Charlie Garfinkel’s Racket Sports: Area tennis greats pay tribute to Bowen

 

Seth Bowen, 54, a Nichols School and University of Arizona tennis great, passed away unexpectedly on May 29 in Laguna Beach, Calif.

In 2000, Bowen was ranked sixth by the Buffalo News in the top 10 tennis players from the years 1950-2000. Some players who were ranked ahead of him were Jimmy Arias and Bobby Banck, who went on to be ranked fifth and 200th, respectively, on the men’s pro tour, and Rauno Suominen, who was formerly on the Finnish Davis Cup team.

As the saying goes, “Not too shabby.” Bowen was inducted into the Buffalo Tennis Hall of Fame in 2006 and was ranked 409th in singles and 334th in doubles on the ATP tour. He was a beloved competitor in the WNY tennis scene due to his outstanding talent and personality. He will be greatly missed.

The following tributes are from local tennis players who were close friends of Seth:

Tom LaPenna (Director of the High Performance Tennis Program at the Village Glen): La Penna started teaching and playing tennis at the Buffalo Tennis Center in 1975 where he first met Bowen. LaPenna is responsible for most of the success that Bowen achieved. “Even at the early age of 13 it was evident that Seth was going to be a great player,” LaPenna said. “He had a great attitude and a wonderful disposition. He never took a win or a loss too seriously. It was uncanny that he had such an understanding of the game at such an early age. His size, quickness , and athleticism made him an outstanding player.

He stressed that Bowen’s serve and volley game were nonpareil. He had one of the best first and second serve combination of any player in WNY annals.

“I had the good fortune to play quite a few doubles tournaments with Seth, both locally and out of town,” LaPenna said. “We won the New York State Hard Court Doubles Championship in 1979. The trophy said Bowen-Lapenna as winners. We didn’t win it. Seth won it!”

“Seth always respected everyone that he came into contact with,” LaPenna said. “He was the first student that I ever coached and was a class act.” “He will never be forgotten and I still can’t get over the shock that he is no longer with us.”

source: http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/charlie-garfinkels-racket-sports-area-tennis-greats-pay-tribute-to-bowen-20150613

Tired Murray pulls out of Rome Masters

ROME (Reuters) - Britain's Andy Murray pulled out of the Rome Masters on Thursday ahead of his third-round match against Belgian David Goffin.

"I felt tired this morning," Murray told a news conference. "I practiced 40 minutes and felt pretty exhausted.

"It didn't make sense for me to keep going because when you feel like this it becomes a risk to play."

Murray recently won back-to-back tournaments in Munich and Madrid, the first claycourt titles of his career.

"They've been three very long weeks for me," Murray added. "The longest on clay in my career."

World number three Murray will now rest and in preparation for the French Open, which starts on May 24.

source:  http://www.thestar.com.my/Sport/Tennis/2015/05/14/Tired-Murray-pulls-out-of-Rome-Masters/

Andy Murray looking forward to working closely with coach Jonas Bjorkman

Andy Murray will work with new coach Jonas Bjorkman for the first time at the Munich Open this week.

Bjorkman will spend the summer with the British No 1 until at least the end of the US Open in September as main coach Amelie Mauresmo, who joined Murray's team last June, prepares to have her first child in August.

The Swede was initially taken on a five-week trial, but Murray is looking forward to working more closely with the 43-year-old.

"We were on the tour for quite a few years together and I always got on very well with him," Murray told Sky Sports News HQ. 

"As a coach, I don’t know him that well, because we only spent a few days together in Barcelona last week. But he’s a very calm guy. 

"He has a good way about him. As a player, he had a very good work ethic. His mentality on the court was very good and he obviously has a lot of experience of singles and doubles, which is good. 

"We’ll see this week how it goes but I get on well with him."

see more: http://www1.skysports.com/tennis/news/12110/9825609/andy-murray-looking-forward-to-working-closely-with-coach-jonas-bjorkman

Men's tennis looks to keep hot streak rolling in New Mexico heat

As spring break quickly approaches, Penn men’s tennis is excited to depart frigid Philadelphia for New Mexico, a destination as physically hot as the Quakers’ recent play.

After a trio of 4-3 wins last weekend against Brigham Young, then-No. 73 Utah and then-No. 72 Boise State, the 39th-ranked Red and Blue (9-1) start up their action over break on Saturday with a home match against Radford. The matchup with the Highlanders (1-2) marks the Quakers’ only battle at home between Feb. 11 and March 21.

After wrapping up in Philadelphia, the squad will then head to Albuquerque to take on Georgia State (5-6) and No. 45 New Mexico, before stopping in Las Cruces, N.M. to compete against New Mexico State (2-5) and UT-Arlington (5-3).

While Penn preps to take on another challenging slate of opponents, the Red and Blue have every right to feel confident after last weekend’s sweep. Not only were the Quakers’ victories impressive in their own right, but the team’s current ranking is the highest national ranking in the program’s history.

Despite their success throughout 2015, Penn — only 10 matches into its spring schedule — knows that it cannot afford to become complacent.

“What our team has accomplished up to this point has been great, but we don’t want to rest on our laurels,” senior Jeremy Court said. “Everything we’ve done up to this point is building towards the Ivy League season, the most important part of the tennis season.”

In New Mexico, coach David Geatz finds himself in familiar territory. The fourth-year boss both played and coached for the Lobos in the 1980s.

And as the only ranked opponent on Penn’s trip, New Mexico (8-7) is expected to give the Red and Blue a run for its money.

“From (rankings) 15 to 50, there is a tremendous amount parity,” Geatz said. “Any one of those teams could beat the other on a given day.”

Even though five matches over the course of a week is a test of wills for any team, Geatz has set the bar high for the Quakers. When asked how he would define success over break, the expectation became abundantly clear.

“Win every match,” Geatz said.

Aside from the high number of matches, another challenge the Red and Blue will have to face on the trip is the absence of their No. 1 singles player, freshman Nicolas Podesta. With the rookie on the sideline, junior captain Vim De Alwis will be tasked with playing from the first singles spot.

“I think [Podesta] is almost worth two points,” Geatz said. “He wins all of his singles matches and nearly all of his doubles.”

read more: http://www.thedp.com/article/2015/03/penn-mens-tennis-preps-new-mexico-spring-break

John McEnroe’s five-step manifesto to fix tennis

YOU can look at it in one of two ways.

One, tennis has enjoyed a golden era over the past decade with some of the greatest players of all time battling out.

Or two, the same four guys — Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray — keep winning all the time and it’s getting dull.

Either way, John McEnroe thinks it’s time for a shake up.

“You can’t just stand on your heels and do nothing. We’ve got to keep trying to do things, in my opinion, to grab fans,” McEnroe says.

The original Superbrat, courtesy of The Guardian, has devised a manifesto to make tennis “edgier” — and you won’t be surprised to hear it has a fair bit to do with the umpiring. Here is McEnroe’s five-point plan.

1. NO UMPIRES, NO LINESPEOPLE

“You’d have a system where the players would call their own lines. All of a sudden things would get a whole lot edgier. But you could challenge it. Say the guy was, like, blatantly cheating and you challenge, people would be, like: ‘Boo!’ People would get way more into it. And then you’d be, like: ‘See this guy? This guy is such a cheater!’ It would be unbelievable for tennis, I promise you. The problem is, there’s no way in hell they’ll do it. But I guarantee you that tennis would be like 30 per cent more interesting.”

read more: http://www.news.com.au/sport/tennis/john-mcenroes-fivestep-manifesto-to-fix-tennis/story-fndkzym4-1226967591030

Wimbledon 2014: The tennis girls who’ve got balls

 Naomi Broady’s win at Wimbledon on Monday caused quite a sensation. Not just because she was a British woman progressing to the second round, but because she was a very particular woman – the so-called “bad girl” of British tennis – who had been stripped of her Lawn Tennis Association funding seven years ago.

Her heinous crime? Posting a picture of herself on the Bebo website showing her posing, in a rather skimpy dress, in the loos during a girls’ night out. The LTA suspended her, accusing her of unprofessional behaviour.

Broady said this week that she struggled to see why the incident became such a “big deal” – and to be fair, looking at some of her fellow players who put the wild in wild card, one is inclined to agree. 

 For while the image of the women’s game may be of sets in the sunshine, fuelled by nothing stronger than lime juice and barley water, in reality the circuit has been dogged by sex scandals, tax evasion and tantrums.

The traditional way to get a name as a bad girl in tennis is by what you wear – or, rather, what you don’t. “Gorgeous Gussie” Moran caused outrage in 1949 and 1950 with her ruffled lace-trimmed knickers, leading the All England Club to accuse her of bringing “vulgarity and sin into tennis”. Yet her transgression was pretty mild compared with Anne White’s skintight bodysuit in 1985; or the exploits of Natasha Zverera, who shocked the Australian Open crowd in 1995 by flashing her bra to celebrate a win.

Suzanne Lenglen, who played at Wimbledon in 1920, used to sip cognac between points. She at least confined herself to a quick drink; her tennis descendants have been caught out using harder substances. While Mary Pierce transformed her game via the perfectly legal supplement creatine, others turned to illegal drugs. The teenage prodigy Jennifer Capriati was charged with possession of marijuana, while former world number one Martina Hingis quit tennis in 2007 after testing positive for cocaine – though she insisted she had never taken drugs.

And then there’s sex. For every Steffi Graf and André Agassi, who’ve been together for more than a decade, there’s a Chris Evert or Jimmy Connors whose tempestuous engagement has been called off. Martina Navratilova made the news when she had to pay out $3 million to her former girlfriend, Toni Layton; while Anna Kournikova’s relationship with pop star Enrique Iglesias made as many headlines as her game. 

read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/wimbledon/10923004/Wimbledon-2014-The-tennis-girls-whove-got-balls.html

The New Faces of Women's Tennis

For the upstarts of women's tennis, it was a moment that said: "We have arrived."

At the French Open earlier this month, Serena Williams was clobbered. Li Na, the Australian Open champion, was bounced in the first round. And Maria Sharapova needed three of the gutsiest performances of her career to turn back three rising stars on the way to winning the title.

Though Sharapova won in Paris against 22-year-old Romanian Simona Halep, Halep and a group of young women born in the 1990s announced their presence. Now, with Wimbledon set to begin Monday, women's tennis has finally found its future. This generation is the one women's tennis fans have been waiting for, the one that can carry the sport after the last of the legends born in the 1980s—Serena and Venus Williams and Sharapova—retire.

The new kids are big hitters and fast movers. They're brash. They don't cower when facing past champions. They're relentless. They're creative and play to the crowd. And they don't just bash tennis balls; they hit drop shots and volleys and slices and sharp angles. They're so fun to watch that the final between Halep and Sharapova, which lasted a little over three hours, felt like it ended too soon.

"They're young, they're hungry and they're full of potential," said Tracy Austin, the former No. 1 player.

Coming up alongside Halep is Eugenie Bouchard, a 20-year-old Canadian who reached the semifinals at both the French Open and the Australian Open in January. Tennis experts rave about her attacking style, poise and instincts.

"I definitely feel like I can play with the best girls in the game," Bouchard said.

Garbiñe Muguruza, a 20-year-old of Spanish and Venezuelan descent, handed Serena Williams the most lopsided defeat of her Grand Slam career in the second round of the French Open, 6-2, 6-2.

"I like to play on big courts, center courts, against amazing players," Muguruza said.

Halep, who played in her first Grand Slam final in Paris, has climbed to third in the world rankings from 53rd at the end of 2011. Her match against Sharapova was the first French Open final to last three sets since 2001.

"She pushed me to the limit," Sharapova said.

Other up-and-comers include 21-year-old American Sloane Stephens; Croatia's Ajla Tomljanovic (21); last year's junior Wimbledon champion, 17-year-old Belinda Bencic; Anna Schmiedlova (19), who beat Venus Williams at the French Open; Ukrainian Elina Svitolina (19); and Taylor Townsend, an 18-year-old American who was given a wild card into Wimbledon on the strength of her two victories at the French Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of her career. Townsend combines the power game of the present with the touch volleys of the past.

read more: http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-new-faces-of-womans-tennis-1403226964

Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams top seeds for Wimbledon

Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams were seeded No. 1 for Wimbledon on Wednesday, while defending men's champion Andy Murray was bumped up two spots above his world ranking to No. 3.

Djokovic, the 2011 Wimbledon champion, is ranked No. 2 but was given the top seeding by the All England Club ahead of top-ranked Rafael Nadal.

Nadal, a two-time Wimbledon champion who is coming off his ninth French Open title, is seeded No. 2 for the grass-court Grand Slam, which starts on Monday.

Murray last year became the first British player to win the Wimbledon men's title since 1936.

Seven-time champion Roger Federer is No. 4, while Australian Open winner Stan Wawrinka is down two spots from his world ranking at No. 5.

Tomas Berdych, David Ferrer, Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ont., John Isner and Kei Nishikori round out the top 10.

Among the 32 seeded players, Jerzy Janowicz received the biggest boost, going up nine spots from his No. 24 ranking to No. 15. The big-serving Polish player reached the Wimbledon semifinals last year, losing to Murray in four sets.

Wimbledon takes a player's grass-court record into account in assigning the men's seedings.

The women's seedings, however, stick to the WTA rankings.

That means five-time champion Williams is No. 1, followed by Li Na, French Open runner-up Simona Halep, Agnieszka Radwanska and Maria Sharapova.

Sharapova, who won her first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon 10 years ago, is coming off her second French Open championship. She is considered Williams' top challenger at Wimbledon, despite the No. 5 seeding. They could end up on the same side of the draw.

Petra Kvitova, the 2011 Wimbledon winner, is No. 6, followed by Jelena Jankovic, Victoria Azarenka, Angelique Kerber and Dominika Cibulkova.

Eugenie Bouchard of Westmount, Que., was 13th.

read more: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/tennis/novak-djokovic-serena-williams-top-seeds-for-wimbledon-1.2679304

Dimitrov wins thrilling final against Lopez at Queen's

The 23-year-old Bulgarian fourth seed recovered from a set down and saved a match point in the second to register his fourth career title, all of them since last November.

Dimitrov, a former Wimbledon junior champion, is now the first player this year to win titles on three different surfaces after winning on the hard courts in Acapulco and the clay of Bucharest.

"It was amazing," Dimitrov said during the presentation of the trophy - one of the biggest in the sport.

"It's been amazing coming here every year and playing that tournament means a lot to me. I'm really happy to go through that match in such a way.

"There's some good matches ahead to Wimbledon and I'm excited for the time ahead.

"I knew it was not easy to break Fel. Especially in moments like that he's been serving so well all week. He's been tremendous all week. It was a great fight."

The first set was tense affair with neither player able to break serve on the way to a tiebreak.

Lopez looked to have gained the ascendancy leading 5-2 in the breaker but a series of unforced errors gifted Dimitrov a route back into the set.

The Spaniard had four set points but it wasn't until the fourth when the Bulgarian slipped and hit his attempted passing shot into the net to hand the 10th seed the first set.

Dimitrov was on the brink of defeat in the 10th game of the second set but he saved a match point and held his nerve to stay in the contest and force a deciding set with a dominant display in the second set, offered up only one point.

Again Dimitrov found himself up against it in the third set but his fighting spirit was evident as he recovered from a break down, although a double fault from Lopez helped.

Inevitably a third tiebreak was required to separate the two players and it was Dimitrov who edged it, leaving left-hander Lopez disconsolate.

"I was one point away from the victory," he said. "It's very disappointing but this is tennis and you have to accept it."

"It was a tough match to lose like this but it's definitely great preparation for Wimbledon.

"I played five or six matches this week. It's a beautiful place and there is no better preparation."

source: https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/tennis-dimitrov-downs-lopez-win-title-queens-151838299--ten.html

Andy Murray serves up a sharp new look for new tennis coach Amelie Mauresmo

 Andy Murray’s new French coach Amelie Mauresmo appears to be giving him tips on personal grooming as well as sharpening up his game on the tennis court.

On Tuesday, the British No. 1 looked more surfer than tennis star as he practiced his volleys looking unshaven with an unruly mop of curly hair during training at Queen’s Club.

But the following day, Murray had undergone a dramatic image transformation for his new coach, as he appeared on court clean shaven with a tidy new haircut.

Whether or not it was the presence of a female coach, Murray’s girlfriend Kim Sears kept a close eye on the Scotsman as he won his first match of the grass court season against Paul Henri-Mathieu.

The Olympic and Wimbledon champion disclosed his girlfriend does not attend many of his tournaments, as he claims being away from one another was "good" for their relationship. 

read more: www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/andymurray/10893032/Andy-Murray-serves-up-a-sharp-new-look-for-new-tennis-coach-Amelie-Mauresmo.html

Ex-tennis doubles star Bob Hewitt charged with rape

Mr Hewitt, who will go on trial in February 2015, has denied the three charges, Alwyn Griebenow told the Associated Press news agency.

The charges relate to his time coaching children in South Africa in the 1980s.

Mr Hewitt, 74, won nine Grand Slam doubles and six mixed doubles titles in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Australian-born former tennis star appeared at Boksburg Magistrate's Court, Johannesburg, for the first time on Friday.

He told the court he understood the charges, his lawyer told AP, adding that his client would plead not guilty to all three charges - two of rape and one of indecent assault - at his trial.

South African media report that Mr Hewitt appeared frail in court and was aided by a walking stick. 

source: www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27738159

Sharapova holds off Muguruza, will face Bouchard in French Open semifinals

PARIS (AP) -- This is what Maria Sharapova does. She digs herself a big hole in a match, then figures a way out, no matter what it takes.

She hits shots left-handed. Takes her time between points. Pumps her fists and screams ''Come on!'' after her opponent's mistakes. And wins.

Did it in the fourth round at the French Open, turning things around by winning the last nine games. Did it Tuesday, too, reeling off nine of the last 10 games to put together a 1-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory over 35th-ranked Garbine Muguruza of Spain that put 2012 champion Sharapova in the semifinals at Roland Garros for the fourth consecutive year.

''When you just don't feel like anything is going your way, you want to try to find a little door to get into,'' Sharapova said. ''Once you start feeling, you know, like you got your foot in the door, then it's a little bit easier.''

After beating one 20-year-old, Sharapova now faces another, 18th-seeded Eugenie Bouchard of Canada, who earned a semifinal spot for the second straight Grand Slam tournament.

source: http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2014/06/sharapova-advances-to-french-open-semifinals/51652/#.U4-f9ij57jt

Think U.S. Men's Tennis Is in a Slump? Look at Post-WWII France

With every major tennis tournament come the lamentations over the sorry state of American men’s tennis.

 

With the French Open getting underway this week, right on cue came the all but inevitable “pre-mortem” inquest into the lowly rankings of the American men: No American has won a Grand Slam event singles title since Andy Roddick in 2003 at the U.S. Open, and with no American men ranked in the ATP’s top 10 (Switzerland and Spain each have two) and only one—John Isner, ranked number 11—in the top 60, Christopher Clarey’s status report in The New York Times was appropriately headlined "Once a Force in Tennis, Now Enduring a Grand Slam Drought.”

 

It made for especially dispiriting reading on the 25th anniversary of Michael Chang's upset French Open victory in 1989, one of the true highlights of the American experience on the red clay courts of the Stade Roland Garros. And the reasons given for the American fall from the top ranks of men’s tennis suggest that a quick recovery is not likely. (Serena Williams aside, the picture is not much brighter for American women—and Williams herself lost her second-round match this week.)

 

As Clarey wrote, coaches and former players, including Jim Courier, winner of the French Open in 1991 and 1992, “see a lack of world-class work ethic and toughness in too many of the young Americans. … ‘There are plenty of talented players who are not getting the most out of their talent,’ Courier said.” Jose Higueras, a Spanish player who won 16 tour titles and reached two French Open semi-finals, and who now is involved in player development work for the United States Tennis Association, has expressed similar sentiments:. “We are lacking competitiveness in our players,” he said. “They’ve got good backhands and forehands and serves, but they lack an understanding of how the game needs to be played. We have good coaches, but the culture of our players needs to improve.” 

read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/05/think-us-mens-tennis-is-in-a-slump-look-at-post-wwii-france/371753/

Sweet 16: It's time for tennis Grand Slams to ditch the 32-seed draw

In 2001, the four tennis Grand Slams doubled the number of seeds at their respective tournaments, from 16 to 32. Whereas the old system could have pitted the No. 1 player in the world against No. 17 in a first-round match, the new way ensured that none of the top-32 players in the draw would meet before the third round.

The balanced draw, which theoretically leads to better matches in the later rounds, has worked out fine. It’s neither been a boon nor a disaster. Whether it’s better for the sport, however, is open for debate.

When the French Open draw was unveiled Friday, the lack of compelling first- and second-round matches was immediately apparent. Diehard tennis fans may enjoy Richard Gasquet vs. Bernard Tomic or Ana Ivanovic vs. Caroline Garcia, but there’s no matchups to capture the interest of the casual fan. The only way the non-tennis world will hear about the opening days at Roland Garros will be due to a massive upset or Venus Williams wearing another revealing dress. By protecting the later rounds, tennis has made the opening rounds irrelevant.

How much are the early rounds really protected? Were top players losing so much that they needed more breathing room in the first two rounds?

Not at all. Even before the seeding change, the best in the world rarely exited Grand Slams early. It’s not as if there were giant killers lurking in the lower reaches of the top 20 and biding their time for the perfect first-round upset.

read more http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/05/french-opens-seeds-grand-slam-16-32

 

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Andre Agassi picks Rafael Nadal ahead of Roger Federer as tennis's greatest all-time player

 Andre Agassi has hailed Rafael Nadal as the best player in the history of tennis, ahead of Roger Federer.

The former world No 1 opted for the Spaniard over Federer, whose wife earlier this week gave birth to a second set of twins, because he has thrived in an ultra-competitive "golden age of tennis".

"I'd put Nadal number one, Federer number two," the eight-time Grand Slam-winner said.

"Federer separated himself from the field for four years. He separated himself from Roddick and Hewitt," Agassi added.

"Nadal had to deal with Federer, Djokovic, Murray in the golden age of tennis. He has done what he has done and he's not done yet." 

Conventional wisdom ranks Federer ahead of Nadal, as the Swiss holds a record 17 Grand Slam titles against 13 for the current world No 1.

But Nadal has a convincing 23-10 head-to-head record against Federer and is one Australian Open victory away from becoming only the third man to win all four Grand Slam titles twice.

"He has won multiple majors, every single one (more than once) except the Australian Open - and give him another year on that," Agassi said.

"It's just remarkable to me what he has done, and he has done it all during Federer's prime."

Agassi added that he did not discount Australia's Rod Laver, two-time winner of the calendar-year Grand Slam, when rating the greatest player of all time.

And he confirmed he would play in the Singapore leg of the inaugural International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) after the dates were rejigged to avoid Thanksgiving - as long as the event goes ahead.

"It seems like it's all happening. I just can't make any promises I can't control. What I can't control (is) if (the event) really exists or not," he said.

"But if it's happening, I'm absolutely going to be there and I will spend time leading up (to the event) playing."

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/rafaelnadal/10816170/Andre-Agassi-picks-Rafael-Nadal-ahead-of-Roger-Federer-as-tenniss-greatest-all-time-player.html

 

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Why Is Rafael Nadal Struggling? Blame Tennis's 13th-Major Curse

On January 25, 2014, it seemed all but inevitable that Rafael Nadal was about to win his 14th Grand Slam.

After coming back in 2013 from a career-threatening knee injury to reclaim the number-one ATP Tennis ranking, Nadal had stormed through a series of talented upstarts in his Australian Open draw and capped it off by taking out his principal rival Roger Federer in a satisfying semifinal duel. He had caught a break in the draw: His nemesis Novak Djokovic would not be waiting for him in the finals, but rather Stanislas Wawrinka, a relative journeyman who had never taken a set off of Nadal in any of their previous meetings. Pete Sampras, the first man to ever reach a 14th Grand Slam title, had boarded a 16-hour flight to Australia for the first time in over a decade, likely convinced he would be there to coronate Nadal.

Except something happened on the way to Nadal’s “routine” 14th Slam. He lost. After a slow start in the match, he reached skyward to complete the herky-jerky service motion and twisted his back. The crowd gasped and Nadal looked desperately at his box. Nadal kept competing, but his level slipped; Wawrinka won in four sets.

Since Nadal’s Australian Open debacle, his back has fully healed. But his foibles have followed him. Prior to this season, Rafael Nadal had won more than 93 percent of his matches on his beloved clay and hadn’t lost at Monte Carlo or Barcelona to someone not named Novak Djokovic since President George W. Bush’s first term. This clay season, Nadal has played in two clay court tournaments so far, unceremoniously losing in the quarterfinals at both Barcelona and Monte Carlo to players he had dominated over the last decade. He had won at least one—usually both—of these tournaments every single season dating back to 2004.

Retired tennis player Jeff Salzenstein, once ranked No. 91 in the ATP, believes that Nadal’s drought could stem from “a bit of programming or subconscious beliefs.” “Maybe something is going on his life,” Salzenstein said—after all, he pointed out, Nadal’s play suffered around the time he learned that his parents were separating, resulting in his only French Open loss in 2009.

But history shows that Nadal is far from the first to endure a rocky stretch after winning a 13th Grand Slam. In fact, so many tennis players in the last century have struggled at this stage that you could even call it a curse. Historians of the game have yet to expend much analysis on the unusual plight of Grand Slam champions after securing their 13th Slam. But almost all male and female players who have earned a 14th Slam, from the superstitious to the famously rational, have experienced what can only be described as outré occurrences.

Nadal, for example, is just the third man to ever be in the position to seek a 14th major title, but he’s the third of three to face some serious setbacks in the process. Pete Sampras was the first to overcome the 13th Slam hex, and it wasn’t without a spell of uncharacteristic play. Sampras loitered for two years on the ATP Tour after winning Wimbledon in 2000: His ranking dropped all the way to 17th in the world, and he was dogged by constant calls to retire until he won an improbable U.S. Open title in 2002. And the usually composed Roger Federer famously cried and had to be consoled at the podium of the Australian Open in 2009 while experiencing his own 13th-Slam curse, after a shocking defeat at the hands of the weary Rafael Nadal.

Nadal, who rushed to hug the teary Federer after foiling him in his bid for Slam No. 14, can now likely empathize with Federer’s agony.

On the women’s side, we find the earliest occurrence of an odd lull between Slam No. 13 and Slam No. 14: It was in the case of Helen Wills Moody, she of the “awkward personality” and the impeccable attacking serve and volley game. Her strange story, however, is marked not by a bout of poor play but rather by a brief, bizarre career change. When she won her 13th major at Wimbledon in 1930, she was enjoying a streak that still defies logic, winning every set she played for four straight years. But after locking up Slam No. 13, she disappeared from the scene, a stretch of time in which she contributed a chapter to philosopher Will Durant’s 1931 book On the Meaning of Life, pondered launching a film career, and unceremoniously decided not to defend three consecutive majors. Questions arose about her commitment and the validity of her No. 1 ranking, but she returned at peak level with a new mindset and won the 1931 U.S. Open at the West Side Tennis Club.

