Taki Loves Ana

Taki Theodoracopulos is a well-known Old School conservative and European playboy, heir to a Greek shipbuilding fortune, who also played tennis during its elegant heyday, when European playboys could float around the circuit, clubbing at night and competing during the daytime. It sounds as if it was much, much more fun that today's game. Anyhow, Taki is also a devotee of a certain type of feminine physical beauty. He adores, for example, Ashley Judd. So I wasn't surprised when he published this adoring tribute to Ana Ivanovic, in the aftermath of her French Open win.

I see his point. She's certainly the sexiest woman in the game, at the moment, and her will to win only makes her sexier. Personally, I'm more of a Jelena Jankovic man myself, and I can't exactly say why. I just like her 'tude. Plus, she's a Pisces, while Ana is a Scorpio, and I've never been too good with Scorps. Worth noting that, on court, during week one, the appealing French veteran Nathalie Dechy gave Ana all she could handle, extending the third set into no-tiebreak extra innings. Match of the tourney, so far.

Pathetic Yanks Go Feebly Into the English Night

As week one nears its end, we are greeted with the grim spectacle of yet another total American exodus from the draw before things really even get good. A few years back, this would have been unthinkable--Wimbly was supposed to be sweet payback for the Yanks getting ritually humiliated on the red clay of Roland Garros. Different story these days. Roddick: Out. Blake: Out. Querrey and Isner--two big servers who ought to be able to make something happen on the grass--both O-U-T. The point has been made that Maria Sharapova is essentially a psuedo-American, and she's also Out.

What in the world is wrong? It's not like the flower of our tennis-playing nation is getting whumped by serious competition. A-Rod got spanked by Tipsarevic, a genuine weirdo with a balanced but basically unimpressive game (Andy will never, ever live down he gimpy chip forehand return off a gimpy Tipsarevic second serve, a return that he plunked into the middle of net on a set point that would have evened the match). And Blake? I dunno--he's athletic enough to do damage at Wimbly, but his game lacks the kind of variety we're now routinely seeing among the Euros.

I don't buy all this business about the surface being slower and the balls being heavier and all that as an excuse for crappy American play. Our boys are just not stepping up and doing what it takes. Wimbledon for as long as I can remember has been hallowed ground for USA tennis. Not anymore. Evidently, this is the worst U.S. result since the Open Ear began. Way to go, fellas!

Welcome to Our New Wimbledon Graphic

Wow! Isn't it cool? All thanks to Jalopnik, where I blogged about cars for a few months earlier this year and learned how to do that P-shop thang.

Already a lot of good stuff in the first two days, so prepare for my views as the fortnight rolls merrily along.

(Obviously, Borg's ecstatic genuflecting in victory has nothing to do with '08--unless you consider that Nadal has a better than good chance to become the first guy to match Bjorn-o's feat of winning Roland Garros the French Open and The Championships of Wimbledon in the same year--so consider the use of this famed image as a symbol of the thrills to come.)

Pretty Red Artois, Pretty Effective Rafa

Isn't the Artois Championships, known to most as Queens Club and beloved as well as mostly ignored for its Wimbledon tune-up status, just so so lovely? To me, Queens Club looks far more like the England we hold in our collective state of mind: it seems somehow defiantly Edwardian. Add the pretty red Artois signs and the whole affair comes off as delightfully London-y, stately and swingy all at once. Compare to Wimbledon and its preponderance of dank green backdrops and a stadium that evokes less the Empire than the deprivations of the War Generation. I also like that the Artois organizers allow the players to wear whatever they want and don't pretend it's still 1922, like Wimbly, with the all-white rule.

Anyhoo, Nadal triumphs, taking out Jokerman in straights. Woof. I would have to say that at the moment Rafa is the best player in the world on clay and Rodge is the best on grass. But Nadal is number two on grass, and while Fed is number two on the dirt, his number two is way, way more distant than Rafa's number two. Maybe on the old fast grass of the '70s, Nadal would be in more serious trouble. But on the new slow grass, I think Roger is the one with his work cut out for him. Plus, Fed has to get through Jokerman to even have a crack at Nadal, should Rafa make the final. The reverse of Roland Garros (by the way, this situation with his draws in the Slams can't be making Novak too happy, nor helping sustain his confidence coming off the Oz Open).

Two things I'm impressed by with Nadal: He's using his slider lefty hook serve; and he's going for a lot of outright winners off his forehand while still continuing to move forward, anticipating the volley. It's a smart play. He has to expect Fed and just about everyone else to try to force him to hit a lot of passes at Wimbly, so he's not giving them the chance to do it.

Another thing I like is how he messed with Roddick's problems with hitting down-the-line backhands, in the semis. Connors was trying to get A-Rod to do more of this, but now that Andy his ditched Jimmy, he's back to just using his backhand to keep himself in the point. Very well, thought Rafa, let's see if you can stay in the point if I stretch you six feet out of court on that side. It was a very sound and effective tactic.

OK, on to the All England Club and the gloomy Larkin-esque vibe that it evokes!

French Recap

1. Nadal wins his fourth, QED. Tactics are a funny thing. Federer's looked... OK on paper: attack Rafa, force the issue, draw him forward, etc. etc. Embrace the unholy dropshot. But as Fed himself admitted, Rafa continues to improve, and continued improvement means adjusting to the other guy's tactics before he has a chance to use them. Fed didn't get a lot of balls to attack yesterday. I think, like, maybe five in the second set, when for about 15 minutes who looked like he was getting back in the match.

2. Fed needs to serve bigger. The problem with having an awesome all-around game is that when you need to to emphasize one shot, it isn't always there, due to your philosophy of balance. Obviously, the way that Nadal works over Fed's backhand put too much pressure on the Swiss forehand, hence the many unforced errors from that wing. It might have made sense to switch to a big-serving strategy--except that Fed never really seems to serve all that big against Nadal. My guess is that if he could have borrowed Sampras' serve for a few sets, he would have.

3. The women's final: Yay Serbia.

4. Roger's Psyche. Look, he knows better than anyone how tough Nadal is on clay, and how nearly unbeatable the guy is a Roland Garros. In my experience, when you get plowed in a match, it's really no big deal in the long run. There are gonna be days when the other guy is simply a beast. Such is sport.

5. Roger's Physique. He's really not too terribly beaten up, for a 26-year-old who's been at it for his whole life. So there's that to bank on. However...

6. Nadal's durability. Brad Gilbert, for one, noted before the French that Nadal is in kinda rough shape, what with the knees and the feet and all. And yet he manages to play through the pain, dazzlingly. That plus the score in the final is truly awe-inspiring.

7. Fed's pace. Was it just me or does Roger seem to be hitting the ball harder than usual?

8. The American men. Honestly, what's the point? They all look like they'd rather be anyplace else. It's friggin' rude. The French Open is thinking man's tennis. So adapt, you dumb jocks.

9. Threads. I didn't much care for Nadal's lime green or Roger's weird little rugby collars. Monfils looked like he was wearing coveralls or a singlet of some sort. Overall, I'd say Adidas had a better tourney than Nike, although Lacoste was well-represented.

10. Zee Frenchmen. Allez! Very pleasurable to see them do so well in their national champs. With Tsonga and Gasquet not even in the event, we could be on the verge of a new national dynasty. They will certainly do better at Wimbly and the USO than the Spanish.

Tennis on the Cheap--the Very, Very Cheap

I found this amusing forum string over at Tennis Warehouse's Talk Tennis area (a most excellent forum, by the way, probably the best, and going strong for a many years now). It's premise speaks to my inner skinflint: they call it the "Cheap Players Club," and the rules for membership are that you spend next to nothing on your tennis passion.

Here are the parameters, the "basic requirements for membership":

* Your main racquets cost $130 or less
* You are baffled by people like J011yroger who has 27 tour racquets (j0lly's cool though
* You play with simple attire
* You'd rather buy 2 good pairs of shoes for under $100 than go all out for one pair (they're all made in China or Indonesia anyways)

Optional:
* You enjoy beating players that flaunt expensive racquets
* You use friction fighters and the like to make your strings last to the end (stringing gets expensive)
* You know where all the free and cheap courts are in your city
* You use balls until they don't bounce above the knee anymore. Even then those can be used for practice serves

I can't really submit myself, as I'm not a truly cheap player. However, I have been gravitating to a setup, of late, that's pretty dang cheap. Almost free, in fact. It is as follows:

Racquet: Fox Ceramic Precision WB-210 ($3 @ Goodwill)

String: Prince Synthetic Gut, the orginal, 17g ($15 to string up)

Overgrip: Gosen (3 for $1.99)

Shoes: Wilson Fantoms ($30? I think, about three years ago)
*Just for the record, I advocate spending some $$$ on shoes, as they are arguably more important than anything else. But you can usually get a decent pair at a specialty retailer on discount, if they are a few years out of date

Threads: Some old Nike shorts (???), Hanes socks ($5 or so for 3 pairs, I wear 2 pairs at a time), free hat, free shirts that my wife brought home from work

Courts: My local park (free)

Balls: I pay full price, because I don't enjoy playing with even slightly dead balls and never have

I believe whole setup can be had for less than $50, suggesting to me that tennis MAY be the cheapest sport to get into that there is these days. Quite the irony, given the game's patrician lineage.

The Arse Whupppin' of The Swiss

Well, there ya go. To be honest, having watched Nadal baste the draw for two weeks, I had some serious doubts about whether The Roger had much of a chance this year. After all, Nadal is 22, officially in his tennis prime--he's supposed to be clobbering opponents now. Add to this the fact that the conditions for week 2 of Roland Garros seemed mostly cold and heavy and you have a formula for Fed's new-ish attacking strategy coming to naught. I can remember playing on green clay when it was cold and slow--I can't imagine how maddening that sinking sensation must be on super-slow red clay.

A note, however: For much of the fortnight, McEnroe was talking about Adriano Panatta, the last truly attacking player to have much success on clay (he beat Borg at the French in the 1970s, before Borg took over). Not easy to find anything on this volcanic Italian, but I have. Headsup for that post shortly.

I'll also do a breakdown of the Fed-Nadal later, once I de-TIVO the match-o. But the upshot: Nadal can't be beat right now on the red stuff, and to make matters worse for Fed, it's clear that he's still wonky from being ill last year. His energy level is about a 6 while Nadal's is an...11, going on 12.