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Post by christina on Jun 18, 2004 1:01:11 GMT 3
oooo maaaan....he's in the top half so even if he reaches 3rd round i won't seem him play....but guess hu is tim henman so i'll b surrounded by henmania...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
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Post by Vassily on Jun 18, 2004 16:10:13 GMT 3
oooo maaaan....he's in the top half so even if he reaches 3rd round i won't seem him play....but guess hu is tim henman so i'll b surrounded by henmania...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah why wouldsn't you be able to see it? |
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Post by christina on Jun 19, 2004 0:09:23 GMT 3
cos they play 1st half 1 day n 2nd half anotha...so unless theres rain delays on friday...i wont c him play a match (n this is only if he gets thru)
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Post by Vassily on Jun 19, 2004 0:34:05 GMT 3
Cristina, I'm guessing that you'll be doing something else, because you still didn't tell me why you wouldn't see him... ;D  |
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Post by christina on Jun 19, 2004 0:41:37 GMT 3
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Post by Damita on Jun 19, 2004 1:56:54 GMT 3
Vass>> chris will go to wimbledon on saturday, and Marat will play on friday if the schedule's okay. So she won't see him play in live
The draw seems good to me, until hewitt. But before Hewitt it's like thereare only Spaniards in his part so it's quite good. Well, if he feels confident...
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Post by christina on Jun 19, 2004 11:16:54 GMT 3
weather forecast for wimbledon = rain n showers especially monday
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Post by me on Jun 19, 2004 12:38:11 GMT 3
weather forecast for wimbledon = rain n showers What a surprise!!!!  -xxx-jes me |
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Post by Vassily on Jun 19, 2004 12:38:19 GMT 3
Tennis in europe should realy be played only indoors!
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Post by Teresa on Jun 19, 2004 15:11:08 GMT 3
Vass>> The draw seems good to me, until hewitt. But before Hewitt it's like thereare only Spaniards in his part so it's quite good. Well, if he feels confident... Damita I agree, I also read somewhere, there are so many news alerts, that Marat is considered one of five to win wimbledon! ROTFL |
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Post by Teresa on Jun 19, 2004 18:30:32 GMT 3
Okedokey..........I know this is loooooong but it is
quite interesting, I took out some stuff to with the
Williams sisters to shorten it (don't think anyone would mind)
AND it does mention Marat!
Well, is there anyone for tennis?
From the Williams sisters to Mark Philippoussis, the stars are desperate to try any new racket. Robert Lusetich reports
June 19, 2004
DURING the French Open, Martina Navratilova was told by the chair umpire after hitting up for her first-round match that baseball caps with logos were forbidden.
"Can I have some scissors?" asked Navratilova, who delighted the Roland Garros crowd by cutting out the Nike swoosh. She then added: "That's what's wrong with tennis, right here."
If only it were so simple. For a sport on the wane, practically not on the radar screen - or, more pointedly, on the television screen - in the US, where the big corporate dollars live, alienating a massive US company which pours money into the game is beyond hubris.
But it is, in many ways, the least of the game's problems.
Retirement lured the much-loved Patrick Rafter prematurely. Also gone is Pete Sampras, who, although criticised by many as boring, added instant credibility to Grand Slam tournaments by winning 14 of them.
Wimbledon thrived on the attendance of both, as well as their contemporary Andre Agassi, who has succumbed to injury and will not play this week, perhaps never again at the All England Club.
The sport is battling a dearth of personality in a world which has been conditioned to expect brand recognition.
Raising the hemlines of the young Russian starlets or forcing the Argentines to speak in broken English isn't going to fix that problem in a crowded sporting marketplace, where few can tell Rainer Schuettler from Raemon Sluiter.
John McEnroe this week revisited the issue of why tennis, which should have so much going for it heading into its biggest fortnight of the year, is in danger of flatlining.
He complained that today's players are "robots, Darth Vader types", who lack passion.
He may be right, in that they lack passion for tennis.
Do you ever hear Tiger Woods talking longingly about becoming a rock star, or Michael Schumacher wishing he could play for Bayern Munich, or Ian Thorpe bemoaning the fact that he's not opening the batting for Australia?
But in tennis, everyone, in the tradition of Mats Wilander who vacated the men's No.1 crown to play in a rock band, seems to want to be doing something else.
Speaking of fashion, Anna Kournikova -- who surely was the role model for Paris Hilton, a faux celebrity famous for being, well, famous -- is reportedly over the back injury which forced her to miss most of last season and is interested in playing in some big-money exhibitions, but, alas, has no desire to return to the women's tour. Why would she? It only made her wealthy beyond her dreams.
Her former beau, Mark Philippoussis, obviously has had enough of tennis, too, though for him the pay cheques are too large to ignore, so he will continue to flog this horse and make sure it's dead.
The enigmatic Victorian, runner-up last year at Wimbledon, has flirted with a myriad of different pursuits, from professional surfing to acting to, you guessed it, fashion!
"I'm sick of running around, waking up at 7am and going to the gym," Philippoussis said, while launching his new line of clothing, MP.
"I've been on tour now for 10 years. I have the best four years of my career left, but I want to do something after that and I want my new career to be even bigger."
Philippoussis is in the worst slump of his career, having not won a tournament match on the tour since round three at the Australian Open.
Lleyton Hewitt, who really wants to be a rover for the Adelaide Crows -- though Scott Draper says he has more chance of being a professional golfer than Hewitt has of playing AFL -- at least looks like he's giving it his all on the court.
Unlike, say, Marat Safin, a former world No.1, who should be a superstar except that he often plays as if he would rather be doing anything else.
"With Marat, it's mainly about getting him motivated," said his coach Peter Lundgren in what is an early candidate for understatement of the year.
"But he sometimes finds it hard to have fun on court and tends to get bored. Then he simply doesn't feel like playing."
Then there are those talents who are run out of the game, through no real fault of their own, like Jelena Dokic, who desperately needs to find some level of happiness which one suspects won't come on a tennis court.
Ending careers in tennis, though, is hard to do -- when money talks, no-one walks.
Navratilova is 47, was crushed in the first round at the French, yet has accepted a wild-card into the Wimbledon singles. With the two best women players -- the ones who seem like they actually want to play tennis -- Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters not in the mix because of illness and injury, some marketing genius probably figured Wimbledon needed news value.
But 10 years removed from her last singles appearance here, Navratilova comes to SW19 having lost in qualifying at Eastbourne, an event she won 11 times.
She has prompted McEnroe to stroll down memory lane, too, signing up to play a four-man, one-set round-robin exhibition at Wembley in October with Tim Henman, Greg Rusedski and Goran Ivanisevic.
"I can give anyone on the men's tour a run for his money for a set or two," boasted McEnroe, who is 20 years removed from his prime.
Perhaps it was McEnroe's idea to build the new ATP men's tennis marketing campaign around Pat Benetar's Hit Me With Your Best Shot, a song so dated it might have been on McEnroe's eight-track when he was a teenager.
On the subject of things dated, Ivanisevic, at 32 and further over the hill than even Philippoussis, shows up at Wimbledon for the first time since bursting a nation's bubble by defeating Pat Rafter in five sets in the final three years ago.
"I am not defending champion, Roger Federer is, but I'm an unbeaten champion," Ivanisevic said.
So, beyond the circus-act appeal of the opening rounds, tennis had better hope that Federer, who has won 17 of his past 18 matches on grass but essentially conceded the clay-court season, or Andy Roddick, who has some life and passion and defended his title at Queen's, or even Hewitt or Henman goes deep into this tournament.
More than anything, Wimbledon needs champions who look like they care.
On the women's side, another Myskina-Dementieva final will be two too many.
"Potentially the women's game is fantastic ... (but) the game needs Serena and Venus," Navratilova said.
"If you lose two of the biggest stars, the game suffers. That's where the strength of the game is, in all the stars playing at the same time."
But if tennis doesn't become the passion and priority for the stars, its future will be in the hands of men like John Korff, the maverick who concocted the A&P Tennis Classic in New Jersey, which supplemented tennis matches with a carnival and even concerts.
"I know tennis likes to think of itself as a self-selling sport," Korff once said. "But Ai Sugiyama against Mary Pierce isn't always going to cut it.
"On the other hand, people might come if there's a Village People concert after the match."
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Post by Teresa on Jun 19, 2004 21:34:01 GMT 3
Eurosports said today that Blake has pulled out because of his injury, poor guy, and that he was replaced by no other than LL Potatoe Starce!! So he is back....ugh! and he plays Tommy R in the first round! Also the on the menstennis whatever someone said that Nalbandian has now pulled out, rib injury!  Can't say I am sorry! Also out are Escude, Gaudio, Kuerten, Agassi, and Nadal wow!! Marat baby wave that tattoo eye and ward off any evil or misfortune, please! Saddest news of all is that Ancic was beaten by Coria today at the Ordina  (I know this is not the tread....) and they are now calling Coria the king of grass, *thowing up* ugh |
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Post by christina on Jun 19, 2004 21:46:05 GMT 3
ROTRLMAO....coria *king of grass* im sorry but i find that a joke...ummm...wat r his past results there (@ wimbledon)...1st round 2 times out of 2...i hardly think that sumthings gonna change!!!! plus his weedy lil a**e will get booed if he behaves anythin like he did in the RG final |
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Post by christina on Jun 19, 2004 22:02:43 GMT 3
Tennis in europe should realy be played only indoors! uh hello...it has not rained here in over a month...its been clear blue skies every day which is a bit boring after a while (believe the weather here was like abu dhabi at easter (xcept it rained in the building site that is the UAE wen i was there which is frankly stoopid)....if only wimbledon had been a few weeks earlier, as long as the bad weather is only the 1st few day i wont complain...ok im dun ranting now...at least its sunshine n showers not straight rain  |
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Post by christina on Jun 19, 2004 23:05:59 GMT 3
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