Recently in Tennis 2 Category

Tennis heartthrobs Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer - the top two players in the world - have played many important matches on the grass courts of Wimbledon and on the red clay of Paris. Until this weekend, they had never before played on a dhow, a traditional Arab sailing vessel. The day before their opening matches in the ATP Qatar Open, the superstars played an exhibition match just off the shore in Doha. Gee, if someone's lob goes long, it could end up in the sea!
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Will my obsession with American tennis player Robby Ginepri ever end? Not any time soon! The problem is, Robby doesn't win as often as I'd like. He;s already out of the Paris Tennis Masters tournament after a loss to Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic. But, look at those arms!

I think American tennis player Robby Ginepri lifts his shirt up like that during matches just to drive us crazy! He competed in the Madrid Masters this week, lost, but looked really yummy doing it...

You know how I feel about US tennis star Robby Ginepri. He does not win on the tour as much as I'd like but win or lose, he always looks mighty good on the court. Here is is in action earlier today at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow.

America's top tennis player Andy Roddick may only be 26, but there's a lot of wear and tear on that body of his. Look at those ice packs on his knees! But Andy, pictured at right with Spain's David Ferrer in a cute picture (look the thumbs) will have to shrug it off for the start of today's Davis Cup matches in Madrid.

I'm obviously rooting for the Americans but isn't the Spanish team (below) just absolutely yummy. They are led by world number one Rafael Nadal and second to the left, there is hottie Feliciano Lopez who could have a career in modeling once his tennis career is over.

The matches begin today with singles, Saturday is a doubles match then Sunday is two more singles matches if needed. A team needs to win three of the matches to advance to the finals of the Davis Cup.

America's best player, Andy Roddick, really wanted to win the US Open for the second time in his career. But it did not happen. Andy lost in four sets to reigning Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia. Roddick was two points away from forcing a fifth set but gagged it away with a coupla ill-timed double faults. So it is Djokovic who will play Roger Federer in the semifinals.

Four-time defending champion Roger Federer is fighting like heck to retain his US Open title and it has not been easy. He just beat Gilles Muller of Luxembourg to make it to the semifinals where he will face either Nova\k Djovoc or Andy Roddick who play tonight.

Roger extended his own record by reaching the semifinals at an 18th consecutive Grand Slam tournament. It was Federer's 32nd straight victory at the U.S. Open, where he has won the past four championships. The only man to have won more matches or titles in a row at this tournament was Bill Tilden in the 1920s

Go Roger!

What. A. Babe. That's the Russian star Marat Safin on Monday night at the US Open. The sexy Safin, who won the tournament back in 2000 over Pete Sampras, was among the former champions who gathered at the Billie Jean King United States Tennis Assn. Tennis Center to celebrate the 40th anniversary of what is known as the "open era." It was in 1968 that professional tennis players could play in the sports four major tournaments and win prize money. Before that, youy had to be an "amateur" and couldn't make a living off your tennis.

Always a class act, the elegant and classy Roger Federer is one of the greatest male champs on the last 40 years. He's won the US Open in each of the last four years.
Three other prominent former American champs, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Jimmy Connors - who won 12 singles titles between them - did not show up for the ceremony.

Very uncool.

But four-time champ John McEnroe, three-time champ Ivan Lendl, 1989 men's winner Boris Becker and 1988 men's champ Mats Wilander did.

Also there was cutie pie 2003 champion Andy Roddick who is still young enough to bag another title. Maybe this year? Not likely but it would be so nice to see.

If I weren't at the Democratic National Convention, I would have wanted to be at the US Open on Monday night for the amazing parade of past champions there to celebrate the 40th anniversary of open era tennis. It was in 1968 that tennis players could be professionals and earn big bucks at the US Open and other prestigious tournaments.

No female champion has had more success at the tournament in the last four decades than Chris Evert (above) who was the winneri in 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980 and 1982 and runner-up in 1979, 1983 and 1984. Chrissie was, hands-down, my favorite player and really is the biggest star tennis ever had. She had the glamour, the endorsements, the poise and most of all, the grit. She'd come on court in a nice little tennis dress, long, blonde hair in a pony tail and ribbons, and she'd just mow down opponent after opponent.

What a portrait! Look at the history in this picture. That's a lot of great names including the great Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova, each four-time winner,Monica Seles, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova,Rod Laver, Tracy Austin, Stan Smith, Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Roger Federer, Mats Wilander, Marat Safin, Gabriela Sabatini,Lyndsay Davenport and on and on.

The US Open begins in NYC on Monday. I'm rooting for Roger Federer and Venus Williams to take the titles. But I also want American Robby Ginepri to do well! He's among the best eye candy in the game. He won a match Tuesday at the Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament, the final chance for players to g et match play in before the last of the year's big four tournaments begins.

Wow! Imagine if Novak Djokovic had won the GOLD medal in Olympic tennis? He won the bronze over American James Blake and just ripped his shirt right off his body!

