwok, thwack, pok. There's an official
tennis poet.
posted by twoleftfeet
on Jun 25, 2010 -
16 comments
"Lunch is really nice again, not mentioning a few
battles with foods that were calling me like sirens called Odysseus. I had some salad some pasta and some fish and we had a nice chat with some Russian girls at an “All-Russian” table. Catching up on all the gossip, laughing, and in general making fun of people! By the way I forgot to mention that this is a men’s and women’s tournament so if you lose early and you are lacking confidence there is a good chance to challenge one of the girls to a match." Russian-American tennis player
Dmitry Tursunov blogged
his experiences at a 2006 tourney in Estoril, Portugal with hilarious results.
[For best results, read from the bottom of the page up!] [more inside]
posted by ORthey
on Aug 7, 2009 -
6 comments
Agency.com — best known for their work on... well
not much really — recently had the opportunity to bid on the interactive account for
Subway Restaurants. Their idea was to create a pitch
video (embedded youtube) showing them brainstorming for ideas for the pitch video. They posted it online hoping to make it go viral, but the only viral thing about it really was that it used the word
viral in it as many times as possible and tried to show how
hip,
edgy and
cool they are.
Coudal Partners — best known for sponsoring matches of
Photoshop Tennis... although the archives of past matches are currently down...
they spawned legions of copycats, — decided to post their own
Unsolicited Response video (embedded quicktime) which in turn is much funnier than the original.
So what makes a lame attempt at
viral video actually
GO viral? With so much discussion on
advertising forums saying it isn't, all the attention it has been getting is ensuring that it is.
posted by skrike
on Aug 3, 2006 -
53 comments
The Old Man vs. The Comeback Kid. On Wednesday evening at 7pm EST
Andre Agassi will face
James Blake in the US Open Quarterfinals. At 35, this will be Agassi's 20th appearance at the US Open. Although he's been
persistently dodging plans for retirement this may possibly be the last time Agassi graces
Arthur Ashe court. James Blake's story is different. At 25, he's spent the past year and a half
recovering from a neck fracture, the death of his father and an illness in which he temporarily lost feeling in his face and suffered from blurry vision. He will also be the first black man to reach the quarterfinals in the US open in 23 years. Will this match-up be a passing of the torch to a younger generation of US men's tennis players or will experience prevail over youth? Regardless, this may be one of the most anticipated matches at the US Open since Agassi faced Pete Sampras in the
2002 final.
posted by quadog
on Sep 6, 2005 -
26 comments
Happy 18th Birthday Maria Sharapova! A music video by ESPN's Bristol Bob and the
Page 2 Crue, made in honor of Maria Sharapova's 18th birthday. Make sure you crank the volume knob up to 11, because now you, too, can sing along to the tune of The Knack's "My Sharona."
posted by MmmKlunk
on Apr 20, 2005 -
25 comments
