Dima Tursunov

[Annie]

Fran I think the pic Helene posted is from that Sunrie Challenger event but am not too sure

[Mrs. Fabregas]

Dima won the first set, in a tiebreak : 7-6 (0 )
Well done, Dima .... Now continue this and you'll be through to the 3rd round.......

[Mrs. Fabregas]

Damn, Dima lost ...... 7-6 (0), 3-6 4-6

Little (what... I mean A LOT! ) sad right now

[yse]

[yse]

Found on MTF ;D ;D ;D ;D

[SAFINNO1]

Dmitry Tursunov takes comfort in this setting, testing his wrist away from the Davis Cup fray
A better place to be
By DALE ROBERTSON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

• What: 73rd River Oaks International, a non-ATP exhibition tournament.
• Where: River Oaks

Country Club.

• When: Monday through April 8. Matches start at 1:30 and 5:30 p.m. through Friday, then 1:30 p.m. Saturday with the singles final at 2 p.m. April 8.

Five days before he'll play his first match, Dmitry Tursunov arrived at rain-drenched River Oaks on Saturday, far from tennis' madding crowd. The stately old Houston club holds happy memories for him, both personal and professional, so he sounded perfectly content to be here, even if bigger things might be going on elsewhere.

It could be worse, Tursunov figures. After all, he's the No. 1 seed in the 73rd River Oaks International, which starts Monday.

"I feel very comfortable here," Tursunov said.

After playing a major role for Russia last year in its first victorious Davis Cup campaign, going 3-0 in singles and partnering Marat Safin to a crucial doubles victory in the final against Argentina, he finds himself on the bench. He's off to a slow start this season because of a nagging wrist injury that surfaced in January, and the Russian-France quarterfinal in Moscow next weekend will be played on clay, hardly this Muscovite's favorite surface.

Tursunov readily concedes the team that Russia's captain, Shamil Tarpischev, will lead against the French is the right one, even if he isn't part of it.

"With the wrist," he said, "nobody knows if I could go five sets. I think they made the decision that was best for the team. It wasn't about me personally. I'm not ready for this (tie). It was better to pick somebody else.

"I don't take it personally. There are times when you have to sit out and there are times when you have to step up to the plate."

Having played only four matches in 2007, Tursunov hopes to get in a full week's work at River Oaks to find out if the wrist is healing properly. He doesn't plan to stay over for the last U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships at Westside Tennis Club, being of the opinion he'll be better served practicing in Monte Carlo for the Masters Series tournament that starts there April 16.

As a non-ATP event, River Oaks can't damage his ranking, currently No. 22. He had climbed to a career-high 20th last fall, propelled by his first tour title in Mumbai, India.

When Tursunov first came to Houston for River Oaks in 2004, only the most devoted of tennis fans knew his name. Now, because he has cracked the top 25 and his Davis Cup heroics — he beat Andy Roddick in an epic battle that ended with a 17-15 fifth set in the Russia-U.S. semifinals — plus the widespread popularity of the witty, well-written blog he does for the ATP Web site, he has turned into a full-blown star at 24.

After spending half his life in Northern California (his father dispatched him there to improve his tennis), Tursunov speaks English with just a trace of an accent. Irreverent without being cruel or overtly contro-versial, he's without question the ATP's No. 1 blogger.

"We're very proud and honored to have Dmitry back," River Oaks tennis director Van Barry said. "I was surprised when I found out he was available, but it was great for our tournament."

Tursunov was the runner-up to James Blake in 2005. Like most of the less prominent players, he previously bunked in the homes of River Oaks families. Because of the Davis Cup uncertainties, he opted for a hotel this time so as to not put anyone out. But, again, he's not in Houston grudgingly. In some ways, he's relieved to be removed from the pressure cooker, never mind that he's 5-0 in Davis Cup singles matches.

"It was a lot of fun being with the team," Tursunov said, "but it was very nerve-wracking, too, maybe more nerve-wracking for me than fun. It definitely has a different feel from an individual match."

If healthy — and he often hasn't been, suffering through major back problems early in his career — Tursunov believes he's capable of cracking the top 10.

"I have many things to improve," he said. "But I think I have the ability."

[Annie]

Awwww we won't see Mitya then too bad But good luck and get well sweetie

[SAFINNO1]

Dima had a good week as well as he won this little tournament in River Oaks on an American clay court LOL Beating some Argies!

First Round
(1)Dmitry Tursunov (RUS) bye

Second Round
(1)Dmitry Tursunov (RUS) d. Ivo Karlovic (CRO) 6-1 6-4

Quarterfinals
(1)Dmitry Tursunov (RUS) d. Diego Hartfield (ARG) 6-3 6-4

Semifinals
(1)Dmitry Tursunov (RUS) d. Mariano Zabaleta (ARG) 6-1 6-1

Finals
(1)Dmitry Tursunov (RUS) d. (5)Nicolas Massu (CHI) 2-6 1-0 ret.

[Annie]

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D All Russians made me proud this weekend ;D

[Happiness]

YAY FOR DIMA!!! That way you can start practise for here at Estoril Open this year!!! ;D ;D SHHH ... Don't let Davydenko know about it!!!

[Mrs. Fabregas]

for Dima.......

Sad that he couldn't play the final completely because Massu retired! But i'm pretty convinced that if Massu didn't retired, Dima would have won it either way!

Good to see him back, playing, and appear in finals!

[Chachou]

[Annie]

From his official website. New blog preview ;D

The Croqueteer
12th April 2007

The Croqueteer

As the tournament of Indian Wells came to an end not too long ago, I would like to honor the tournament with a little story. Everything described here is entirely true and had not been created by my imagination or altered to make someone else look bad. After all, I’m not the kind of person that would make fun of someone!

A couple of years back me and a few of my friends trained at Mission Hills Country Club which is located in Palm Springs, not too far from Indian Wells. For those who are not familiar with that area, it is located in the dessert and most of the residents are over forty. I have no idea why that is the case but let me tell you; for a relatively small oasis in the desert they sure have a ton of country clubs with golf courses. At least a hundred of them in an area that is probably smaller than Sacramento, not that any of you would know where Sacramento is. All of these country clubs sort of compete with each other to increase the number of members by constantly improving their facilities; clubhouse, gym, driving range, etc. But all of these improvements are costing peanuts if compared to the maintenance of endless acres of weeds for the game that requires you to put a tiny ball into a tiny hole. The idea that you can have a field of incredible proportions that you can’t run on, can’t walk on without a collared shirt, can’t breathe or fart on, and on top of that is constantly being groomed and watered, is kind of, comical, in my opinion. But then again, so are the majority of the members who drive around with a “Proud Member of Mission Hills Country Club” bumper sticker on their golf cart.

I don’t mean to sound cruel or be mean, but I think we have to face the fact that a lot of members of these establishments, or residents in that area in general, aren’t a sport-oriented bunch and choose to maintain the courses for a decorative purpose rather than for their functionality. I guess they can always use that area to walk their little dogs so they can go poopy, and the times when they do decide to play a few rounds it looks more like a game of Polo, with the golf cart substituting a horse. They drive up in their custom built Rolls-Royce or Hummer look-alike golf carts, push the ball thirty yards down the field and then drive off to chase it. They don’t even have to get out of the cart to do it!!!

.... (check out the rest at www.atptennis.com/1/en/blog/tursunov/ )

[jenhatter06]

the rest of Dima's new entry, continued from above ^^ ...

You might form an opinion that I am a golf hater, which isn’t the case! I enjoy golf as much as I enjoy a nice competitive game of curling, but what frustrates me the most is that Mission Hills is one of those golf-oriented clubs with tennis courts built, as couple of members eloquently put it, to get the wives off the course. I feel that our sport is not given a fair chance! Funny to think that in most places tennis is regarded as posh and uptight sport of traditionalists and here is a place that treats us, tennis players, as if we are some sort of Johnny Knoxvilles on skateboards. Just look at the dress code! A lot of country clubs in the Palm Springs area have a dress code and Mission Hills is no exception. Up until 2004 you were not allowed to practice in a shirt that lacked a collar. We moaned and whined until the rule was changed, but regardless of this small victory against the tighty-whites dress code, the entire place is still crawling with people who would be more than happy to not ever see us again, along with our collarless shirts, backwards hats and those rebel headbands.

With as many things as I have to bicker about, this story isn’t about that so let me get back to the point.

Right behind Mission Hills' tennis courts was a croquet field where a lot of members would putz around. They would chase wooden balls with their little wooden hammers dressed in all white as if they were ghosts, wearing funny bucket hats accompanied by knee-high socks. If tennis courts were built to keep the wives off the golf course, who were the croquet fields built for? Only God knows, but the field was crawling with these… croqueteers like a garden full of earthworms after the rain.

One day, me and three or four other guys were sitting at the table outside trying to digest our lunch and get some rest before our second practice. It was around two o’clock and the weather was brutal because… well.., because it’s a freaking desert!!! Our minds were blank - the most common state of mind for a young man at this wonderful stage of life, so pretty much the only thing that we were able to do was - digest. So there we were, digesting and making an attempt at quite an interesting conversation about video games as I looked over to the croquet field and saw a guy, older than the desert itself, playing croquet. By himself!!! At two in the afternoon!!! You could hear the lizards in the bushes cussing at the sun and this guy was out on the field swinging away with the mallet. Now, I don’t know the rules of the game but it would seem to me that you need someone to play with because (and I’m totally assuming here) it would be more fun. Perhaps that isn’t the case. Perhaps he was trying to sneak in a few hours of practice so he could demolish his oblivious friends when the game for pension checks came around. To be honest, I have no idea why he was there by himself or what he was doing, but we all had a jolly good laugh as we watched him chase the ball around like the Little Engine That Could.

Every so often I would look over because… I didn’t have to turn my head that much. I was positioned ideally, with the field to my side, to spend the bare minimum of my precious energy, which was now fully readdressed to digesting duties. The “desert” dude just kept plugging away. He would hit the ball across the field and arrive to the opposite side fifteen minutes later ready to strike again. It was as captivating as watching the Earth rotate, so after a half hour (my attention span) of this torture I became immersed in a debate about why Lasse Kukkonen and Antti Laaksonen of Finland are much worse in real life than in NHL 06 for X-Box, and why Oleg Kvasha’s accuracy is a negative twelve on scale of one to ten.

About ten or fifteen minutes later I looked over to the field and saw that same “desert” dude lying on the field on his stomach completely motionless. I thought to myself, “Hmmm…” and retorted that even though the “shooting” formation is great on power plays I personally prefer to use “umbrella” formation, especially against the Swedish team. Then I look over again and nudged my buddy. The guy was still there, on his stomach and as I glanced over at my friend it looked like he was thinking to himself, “Hmmm…” Then the other guys turned their heads towards the field and for some reason, we all started laughing. To be honest, we didn’t think anything could be wrong, but the sight of some guy wearing all white, spread out on a croquet field at two o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of a desert was really amusing at that instant.

Of course, at that point we slowly started to realize that almost a minute had gone by and he was still lying there, so we started to put two and two together. 1 - The guy is really old. 2 – It is really hot outside. 3 – He is lying motionless for over a minute now. Oh crap!!! We jumped up and ran over to the pro shop to get someone to figure out what to do. Some guy was sitting inside lethargically sipping on Root Beer, picking his nose and drawing flowers and doodles on a notepad. We told him that there was some guy on the field who must be dead or something because he hadn’t moved for over a minute. As we looked through the window sure enough we saw him there in the same position. Obviously this was all happening in slow motion in my mind and I was counting seconds as I have watched “911” way too many times. I am sure that we were still under two minutes since the first time I spotted the dude, but it felt like a half hour went by, so you can imagine my surprise when the guy from the pro shop jogged out there with no sign of surprise like he has to remove bodies from the croquet field all day long. I expected him to grab a defibrillator or CPR directions or at least, maybe a bucket of water and instead he just casually strolls out there to, I don’t know, maybe have a conversation with a guy who is lying out on the field! We watched him walk up to the man on the ground from behind, tap him on the shoulder… and then the guy just leaped up like a frog that got hit by lightning!!!

Apparently, what happened was this guy was carefully lining up his next shot and the guy from the pro shop walked up and scared the living bejesus out of him.

EPILOGUE

Since this episode, we saw “The Crouching Croqueteer” on many occasions and, to my knowledge, he is well and in superior health.

The guy from the pro shop does not work at “Mission Hills” any longer. He got so frightened by what he was convinced was a dead man jumping at him that he had to seek counsel from an experienced psychologist. The immense bill, of course, is being covered by his insurance company.

My buddies and I still hang out and have great debates on NHL 06 for X-Box. Danilius Zubrus is still an easy target for mockery and Marcus Naslund is the most disgusting player of them all, being able to score through his legs backwards with a backhand against any goalie that I pick.

“Mission Hills” has enforced a rule that members over 85 years old cannot use the croquet field without adult supervision, and I still remember the moment when all of Oleg Kvasha’s downfalls as a virtual hockey player were temporarily put on hold as we raced to save another athlete’s life.

[yse]

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