Wimbledon Championships, June 23rd - July 6th, 2008, Wimbledon, England
Wimbledon, there's simply nothing quite like it. From the festive atmoshpere, the rich history, to the grass courts themselves. Wimbledon is certainly acknowledged as the premier tennis tournament in the world, hosted by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. Every true tennis fan must make a journey to this bastion of tennis history at least once in their lifetime and Championship Tennis Tours makes it as easy as high tea to do just that! In 2007, Roger Federer retained his crown as king of Wimbledon, beating young Spanish prince Rafael Nadal to secure his fifth consecutive title, matching the legendary reign of the watching Bjorn Borg, the king of this court in a previous era. On the Ladies side Venus Williams has joined an elite group by winning the Championship for a fourth time and there is every possibility that, over the coming years, she can improve her position amongst Wimbledon’s great champions.
This year, Federer earned this Wimbledon championship in a different way from his others. In the past, he's been far and away the best player in the event—any sets taken from him seemed like flukes. As we know, this was the first time he had to go five sets in any match during his five-year run. It's also the first time he had to do what champions occasionally have to do to survive : Win despite being outplayed.
While, Venus William wasn't put to a true test in the final, but her fourth Wimbledon win was still remarkable because it was so Williams—bizarre, inexplicable, utterly unlikely, and totally convincing. Like Serena in Australia, Venus made a couple early escapes and then, out of nowhere, just started to play infinitely better. All the balls that were flying out in the early rounds were suddenly perfectly measured. The perspective of the show courts somehow gives her more presence; there you can appreciate her towering height, ridiculous legs, graceful movement, and grave competitiveness. When she got to Centre Court, she put just a touch more topspin on her forehand, stuck her backhand volleys, and ate up yards of grass with each step. It made me wonder how she ever loses. This was just another chapter in the strange and unique legend of the Williamses, the tennis family that does everything their own way.
Top Ten List
On Monday, July 9, 2007, Venus Williams read the Top Ten list on Late Show with David Letterman: "Top Ten Things Venus Williams Would Like To Say After Winning Her Fourth Wimbledon Title."
10) "I blew my prize money on a sandwich and a medium soda at the concession stand."
9) "It always helps to tip the line judges."
8) "Frankly, I prefer racquetball."
7) "At the rate I'm going, I'll have won 50 Wimbledon titles by the age of 120."
6) "I owe it all to my new i-Racket."
5) "I'm taking some time off to polish my trophies."
4) "The secret to my forehand smash? I imagine the ball is Letterman's head."
3) "Imagine how I'd do if I practiced."
2) "Don't tell me how I did in the finals. I Tivo'd it."
1) "Steinbrenner just signed me to save the Yankees."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More tennis stories for me...
Russia wins Fed Cup semifinal over U.S. with decisive doubles victory
STOWE, VT (AP) -Russia eliminated the United States in the Fed Cup semifinals, overcoming Venus Williams' singles victory Sunday and advancing with a win in the decisive doubles match.
Nadia Petrova and Elena Vesnina topped Williams and Lisa Raymond 7-5, 7-6 (1) to win the series for Russia 3-2. Williams beat Anna Chakvetadze, 6-1, 6-4 in the first match of the day, but Petrova forced the tiebreaking doubles match with an easy 6-1, 6-2 win over Meilen Tu, 6-1, 6-2.
Russia will next face Italy for the Fed Cup championship in September 2007.
But I'm still admiring this girl...
Read this article in May 2007 issue of Tennis Magazine titled "Solving Maria", by Joel Drucker
By the time she’s retired from tennis Maria Sharapova will have probably been on more than 200 magazine covers. And yet the funny thing is that while you’d think Sharapova is world-weary when it comes to publicity, she’s actually quite concerned with what’s written about her. At last year’s U.S. Open, Sharapova asked me if the story I was writing about her for TENNIS was done. When I told her it was far from completion, she raised an eyebrow.
"How come?" she asked.
"Because I'm still trying to figure you out," I said.
And even now, when the issue is hitting newstands, that answer still holds true.
Though it's tempting to sound blase or jaded about being assigned to profile the top stars, I find assignments like this quite alluring – getting cozy with a player's camp, learning about her past and present, the quest to obtain the personal interview. Tennis is a sport of exceptional individualism, and being able to provide a perspective into this game and its stars is a major reason I love writing about the sport.
The good news is that unlike in team sports, every tennis player is a quarterback. The bad news is that every player is also a team owner, focused strictly on personal needs. The NBA and the Los Angeles Lakers have the clout to convince Kobe Bryant to conduct interviews. Apart from post-match conferences, no such leverage exists in tennis. I'm envious of how profiles were once written, when TENNIS' Peter Bodo would spend hours and even days with his subjects.
And so I went off in pursuit of Sharapova, a woman who likely occupies more advertising time and space than any female athlete on the planet but is also the center of an extremely tight-lipped posse – and one who herself rarely gives interviews.
A sad facet of tennis is that many times a player's handler is more willing to give interview time to an unfamiliar face. Fortunately, that was not the case with Sharapova. Her agent at IMG, Max Eisenbud, has arranged several interviews for me with her, going back to when she was 15 and playing World Team Tennis. In this instance, familiarity was an asset. After a few weeks of e-mails between various parties (Sony Ericsson WTA Tour staff are the ones who arrange the final time and place), I interviewed Sharapova last August at the site of the tour's San Diego stop.
My belief is that no matter how eloquently or inarticulately they speak, assessing tennis players should always start and end on the court. As I see it, how the person plays – that is, how he or she competes, fights, thinks, wins and loses – constitutes at least 51 percent of the verdict. Alas, because tennis is so undercovered, a good many of the journalists who come to it can end up basing their opinions more on coverage of press conferences than matches.
Still, as I saw in the course of researching Sharapova, her speaking style does indeed reveal much about her – good and bad. For all the efforts to market her as a vixen à la Kournikova, Sharapova is much more of a class clown than a prom queen.
For all the upsides of magazine writing – a profile can be far more enduring and insightful than a transitory newspaper piece – interim events can make things rather tricky. For example, at a key stage in the assignment, Sharapova proved she was no one-Slam wonder, winning the 2006 U.S. Open. When she made it to the finals of the Australian Open earlier this year, her arc seemed even that much sharper. But then she was pummeled by Serena Williams, and since then has hardly played her best tennis.
And so now we're back to where I started, with Sharapova still sitting on top of the money mountain but once again trying to clamber back to the peak of the women's game. Looks like she – and we – are still trying to figure it out. Consider the current story merely an attempt.
Truly a beautiful talented Maria!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment