World Tennis Magazine

Unique Tennis Perspectives

Roger Federer

Top 5 Male Tennis Players of the Last Decade

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In recent years, Rafael Nadal has emerged as the strongest challenger to Roger Federer’s ascendancy and has set one of the most exciting rivalries in the history of men’s tennis with the Swiss player. The Spaniard, who is widely regarded as the greatest clay court player of history, has been called “the king of clay” and he is considered as one of the best all-rounder in tennis, while some even consider him to be the greatest tennis player of all time. Nadal has won 14 Grand Slam single titles, 27 ATP Tour Masters 1000 and 15 ATP World Tour 500 tournaments. Nadal became the only player to win a single Grand Slam tournament nine times by winning the 2014 French Open and currently holds the 3rd spot in the ATP rankings.

Novak Djokovic is currently ranked as the No.1 tennis player by the ATP and he has won seven Grand Slam single titles. The Serbian began his professional tennis career in 2003 and won his first ATP title at the Dutch Open in 2006, and has since won 7 Grand Slam single titles and has held the top spot of the ATP rankings for more than 130 weeks. The Serbian player is the holder of several men’s world records of the Open Era such as the youngest player to have reached the semi-finals of all four grand slams events, for playing the longest Grand Slam men’s single final in history for nearly 6 excruciating hours, and for being the only man to win three consecutive Australian Open.

Currently ranked world No. 2 by the ATP, Roger Federer is regarded by many top tennis players and commentators as the greatest tennis player of all time. The Swiss Professional Player has accomplished the incredible feat of being ranked inside the top 10 tennis players since 2002 and he hold several prestigious records of the Open Era such as winning 17 Grand Slam single titles since 2003, reaching the Wimbledon Finals 9 times. Federer has reached the finals of 29 men’s single Grand Slam and has played in a record 61st consecutive Grand Slam tournament. The Swiss player also holds the record for having won the most prize money of any player in history.

Andy Murray who is currently ranked world No.6 by the ATP has been playing tennis since the tender age of three and he started his professional tennis career in the year 2005. The Scottish player has been ranked as the British No.1 since 2006 and in the year 2012 he became the first British man since 1936 to win a Grand Slam single tournament after defeating Novak Djokovic at the US Open. The most memorable moment of his career remains the 2013 Wimbledon Championships when he again defeated Djokovic in the final to add another Grand Slam single tournament win to this records. Murray also hold the individual record for being runner up in five singles Grand Slam finals.

Lleyton Hewitt is an Australian tennis player and he has participated in 19 consecutive Australian Open Tournaments, however he only managed to reach the finals of this competition once and lost against Marat Safin. LLeyton Hewitt holds the record for being the youngest ever male tennis player to be ranked No.1 in the world of singles when he was just 20 year old. He won two major Grand Slam which are the 2001 US Open men’s single title and the 2002 Wimbledon men’s single title, plus the ATP World Tour Finals titles in 2001 and 2002.

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Rafael Nadal
Rafael Nadal

First Week Australian Open Summary; Roger Federer Upset The Highlight – Mondays With Bob Greene

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Mondays with Bob Greene

STARS

Australian Open (First Week)

Andreas Seppi beat second-seeded Roger Federer 6-4 7-6 (5) 4-6 7-6 (5)

Madison Keys beat fourth-seeded Petra Kvitova 6-4 7-5

Lucie Hradecka beat fifth-seeded Ana Ivanovic 1-6 6-3 6-2

Victoria Azarenka beat eighth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki 6-4 6-2

Irina-Camelia Begu beat ninth-seeded Angelique Kerber 6-4 0-6 6-1

SAYING

“Just a bad day.” – Roger Federer, after losing to Andreas Seppi.

“To beat Roger first time, especially in a Grand Slam, best-of-five, is a special moment for me.” – Andreas Seppi, who had taken only one set off Roger Federer in their previous 10 matches.

“I really struggled to find my rhythm today, I was just a little bit lost.” – Ana Ivanovic, the women’s fifth seed after being upset by Lucie Hradecka in the opening round.

“As always, I had the jitters going out in the first match of a Grand Slam. It’s never super easy to be the one that everyone wants to beat.” – Serena Williams, after her first-round victory over Alison Van Uytvanck 6-0 6-4.

“Well, this old cat has a few tricks left.” – Venus Williams, following her win over Camila Giorgi.

“I think Dennis is doing a good job. He just made one ace.” – Li Na, telling the Australian Open crowd that she and her husband Dennis (Jiang) are expecting their first child in the summer.

“I’m not going to hide my excitement of winning the match because it meant a lot to me.” – Grigor Dimitrov, after outlasting Marcos Baghdatis 4-6 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-3.

“I’m not going to hide my disappointment.” – Grigor Dimitrov, after losing to Andy Murray.

STUNNER

It was Roger Federer’s worst Australian Open finish since 2001 as the world’s second-ranked player was surprised by Italy’s Andreas Seppi 6-4 7-6 (5) 4-6 7-6 (5). “I wish I could have played better, but clearly it was tough losing the first two sets,” Federer said after the third-round shocker. “I had chances to get back into it, but let it slip. It’s a disappointing loss.” It was Federer’s earliest exit in Melbourne in 14 years and his second-worst performance at a major in more than a decade, just behind his second-round loss at Wimbledon in 2013. A four-time Australian Open champion, Federer has now not won a Grand Slam tournament title since Wimbledon in 2012. It was the first time in 11 career meetings that Seppi had bested the Swiss master. In fact, Seppi had won just set off Federer until this time. And, in a weird statistic, Federer finished the match with one more point than Seppi – 145 to 144. But his 55 unforced errors, two fewer than his winners, didn’t help. “You don’t play every day on a center court in front of a full stadium against Roger Federer,” Seppi said. “But I was very calm. It’s a special moment for me.”

SAYS SHE’S PREGNANT

Li Na always has had a special rapport with the crowd at the Australian Open. Even though she’s not defending her women’s singles title, she delivered another winning speech at the year’s first Grand Slam tournament. Appearing on the tournament’s opening day in front of 15,000 cheering fans, Li Na announced she was pregnant. “Dennis and I are so excited,” she said. “Our first child will arrive in the summer.” Known as the Asian and Pacific Grand Slam, the Australian Open has always been a special place for the Chinese star. She reached the final in both 2011 and 2013 before winning the title last year. Then she unexpectedly retired in September. A guest of honor at this year’s event, Li Na in a statement said: “A mere 12 months ago, I stood on this court clutching the Australian Open trophy tightly in my hands, a huge grin on my face, overwhelmed with joy and a sense of accomplishment that I had shared with everyone who had helped me along the road to this incredible achievement. Today, all of those emotions came back to me, yet I had extra butterflies in my stomach because I wanted to share a very special secret with the Australian Open fans. Over the years they have supported me and truly helped my success, so it felt just right to let them in on a little secret I’ve been holding on to for a few months now. This summer, Dennis and I are expecting our first child. We are overjoyed! And it really feels like this baby is going to enter the world already having about 15,000 friends.”

SURGERY AGAIN

Just days after pulling out of this year’s Australian Open, Juan Martin del Potro underwent surgery on his left wrist. The 2009 US Open champion said the surgery was recommended by his doctor. The surgery was performed by Dr. Richard Berger, who operated on Del Potro’s same wrist 10 months ago. He also performed surgery on the Argentine’s right wrist in 2010. The right-hander is expected to resume training in two weeks, but it is unknown when he might play again.

SAYONARA

Austria’s Yvonne Meusburger called it a career after suffering a straight-set first-round defeat to Casey Dellacqua of Australia. “It was a great feeling to play on Margaret Court Arena, a big, new court,” the 31-year-old Meusburger said. “I love Australia. This is my favorite Grand Slam. I started here. I finished here. I’m really happy.” She said she made her decision after earning a spot in the main draw. “I decided to take the opportunity to take my family with me and enjoy this great trip to Australia,” Meusburger said. A long-time member of Austria’s Fed Cup team, Meusburger reached a career-high ranking of 37th in the world last year. “I’ll stay in sports,” she said. “I want to stay in tennis and work with kids.” Her best WTA showing was in her home country, where she won at Bad Gastein in 2013. She was also runner-up there in 2007 and was runner-up at Budapest in 2013. “I’ll come back to Bad Gastein and the other Austrian tournaments,” she said. “And I’ll be watching some of the tournaments around the world.”

SAD NEWS

Once hailed as the next Anna Kournikova, a 23-year-old Russian tennis player dropped dead of heart failure during a training session. Violetta Degtiareva, born in the city of Rostov in southwestern Russia close to the border with Ukraine, was known for her beauty. She played mostly on the International Tennis Federation (ITF) circuit. Her death was not immediately announced and only became public when her close friend and tennis player Anastasia Vdovenco posted the news on her Facebook page.

Steve Wilkinson, a longtime men’s tennis coach at Gustavus Adolphus College, is dead at the age of 73. Wilkinson coached at Gustavus Adolphus for 39 years, compiling a record 929 wins, the most victories in the history of collegiate men’s tennis. He teams won two NCAA Division II titles and he was named NAIA National Coach of the Year twice, in 1974 and 1984, and Intercollegiate Tennis Association Division III Coach of the Year three times, in 1982, 2001 and 2003. He had been fighting cancer for nearly seven years. Wilkinson was inducted into the US Professional Tennis Association’s Hall of Fame, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Hall of Fame, the Gustavus Athletics Hall of Fame, the USTA Missouri Valley Hall of Fame, the Northern Tennis Association Hall of Fame, and the Iowa Tennis Hall of Fame. He received the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s Tennis Educational Merit Award and The Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Iowa. He is survived by his wife, Barbara; two daughters, Stephanie and Deborah; sons-in-law Scott and Jon, and four grandchildren.

SURFING
Melbourne: www.ausopen.com
Quito: www.ecuadoropenquito.com
Midland: www.dowcorningtennisclassic.com
Montpelier: www.opensuddefrance.com/
Zagreb: www.zagrebindoors.com/
Dallas: www.tennischampionshipsofdallas.com

TOURNAMENTS THIS WEEK
(All money in USD)

MEN and WOMEN

Australian Open (second week), Melbourne, Australia, hard

TOURNAMENTS NEXT WEEK

MEN

$493,310 Ecuador Open Quito, Quito, Ecuador, clay
$494,310 Open Sud de France, Montpelier, France, hard
$494,310 PBZ Zagreb Indoors, Zagreb, Croatia, hard
$100,000 Challenger of Dallas, Dallas, Texas, USA, hard

WOMEN

$100,000 Dow Corning Tennis Classic, Midland, Michigan, USA, hard

 

Roger Federer
Roger Federer

Roger Federer Wins 1,000th Career Match and 83rd Title – Mondays with Bob Greene

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Mondays with Bob Greene

 

STARS

David Ferrer beat Tomas Berdych 6-4 7-5 to win the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha, Qatar

Maria Sharapova beat Ana Ivanovic 6-7 (4) 6-3 6-3 to win the women’s singles at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp in Brisbane, Australia

Roger Federer beat Milos Raonic 6-4 6-7 (2) 6-4 to win the men’s singles at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp in Brisbane, Australia

Stan Wawrinka beat Aljaz Bedene 6-3 6-4 to win the Aircel Chennai Open in Chennai, India

Simona Halep beat Timea Bacsinszky 6-2 6-2 to win the Shenzhen Open in Shenzhen, China

Venus Williams beat Caroline Wozniacki 2-6 6-3 6-3 to win the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand

Poland beat the United States 2-1 to win the Hopman Cup

 

SAYING

“It’s a special moment, no doubt about it. I’ve played a lot of tennis over the years, so to get to 1000 wins tonight really means a lot to me.” – Roger Federer, whose 1,000th match victory gave him his 83rd career title.

“It’s a great feeling to come back to the competition and have the feeling of winning a title. It’s positive for me, a good way to finish the week. I’m practicing very hard and I’ll be practicing tomorrow. I’m very motivated to be back at my best in singles too.” – Rafael Nadal, who teamed with Juan Monaco to win the Qatar ExxonMobil Open doubles.

“Wins like this always give a lot of confidence.” – Agnieszka Radwanska, after she beat Serena Williams to lead Poland to the Hopman Cup title.

“Everyone needs a coffee every now and again, right?” – Serena Williams, when she had an espresso during her Hopman Cup competition against Italy’s Flavia Pennetta.

“By the time you’re 34 you have a lot of experience and if you can stay in shape, stay fit, can move and hit the ball and don’t have five kids at home then why not? There’s nothing holding me back from being here and doing well. Of course I can’t play forever. Someone else has to take the torch at some point. While I’m here I’m enjoying it.” – Venus Williams, when asked if she was thinking of retiring.

“I am so happy to be here. It’s very exciting to start to play. I am enjoying the moments with the players and the fans. I miss everything. I miss the nerves of playing a match. I miss the feeling when you win a tournament. I miss the fans, the players.” – Juan Martin del Potro, who is returning to the ATP World Tour to defend his title in Sydney, Australia.

 

SPECIAL WIN

When Roger Federer captured his 83rd career title, he became only the third player in the Open Era to win 1,000 matches. The 33-year-old Swiss master joins Jimmy Connors (1,253) and Ivan Lendl (1,071) reaching the 1,000-match plateau.  Hall of Famers Rod Laver and Roy Emerson joined the on-court ceremony after the final. “Clearly it’s a special day for me, winning a title plus getting to the magic number of 1,000,”’ Federer said after his 6-4 6-7 (2) 6-4 win over Milos Raonic at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp. “It feels very different to any other match I’ve ever won. All those (milestone) numbers didn’t mean anything to me, but for some reason 1,000 means a lot because it’s such a huge number. Just alone to count to 1,000 is going to take a while.” Federer had to work hard for the title because Raonic played so well. But the Canadian double-faulted in the 10th game to give Federer a championship point, and the veteran closed out the victory. “Looking back it’s almost nicer winning this way through a tight match with nerves and humid conditions against a great player in a final,” Federer said. “It means so much more than just running away with it with the score maybe winning 6-4, 6-4, which was looking very likely at one stage. I guess I was much more happy having to go three sets in the end rather than winning in straight.”

 

SPANISH CHAMPION

David Ferrer defeated Tomas Berdych to win the Qatar Open, his 22nd career ATP title. “The performance, it was very good,” Ferrer said. “I’m happy because it never is easy to begin the season winning one tournament.” The victory in Doha, Qatar, makes it six consecutive years that the Spaniard has won at least one title. “First of all, David is never tired,” Berdych said after the title match. “Not after the match he played yesterday after 2½ hours. I have seen him playing five hours and then he played the next day.” Ferrer won his semifinal in three tiebreak sets against seventh-seeded Ivo Karlovic. Berdych had sailed through the early rounds of the tournament without dropping his serve in 34 service games. But Ferrer broke him four times. “In important points I got a little bit lucky,” Ferrer said. “I tried to be confident in the bad moments. I played very good in those moments.”

 

SHOWTIME FOR MARIA

Maria Sharapova is hoping the Brisbane International is an omen of things to come. The Russian outlasted Ana Ivanovic 6-7 (4) 6-3 6-3 to capture the hard-court title and head into the Australian Open. In 2008, Sharapova beat Ivanovic to win the year’s first Grand Slam tournament title – her only other victory in Australia. The win also moved Sharapova closer to the number one ranking as she is now just 681 points behind Serena Williams. The Russian has now won at least one WTA title every year since 2003. “She had some great comebacks,” Ivanovic said of Sharapova. “She got back the balls that I thought weren’t coming over the net. That’s why she’s where she is, and that’s why she’s such a great champion.” Sharapova was also impressed with her Serbian opponent. “She was doing a lot of things better in the first set, and she deserved to win the first set, but I hung in there,” Sharapova said. “The third set came down to a few points, really. I’m just happy that I managed to get it in three.”

 

SENIOR CITIZEN

It was like old times for Venus Williams, who bounced back from a disastrous first set to knock off top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki and win the Auckland Classic. It was the 46th career title for the seven-time Grand Slam tournament champion, who at 34 is 10 years older than Wozniacki. The Dane controlled the beginning of the match, breaking Williams twice to take the first set, then broke her again at the start of the second. That’s when the veteran American turned the match around, spraying powerful winners all over the court. “The first set went fast and then it was like, ‘Time to take it to three,’” Williams said. “I tried to stay level-headed in the second and that worked. It felt good to figure it out and run away with it a little bit.” Williams has never lost to Wozniacki in their six career meetings.

 

STAN THE MAN

Stan Wawrinka has a reason for enjoying his visits to Chennai, India. The 29-year-old Swiss successfully defended his Aircel Chennai Open title by defeating qualifier Aljaz Bedene 6-3 6-4. It is Wawrinka’s third Chennai title in five years. “It’s an amazing atmosphere,” Wawrinka said. “It’s one of the reasons I come back every year. It was a great final. I’m really happy with my level.” After winning Chennai last year, Wawrinka went on to capture his first Grand Slam tournament title, the Australian Open, and reached as high as third in the world in the Emirates ATP Rankings. “I feel really happy,” Wawrinka said after repeating as champion for the first time in his career. “It’s tough to win tournaments on the ATP Tour. I feel good.”

Bedene, the first qualifier in the 20-year history of the tournament to reach the final, won seven matches during the week. In the main draw the 25-year-old Slovenian beat three Spanish players in succession: second-seeded Feliciano Lopez, fifth-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and third-seeded Roberto Bautista Agut. “It’s been a great week,” Bedene said. “I guess the hard work pays off. … I don’t want to stop here. I just want to raise my level to the level of Stan’s game.”

 

SICK BUT SUCCESSFUL

Simona Halep wasn’t feeling well before the Shenzhen Open final. It was Timea Bacsinszky who was feeling down after the match. “I wasn’t feeling very well before the match – I was a little bit sick – so I told myself I have nothing to lose, just go on court, be relaxed, stay focused and fight for every point,” Halep said. “It worked, and I felt really relaxed today.” So relaxed she clobbered Bacsinszky 6-2 6-1 to capture her ninth WTA title. Halep is only the second winner of the Shenzhen Open. Li Na won the first two editions before retiring last year.

 

SINGLES SHOCKER

Rafael Nadal’s year hasn’t started out the way he really wanted. Playing in his first ATP World Tour event, Nadal was shocked 1-6 6-3 6-4 by Michael Berrer, a 34-year-old qualifier playing his final season, in the first round of the Qatar Open. Nadal has been sidelined with back and wrist injuries, and his service speed was affected greatly. “Little things didn’t quite work out for me today,” Nadal said. “This is the third comeback of my career after injury, so we will see how it goes in a couple of months. I wanted to start well, but it was not the case today. I also want to play in the Australian Open, which is a tournament I like a lot. I don’t know if that will be the case either, but I am going to work for it. If not. I will be playing at Rio and Buenos Aires.” Berrer had taken only four games in four sets off Nadal in their previous two meetings. “It’s one of the matches which will stay in my memory forever, but let’s be honest, it was the first match for Rafa after injury,” Berrer said. “It’s also my last season and I had nothing to lose, and I’m enjoying it here – so why not?”

Nadal did wind up with a trophy at Doha. He claimed a record fourth Doha doubles crown, teaming with Juan Monaco to win their first team title. Nadal won the doubles in 2009 and 2011 with Marc Lopez and in 2005 with Albert Costa. It was Nadal’s ninth career ATP World Tour doubles title.

 

SIDELINED

US Open champion Marin Cilic and Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga have pulled out of from the Australian Open because of injuries. Cilic, a 26-year-old Croatian, has been struggling with a right shoulder problem for more than a month. “I am really disappointed to announce that I had to withdraw from the Australian Open,” Cilic said in a statement. “I was advised by doctors to be careful as much as possible to avoid even more serious problems.”

Tsonga is suffering from an injury to his right arm. “I’m still suffering from a forearm inflammation and that prevents me being at 100 percent of my capacities in a competition,” the 29-year-old said. “I’m going to receive over three weeks all the needed treatments to be able to be back on track in the best conditions.” Tsonga hurt his arm while playing for France in the Davis Cup final. His 2008 Australian Open final appearance is his best career Grand Slam performance.

Great Britain’s Laura Robson also withdrew from the year’s first major. The 20-year-old has been sidelined with a left wrist injury and has not played since January 2014.

 

SICK BAY

This week’s Heineken Tennis Open in Auckland, New Zealand, has been riddled with withdrawals. David Ferrer, who was to have been the top seed, pulled out because of a back sprain. Earlier, seventh-seeded John Isner, the defending champion, cited tiredness after playing for the United States at the Hopman Cup, and sixth-seeded Frenchman Gael Monfils withdrew for personal reasons.

 

STOPS SERENA

Agnieszka Radwanska has given notice that she’s a force to be reckoned with this year. She beat Serena Williams twice to lead Poland to its first Hopman Cup title. Ranked fifth in the world, Radwanska stopped Williams 6-4 6-7 (3) 6-1, then returned to partner Jerzy Janowicz to a 7-5 6-3 doubles victory over Williams and John Isner as Poland became the 13th nation to win the mixed team event. Isner edged Janowicz 7-6 (10) 6-4 in the men’s singles, setting up the decisive mixed doubles. “When I go and play against her, you have nothing really to lose, she is number one in the world and a great champion,” Radwanska said of Williams. “It doesn’t matter what the score is. It’s never over, she’s a great fighter. I’m just very happy that could come back after that second set and play my good game in the third set.” It was the first time in nine career meetings that Radwanska has beaten Serena. And it comes after the Polish star signed Martina Navratilova as a coach. Radwanska was a semifinalist at last year’s Australian Open.

 

STUMBLING START

It has been a frustrating start of the season for Serena Williams. Twice the top-ranked American lost singles matches – to Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska and to Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard. But it was more than just losing. Williams appeared listless in both the singles and the mixed doubles of the final, where she and partner John Isner lost to Radwanska and Jerzy Janowicz. During the doubles, where she struggled on her serve, Williams lost her cool after a contentious point that brought the tournament referee onto the court to resolve the disagreement. Minutes later, Williams smashed her racquet in frustration after missing a volley. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I am so tired, it’s so weird,” Williams said early in the tournament. “I can’t get my body to move and I feel like I have no energy. It is a little frustrating because I know I can play 2,000 times better.” She beat Italy’s Flavia Pennetta after failing to win a game in the first set, then lost 6-2 6-1 to Bouchard. Williams followed by edging the Czech Republic’s Lucie Safarova in three sets, setting the stage for the loss to Radwanska. “I have been practicing so well, I just have not been able to put it through in my matches,” Williams said. “Hopefully it will be able to come through soon.”

 

SERVING UP ACES

Ivo Karlovic may have reached only the semifinals at the Qatar Open, but he is rapidly closing in on the top spot in firing aces. The 35-year-old Croat slammed 30 aces and 67 winners while losing 6-7 (2) 7-6 (5) 7-6 (4) to David Ferrer. That pushed Karlovic past Andy Roddick for second place on the all-time ace list with 9,092. Earlier in the week, Karlovic had become just the third player to reach the 9,000 aces plateau, joining Roddick and all-time leader Goran Ivanisevic. “Now I’m in the club,” Karlovic said. “It’s definitely one of my goals to be number one in all aces. This year, maybe, I will do it.” Ivanisevic holds the mark with 10,183 aces. Roddick is now in third place with 9,074.

 

STRAIGHT IN

France’s Lucas Pouille and Oceane Dodin are among six players awarded wild-card entries into the Australian Open main draws. Pouille and Dodin were given wild cards due to a reciprocal agreement between Tennis Australia and the French Tennis Federation. Americans Denis Kudla and Irina Falconi won their respective divisions of the USTA Pro Circuit Australian Open Wild Card Challenge. Zhang Ze and China and Chang Kai-chen of Taiwan are the Asia-Pacific wild card entries.

 

SPIKE IN PAY

The Australian Open increased its prize money at the last moment because of a weaker Australian currency. Organizers of the year’s first Grand Slam tournament said it wanted to ensure that players are not penalized by Australian dollar’s slide by 4.1 percent in December, reaching its lowest exchange rate against the US dollar in more than five years. In October, the prize money for this year’s tournament was announced at $36.3 million Australian. Last week, organizers increased that to a record $40 million Australian (USD $32.57 million).

 

SPLITSVILLE

Andy Murray says his split with long-term hitting partner and assistant coach Dani Vallverdu and fitness trainer Jez Green came about because they didn’t agree with his decision to hire Amelie Mauresmo as his head coach. Vallverdu had been with Murray since the two met at the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Spain more than a decade ago. “The most important point in any team is that everyone has the same vision, everyone wants to move forward together,” Murray said. “I feel that’s what I have now. Maybe the last four or five months of last year it wasn’t like that. It’s not as much fun traveling when that’s the case. If everyone isn’t right into it, that isn’t how you want to work.”

 

STILL HURTING

Juan Martin del Potro admits he still has a sore left wrist as he returns to the ATP World Tour. “It bothers me sometimes when I hit backhands, but I am trying to hit harder because I need to hit harder if I want to play this tournament,” the 2009 US Open champion said before beginning a title defense at this week’s Apia International Sydney. “Sometimes the pain is high, sometimes it is low. It’s much better than (it was) three or four weeks ago and the doctor says that I can’t make it worse by playing at a high level, so I am very positive for that.” Del Potro said he played in pain for 18 months before deciding last February to have surgery on his wrist. The Argentine star contemplated a comeback after the US Open but felt his wrist wasn’t quite ready. He’s confident that now is the right time to return. “I know I need to be calm and to be patient, to stay healthy and play as well as I can,” del Potro said. “It will be a long road to get in good shape and to get to my level.”

 

STYLIST

Kei Nishikori is featured on this month’s cover of Time Magazine ASIA. The Japanese star is profiled by Hannah Beech, who quotes Andre Agassi as saying, “Kei is one of the few players that I’d pay money to see play.” The 25-year-old tells about his early move to train in Florida.

 

SHARED PERFORMANCES

Auckland: Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci beat Shuko Aoyama and Renata Voracova 6-2 6-1

Brisbane (men): Jamie Murray and John Peers beat Alexandr Dolgopolov and Kei Nishikori 6-3 7-6 (4)

Brisbane (women): Martina Hingis and Sabine Lisicki beat Caroline Garcia and Katarina Srebotnik 6-2 7-5

Chennai: Yen-Hsun Lu and Jonathan Murray beat Raven Klaasen and Leander Paes 6-3 7-6 (4)

Doha: Rafael Nadal and Juan Monaco beat Julian Knowle and Philipp Oswald 6-3 6-4

Shenzhen: Lyudmyla Kichenok and Nadiia Kichenok beat Liang Chen and Wang Yafan 6-4 7-6 (6)

 

SURFING

Sydney: www.apiainternational.com.au/

Auckland (men): www.festivaloftennis.co.nz/heinekenopen/

Hobart: www.hobartinternational.com.au/

Melbourne: www.ausopen.com

 

TOURNAMENTS THIS WEEK

(All money in USD)

 

MEN

$519,395 Heineken Open, Auckland, New Zealand, hard

$494,310 Apia International Sydney, Sydney, Australia, hard

 

WOMEN

$665,900 Apia International Sydney, Sydney, Australia, hard

$226,750 Hobart International, Hobart, Australia, hard

 

TOURNAMENTS NEXT WEEK

MEN and WOMEN

Australian Open (first week), Melbourne, Australia, hard

 

Roger Federer Brisbane 1000 wins

Australian Hard Court Season Preview

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The tennis season is always one that shoots out of the blocks quickly. Each year, barely past its first month, the young tennis year has already witnessed its first major in the form of the Australian Open. Therefore, with only three weeks before a Grand Slam, the first cluster of tournaments are always ferociously competed. Players are painfully aware that they have no time to gently ease themselves into the season. The Australian hard-court season may be short, but it is never without a long list of definitive moments. With 2014 proving somewhat of a watershed moment for numerous players, the 2015 season looks poised to be one of the most exciting in recent memory. So, to whet your appetite, here is a look at a few of the most crucial events within the first month of the tennis season.

Sydney

This dual event has been the premier warm-up tournament of the Australian Open for decades. Moreover, this tournament takes place in one of the most beautiful, varied and vibrant cities in the world. Sydney has everything from a world-famous opera house to a huge, internationally respected casino. For entertainment away from the court at other events on the tennis calendar, you may have to be content with playing mobile games in your hotel room with the likes of Net Ent casinos. But in Sydney there’s no need for compromise (not that there’s anything wrong with Net Ent casino games, a list of which you can find online here: PureNetEnt.com slot games!) In fact, the Star Casino, the second-largest gambling establishment in Australia, has just undergone a $475 million redevelopment, and is definitely worth a visit during your trip to the city.

The Australian summer is famous for its oppressive heat, which means that even the fittest of players are known to have resorted to low-percentages plays, and dangerous shot-selection, to minimize their time on court. Fans will surely remember last year’s titanic semi-final between Sergiy Stakhovsky and home favourite Bernard Tomic. Stretching over three competitive sets, this scorching contest featured both players desperately attacking the net as they wilted under the Australian sun. This year the event will be headlined by temperamental Italian Fabio Fognini and rising star David Goffin.

Brisbane

This small tournament has grown in both prize money and quality of competitors in recent years. Indeed, in 2015, Brisbane’s prize money of $100,000,000 has eclipsed the offering by Sydney to make the tournament the most lucrative warm-up on the calendar. To match this top prize, organisers have secured top player and living legend Roger Federer to headline the event for the second successive year. It seems that Federer, still wounded over his surprise loss to dogged Lleyton Hewitt last year, is determined to finally add Brisbane to his impressive haul of titles. Brisbane’s intimate arena means that the action often feels equally personal and intense, whilst its positioning in the first week of the season means that it often features a surprise or two. Besides Federer, 2015’s tournament features a duo of rising stars in the form of US Open finalist Kei Nishikori and Wimbledon semi-finalist Milos Raonic.

Australian Open

The first Grand Slam of the year was once shunned by tennis’ elite but is now a firm favourite amongst players. However, the coming event will be tinged with sadness as defending champion and fan favourite Li Na will be unable to defend her title due to her shock retirement last year. But, Na’s absence aside, this laid back-yet-atmospheric tournament should live up to its reputation as the most unpredictable of tennis’ majors. Last year saw five-time champion Serena Williams fall to erratic Ana Ivanovic while former world number one Rafael Nadal suffered numerous mental lapses, and a serve back injury, in his tense loss to Stan Wawrinka. In 2015, the event will feature a returning Nadal, fading Federer, uneven Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray all attempting to re-establish the crumbling dominance of the Big Four. Moreover, WTA fans will be questioning if this will be Venus Williams’ final appearance in Melbourne, whether Maria Sharapova can once again become a threat outside the clay-court season and if Victoria Azarenka will regain the form that took her to the top of the rankings.

Australian Open at dusk
Australian Open at dusk

Martina Navratilova, Justin Gimelstob Join Coaching Ranks – Mondays with Bob Greene

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Mondays with Bob Greene

 

SAYING

“My goal is to win a Grand Slam, so to have someone with Martina’s accomplishments in my corner is going to be hugely advantageous and give me a big boost. We are originally from a similar part of the world so we share an understanding about tennis and life, which I’m sure will translate into a successful relationship.” – Agnieszka Radwanska, announcing Martina Navratilova will be her coaching consultant in 2015.

“Now it’s normal to expect that there is a new generation of players, younger players that are right at the top like (Japan’s Kei) Nishikori, (Canada’s Milos) Raonic, (Bulgaria’s Grigor) Dimitrov who have the quality to win against the best, and they have done that. It’s definitely going to be an interesting year.” – Novak Djokovic, saying the domination by the “Big Four” may be ending in 2015.

“The pleasure of winning again was greater and I felt this year I was happy, this year on the tour there were no setbacks. I have two more kids now, I play great, so overall wonderful season. I could not have been happier.” – Roger Federer, on his 2014 season.

“Novak (Djokovic) gets the nod for player of the year by winning Wimbledon and then finishing the year number one buoyed by a dominant performance in the fall season. He was incredibly consistent, posting a 61-8 record on the year and winning seven titles.” – Jim Courier, who with Martina Navratilova and writer Doug Robson selected Djokovic as the 2014 Player of the Year.

 

SIGNING UP

Only one player ranked among the top 200 in the world – top 100 men and top 100 women – will be missing when the Australian Open begins in mid-January.  Craig Tiley, Tennis Australia’s chief executive, called it one of the “deepest and strongest” fields in the Grand Slam tournament’s history. The only absentee will be Petra Cetkovska of the Czech Republic, who withdrew from the women’s draw with a hip injury.

 

SERB IS BEST

Novak Djokovic was voted Player of the Year and his Wimbledon five-set final victory over Roger Federer was the Match of the Year, according to a panel of experts from USA TODAY newspaper and The Tennis Channel. The judges on the committee were former Grand Slam tournament champions Martina Navratilova and Jim Courier along with USA TODAY tennis writer Doug Robson. Djokovic was selected over the women’s top-ranked player, Serena Williams, while the Djokovic-Federer match won out over the title match at the WTA Finals between Williams and Roman’s Simona Halep. All three judges selected the Wimbledon final as the Match of the Year. “It saved Djokovic’s season,” Robson said. “Had Federer won the final set, he likely would have finished the year at number one instead of the Serb.”

 

SOUTH AMERICA-BOUND

Rafael Nadal will be heading to South America in February. The Spaniard will be returning to Buenos Aires for the first time since 2005 when he will top-seeded at the 2015 Argentina Open presentado por Buenos Aires Ciudad. “I love playing in Latin America because it feels like home,” Nadal said. “After having to pull out at the last minute this season due to stomach problems, I’m very excited to go back in 2014. I hope I can play my best tennis there and see all the Argentine fans, who love our sport so much.”

 

SELECTS MARTINA

Agnieszka Radwanska has turned to one of the game’s great players for coaching help. Ranked sixth in the world, Radwanska has hired 18-time Grand Slam tournament champion Martina Navratilova as a coaching consultant for next year. Navratilova will work with Radwanska at the four Grand Slam events while Tomasz Wiktorowski will remain Radwanska’s full-time coach. “I am absolutely delighted that Martina has agreed to help me and my team next season,” Radwanska said. “She is my idol in tennis and I am honored we will be working together. Her achievements speak for themselves and I hope that I can learn from all her experience.” The 25-year-old Radwanska has finished six of the last seven years ranked in the top 10, but she has only reached one Grand Slam tournament final, losing to Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2012. It will be Navratilova’s first stint as a WTA elite coach.

 

SIGNS TV PACT

All singles matches played on the WTA tour will be televised for a 10-year span beginning in 2017. The new media rights contract will be worth more than USD $525 million, according to the WTA. Under the deal, the WTA keeps its international television rights with its current broadcast distribution partner, PERFORM, but expands the scope of their relationship. The current agreement, which began in 2013, runs through 2016. Under the existing contract, only about one-third of all singles matches are televised, according to WTA chairman and CEO Stacey Allaster. Under the new agreement, the tour and PERFORM will form WTA Media, which will produce all main-draw matches in singles, along with the semifinals and finals in doubles at every tour event. WTA Media will also develop content for the web and magazine shows for television.

 

STEPHENS AND SAVIANO?

At least right now Sloane Stephens is working with coach Nick Saviano. But the young player has yet to decide if the two will work together next year. The 21-year-old American began training with Saviano earlier this month in Plantation, Florida. Saviano recently split with seventh-ranked Eugenie Bouchard. He has also coached a number of other players over the years. Stephens only recently began working out after recuperating from a wrist injury. If she is healthy enough, she will start her season in Auckland, New Zealand, in January. She has not decided if she will play Sydney or Hobart the following week, but has said she will play the Australian Open.

 

SEES YOUNGSTERS COMING

Novak Djokovic believes the days of the “Big Four” may be ending. Either the world’s top-ranked player, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Andy Murray have won 36 of the last 39 Grand Slam tournament titles. But 2014 may have been the beginning of the end of their domination. When Croatia’s Marin Cilic beat Japan’s Kei Nishikori in the US Open final, it was the first time since the 2005 Australian Open that a men’s Grand Slam tournament final did not feature either Djokovic, Nadal or Federer. Besides the victory of Cilic at the US Open in September, last January saw Switzerland Stanislas Wawrinka capture the Australian Open. “It’s really unpredictable,” Djokovic said. “It’s going to be hard to say who are the clear favorites to win the Grand Slams.”

 

SIGNS NEW COACH

John Isner has turned to Justin Gimelstob for coaching help in 2015. “I’m really excited to start working with Justin,” said Isner, America’s top-ranked male player. “He has so much experience within the tennis business and I’ve long respected his knowledge of the sport. I think it will be great for me to have a new perspective helping me with my game.” A former player who won 13 ATP World Tour doubles titles, Gimelstob currently has been a broadcaster with Tennis Channel. He also is a member of the ATP Board. “John is a very unique talent, a great guy both on and off the court and I am thrilled to be able to be part of his team,” said Gimelstob, who replaced Mike Sell as Isner’s coach. “Coaching is in my blood. My father and uncle were both basketball coaches and I had the good fortune of working with some of the best tennis coaches in the world during my career. Gimelstob will be on the road when Isner attempts to defend his title in Auckland, New Zealand, to start the 2015 ATP World Tour campaign.

 

SHE’S NUMBER ONE

American CiCi Bellis, who at the US Open in September became the youngest player to win a Grand Slam tournament match since Anna Kournikova in 1996, has clinched the world’s year-end number one junior girls ranking. The 15-year-old Bellis shocked Australian Open finalist Dominika Cibulkova in the opening round at the US Open. She clinched the year-ending ranking by reaching the semifinals of the Orange Bowl Junior Championships, where she was upset by fellow American Sonya Kenin.

 

STRAIGHT TO THE BANK

Prize money on the ATP World Tour in 2015 will exceed USD $100 million for the first time. Players on the men’s tennis tour will see the prize money pool reach USD $135 million by 2018. “The increases at ATP events are a testament to the sustained success of men’s professional tennis, as well as demonstrating the ATP’s confidence in the strength of its product and projected growth in future years,” the ATP World Tour said in a statement. The biggest increases come at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 category, with tournaments providing annual increases of 11 percent and the ATP contributing an additional 3 percent increase. Player compensation at the ATP World Tour 250 events will increase at an average of 3.5 percent per year during the same period.

 

SUPER PERFORMANCE

Sam Riffice could be a star of the future on the ATP World Tour. The 15-year-old from Roseville, California, USA, became only the second player to win the 16-and-under boys title at both the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl Junior Championships in the same. Riffice stopped Mattias Siimar of Estonia 6-1 1-6 7-5 to capture the Metropolia Orange Bowl Boys’ 16s crown in Plantation, Florida, USA. “These are definitely two of the biggest tournaments of the year,” Riffice said. “The whole year I trained to do well here, and to be able to win both of them is incredible.” The only other player to win both Boys’ 16s titles in the same year was Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov, who did it in 2006.

Canada’s Bianca Andreescu won the Girls’ 16s Orange Bowl title, defeating Dominique Schaefer of Peru 7-5 6-3 in the final.

 

STYLIST TSONGA

Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is featured in a photo spread in the latest edition of GQ France. Ranked 12th in the world, the 29-year-old Tsonga is shown modeling winter coats and jackets in a 10-page spread. “I like to dress fashionably, it’s great,” Tsonga said. “I think GQ is the best magazine for me in terms of fashion for men. It’s very cool and I’m very happy to do some photos for them.”

 

SURFING

Brisbane: www.brisbaneinternational.com.au/

Doha: www.qatartennis.org/

Chennai: www.aircelchennaiopen.org/2015/

Shenzhen: www.shenzhenopentennis.com/2015/chs/

Auckland: www.festivaloftennis.co.nz/asbclassic/

 

TOURNAMENTS WEEK OF JAN. 5, 2015

(All money in USD)

MEN

$1,195,500 Qatar ExxonMobil Open, Doha, Qatar, hard

$511,825 Brisbane International presented by Suncorp, Brisbane, Australia, hard

$459,140 Aircel Chennai Open, Chennai, India, hard

 

WOMEN

$881,100 Brisbane International presented by Suncorp, Brisbane, Australia, hard

$426,750 Shenzhen Open, Shenzhen, China, hard

$226,750 ASB Classic, Auckland, New Zealand, hard

 

TOURNAMENTS WEEK OF JAN. 12, 2015

(All money in USD)

MEN

$519,395 Heineken Open, Auckland, New Zealand, hard

$494,310 Apia International Sydney, Sydney, Australia, hard

 

WOMEN

$665,900 Apia International Sydney, Sydney, Australia, hard

$226,750 Hobart International, Hobart, Australia, hard

 

Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova

Andy Roddick, James Blake and Jim Courier Talk PowerShares Series, USTA Player Development, Roger Federer and Ferguson

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The following is the transcript of the 2015 PowerShares Series kick-off media conference call with Andy Roddick, James Blake and Jim Courier. The three American tennis champions discussed a wide variety of topics during this one-hour talk with the media, including their thoughts on the PowerShares Series, the North American tennis circuit for champion tennis players over the age of 30, the era of “Super Coaches,” Roger Federer, the Ferguson riots, and the status of USTA Player Development, where James Blake said he would like to head the program recently vacated by Patrick McEnroe. The full transcript is below. Please visit www.PowerSharesSeries.com for event information, including venues, player fields, dates and ticket/VIP experience details.

 

RANDY WALKER:  Thank you all for joining us today on this PowerShares Series tennis conference call.  Inside Out Sports & Entertainment, a division of Horizon Media, the largest and fastest privately held media services agency in the world, has announced the 2015 PowerShares Series schedule. The series will kick off March 24th in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the series will next visit Los Angeles at USC on March 25th, followed by April 1st in Lincoln, Nebraska, April 2nd in Chicago, Illinois, April 16th in Austin, Texas, April 17th in Little Rock, Arkansas, April 18th in Dallas, Texas, April 25th in Boston, Massachusetts, April 23rd in Richmond, Virginia, April 29th in Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 30th in Cincinnati, Ohio, and May 2nd in Vancouver, Canada.

Before we get to speak to our players on the call today, I want to introduce Jason Schoepke, the global brand director for PowerShares, the title sponsor of the PowerShares Series. I want to ask Jason to talk a little bit about the relationship that PowerShares and you have with Champions Series tennis.

JASON SCHOEPKE:  Thank you very much. Just briefly I kind of wanted to say we couldn’t be more pleased with the business partnership with Horizon Media and the value the tour has provided PowerShares. The agility exhibited by the tennis champions is an excellent reflection of PowerShares QQQ, one of the most traded securities in the world, and the other hundred plus exchange traded funds in the PowerShares family.  We appreciate the opportunity and are excited to be part of the tour next year. Thank you.

RANDY WALKER:  Thank you, Jason. We’re excited to be joined by three of the top competitors on the PowerShares Series, Jim Courier, Andy Roddick, and James Blake.  Before we get to the Q&A session for you all, we’ll start with an opening question for each player.

James, you finished number two in the PowerShares Series last year behind John McEnroe.  Talk a little bit about the transition you had from the ATP Tour to the PowerShares Series tour last year, which I think was about five months, getting to play against players like Andy and Jim and John.

JAMES BLAKE:  It was a lot of fun.  With that intro, only five months since I retired, that maybe says I should have retired a little sooner if I can’t quite get to No. 1 on the PowerShares Series that quickly. I think it says that McEnroe is still playing great.  It’s going to be fun competing again with him this year.  I had a great time. It was fun.  It wasn’t quite the same hazing as you would get in college or being a rookie on tour or anything like that.  I guess guys have matured a bit.  So no real rookie hazing.

But it was a lot of fun to play against some guys I get along with great, have fun, have a ton of respect for. I know the credentials it takes to get on this tour.  I’m proud just to be a part of it.  I had a good time and I’m looking forward to it again.

RANDY WALKER:  Jim Courier, this is the 10th year of Champion Series tennis.  Talk about the growth of the series from that first event in Houston back in 2005 to where it is now.

JIM COURIER:  Yeah, it’s amazing how quickly time flies.  10 years goes quickly when you’re as busy as this tour has kept me.  It’s been rewarding to see the trajectory of the tour, to see how it’s moved from a multi-day tournament setup to now these one night high energy fan centric tournaments that we play now over the 12 cities that we’ll reach. I love the fact we’re able to get to so many new markets each year with this tour.  We’ll be playing in six cities we haven’t taken the PowerShares Series tennis to in 2015.  That’s going to be fun for me to play in places like Lincoln, Nebraska, where I’ve never been to, let alone played tennis in. I’m excited about the new cities.  I’m excited about seeing the younger talent on the tour like Andy and James, challenging myself to compete at their level, which is a big ask for me, but I like challenges.  I’ll be seeing if I can take a couple of young scalps every now and then.

But the beauty of this tour is we have great players from a few different generations. Fans get a chance to see some names they know in a competitive environment.  I like to compete.  This gives me an outlet to go out there and compete and try and stay good at something that I’ve been doing my whole life.  I’ll be ready come March.

RANDY WALKER:  Andy Roddick, your transition from the ATP Tour to the PowerShares Series was a little longer than James’.  Talk about returning to competitive tennis and where it fits in your life and career now.

ANDY RODDICK:  I didn’t play much tennis my first year out.  Last year Jim and I talked.  We’ve been such good friends for a long time.  I said, Let’s try it.  Let’s kind of dip our toes in. I think I played three nights last year.  I enjoyed it so much that I’m playing 10 nights this year. I had a blast. I think the format is great for fans.  A couple of one set matches. Always high energy. Everything matters. Everything counts.  There’s no boring spots the entire night. It’s just a really good way to go about playing a one night shootout.  I had a blast playing it.

RANDY WALKER:  We’ll now take questions.

Q.  Jim, tell me what your thinking was coming back to Dallas.

JIM COURIER:  Well, Dallas is a market that we certainly enjoyed playing in. Given that we’re now playing indoors, we had looked at the arena there in Dallas. We know they’ve made some adjustments to it, some upgrades.  It’s a perfect fit for us to play there. We enjoyed playing outdoors at SMU. But I think going indoors for the one night aspect, given it is one night, we need to ensure we can control the weather, which Moody Coliseum does better than playing outside.

I think it will be a good experience for everybody. Bringing in myself, Johnny Mac, Andy Roddick, Mark Philippoussis, who played well when we were down there in Dallas, I think it will be fun to have that group of guys down there.  It certainly will be very competitive. Andy obviously is extremely fit and good.  Johnny Mac just doesn’t like to lose. I think we’re going to have a highly entertaining, competitive night there in Moody.

Q.  The series has changed a little bit. You’ve gone from the extended weekend to the one night. Tell me what fans can expect from that.

JIM COURIER: From a fan standpoint, we have some VIP activities that get going in the afternoon where players are on the court hitting tennis balls with sponsors and VIPs. We have some behind the scenes stuff, cocktail party, et cetera.  For the general public who buys a ticket, who doesn’t choose to upgrade into the VIP world, matches start at 7:00, doors open at 6:00. Then we play three one set matches.  So it is two one set semifinals, first one at 7:00, second one starts somewhere around 7:45, then the two winners of those matches play in a one set final.

It’s a hyper condensed tennis tournament. As Andy mentioned, it’s high energy, there’s no down spots.  It’s all action.  We get a champion in about two and a half hours from that tournament. There are points that count towards the rankings on the PowerShares Series that players are playing for. It’s a situation for the fans where they know that on that Saturday night, April 18 in Dallas, they’re going to see Johnny Mac, Andy Roddick, Mark Philippoussis, me, come in to play and battle it out. It’s a little like going to a basketball game or a hockey game from a time standpoint commitment and hopefully they get to see everything they want to see.

Q.  Andy, what about coming back to Nebraska, playing in Lincoln?  You played some exhibitions in Omaha.  Talk about coming back home.

ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, I mean, when Jim and I first started talking about my interest level, how many nights that I was interested in playing this year, kind of just working it out.  He’s got to juggle a lot of schedules, a lot of egos with the PowerShares Series. I definitely staked my claim to wanting to play back in Nebraska first.  It was a priority for me. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been to Lincoln many, many times.  Never played tennis there, but been there for football games a bunch. I’m just excited. I was thrilled when I saw that was a possibility for me to play there. I thank Jim for putting me on the card that night.

Q.  Have you been at Pinnacle Bank Arena?

ANDY RODDICK: I have. I was there for an opening ceremony for an event there.  I don’t know how long ago it was.  But I have. I’m looking forward to it.  This is such a fun way to play.  We understand our best years are probably behind us.  But we all still want to win. There’s an edge. It’s good tennis, good personalities.  I’m excited that I’m a part of the tour that’s coming through Nebraska.

Q.  A little bit off topic.  I would like a comment from Jim and Andy on the state of the superstar coaching thing that’s going on.  Do either of you guys have any interest in doing that?

ANDY RODDICK:  I was asked this question a lot last week.  I don’t really have any interest in coaching right now.  Is it surprising to me?  No.  They’re able to get players who kind of have the itch to be involved again on a high level.  Obviously that’s not going to be done through playing for those people. When you get to a certain level, there’s only so many people that kind of understand what you’re going through, kind of know what it takes to break through at that level. I’m not really surprised by the trend.  I view these coaches almost like quarterbacks in the NFL.  When things go right, they probably get a little too much credit.  Should they go wrong, they’ll probably get the lion’s share of the blame. At the end of the day, most of these players were really good or great players before they came along.  It’s just nice to have a voice beside you that you can put stock in their opinion confidently.

JIM COURIER:  Just to add on to Andy’s statement, I think people overlook that Andy was the first one to hire a coach of this caliber when he hired Jimmy Connors.  Jimmy was the first guy who didn’t really need to coach for any other reason other than he wanted to help a player who could do some great things. I think it’s become a little bit popular lately.  Obviously you could see the success rate has been pretty high.  I think it’s understandable why that’s happening, because of the reasons that Andy just laid out for you.  You know those anyway.

But to answer your question directly, from my personal standpoint, I’m glad to be involved with the Davis Cup. That’s my coaching outlet at the moment.  It’s not something I would rule out. I get old enough to realize every time I say ‘never’ like when I was 23 about playing Champions Tennis…  I won’t say ‘never’ to it, but at the moment it doesn’t fit with the lifestyle that I want and need to live for family reasons. But I think it’s wonderful to see these players that have meant so much to the game come back and give back to the game by being involved and adding to the star power. I should mention James is involved with Jack Sock.  I think it’s wonderful that James is able to lend his experience and expertise to one of our American players who obviously has taken to it and has seen his ranking climb significantly this year.

JAMES BLAKE:  He did say superstar coaches, and I don’t know if I fit into that role.

ANDY RODDICK:  I want to add on to that a little bit. I’ve been reading things here and there. But I will say if James has any interest on a bigger level as far as coaching, in the development job that’s open, I think it’s a no brainer.  He’s recently on tour.  I hope that happens, selfishly.

JAMES BLAKE:  Thanks, Andy.

Q.  James, could you summarize what your expectations are working with Jack?  You said you were kind of a mentor.

JAMES BLAKE: I’m definitely not in the role of being the day to day coach. That’s Troy Hahn. He’s worked with him closely. I help with some of the big picture type things, keep the mindset the right way, make sure he gives his opponents enough respect.  I think that’s something a lot of younger players overlook. Keep his mind in the right place. I have been able to help him hopefully with some scouting reports since I am recently off tour.  Some of the guys he’s playing I played, too. I just feel like I’m, like you said, probably more of a mentor, someone helping guide him through some of the same situations I went through. I’m not out there sitting there, working on his forehand, working on his backhand, strokes or anything. He’s got a full time coach for that. I’m just adding in what I can. I’m happy to do it. I really think he’s obviously got a ton of talent, gone from around 100 in the world to top 50 in a pretty short span. Something that’s impressive. Hopefully he’ll continue keeping that trend in the right direction.

JIM COURIER:  One last thought. James finished No. 2 on the PowerShares Series last year, he’s trying to get to No. 1. He did ask to me to help coach him on the tour, but I turned him down. He is looking. So you may want to put out there on ESPN, Tennis Magazine, and Tennis.com (laughter).

Q.  Something we’ve seen a lot recently at the World Tour Finals, a lot of people were saying the singles might have been a dud.  You see in the Davis Cup finals, it really came down to the doubles. With Bob and Mike redefining what it’s like being good at doubles, how come doubles isn’t getting so much popularity and airtime?

ANDY RODDICK: I don’t know.  Obviously I think the Bryans are the exception to a lot of rules regarding the doubles tour. If you have a small enough sample size of anything, you can make something a truth.  I think the World Tour Finals was a complete outlier as far as the quality of tennis.  I know people like to focus on that. If you look at the year as a whole, the best moments in history have been on the singles courts, on the money end of big events.  Again, the Bryans are the exception to I think every rule in doubles.  But I don’t see a changing of the guards as far as the No. 1 product on tour anytime soon.

Q.  A question about mentoring. All three of you have been in the position of mentoring the younger crop of American players. What are your thoughts, what makes them different from your generation of players, temperament wise, perspective, pathos, ethos? What do you look for in working with this generation of players?

JAMES BLAKE: I would say the difference is they’re just getting better. The athletes are getting better and better. I realized that as I was getting towards the end of my time on tour. It keeps impressing me how good the guys are. A lot of the other things are similar. You got to put in the hard work.  No matter how much talent is there, you have to put in the hard work to be successful. As now I’m sort of transitioning to helping Jack as a mentor, goes through probably the same frustrations my coach and people that helped me went through. With this sport, you’re coming into it at a relatively young age when you look at the grand scheme of thing. You’re making young people mistakes. You’re taking other players for granted. You’re not doing some of the things that you don’t think are important. You’re not taking certain things seriously, whether it’s the stretching, taking care of your body, eating right, whatever it is that you think of that is not a big deal.

Sometimes you have to go through it to learn. Sometimes they’ll actually take the advice of someone they respect. I think that’s why the mentor role is important because if you’re listening to someone you really respect, then you’re maybe going to take it a little more seriously rather than listening to some random person off the street.  I take the role seriously because maybe Jack will see I’ve gone through some of the same things he’s gone through. I think that’s important. Hopefully it can only help. Hopefully it makes a difference in a positive way. Maybe making the learning process, whether it be a little bit quicker or a lot quicker, hopefully just really helping and aiding in that way.

JIM COURIER: I don’t know that I could say anything that would be helpful other than echoing what James said. I think he nailed that answer.

Q.  Do you feel the work ethic issue, you were saying it’s no different than your generation, do you feel it’s a bigger issue with these guys?  I hear other coaches saying, We’re competing against their cell phones for their attention, get them to focus. Do you feel there’s more distraction, any different at all than what you were going through at the same age?

JAMES BLAKE:  Yeah, it’s definitely different. But we had distractions, too, whether it was sitting in the locker room playing cards, whether it was in general watching TV, DVD that just came out.  Now you’re catching up on every movie.  Netflix comes out so you’re binging watching shows. There’s always going to be distractions for players.  It’s a matter of how they deal with them.  The further away you get from being a kid, you forget the same mistakes you made when you were a kid.  I feel like it’s popular to say for someone who has been out of the game for 20 years, Back when I was doing it it was this much better.  The old saying of the older I get the better I was.

I think we’re all maybe forgetting when we were 20 years old as well, we were probably distracted chasing girls or going out or doing whatever you’re doing. Now there’s a ton of attractions, cell phones, Instagram, Twitter, whatever it is.  They’re more technologically advanced to what they were before. It can be frustrating I think to see a kid work really hard, putting in 10, 15 minutes on the court, then you take a break to get a sip of water and they have to check their phone.  It’s annoying to see.  But it’s similar to years past when we had other distractions, whatever they were.  Cell phones were brand new when I first started on tour.  It was really cool just to have a phone or something.  You always have distractions. I do think it’s similar.  I think there will always be distractions for kids this age.

Q.  Andy, you’re playing April 16th in Austin, Texas.  Talk a little bit about playing in Austin.  You played a Davis Cup match there.

JIM COURIER:  And if he could remind how many spare bedrooms you have and which one I’ll be staying in (laughter).

ANDY RODDICK:  There will be plenty of room for everyone except Johnny Mac, because he gets in a bad mood sometimes.  Besides that, everyone is welcome (laughter). You know, it’s no different than anything else.  Everyone in every sport loves a home game.  Again, I feel pretty lucky with the markets that we’re visiting this year with Austin and with Nebraska.  Obviously a lot of history in both those places for me.  So I’m excited.

Q.  Jim, with the IPTL doing pretty well this week, pretty successful, I’m wondering if that is encouraging to you business wise, seeing there’s a hunger for other formats rather than tournament after tournament for 10 months?  Do you think maybe we need a little bit more of this, other things for fans other than just tournaments?

JIM COURIER:  Well, I think that while all of us know what the focal point of the year is in tennis, which is when we get to the four majors, there’s so many markets globally that have an appetite to see the star power that exists.  We exploit that here in the United States by playing in a lot of markets that don’t have WTA and ATP events.  I think the IPTL is doing that in some markets as well overseas and taking players, current and former, to places that don’t get a lot of tennis, like Manila, like Delhi.  I think there’s room for that.  Obviously the question mark is over time at this time of the year, the ‘off season’, will you continue to get the same kind of support from players?  I’m sure they’ll continue to do everything they can to make that possible.  There is a finite amount of energy that any player can spend wisely and effectively and get the most out of their career. So depending on where you are in the spectrum of what you’re trying to achieve on tour, extracurricular events are either great opportunities to make money that some players really relish, and for other players it may be too much.

I think time will tell with that.  I think what we do in the PowerShares Series is different because our players are no longer playing in the major championships.  Most of us are doing television or other stuff.  But this is a focal point for me, James, Andy and the other players as far as the playing parts of our lives.  So it’s a little bit of apples and oranges.  I think it’s wonderful if there’s an appetite for tennis.  It’s not surprising, given the star power, that there is that kind of an appetite.

Q.  Andy, you mentioned a few weeks back, you would have lasted a little bit longer on the tour if the season was more condensed or not as stressful on the body.  I want to tie that into the IPTL.  Do you think the sport is better served by a season that’s shorter, playing 50 matches instead of 80, then there’s a chance for you to market yourself to different events?

ANDY RODDICK:  Everyone is making a big deal, and I think it’s valid, people saying we’re asking for less time then playing XO’s.  IPTL is a choice.  Don’t hold the choice of a couple to play XO’s in the off season and use that as majority vote. There’s a reason why people are playing after their season is over.  I’ll trust you to figure out what that reason is. But, yeah, I mean, my whole point last week saying I would have thought about retirement a little differently if there was an avenue on tour to play eight or ten events a year, kind of similar to the amount of nights I’m doing on PowerShares.  Once you start playing less than the mandatory events, you’re actually paying to take tournaments off, which seems a little weird to me.

I think it’s shortsighted in tennis.  Because there’s no home team, you need to keep your individual stars in the game as long as you possibly can.  You can’t tell me that Andre at 35 and 36 years old, that he wouldn’t have value for the tour even if he were playing six or eight or ten events a year.  Golf has that avenue.  I think tennis should probably be a little bit more flexible with allowing people to schedule events later on in their careers.

Q.  James, you won your first PowerShares Series title last year in Salt Lake City, beating Jim in the semifinals, beating John McEnroe in the finals. Talk a little bit about returning to Salt Lake City this year.  It’s a new venue, the Huntsman Center. Talk about returning this year.

JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, it was a lot of fun last year obviously to get a win at any level. Whether it’s futures, challengers, tours event, or PowerShares Series, like Jim said, we’re still competitive. We still want to win.  For me going in the first time, I came in guns blazing. I was looking for a win and got one. I was pretty excited about that. Hopefully this year will be a similar result. I had a great time there. This tour has really been a ton of fun for me. Like Jim said, we get to get our competitive spirits somewhere still where some people, once they retire don’t have that outlet, have a tough time because they miss that. It’s a big part of their lives for so long. For all of us it’s been a part of our lives for probably 90% of our lives, playing junior tennis, college tennis, pro tennis. It’s a great feeling to go anywhere and win, whether it be against McEnroe or against whoever. To beat a guy like McEnroe is just sort of the icing on the cake for someone who I respect so much and grew up watching, idolizing, probably contrary to my parents’ and coach’s liking, I probably idolized his attitude on the court and therefore broke a few too many racquets on the court.

It was a good moment for me to beat him and beat one of the other people I look up to, Jim, for how hard he worked.  He outworked his opponent every time he went on the court. That was something I tried to emulate. It was a fun night for me. Hopefully I’ll have another fun night this year.

Q. The other day Monica Seles announced she’s going to be returning to Madison Square Garden with Gabriela Sabatini 25 years after their match at the WTA Championships.  She said nowadays men and women should play three out of five from the quarters on. I’m wondering what you think of that.

JIM COURIER:  I think it’s not news to me that Monica or some other women like Martina Navratilova would say or believe or feel that they want to play best of five.  In the era when equal prize money did not exist, they were certainly putting their hands up saying, That’s not an impediment to us, we’ll play best of five if that’s what gets us equal prize money.  So if that’s something that they want to do, I think they should go to the tour, their tour should take it up with the Grand Slams and see if there’s an appetite for that. As far as the men also playing from the quarterfinals of five, if I’m not mistaken, I think they did that in the early ’70s at a few majors.  I’m partial, from my historical perspective, to playing best of five sets in the majors from the first ball in the men’s game.  I think it does separate those tournaments from the others.  But I’m also not stuck in the past.  If it’s something where there are benefits, commercial benefits for everyone, if the game becomes too physical…

For me, if the players are driving the discussion, and the players on both the men’s and women’s game, come to the majors with an organized voice and say, This is what we want, this is in our health’s best interest, in the sport’s best interest, they’ll have the power as they’ve seen with the equal prize money movement, as they’ve seen with the increased prize money movement most recently.  If the players want something to happen, they have the power to do it.  They just need to do it.  If Monica believes now is the time, I would encourage her to go to Stacey Allaster and see if there’s really a belief in the women’s game that is something they want to do.  They certainly can do it.  They would certainly get my support if that’s what they want.

If the men say they want the best of three going forward because it’s no longer tenable because the matches are too physical, as long as it’s coming from players, not administrators, who don’t know what the heat of battle feels like, I’m fine with it.  If it comes from the ivory tower, I’d have a big problem with that.

ANDY RODDICK:  Now that I’m retired and don’t have to do it anymore, I think the men should play five out of nine sets (laughter).

Q.  Do you think women can hold physically and mentally and emotionally for three out of five?

ANDY RODDICK:  That’s not a question that’s going to do me any good any way that I answer it.  But the other thing I guess you have to realize is, where is the time on the schedule for a Grand Slam event, especially considering two of them don’t have lights?  Where are you going to schedule these matches? It’s a great idea in theory from somebody who doesn’t have to do it themselves.  But like Jim was saying, just from a logistics standpoint of scheduling, we all know that the dollars from our sport come from television.  If they have to fit in four five setters in a day on center court, that’s two days of play.  Logistically I think it’s probably a little shortsighted.

Q.  You dodged completely the question.  I said, can the women mentally and emotionally play five sets?

ANDY RODDICK:  You understood the first part of my answer, right (laughter)?

Q.  James, playing in Boston on April 22nd, you had two great years at Harvard.  Have you played in Boston since you last played at Harvard?  Talk a little bit about what it’s going to be like playing in Boston again.

JAMES BLAKE:  Yeah, I played since then. I played TeamTennis there a couple times. I was actually the practice partner, which was a great thrill, for the Davis Cup team when they played in Boston, Todd Martin, Jim was on the team, Alex O’Brien, Pete Sampras. I had two great years at Harvard. I feel pretty connected to that Boston fan base. Still two, two and a half hours away from where I live currently. It’s still pretty close to me. I love going up there. It’s going to be a great time to play in front of hopefully plenty of Crimson shirts out there. I know they still might be coming down from celebrating another undefeated season in football.  Hopefully we got a lot of good sports fans out there with all their Harvard material.

Q.  Jim, as you’ve looked at the scheduling of PowerShares, you were in the fall for a while, now back into the spring.  Can you walk us through those decisions as far as scheduling, timing, money.

JIM COURIER:  Sure.  We were in February and March last year.  We’ve now moved the schedule into late March and early April.  A lot of what we look at, first of all we talk to the players to make sure this will work for their schedules because without players, there’s nothing to even talk about.  The schedule has to work for everyone’s personal life and their business life.  That’s Exhibit A.  Exhibit B for us last year we ran into some weather issues due to the severe winter where the first six nights of our tour we had major, major snow problems with our talent and our staff getting in and out of town. We wanted to avoid that this year. We also want to avoid any conflicts with the tournaments in the United States, make sure we’re giving space to the ATP and the WTA events that exist.  We have to be cognizant of that. Those are the things that are the framework of how the schedule gets built.  Jon Venison and Jack (indiscernible) of the Inside Out team go to bat talking to the arenas, because that’s another aspect, are these arenas available, because they have other events taking place.  It’s like routing a concert.  We have to be mindful of other sports that are happening as well as different events.

It’s a big jigsaw puzzle that starts with the players and goes through a few different iterations to where we get to today where we’re announcing where we have these great 12 cities to play in.  It’s like a sausage factory:  you want to enjoy the finished product but you don’t want to know what it took to get there.

Q.  Did you ever feel like when you were training or practicing that clay courts really were softer on your body?  When you felt achy or pain, did you want to get on the clay, or it doesn’t matter, training is training?

ANDY RODDICK:  I think that’s too vague of a question. For me I was actually having this conversation with Sergi Bruguera last week.  We were talking about obviously his body responded well to clay.  His favorite surface was clay.  His game and movement were suited for clay.  He talked about when he went on grass, everything hurt, his low back, his hips. I think a lot of it depends on where your comfort level is.  For me on clay, I was such an awkward mover, when I slid, I would get a lot more groin pulls, kind of different things because I wasn’t natural on the surface.  So I felt because of that I was probably more prone to injury on clay. Now, if general coordination and lack of mobility isn’t in the equation, yeah, there’s no question that clay is probably a more rhythmic surface and softer on your body.

But I think to say to train on clay all the time is a little bit of an impossibility because, I mean, you’re obviously not playing all your tournaments on that. I think it definitely caters to the individual as far as where you’re likely to get hurt.

Q.  Roger Federer just won’t go away.  He’s been front and center in the conversation for so many years.  What is so special about this guy?  What makes Roger Roger?

ANDY RODDICK:  Well, it’s hard for me to say just because I was so dominant over him in our head to head (laughter). Listen, I was not one of the guys who was jumping off a ship last year when he had a rough two months.  Roger is always going to be a great tennis player.  As long as his body is healthy, he’s going to be one of the top players in the world. He’s never going to forget how to play tennis and he’s always going to find a way to be effective even as the game evolves and changes. For me it’s pretty simplistic. If he’s healthy, he’s going to continue to do what he’s doing.  He has the benefit of being so athletic and graceful that he doesn’t have maybe the wear and tear that Jim and I would have basically because we’re not as talented and we can’t do the things as effortlessly as Roger can do. But at a certain point you run out of superlatives to describe how great he’s been over such a long period of time. From hearing him talk, he just really enjoys it still. It doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of stress involved. If he wins, it’s awesome.  If he loses, on to the next one. That’s a pretty great place to be.  He’s not trying to prove anything to anyone anymore.  He hasn’t had to do that for a long time. It’s certainly been fun to watch and he deserves all the adoration that he’s getting.

Q.  Grace plays a pretty important role in his longevity and success?

JIM COURIER:  Yeah, that’s absolutely right.  The amount of energy that he expends per shot, if you could compare that to Rafa, I think would be substantially less.  I think we can all see that and hear that.  I think because he’s not exerting himself as much, because it looks like he’s in a ballet performance out there instead of sort of combat the way Rafa looks like, I think it’s easy to guess that Rafa is not going to have the type of longevity that Roger is enjoying right now, as much as we’d all love to see Rafa have that length of career.  It’s just a credit to Roger’s grace and athleticism and coaches who taught him to play that way when he was a kid that he’s able to do that, and we’re all better for it as tennis fans, to be able to watch him do what he’s doing, trying to defeat Father Time, which is undefeated as far as I can see.  Roger is putting up a pretty good fight so far.

Q.  James, on a different topic, obviously the events in Ferguson and New York and other cities have rekindled our national debate on race relations.  Serena tweeted after Ferguson, Wow, shameful, what will it take.  What are your thoughts on the situation?  What can be done?  Are we ever going to get to a post racial situation?

JAMES BLAKE:  Well, honestly I think we’re getting there. I don’t think we’re in a post racial situation right now at all. I think those incidents are tragic. I’m not one to say that it’s the rule. I definitely believe they’re the exceptions.  There are good cops, there are bad cops. Unfortunately right now there seems to be the focus on the cops that maybe aren’t doing their jobs the way they’re supposed to do them.

Those are tragedies. But I think one of the bigger issues is the actual system itself that’s in place that has an extremely disproportionate number of African Americans incarcerated than in my opinion need to be or should be.  I think the war on drugs was a total failure, putting violent criminals behind bars, and that makes it that we’re not in a post racial society because punishments don’t necessarily always fit the crime from different surroundings. If you grow up in an urban area and are more likely to be in an African American community, there’s a greater likelihood of being put behind bars. That’s the system that should be protested a lot more than these two horrible, horrible tragedies, which hopefully will shine a light on the system as a whole.

I think unfortunately it’s been way too inflammatory. The talks have been strictly about race when I think it should be more about the system in general that’s hurting the African Americans more than just these two incidents. The only thing I can say about the two incidents is that my prayers go out to the families. I don’t know how much is being thought of for the families and for the heartaches that they’re going through. Really we need to be thinking about helping them as opposed to causing any more violence, causing any more problems.

In my opinion, addressing the legal system as opposed to just the law enforcement officers that are at the center of the attention right now. Like I said, there’s bad apples, there’s good apples. We can’t judge the whole of law enforcement by a few that do their job a little too, I don’t know they’re not the ones that should be used as examples for law enforcement.

Q.  The USTA has its first African American president.     Your thoughts on that?

JAMES BLAKE:  I think Katrina will do a great job.  I also think it’s the first pro player that is now a president, as well.  I think that’s great to have someone that is a voice that’s been there, that’s felt the burn from long workouts, felt the pain and suffering of losses at big moments, the joy of victory.  I think it really helps to have someone like that with a voice.  I’ve worked with her actually at the Harlem Junior Tennis Program.  I’m someone that grew up playing there.  I’m a product of that.  I’ve been a supporter for many years since I’ve been on tour.  We’ve worked together on a lot of things there. I know how good she is at getting what needs to be done done.  I think she’ll do a great job with the USTA and look forward to working with her and helping her in any way possible in the years to come.

Q.  You were talking a little bit about doing some coaching similar to some of your contemporaries. As far as American tennis is concerned, we’ve seen Patrick McEnroe step aside as player development for the USTA. Do you feel any sense of responsibility for any sort of guardianship of our sport, being either consultants, coaching from time to time, just involvement in helping resurrect things to the level to when Jim was playing, Andy and James?

JIM COURIER:  I’ll be brief just so the other guys can jump in, too. I’m proud to serve as captain of the Davis Cup. I’m proud to be a mentor, available to be a mentor to the guys that come on to the team, whether they’re practice players or the guys currently playing on the team, and to be there to help them with any questions they may have down the line. I think we’ve all made clear that being out on the road full time is not palatable for any of us.  Yeah, I definitely feel a responsibility to try to be available to the players, the younger players, trying to get up and through, or the players who are the veterans who might need somebody to bounce ideas off of.  I relish that.  I think all of us do in different ways.  I think all of us are probably more involved than you may know.  That’s just fine, too.

I mean, I certainly want to see American tennis, men’s tennis, get back to the heights that we’ve been spoiled by over the years.  I think it will be very hard to do that.  I think we’re seeing some green shoots down below in the juniors.  On the women’s side, it’s clear there are some bright talents on the way up.  On the men’s side we have some bright talents that are starting to prosper as well. I know our expectations are high in this country.  But my expectations and hopes are to see players do the best they can with what they have, get as high as they can with what their skill set is. I think we’re seeing a lot of players make that good, positive move forward.

ANDY RODDICK:  Well, you know, I’m excited. I think this next hire as far as player development is going to be a big one. I do feel a responsibility to pay it forward. I think everyone has to kind of work together. When I retired, I made it known to the powers that be at the USTA if they ever had any kids they wanted to send to Austin for a week, with their coaches, I’m happy to hit in, hit balls, share what I know. I didn’t want any money for it. Whatever it was. I was never taken up on that offer.  Wanting to help and forcing yourself on a situation are two different things. I think it is important to the next person that gets hired. Frankly speaking, I hope it is James Blake.  That next person should connect the dots between generations and really reach out, kind of tap into the knowledge base that we have here in this country. I think that’s important.

JAMES BLAKE: If I am the next person to be hired, if I got that offer from Andy Roddick, if I got that offer, I’d take him up on it. I think there are things falling through the cracks that could be done better with the USTA. I would love to fill those in and give my experience of what I did right on tour, what I did wrong on tour, what can help guys. I feel like I’m in a position where I’ve been at almost every level, I’ve been a pretty bad junior, I’ve been a good junior, I’ve been through the college ranks, I’ve struggled on the futures and challengers tour, then I made it up to top five in the world. I’ve had a lot of different experiences on tour.

Hopefully I can help a lot of players bridge whatever gap they’re looking to bridge, whether it be coming from juniors straight to pros or college straight to pros, what it takes. I also feel like I had such a great relationship with my coach Brian Barker, I spent so much time with him, I tried to learn a lot.  I would never put myself in the same sentence as a lot of the top coaches because I haven’t had that experience.  But I don’t feel like being the GM of player development necessarily needs to be out there coaching 24/7, but just be able to understand what the coaches are going through and be able to help them in any way they need help.

I do think I have hopefully a good perspective on what needs to be done to help a lot of players.  I would love that opportunity.  That’s why I did throw my hat in the ring as a possible candidate.  I’m going through the process of hearing what they’re looking for and what the deciding factors are.

If it doesn’t come down to me, I’m not the best fit for them.  Like Andy said, I’ll speak for myself, I also feel like I need to pay it forward.  In the next few years when I’m still a viable option to hit tennis balls with the younger players, if they want to come and hit and hear what I have to say about their games, do whatever I can, I’m happy to do those kind of things as well. But if I’m given the more official title and role to do that, I’d really relish that opportunity.

RANDY WALKER:  I want to thank everybody for joining us today, especially all of our participants on the phone.

 

 

Andy Roddick and James Blake
Andy Roddick and James Blake

A Look Back At The Last Month In Men’s Tennis – And A Look Ahead

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As the 2014 calendar year comes to an end, tennis fans have an opportunity to recover from the excitement and thrills of the Davis Cup final and the ATP World Tour Finals. Both events, which took place in November, supplied all the suspense and exhilaration that tennis aficionados have come to expect from these events – and more. Now it’s time for players, fans and bettors to recharge their batteries and to look ahead – 2015 tournaments are right around the corner.

At the ATP World Tour Finals in London, England, Novak Djokovic became only the third player to win three season finale titles in a row (and the first in close to 30 years). This was Djokovic ‘s fourth crown overall, an impressive accomplishment that cements his place as one of the strongest players in the game’s history. However, Novak’s victory will forever be accompanied by a pesky asterisk; he won when number-two Roger Federer of Switzerland withdrew from the match due to a back injury, leaving many fans disappointed at the anti-climactic finale.

To the delight of the world, and some bettors for sure, a few weeks after Federer’s withdrawal, he, along with Davis Cup teammates Stan Wawrinka, Marco Chiudinelli, and Michael Lammer, stunned the French national team – in France! – and triumphantly took home Switzerland’s first Davis Cup in history. A fit-looking Federer beat Frenchman Richard Gasquet in straight sets to clinch the championship, leading to celebrations in Switzerland and joyous tears from an emotional Federer. Federer played like the champion he is to attain the only major tennis title that has evaded him thus far. It was thrilling tennis and fans around the world cried right along with the crowd-pleasing Swiss superstar.

As 2014 transitions into 2015, tennis betting fans will feel the excitement mount as the first Grand Slam of the year approaches. The always-great Australian Open kicks off in Sydney on January 19 following a number of warm-up tournaments Down Under. Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka is the reigning Australian men’s champion and all eyes will be on him following the Swiss team’s Davis Cup victory. On the women’s side, China’s Li Na won last year’s women’s event before retiring later in 2014, so the field is wide open (as has been the case in women’s tennis of late).

Throughout the tennis season – this year and every year – tennis betting fans can boost their pleasure by betting on tennis at William Hill, the biggest names in sport betting.  William Hill covers major and minor tennis tournaments and makes sports betting easy and convenient.

 

Roger Federer
Roger Federer

The Virality of Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in India and the IPTL

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By Randy Walker

@TennisPublisher

 

Maybe it is just because it is Roger Federer.

Or Roger Federer playing Novak Djokovic.

Or Roger Federer playing Novak Djokovic in the new curiosity in tennis, the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL).

Or Roger Federer playing Novak Djokovic in the IPTL in tennis-mad India.

It was a perfect formula for a memorable day of tennis Monday on the final day of the India leg of the IPTL in New Delhi. The energized, loud and excited full-house crowd were treated to an amazing display of tennis from Federer along with world No. 1 Djokovic that prompted respected tennis TV man Robbie Koenig to say of the environment, “It was an atmosphere I don’t think I have ever experienced in all of my commentary years.”

While tweeting and doing social media promotion and commentary for my client Integrated Sports Media, the exclusive pay-per-view TV and on-line rights holder for the IPTL in the United States, I was amazed at the social popularity at what was going on in my Ipad screen in front of me. During Federer’s mixed doubles appearance with India’s Sania Mirza, his doubles match with Gael Monfils and his Wimbledon final rematch singles encounter with Djokovic, I garnered a social media tally of 502 retweets, my tweets being favorited 659 times, 28 separate mentions of my tweeted content and a gain of 83 new followers. This was all achieved in about 90 minutes of time. This is about 20 or 30 times the amount of on-line virality that I usually get when tweeting and creating and documenting content for social media for the major events in tennis, like Wimbledon or the US Open. This, to me, is a huge indication of how the strength and potential of the IPTL and the popularity of tennis in India and in Asia.

The popularity of Federer and Djokovic in India was covered in Carl Bialik’s story on the FiveThirtyEight.com website here: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/federer-djokovic-set-to-play-for-first-time-in-a-tennis-hotbed-india/

The highlight of the day’s play was Federer and Djokovic competing in the final singles match of the team match – Federer representing the Micromax Indian Aces against Djokovic playing for his United Arab Emirates Royals team. The two played a high-intensity set, Federer winning in a tie-breaker – or a “shoot-out” – 6-5, highlighted by this amazing shot from Federer – perhaps one of the greatest of his career – as documented on my Vine social media account: https://vine.co/v/OrHKe3TAlTt

Craig Willis, the voice of the Australian Open, in the post-match on-court interview of both Federer and Djokovic, said of the single-set match, “That was a match worthy of a Grand Slam final.”

Earlier, Federer paired with Gael Monfils in doubles – talk about an entertaining combination – and while Gael’s slam dunk overhead winner, followed by a leaping celebratory bump with Federer was a highlight of the match – as seen here on my Vine: https://vine.co/v/OrX2OvBz15Jit was Federer’s stinging backhand return of serve on the decisive point that gave he and Monfils the win in men’s doubles over Zimonjic and Djokovic. Monfils celebrated in a unique way as seen here: https://vine.co/v/OrXE9QB9IAF and Federer got a high-five from Ana Ivanovic as seen here: https://vine.co/v/OrXVatEzYpV

In the end, it was Djokovic’s UAE Royals who emerged as the 29-22 victors over Federer and his Aces.

IPTL play resumes Dec. 11, 12 and 13 in Dubai for the event’s finale. US viewers can click here: http://news.gfl.tv/2014/11/international-premier-tennis-league-to-air-live-on-pay-per-view-in-united-states-via-integrated-sports-media/ to order the on-line or cable pay-per-view packages:

For people looking for holiday gift ideas for Federer fans, consider the Rene Stauffer authored book “Roger Federer: Quest for Perfection” at www.RogerFedererBook.com or the new book “The Days of Roger Federer” that I can also personally vouch for since it was written by me! It is available here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1937559378/ref=cm_sw_r_pi_dp_zbKHub0GZ3NGA

The International Premier Tennis League (www.iptlworld.com) is the first international city-based professional tennis league played across four countries. Created to for fill the increasing demand for top-level tennis in Asia, the IPTL features teams based in India, Singapore, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates featuring current champions, tennis legends and up-coming talent in a unique format of team matches to determine a team champion. Seventeen-time-major tournament champion Federer, 18-time major winner and current world No. 1 Serena Williams, current world No. 1 and seven-time major champion Djokovic and five-time major champion and former world No. 1 Maria Sharapova headline the players competing in the inaugural season of the IPTL. The league also features past champions such as 14-time major champion Pete Sampras and career Golden Grand Slam winner Andre Agassi and other top current players including 2013 Wimbledon champion Andy Murray, 2010 Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych, and former world No. 1s Ana Ivanovic and Lleyton Hewitt among others. In all, the league will feature 21 Grand Slam tournament champions and 14 current or former world No. 1 players competing in 24 team matches through December 13.

Each IPTL match will consist of five sets played by different players that will include men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, mixed doubles and former champions singles. Each game won counts as one point for the team points total and the team that wins the most games overall across the five sets wins the match. The IPTL matches will feature live entertainment, a running shot clock and many more features to ‘Break the Code’ of the traditional etiquette of tennis to attract a new audience to the sport across the world. The team with the most accumulated points during the season are declared league champions and are awarded the IPTL Challenge Trophy in Dubai on December 13.

Dates and US times for action from Dubai, UAE are as follows:

 

December 11th

Aces v Slammers (7:00 am ET/4:00 am PT)

Royals v Mavericks (10:30 am ET/7:30 am PT)

 

December 12th

Mavericks v Slammers (7:00 am ET/4:00 am PT)

Royals v Aces (10:30 am ET/7:30 am PT)

 

December 13th

Mavericks v Aces (7:00 am ET/4:00 am PT)

Royals v Slammers (10:30 am ET/7:30 am PT)

 

Roger Federer
Roger Federer

The International Premier Tennis League: All You Need to Know

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A newcomer of the tennis scene is finally get underway- the International Premier Tennis League. Fans of tennis will love the new tournament, a shorter, less drawn out event that is set to prove a boon for those that love watching a little tennis on TV. There are loads of excellent names on the bill, though for tennis fans the specifics of the IPTL may be somewhat unknown. Here’s all you need to know about the new firebrand on the tennis scene.

It’s somewhat of a surprise that the IPTL is even occurring at all. Set right bang in the middle of the tennis off-season; already very short thanks to the multitude of other competitions running throughout the year; many stars, advocates of a longer off-season, would be seen as hypocrites if they were to compete. Luckily though, organisers have managed to get a number of the big names in the game (likely thanks to a rather large golden hello) including Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, Andy Murray and Serena Williams.

The star-driven league features four teams- the Indian Aces (Federer, Monfils, Ivanovic, Mirza, Sampras, Santoro and Bopanna), the Manila Mavericks (Murray, Tsonga, Sharapova, Flipkens, Moya, Nestor and Huey), the Singapore Slammers (Soares, Williams, Hantuchova, Agassi, Kyrgios, Hewitt, Berdych and Rafter) and the UAE Royals (Djokovic, Zimonjic, Ivanisevic, Bouchard, Wozniacki, Jaziri and Cilic). As one might have guessed, the matches will take place in the four countries of which the teams are named after, these taking place in the following locations- the Indira Ghandi Indoor Stadium, Mall of Asia Arena, Singapore Indoor Stadium and Hamdan Sports Complex. Players will compete in the different countries, between their different teams, throughout the League.

With so many massive names, those who love tennis will likely be finding it hard to pick their favourites. Fans should try out bettingsports if they need help! On that site, the ‘where to bet’ section is a godsend, comparing odds from a huge variety of providers and thus really helping you ensure your picks are the best ones!

There’s plenty of categories of matches being held throughout the league; men’s and women’s single and doubles, plus past champions’ singles will be held. In each game five sets will occur and breaks between points will be constricted to a mere twenty seconds, thus meaning each match will be a nail-biting watch for excited fans!

After this weekend’s action in Manila, play continues December 2-4 (Singapore), December 6-8 (India) and December 11-13 (UAE) and the champion will win $1,000,000 in prize money!

US tennis viewers can go to www.GFL.TV to order matches on pay-per-view and online.

 

Andy Murray and Maria Sharapova
Andy Murray and Maria Sharapova

Toni Nadal Says Roger Federer Is The Greatest Player – Mondays with Bob Greene

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Mondays with Bob Greene

 

SAYING

“I consider myself 100 percent a product of the Romanian tennis because until February this year I was coached only by Romanians … I want to work again with a Romanian. I feel we have similar mentality. From what I’ve realized this year, coaches from abroad have different mentality and I like to have next to me a person who thinks almost like me.” – Simona Halep, explaining why she chose to split with Belgium’s Wim Fissette in favor of a Romanian coach.

“I came into the season without many expectations and I’m actually quite happy. I was in a position many times of the year to fall out of the top 10 and finished the year number two, so it’s been quite a successful year, and next year I set myself much bigger goals.” – Maria Sharapova.

“To have eight Grand Slam champions, five of the world’s top 11 men – as well as Juan Martin del Potro with an injury protected ranking of number seven – and four of the top 10 women commit to Brisbane is a fantastic result, and certainly highlights the players’ regard for the tournament.” – Cameron Pearson, Brisbane tournament director, noting his January event will include Roger Federer, Kei Nishikori, Milos Raonic, Marin Cilic, Grigor Dimitrov, Lleyton Hewitt, Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic, Angelique Kerber and Dominika Cibulkova.

“We are one of the few sports that does have a truly global footprint. It’s played globally, the interest is global. You look at our top stars now and they have almost transcended their sport and become global icons.” – Chris Kermode, ATP World Tour chairman, saying tennis has never been in better health with record attendance and young players challenging established stars.

 

SWISS PLAYER GREATEST

Who is the greatest tennis player of all time? Toni Nadal, the coach and uncle of Rafael Nadal, believes Roger Federer deserves that recognition. “I think he is, the numbers say so,” Toni Nadal told Spanish radio station Cadena COPE. “Federer is the best in the history of the game alongside Rod Laver and, unfortunately for us, it is like that.” Federer holds the men’s record with 17 Grand Slam tournament titles – three more than Nadal. Yet in the careers, Nadal holds a 23-10 lifetime record over Federer and hasn’t lost to the Swiss maestro in a Grand Slam tournament since the Wimbledon final in 2007.

 

SUSPENDED

Morgan Lamri, a French chair umpire on the futures and challenger tours, has become the first official to be suspended for corruption by the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU). The 22-year-old Lamri was banned for life for breaching four articles of the TIU’s anti-corruption program in 2012 and 2013. These involve attempts to influence the outcome of an event, to “facilitate any player not to use his or her best efforts,” and to “wager or attempt to wager” on the outcome of a match. Lamri denied corruption but said he will not appeal the sanction. In a phone interview, he admitted betting on matches he was not involved in. “I can’t believe they decided I am guilty without even hearing me,” said Lamri, who did not cooperate with investigators. The TIU was formed in 2008 by the ATP and WTA tours, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the Grand Slam Committee.

 

SETTLING DOWN

Andy Murray and long-time girlfriend Kim Sears have become engaged. The 26-year-old Sears is the daughter of former Lawn Tennis Association head of women’s tennis Nigel Sears. She met Murray at the US Open in 2005. The first time Sears watched Murray compete was in 2006 in San Jose, California, USA, where he beat Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt. According to The Telegraph, a British newspaper, Murray said: “It’s the first time Kim has come to a tournament. That made me quite relaxed. I’ll have to take her to some more tournaments.” After he won Wimbledon in 2013, Murray was photographed kissing Sears, who was once described by Judy Murray, the tennis star’s mother, as “the best thing to happen to Andy.” Asked when they were walking down the aisle, Murray said: “We have a plan to get married next year. That’s the plan, but no dates were set yet.”

 

SAVIANO GONE

Nick Saviano is no longer coaching seventh-ranked Eugenie Bouchard of Canada. “Genie and I have decided that it is best for us to end our player-coach relationship and to move in different directions for 2015,” Saviano said in a statement. “Helping Genie grow from an ambitious 12-year-old to number five in the world has been an exciting journey.” In 2014, Bouchard reached the Wimbledon final and the semifinals at the Australian Open and French Open. She won her first WTA title in Nürnberg, Germany, in May and qualified for her first season-ending WTA Finals. She recently was named the WTA’s Most Improved Player of 2014.

 

SELECTS NEW COACH

Saying she wanted to be coached by a fellow Romanian, Simona Halep selected Victor Ionita as her new coach. In addition, she signed Sweden’s Thomas Hogstedt, former coach to Maria Sharapova and Caroline Wozniacki, to serve as a coaching consultant for her first three tournaments of 2015. Halep surprisingly split with coach Wim Fissette after he had led her to her first Grand Slam tournament final and to a season-ending number three ranking. “It was a very good year,” Halep admitted. “Wim helped me a lot, we had good results together. I wish him success.” This year Ionita coached another Romanian player, Sorana Cirstea, to a career-high ranking of 21st in the world. Halep will be the top seeded player at the Shenzhen Open in January when she begins her 2015 schedule.

 

SPLITTSVILLE

Andy Murray has dropped assistant coach Dani Vallverdu and fitness trainer Jez Green from his entourage. In June, he hired Amelie Mauresmo as his coach. The hiring has come under fire after Murray reached only the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and the US Open this year, then was drubbed by Roger Federer 6-0 6-1 in the ATP World Finals in London. Vallverdu has been a close friend of Murray’s for more than a decade since they met at a tennis academy in Spain. Murray defended Mauresmo, who, like Murray, won Wimbledon. “You know we’ve only spent six or seven weeks together since Wimbledon,” Murray said of Mauresmo. “Yes, there was a few periods of the year where I played a couple of bad matches, where my level dropped and I wasn’t expecting it. It wasn’t my best season, but it got better as the year went on.” Murray hired Mauresmo in June just before Wimbledon.

 

SERVES UP FAST FORMAT

Roger Federer and Lleyton Hewitt will team up in Sydney, Australia, in January to kick off the global launch of a new fast format for tennis. Federer and Hewitt will play a special exhibition match to showcase the new fast format – a shortened version of the game developed by Tennis Australia. The new format has four rule variations from traditional tennis: no advantage scoring, no lets, no tiebreaker at three games all and the first to four games wins.

 

SET FOR ASB CLASSIC

Two former number ones – Caroline Wozniacki and Venus Williams – will begin their 2015 seasons at the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand. Wozniacki is currently ranked eighth in singles and Williams, who was a finalist in Auckland last year, is 18th. Also set to play in the hard-court event are the number one doubles combination of Roberta Vinci and Sara Errani, along with two-time Grand Slam tournament winner Svetlana Kuznetsova.

 

STARTING OVER AGAIN

After recovering from his latest injury, Juan Martin del Potro will return to the ATP World Tour in January at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp. The Argentine has not played since suffering a left wrist injury during a match against Somdev Devvarman at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships in February. He underwent surgery on March 24. Del Potro won the US Open in 2009, then played only three tournaments in 2010 before undergoing surgery on his right wrist. He was named the ATP Comeback Player of the Year in 2011 when finished ranked 11th in the world. He has been ranked as high as fourth in the world following his US Open victory.

 

SITE PICKED

Rafael Nadal has selected his home island of Mallorca as the site for his tennis academy. The 14-time Grand Slam tournament winner held a groundbreaking ceremony for the academy in his home town of Manacor. “This is a special day for me,” Nadal said. “This project that we have been working on for many years is finally a reality. The academy will “begin with a summer camp in 2016,” he said. The academy will also include a school where promising players can continue their regular studies.

 

SELECTS KYRGIOS

The prestigious Newcombe Medal, signifying Australia’s top player in 2014, went to Nick Kyrgios during a ceremony in Melbourne. The 19-year-old was presented the award by Hall of Famer John Newcombe, in whose honor the medal is named. “I honestly didn’t think I was going to win this award tonight,” Kyrgios said. “Casey (Dellacqua) has had such a great year and obviously Lleyton (Hewitt) and Sam (Stosur) deserve the award as well. But when I heard my name called there were so many mixed emotions. I didn’t want to cry up there, but I was close.” Kyrgios shocked then top-ranked Rafael Nadal in the fourth round at Wimbledon to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time. He reached the third round at the US Open later in the summer. Starting the year ranked 183rd in the world, Kyrgios won three ATP Challenger titles and reached a career-high ranking of 51 in September. He also helped Australia beat Uzbekistan 5-0 in Davis Cup. “You’re hard to beat when you go on Centre Court at Wimbledon and you defeat one of the greatest players of all time in four sets and you do it really well,” Newcombe said of Kyrgios being selected. Stosur is a three-time winner of the award, while Hewitt was the 2013 recipient.

The Newcombe Medal was the premier award presented at a gala that recognizes players, coaches, clubs, communities, volunteers and officials for their service to the sport. The awards ceremony has been held annually since 2010. In other honors, Thanaski Kokkinakis was named Male Junior Athlete of the Year and Destanee Aiava was named Female Junior Athlete of the Year.

 

STEERING ARGENTINA

Hoping to get Juan Martin del Potro to play Davis Cup again, the Argentine Tennis Association (AAT) has selected Daniel Orsanic as its new Davis Cup captain. Orsanic, a former player and head of development in AAT, replaces Martín Jaite. Del Potro has not played in Argentina’s last two Davis Cup ties, but the country’s top player has a good relationship with Orsanic and could return to the team in the 2015 first-round competition against Brazil. Orsanic was the main candidate to replace Jaite, but the decision was reportedly delayed when former AAT president Arturo Grimaldi passed away.

 

SPECIAL COACH

Fred Scott, who coached the Abilene High School tennis team to 247 wins and the 1999 Texas state team championship, will be inducted into the Texas Tennis Coaches Association Hall of Fame this month in New Braunfels, Texas, USA. His teams won 10 district team championships and were ranked in the top 10 in the state in 14 of his 16 years. He retired in 2013.

 

SERVING HIS COUNTRY

Dominic Thiem had a much different way of doing his off-season training. As a member of the Austrian Armed Forces, the 21-year-old has gone through basic training. Thiem entered the army just a few days after losing to Stan Wawrinka in a second-round match at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris, France. “I was treated like everybody else,” said Thiem, who was helped through his basic training by his fitness coach, Sepp Resnik, who is a former officer in the Austrian Armed Forces. Finishing the season ranked 39th in the world, Thiem spent 17 days in basic training and must now fulfil his six months of basic military service just like every other Austrian. He currently is attending a four-week tennis training camp with Ernests Gulbis, Dennis Novak and Riccardo Bellotti, but whenever he is back home in Austria, Thiem must appear for a 7:30 a.m. military roll call each day.

 

SAY MAMA

Switzerland’s Patty Schnyder is a mother. A winner of 11 WTA titles, Schnyder recently gave birth to a daughter, KimAyla. Once ranked as high as seventh in the world in 2005, Schnyder married her coach, Rainer Hofmann, in December 2003 and retired from the WTA Tour in May 2011.

 

SAD NEWS

Dorothy “Dodo” Cheney, the winner of 391 national tennis titles, has died at the age of 98. The daughter of a Wimbledon champion, Cheney began playing tennis as a young child and was an active competitor well into her 90s. In 1938 she became the first American woman to win the Australian Championships – now known as the Australian Open – and was a runner-up three times in women’s doubles at Grand Slam tournaments and four times in mixed doubles. In 2004, Cheney was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame at the age of 87. Among her 391 national titles, Cheney was a champion numerous times in singles, doubles and mixed doubles across various age levels and on all surfaces. She was ranked in the top 10 in the late 1930s through the mid-1940s, reaching a high of sixth in the world in 1946. In 2002, at the age of 85, Cheney and her daughter Christie Putnam won the USTA National Grass Court Super-Senior Mother-Daughter Championships. Cheney’s mother, the former May Sutton, won the United States Championships in 1904 and in 1905 became the first American to win the women’s singles at Wimbledon, repeating the triumph two years later. Cheney’s father, Thomas Bundy, won three consecutive United States Nationals doubles titles. Cheney is survived by two daughters, Christie Putnam and May Cheney; a son, Brian Cheney; eight grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. A private memorial service will be scheduled at a future date.

Nicknamed “Dodo,” Cheney kept her success in perspective. She loved telling the story of the time when she was 73 and played a 10-year-old prodigy in Los Angeles. “She blitzed me,” Cheney said. “She just wiped me off the court.” The 10-year-old was Venus Williams.

 

SURFING

ATP: www.atpworldtour.com

WTA: www.wtatennis.com

ITF: www.itftennis.com

World Tennis Magazine: www.worldtennismagazine.com

 

TOURNAMENTS WEEK OF JAN. 5, 2015

(All money in USD)

MEN

$1,195,500 Qatar ExxonMobil Open, Doha, Qatar, hard

$511,825 Brisbane International presented by Suncorp, Brisbane, Australia, hard

$459,140 Aircel Chennai Open, Chennai, India, hard

 

WOMEN

$1,000,000 Brisbane International presented by Suncorp, Brisbane, Australia, hard

$500,000 Shenzhen Open, Shenzhen, China, hard

$250,000 ASB Classic, Auckland, New Zealand, hard

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal

As IPTL Debuts, A Look Back At City Team Tennis Originators – World Team Tennis

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With all of the hype surrounding the International Professional Tennis League (IPTL) and its inaugural season and this new brand of tennis in Asia, one should give proper respect to the original innovators of this kind of city-team tennis concept and that is World Team Tennis, created in 1973.

The following is an excerpt from The Bud Collins History of Tennis book (new edition in 2015 available for pre-sale here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1937559386/ref=cm_sw_r_pi_dp_0n1Cub1E1J5WB) that explains the history of World Team Tennis.

 

City team franchises, the foundation of major pro sports in the United States, came to tennis with the establishment of World Team Tennis in 1973. The original league lasted five years, folding because of large financial losses after the 1978 season. Founded  by Dennis Murphy, Jordan Kaiser and Larry King (then husband of Billie Jean King), the WTT operated with 16 cities between Boston and Honolulu in 1974, a high point, and involved most of the game’s leading players during its lifespan. They were well paid to ignore the summer season and play team tennis, a new concept in which teams had both male and female players. It was single-set tennis, five sets (men’s and women’s singles and doubles plus mixed doubles) constituting a match, the score based on total games won. Fearing the summer competition, the International Tennis Federation railed against WTT, and the French Open barred players from the league in 1974, a move which deprived Jimmy Connors, who won the other three majors, a shot at a Grand Slam.

A feature of the first season was the unprecedented appearance of women coaching professional teams containing men— Billie Jean King led the Philadelphia Freedoms, Rosie Casals the Detroit Loves. King revived the concept modestly under the masthead of Team Tennis in 1981, with a shorter season, and few big-name players, although Connors and Martina Navratilova came aboard in 1991 with Los Angeles and Atlanta respectively. In 1992, Team Tennis resumed using its old name, World  Team Tennis.

A number of big names have participated in WTT over the past few years including, Andre Agassi, Lindsay Davenport, Monica Seles, Andy Roddick, Martina Navratilova and the Williams sisters. The championship trophy is called the King Trophy in honor of founder Billie Jean King.

 

For more information on World Team Tennis, go to www.WTT.com

The International Premier Tennis League (IPTL), the inaugural international city-based professional tennis league featuring legendary players such as Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic and Maria Sharapova, will be available for live viewing via TV and on-line pay-per-view in the United States by Integrated Sports Media beginning November 28th through the conclusion of the season on December 13. All 24 matches of the highly anticipated inaugural season will be available on both cable and satellite pay-per-view – live and for replay – via iN DEMAND, DirecTV, DISH and Vubiquity and online at www.GFL.TV starting at $9.95 per match and $69.95 for packages.

The International Premier Tennis League (www.iptlworld.com) is the first international city-based professional tennis league played across four countries. Created to for fill the increasing demand for top-level tennis in Asia, the IPTL features teams based in India, Singapore, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates featuring current champions, tennis legends and up-coming talent in a unique format of team matches to determine a team champion. Seventeen-time-major tournament champion Federer, 18-time major winner and current world No. 1 Serena Williams, current world No. 1 and seven-time major champion Djokovic and five-time major champion and former world No. 1 Sharapova headline the players competing in the inaugural season of the IPTL. The league also features past champions such as 14-time major champion Pete Sampras and career Golden Grand Slam winner Andre Agassi and other top current players including 2013 Wimbledon champion Andy Murray, 2014 Wimbledon finalist Genie Bouchard, 2010 Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych, and former world No. 1s Ana Ivanovic and Lleyton Hewitt among others. In all, the league will feature 21 Grand Slam tournament champions and 14 current or former world No. 1 players competing in 24 team matches from November 28th through December 13.

 

Team rosters are as follows:

 

Manila Mavericks – Maria Sharapova, Andy Murray, Joe Wilfried Tsonga, Kristen Flipkens, Daniel Nestor, Carlos Moya, Treat Huey

Singapore Slammers – Serena Williams, Andre Agassi, Thomas Berdych, Lleyton Hewitt, Nick Krygios, Daniela Hantuchova, Patrick Rafter, Bruno Soares

Micromax Indian Aces – Roger Federer, Pete Sampras, Gael Monfils, Ana Ivanovic, Sania Mirza, Rohan Bopanna, Fabrice Santoro

UAE Royals – Novak Djokovic, Marin Cilic, Caroline Wozniacki, Goran Ivanisevic, Genie Bouchard, Malek Jaziri, Nenad Zimonjic

 

Each IPTL match will consist of five sets played by different players that will include men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, mixed doubles and former champions singles. Each game won counts as one point for the team points total and the team that wins the most games overall across the five sets wins the match. The IPTL matches will feature live entertainment, a running shot clock and many more features to ’Break the Code’ of the traditional etiquette of tennis to attract a new audience to the sport across the world. The team with the most accumulated points during the season are declared league champions and are awarded the IPTL Challenge Trophy in Dubai on December 13.

The IPTL season begins November 28 in Manila, Philippines. The November 28-30 matches will be played in Manila, Philippines. The December 2-4 matches will be played in Singapore. The December 6-8 matches will be played in New Delhi, India and the December 11-13 matches will be played in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The full schedule of matches are as follows:

 

Dates and times from Manila, Philippines:

November 28th

Aces vs. Slammers (3:00 am ET/12:00 Midnight PT) Mavericks vs. Royals (6:30 am ET/3:00 am PT)

November 29th

Royals v Slammers (3:00 am ET/12:00 Midnight PT) Mavericks vs. Aces (6:30 am ET/3:00 am PT)

November 30th

Royals vs. Aces (3:00 am ET/12:00 Midnight PT) Mavericks vs. Slammers (6:30 am ET/3:00 am PT)

 

Dates and times from Singapore:

December 2nd

Aces v Royals (3:00 am ET/12:00 Midnight PT) Slammers v Mavericks (6:30 am ET/3:30 am PT)

December 3rd

Mavericks v Royals (3:00 am ET/12:00 Midnight PT) Slammers v Aces (6:30 am ET/3:30 am PT)

December 4th

Mavericks v Aces (3:00 am ET/12:00 Midnight PT) Slammers v Royals (6:30 am ET/3:30 am PT)

 

Dates and times from India:

December 6th

Royals v Slammers (5:30 am ET/2:30 am PT) Aces v. Mavericks (9:00 am ET/6:00 am PT)

December 7th

Aces v Slammers (5:30 am ET/2:30 am PT)

Mavericks v. Royals (9:00 am ET/6:00 am PT)

December 8th

Mavericks v. Slammers (5:30 am ET/2:30 am PT) Aces v. Royals (9:00 am ET/6:00 am PT)

 

Dates and times from UAE:

December 11th

Aces v Slammers (7:00 am ET/4:00 am PT)

Royals v Mavericks (10:30 am ET/7:30 am PT)

December 12th

Mavericks v Slammers (7:00 am ET/4:00 am PT) Royals v Aces (10:30 am ET/7:30 am PT)

December 13th

Mavericks v Aces (7:00 am ET/4:00 am PT) Royals v Slammers (10:30 am ET/7:30 am PT)

Mylan World Team Tennis

Mylan World Team Tennis

Roger Federer Wins To Give Switzerland Its First Davis Cup Title – Mondays with Bob Greene

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Mondays with Bob Greene

 

DAVIS CUP

World Group Final

Switzerland beat France 3-1 at Lille, France

 

OTHERS

Diego Schwartzman beat Guilherme Clezar 6-2 6-3 to win the Challenger Tour Finals in Sao Paulo, Brazil

An-Sophie Mestach beat Shuko Aoyama 6-1 6-1 to win the Dunlop World Challenge Tennis Tournament in Toyota, Japan

 

SAYING

“This one is for the boys. It’s not for me. I’ve won enough in my career and did not need to tick any empty boxes. I’m just happy for everybody else. I’m happy we could live a great tennis historic moment in our country.” – Roger Federer, when asked what the Davis Cup title meant for him personally.

“I’ve been dreaming of this Davis Cup for years. I’ve been trying everything I can to win this competition. This year, maybe, was the ideal year. It started off very well in Serbia. It ends up perfectly well here in France. We made many sacrifices during the years to be able to win it. We did it now. We are very happy.” – Stanislas Wawrinka.

“He was not unbeatable today, but he only made a few mistakes. It’s a shame I could not get any break points.” – Richard Gasquet, whose loss to Roger Federer clinched Switzerland’s Davis Cup victory.

“I always said that it was very good for Federer to win the Davis Cup and very good for Davis Cup to have Federer’s name engraved on it.” – Francesco Ricci Bitti, International Tennis Federation president.

“Stan has put in so much effort over the years and played an unbelievable weekend that gave me the opportunity today.” – Roger Federer, noting Stanislas Wawrinka had a hand in two of Switzerland three points, winning the first singles match and teaming with Federer to win the doubles.

“We saw how quickly things changed. At the start of the week, the papers were full with stories about Roger’s back and the French team being ready to go to war. At the end of the day, we saw the opposite. We handled the tie as usual, with a lot of discussions between us.” – Stanislas Wawrinka, who teamed with Roger Federer to give Switzerland its first Davis Cup title.

“Let’s be serious, they are stronger, it would have been quite an achievement to beat them.” – Arnaud Di Pasquale, France’s technical director.

“Arnaud Clement has our confidence and our trust as a captain. Of course we lost, but many teams would like to be in the final. If every time we lost we should change captains, many captains would be fired in the world.” – Jean Gachassin, French Tennis Federation president, when asked if he would replace Clement as France’s Davis Cup captain.

“At the end, it’s a tennis match, you feel great emotions. You’re unbelievably happy and relieved. We wanted this clearly very badly, especially being up 2-1. You inch yourself closer and closer. Clearly seeing Stan (Wawrinka) out there, the rest of the team supporting you, gives you an extra push. It was definitely one of the better feelings in my career, no doubt about it. So much nicer to celebrate it all together.” – Roger Federer.

“It’s an amazing feeling. The best. We all know how it’s great to watch such an amazing player when he’s playing good tennis.” – Stanislas Wawrinka.

“He was playing fast. He was very focused and making very few mistakes. I was not even able to have a break point. It was difficult for me to give him problems. We are all disappointed. I would have liked to do more for the team because the crowd was ready, ready to support me to the end.  In that situation, the only thing you want to do is play a fourth or fifth set just to please the crowd.” – Richard Gasquet, after losing to Roger Federer.

“I think I’m getting really close. I beat Roger (Federer) this year and also Novak (Djokovic), too. It’s not like I can’t beat them.” – Kei Nishikori.

“I hope to use December to prepare well. I’ll have a month before things start in Australia. I hope and believe that’s enough to get me to my best level.” – Rafael Nadal.

“As highly committed players and leaders among the French tennis players, Henri Leconte and Guy Forget played a pivotal role in building the success of the French Davis Cup team. As we gather here in France for another dynamic Davis Cup Final, it is a pleasure to honor Henri and Guy for their important contributions over the years by presentation of the Davis Cup Award of Excellence.” – Francesco Ricci Bitti, International Tennis Federation president.

 

SWISS CAPTURE CUP

Roger Federer was at his best when the Davis Cup title was the prize. Producing a vintage performance, Federer crushed Richard Gasquet 6-4 6-2 6-2 to give Switzerland its first Davis Cup title with a 3-1 win over France. There were no signs of the back problems that forced him to default the ATP World Tour Finals title match a week ago. And there were no signs of any reported conflict between Federer and teammate Stanislas Wawrinka. Instead, the world’s second-ranked player showed how he had won 17 Grand Slam tournament titles as he dominated his French opponent before a record crowd of 27,448 at Stade Pierre Mauroy in Lille, France. “It’s the first time Roger plays at this level against me,” said Gasquet, who has only beaten Federer twice in 15 career meetings. Switzerland becomes only the 14th nation to win the Davis Cup in its 115-year-old history. And with his title-clinching victory, Federer becomes the most successful Swiss player in Davis Cup history, recording his 50th Davis Cup victory in both singles and doubles. What possibly made it even sweeter was that Federer lost his opening singles to Gael Monfils in straight sets. But Wawrinka had started the tie with a victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, then teamed with Federer to win the doubles, beating Gasquet and Julien Benneteau, and set the stage for Federer’s title-clinching win over Gasquet. The fifth match between Wawrinka and Monfils was canceled. “I’ve been playing this game for almost 15 years and clearly I had never come as close than this past weekend,” Federer said.

 

SUBS FOR TSONGA

When Roger Federer took to the court for the first reverse singles, he expected to face France’s Jo-Wilfred Tsonga. Instead, his opponent was Richard Gasquet, who had beaten Federer only twice in 14 matches. Of course, one of Gasquet’s wins over Federer came at the 2011 Rome Masters on clay, the same surface the Davis Cup final was contested on. French Tennis Federation president Jean Gachassin said Tsonga was suffering from pain in his elbow. Arnaud Clement, the French captain, said Tsonga had aggravated an existing injury in his right arm. “I was just not able to go on the court and be the best chance on the court,” Tsonga said. Federer gave the French another pain by crushing Gasquet 6-4 6-2 6-2 to clinch Switzerland’s first Davis Cup title.

 

SIBLINGS’ COACH HELPS

Although he had two of the world’s top four players, Switzerland Davis Cup captain Severin Luthi felt he needed a little more help. So he hired the coach of American twins Bob and Mike Bryan to help the Swiss prepare for the doubles. Dave Macpherson, who had helped the Bryans finish atop the doubles rankings for a record 10th time this year and for the sixth consecutive season, may have played a big part of Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka’s straight-set victory over Frenchmen Julien Benneteau and Richard Gasquet. “I think he’s been very helpful for us,” Federer said about Macpherson. “We had a good long conversation about doubles. Not just yesterday and today, but in previous days.” Although Federer and Wawrinka had teamed to win the Olympic gold medal at the Beijing Games in 2008, they had not won a Davis Cup doubles match since 2011. “I think we were perfectly prepared,” Federer said after the Swiss beat the French duo. “Obviously you have to be able to execute it. I think Stan did that unbelievably well today. I tried to keep up.”

 

SMILES IN LOSS

Although Roger Federer was battered in his opening singles match by Gael Monfils, the Swiss star still found something to smile about. Monfils, playing marvelously, routed Federer 6-1 6-4 6-3 to knot the best-of-five contest at one match apiece. Federer, however, wasn’t worried. “It wasn’t all negative,” he said. “I started to feel better as the match went on. That’s very encouraging.” Federer had suffered a back injury last week and had to default the ATP World Tour Finals title match against Novak Djokovic. The Monfils match proved to Federer that his back was much better. “You don’t have to be in unbelievably excruciating pain, but it takes a while for it to leave your mind,” he said after the loss. “It’s like a ghost. But that’s why it was good for me to play three sets today. It definitely gives us a lot of information. I would think that I’m going to get better as the weekend goes on. … So I’m making myself available for the team as much as I can, 100 percent, not only as a player but in whatever role I can play.” The next day, Federer teamed with Stanislas Wawrinka to win the doubles in straight sets. Then he gave Switzerland its first Davis Cup title by crushing Frenchman Richard Gasquet in straight sets in the reverse singles.

 

SET FOR JANUARY

Recovering from an appendicitis operation, French Open champion Rafael Nadal says he hopes to be ready for the Australian Open in January. “As ever after a period when things haven’t gone well, you’re a bit more eager to (prepare) well, although there is uncertainty about how things will go,” the 28-year-old Spaniard said. “I hope to use December to prepare well. I’ll have a month before things start in Australia. I hope and believe that’s enough to get me to my best level.” Nadal last played in October and underwent the surgery at the beginning of this month. He said he would start 2015 with an exhibition event in Abdu Dhabi before defending his title in Doha, then go to the Australian Open.

 

SEES NEW CHALLENGE

Katrina Adams has been a player, a television analyst and executive director of the Harlem Junior Tennis and Education Program in New York City. Beginning in January she will become the new president of the United States Tennis Association (USTA). A native of Chicago, Illinois, USA, Adams played on the tour from 184 to 1999 and was ranked as high as eighth in the world in doubles, winning 21 career WTA doubles titles. She has served on the USTA board of directors for 10 years and is currently completing a two-year term as First Vice President. She will become the first African American and first former professional tennis player to serve as the association’s Chairman of the Board, CEO and President.  She also serves on the board of directors of the USTA Foundation and the International Tennis Hall of Fame (ITHoF), and is a member of the Grand Slam Board and the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Davis Cup Committee.

Also nominated were Alexander Boyd (Andy) Andrews IV as First Vice President; Thomas S. Ho as Vice President; Donald L. Tisdel as Vice President; Patrick J. Galbraith as Secretary-Treasurer; David A. Haggerty as Immediate Past President; Fabrizio Alcobe-Fierro, Joan E. Baker, Mark D. Ein, Michael J. McNulty III, Andrew A. Valdez, