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First round winners so far include Sampras, Agassi, Capriati and S. Williams. Anna Kournikova lost to one of the other "ovas." (There are eleven [!] of them in the first round.) Fwiw, Anna was wearing a little hip-hugger skirt that came down to about pubic hair level in front but that kept riding up in back, causing her to reach back and tug it down every so often. The harpies in the booth had lots of fun with that one. In any case, if you missed the first round then you missed Anna, as usual. CNNSI is predicting that Federer and Agassi will make it to the finals and Federer will win, and Venus and Serena will make it to the finals and that Venus will win.
36 responses total.
This item is linked as #21 summer 2002 agora and #120 in the sports conference.
I used to watch tennis. I very much enjoy watching tennis. I can't stand the TV crews switching from one game to another, though, so the early rounds of tournaments are hard for me to watch. Come to think of it, the last time I watched tennis on TV, the camera crews had this thing about switching the view to be right behind one of the players, from the corner of the court, at court level, so you couldn't see what was going on, but you could see how the player tied his shoes. Gah! I hate that angle. Show me the game! Ahem. But I do enjoy watching a tennis tournament. The French is my favorite normally (slower play and more shots in these days of bionic tennis players hitting the ball at the speed of sound), but I like Wimbledon a lot, too.
Tennis is a sport with some problems. The men's draw has the appeal of moldy wonderbread, and the women's draw has serious sideshow potential with all of the extracurricular activities of the major competitors, such as Kournikova doing modelling, Venus doing art school, and Hingis doing Sergio Garcia. The Williams sisters, at least, have competitive potential, but they are their own greatest rivals and their matches between each other are not compelling. Some might even say that they aren't really competetive, but that talk has mercifully trickled off.
No, the harpies in the booth were gossiping about that today. It's still a hot topic, I guess.
I am as interested in tennis as I am in golf.
Tennis is ping pong played on top of the table.
what about Anna doing half the NHL? (ok, maybe not half, but still ...)
Two does not make half.
I haven't watched tennis is quite a while, but last time I did I thought the women's game was more interesting. Men's tennis seems to mostly be a serving contest these days.
Women's tennis would benefit if Kournikova could win tournaments. She's been ranked in the top 10, but never won a tournament. Celebrity has not been good for her tennis game. I like Serena but can't tolerate Venus, or their father. I don't like loud, brash obnoxious people in tennis. I didn't like either Jimmy Conners or John McEnroe, either.
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See, I've never been interested enough to get involved in the soap-opera aspects.
Neither Serena nor Venus are the stereotypical women in the tennis game. They are more no nonsense than a lot of folks. And one is as "brash" the other. People like Serena more because she's sunnier, smiles more. Venus doesn't. I can agree about their father, and I suspect that that wears more on the eldest tennis player than it does the younger. Resp:11 I miss GS, too. I thought she was tops.
What is it about Venus that you "can't tolerate"? From what I've heard of Mr. Williams, I concur.
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Lots of upsets. Champions and favorites are dropping like flies: Agassi, Federer, Sampras and Marat Safin are all out. Sandrine Testud lost to Mary Pierce.
Looks like Hewitt and Henman are through round two...the Williams sisters, Hingis, and Capriati also emerged unscathed. Personally my money's on Henman to win the mens' and Williams (one of them anyway) to win the womens'.
I caught a few minutes of the Dokic-Dechy match this morning. I know it's not PC to comment on the female players' appearance, but Jelena Dokic gets curvier every time I see her. I believe the term now would be "va-va-voomish." She was voted sexiest female by the ball-kids at the French open last year. (Yes, they actually poll them.) I awlays thought she was cute, despite her Slavic peasant face. She's grown a tiny bit thick in the waist, but who cares? She put Nathalie Dechy away 7-5 6-2.
Spectacular tennis by Venus Williams. She is major fun to watch.
On the other hand... In an interview yesterday, Venus Williams opined that Steffi Graf was not a good grass court player. Graf won the Wimbledon championship seven times.
Jennifer Capriati vs. Amelie Mauresmo today. Battle of the amazons (Capriati is extremely buff, Mauresmo is an out-of-closet lesbian *and* extremely buff), if that look appeals to you. Pale skinny little Justine Henin, the Belgian anti-amazon, beat Monica Seles but will have to face Venus Williams tomorrow, weather permitting. If she beats Venus, I will finally give up trying to understand tennis. Except for Tim Henman and Lleyton Hewitt, and barely them, there's nobody interesting left on the men's side.
More rain. They're showing clips of last year's match between Venus Williams and Justine Henin. The announcers this year pronounce it either just-EEN HEN-in or just-EEN ENna, depending on their languange skills. It's probably more like zhoos-TEEN en-ANG (without voicing the G). Anyone know how Belgians pronounce stuff?
Well, given the calliber of tennis that is being played now, it's possible that Steffi Graff would have won less matches. To our eyes she may have been spectacular, but to other tennis players, who knows. The difference with Venus is, she's not always willing to keep her opinion to herself.
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So it's Venus Williams vs. Justine Henin and Serena Williams vs. Amelie Mauresmo in the semis. Mauresmo beat Capriati yesterday, which surprised everybody. (Mauresmo has a self-confidence problem, and is said to be seeing a sports psychologist about it.) Neither Williams sister should be having a problem, but I haven't watched yet.
Venus crushed Justine Henin, and Serena is in the process of crushing Amelie Mauresmo. I can't watch. Mauresmo is a nice kid: she's an environmentalist, an outdoors person, a hiker, biker, boater, climber and all that good stuff, and she maintains her own web site for her fans, complete with diary. http://www.amelie-mauresmo.com/ (Helps if you read French but there's an English version, too.) Nice doesn't count for spit out on the court, though.
Serena beat Venus, I guess. The men's singles title will go to Lleyton Hewitt or the other guy.
Lleyton Hewitt, in straight sets. He totally overmatched his opponent. I hadn't watched Wimbledon much this year, mainly due to lack of time. I enjoyed the men's contest more than I expected to. A few years ago, the last time I was really interested in Wimbledon, it was a game of serve, return, volley, end of point, over and over again. I like ground strokes, and there weren't many at all. Today's game was a ground stroke game. They were strategically setting up points, not just blazing the ball past one another. I like that. I wish I'd watched more now. I guess they did some things to slow the game down, because others felt like I do. Now if they could slow down the US Open. Hahaha. Never happen. About the only thing you could do to slow down the game on that concrete surface would be to use Nerf tennis balls.
A couple of final Wimblenotes: Sandrine Testud has announced her retirement from the game of tennis. She's pregnant and wants to be a full-time mom. After pinning the epithet "va-va-voomish" on Jelena Dokic, I've been wanting to post a url with a picture of her that illustrates that admirable quality. She was certainly va-va-voomish on TV in the one match I saw her play against Dechy, but the still pictures I've found of her are disappointing. For one thing, she makes this horrible skwunchy-face when she hits the ball that ruins the impression: http://www.sanexheroes.com/bouquets/8/photos_440.html http://www.sanexheroes.com/bouquets/8/photos_437.html The http://www.sanexheroes.com/ site has an uncountable number of pictures of her and other tennis stars. If anyone feels like browsing through them and you find a good picture, do share.
I think I was having a bad morning when I was watching the womena's final. Venus losing made me cry. ;p
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<sniffles>
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Hey, this is an old post-- anyway, I think that nobody mentioned David Nalbandian here, so I think that he deserves a lot more cause he's the first player that reached the finals at Wimbledon in the first season as a pro
I thought Boris Becker did that too.
no, he didn't. Vamos Argentina todavia
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