A more traditional curse, though, plagued her protégé, Martina Navratilova. After winning her 13th Grand Slam at the Australian Open in 1985, Bud Collins commented that the sport needed to create a higher league for Navratilova to compete in. On the verge of clinching her 14th Slam, Navratilova ran into her old foe Chris Evert, who she had mostly owned up to that point. The two played what is commonly referred to as one of the greatest women’s matches in history, with Evert going on to win the unlikely title. While Navratilova would eventually earn her revenge (and a 14th Slam) at Wimbledon four weeks later, the match came to be seen as an inflection point in their rivalry and gave Evert the mental edge in the years to come.

Margaret Smith chose to retire from the sport unexpectedly at the age of 24 after winning her 13th Slam at the Australian Open in 1966 but suffering unusual defeats at the two ensuing Slams. During her year and a half of retired life, she married Barry Court, took on the name Court, and started a family. She launched a comeback in 1968, and it took a year of futility and uncharacteristic results (as well as the start of the Open Era) to get her back in form. But in 1969, she broke the curse, reclaimed her Australian Open title, and went on to win 11 more Slams on the way to a still-unsurpassed 24 majors.

For Serena Williams, the consequences of the 13th-Slam curse were harrowing. While trying out new high heels at a 2011 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, Williams stepped on a piece of glass. The injury immobilized her and then produced a blood clot that spiraled quickly into a pulmonary embolism. Soon, she was fighting for her life and doubting a return to tennis. Two years later, however, she made a remarkable resurgence back to the top of the WTA Tour and fended off a hungry Agnieska Radwanska to break the curse at Wimbledon in 2012.

read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/05/why-is-rafael-nadal-struggling-blame-tenniss-13th-grand-slam-curse/361757/

 

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Tennis world champion for 1000 weeks and counting

THERE are those among us who might believe the staging of a world championship of real tennis would involve a match in which the combatants must serve-and-volley on both deliveries while wearing Dunlop Volleys and using those old wooden Maxfli racquets with the Union Jack stamped on the throat.

But the most genuine form of real tennis dates back to the 1200s, grabbed the attention of William Shakespeare, has been crowning World No 1s since 1740 and is the oldest contested championship in world sport.

A London-based Australian with an unrivalled record of achievement will chase his 12th world title this week. The 46-year-old Rob Fahey and American Camden Riviere will go best-of-13 sets at the Royal Melbourne Tennis Club from Tuesday. Fahey has been the World No 1 for more than 1000 weeks after tumbling into the sport from his pursuit of the most coveted commodity for most prospective university students: the amber fluid.

“I answered a job ad in a newspaper in Hobart,” he told The Weekend Australian. “It was to work at the real tennis club in Hobart. I’d never even heard of it, but it seemed like a good option for a bit of beer money at the time. It turned out to be a bit more than that.

“Most of my adult life has been spent as the world champion, so it’s become a pretty big part of me.”

Fahey and Riviere will don white clothes. Depending on their progress, the match can continue on Thursday and finish on Saturday. Fahey’s 11 world ­titles, 11 British Opens, eight US Opens, 13 French Opens and 13 Australian Opens make him the most successful real tennis player of all time. Which is a long, long time. “That’s always been one of the fascinating things about it for me — how a sport can survive from as far back as the 1200s and 1300s,” he said.

“The clubs and palaces you get to play at around the world are pretty amazing. Each one is quirky in its own way.

“I’ve become an honorary life member at Queens in London after I won there, so I get out on the grass courts there and have a hit of what you call your regular tennis. I’m not quite as ­proficient.”

Lawn tennis. Real tennis. Compare and contrast. “They might look quite similar but they’re amazingly different,” he said. “We’ve got such a hard ball, small racquet and walls. It’s ­almost more like cricket than tennis because you’ve got the ball skidding on to you. There’s more of the element of control. The lawn tennis ball pops off the surface. You can absolutely leather it with heavy topspin.

“Our stuff is very deliberate positional play. You’ll get a loose ball you can wind up on, like a squash shot when it’s coming off the back wall. You can hit that ball ridiculously hard.

“When you see lawn tennis and real tennis side by side, they do look quite similar. But in all honesty, they’re not.”

source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/tennis/tennis-world-champion-for-1000-weeks-and-counting/story-fnbe6xeb-1226903849099#

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