I found it to be quite hot.

After the match and the shirt-ripping, Novak said: "I think I've motivated myself a lot with this bronze medal. ... Right now I just want to think about my medal and enjoy it, celebrate it, because I've put a lot of effort in it. And then, of course, we don't have much time for celebrations because the fourth and last Grand Slam of this year comes in a week time where I have to be well, so I can get really far."

Meanwhile, Roger Federer had some celebrating of his own to do because he and his Swiss teammate Stanislas Wawrinka won the gold medal in doubles on Saturday!

For a man with five Wimbledons and four US Opens among his career titles, there is little left to accomplish. But Federer had never won at the Olympics and after losing in the singles, it looked like he never would. But the team surprised everyone - including themselves - with a victory over Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson of Sweden. The score was 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-3.
Hopefully this is a turning point in what has been a frustrating year for Roger. He lost in the finals of both Wimbledon and the French Open to Rafael Nadal and on Monday, Nadal takes away his number one ranking as well after a 4 1/2-year reign.

But history has shown that there is no more motivated player than a former number one who is still young (Roger just turned 27) and feels they have something to prove.

"Sort of a dream-come-true moment," Federer said. "Maybe it comes around once in a lifetime. It's almost disbelief, to some degree."

This is a good news-bad news thing.

It's bad news that Roger Federer, one of my very favorite tennis players and one of the all-time greats, will not be the Olympic champion. The good news though is that he lost to American James Blake who could not have picked s better time to notch his first win ever over Roger. Blake, part of the reigning champion Davis Cup team, is now in the semifinal round and in excellent position to get to the gold medal match.

Good luck James!

Robby Ginepri went out there and gave it his best for the U.S. at the Olympic Games on Monday but lost to the No. 3-seeded Novak Djokovic of Serbia 6-4, 6-4. He's still a dreamboat though....

Andy Roddick, in action Friday night, is now in the semifinals of the Countrywide Classic at UCLA. America's top player, the 2003 US Open champion and leader of the reigning champion US Davis Cup team, opted to skip playing for the gold medal at the Olympics to play some tournaments back home to prepare for the US Open.

I hope he gets the wins he needs because it's a real shame to not have America;s best out there at The Games.

Happy 27th birthday to the great Roger Federer! How cool is it that on this day, the tennis champ from Switzerland was chosen to carry his country's flag to lead out the delegation during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympics at the National Stadium in Beijing, China.

I won't be making it out to the Countrywide Classic at UCLA today. I'm recovering from horrible allergies and have got two columns to write. Then am attending the premiere of Luke Wilson's new film, "Henry Poole is Here" in Hollywood tonight. I'm excited because I'm taking one of my BFF's, Lorna Harris, who has moved back to SoCal with her hubby Danny Sullivan and their two biys from Great Britain after a 12 year absence! It is with Lorna that I attended my first Wimbledon back in 1991!

Anyway, OhLaLa Mag has posted some shots of Tommy Haas. The top one is from the other night at UCLA when he kept changing his shirt. It didn't help because he still lost to Donald Young but it was still a lovely thing to watch. The photo on the left is of Tommy practicing at the tournament in Cincinatti last week.

I filed my newspaper column and posted some blog items then jammed over to UCLA yesterday to catch the late afternoon match at the Countrywide Classic between Americans Mardy Fish and Vince Spadea.

But I was more interested in a possible catfight between the two players than groundstrokes and volleys. A few months ago I read Vince's sometimes catty book ("Break Point: The Secret Diary of a Pro Tennis Player").chronicling a year on the pro tour. Mardy was chosen for the US Davis Cup team over Vince even though Spadea was ranked higher and had better recent results. Vince fought to gain a spot on the team - succeeded in being named an alternate - then details the tense days during the competition when he and Mardy played practice matches to see who would play. Vince won but still didn't get to play. Mardy played, and lost.

Okay, I'm not sure how interesting this story is but I've already typed it in so I'm gonna stay with it. So I got to UCLA to see who would win this time. Vince took the opening set 7-6 and lookedf to have the edge. But Mardy cuit down on the mistakes and played the important points better to take the next two sets 6-1, 6-0. Ouch! No drama after the match, just a polite handshake.

Damn!

I stayed for part of the sexy Russian Marat Safin's evening match but my allergies were all outa whack so I headed home before he completed his straight set victory. Marat is looking good and, I think, might win the whole doggone tournament.

Roger Federer has had a disappointing year so far but boy, winning the Olympic Gold Medal would sure be a major lift for the man who will lose his number one ranking in a few weeks to Rafael Nadal. Here is Roger, still smiling, as he practices at the Olympic Green Tennis Center in Beijing.
Meanwhile, back in the USA, at UCLA to be exact, I had a nice afternoon and evening of tennis at the Countrywide Classic where I got to see three of the games hottest men play: Marat Safin (he won), Tommy Haas (he lost) and Carlos Moya (he won ... barely).

It was funny that the announcer just said all of the other player's names but whenever he'd say Tommy Haas, he would add, the "handsome young man from Hamburg." It kinda goes to show you though, Haas is so good looking that you can't help but comment on it. (The picture I've posted on the left of Tommy is not from last night but I,like it anyway! Don't you?) He didn't play so well last night though losing in straight sets to the promising young American Donald Young. Tommy is the Diana Ross of the tennis tourm changing his shirt four times in a match that lasted just over an hour. You know I was counting ... and watching!

Oh yeah, Kate Hudson was there last night too, sitting not too far from me. She is apparently friends with Haas' girlfriend. Now, it's been awhile since Kate has made a really good movie but her hair looks fabulous.

I personally think Andy Roddick should be playing in the Olympics instead of the Countrywide Classic at UCLA this week. He's part of the reigning Davis Cup team and a past U.S. Open champion and should be in China competing for a gold medal. That being said, it will be good to see him play this week since I plan on attending as many matches as I can.

Laat night, I invited my pal Evan to attend opening night with me and things got off to a rocky start when I tried to get a picture of the Spanish player Feliciano Lopez who just finishing up autographs. Some guard says to me, "No more photos please." I looked at him and asked: "Are you kidding me?" He says: "We ask that you only take photos of the players as they are moving." I was just about to launch into my, "This is a public sidewalk and I will take a photo of who I want" rant but quickly remembered I was on private property.

Wish I coulda got a shot of Feliciano though ... unbelievable legs.

So we have some dinner at the way overpriced food court then head over to the stadium where we have great seats for the featured match of American Mardy Fish - the silver medalist from the 2004 Olympics - and Alejandro Falla of Colombia. Mardy is the crowd favorite and, maybe because he was playing in SoCal, he looked like a surfer who had just rolled out of bed to play his match.

Right before the first point was played, two young girls, eighth-graders I think, plop themselves down in the seats directly in front of us. They have no interest in tennis it seems as they talk and laugh before the points, after the points, and DURING the points. After about five miniutes of this, I turn to Evan and say, "I'm going to have to kill them." We soon move up a row away from the chatterboxes as does another man in our row. A few games later, a man sitting in front of them turns and does what I'm sure several dozen people wanted to do: he told them to be quiet!

That was so much easier than killing them.

The match got a little dull in the second set when Mardy was just running away with it so Evan and I started talking to each other in British accents. I don't know why but we sure were cracking ourselves up.

Today's line-up looks terrific with three heartthrobs in a row: It starts with a 4 p.m. match featuring the gorgeous Russian Marat Safin followed by German star Tommy Haas. The evening's final match features the Spaniard Carlos Moya.

Yum, yum and yum.

Back in April, Novak Djokovic (above) had a chance to supplant Rafael Nadal as the number two player in the world.
All he had to do was win their semifinals match in a clay court tournament in Europe. Instead, Nadal blew by him and embarked on a stunning 32-match winning streak that included the French Open and Wimbledon crowns and titles on clay, grass and cement.

Cutie pie Serbian Djokovic, who won the Australian Open in January, is no longer a threat for the number two ranking but he did manage to temporarily stop the studly Nadal from becoming number one in the world by beating him in the semifinals of the men's tournament in Cincinatti on Saturday. Had he won the tournament, Rafael would have dislodged Roger Federer from the top spot where he has reigned for a record 235 consecutive weeks on Monday when the new rankings come out.

But it only delays the inevitable: Nadal - ranked number two for a record 135 straight weeks - has so many ranking points that he will become number one in two weeks time and be top-ranked going into the U.S. Open where Federer is the four-time defending champion.

Justin Gumelstob, who never could manage to make the world's top 60 during his more than decade-long pro tennis career, got most of his attention for being known as "the most quotable guy on the ATP tour." Well, now that he has retired, maybe he should just shut up.

He was recently made to apologize for comments he made on a radio show that insulted Anna Kournikova . Asked if he hated the Russian player, with whom he trained as a youth player, he replied: "Hate is a very strong word. I just despise her to the maximum level just below hate." He added that he would not like to sleep with Kournikova, "because she's such a douche". Instead, "I wouldn't mind my brother, who is kind of a stud, nail her and then reap the benefits."

Real classy, huh? But that's not even what's got my goat. I just read an article in Out Magazine on former tennis pro Francisco Rodriguez who quit the tour a few years back and came out publicly. The article (click HERE to read it in its entirety), explores why no male tennis pro has ever came out. Gimelstob explains it all to us:

The locker room couldn't be a more homophobic place," he says. "We're not gay-bashing. There's just a lot of positive normal hetero talk about pretty girls and working out and drinking beer. That's why people want to be pro athletes!"

Oh, is that why Gimelstob? I think champions like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are pro athletes because they love their sport and they want to win. Something you were never great at on the pro tour except for the two mixed doubles grand slam titles you won. But I suspect those had more to do with who your partner was: Venus Williams.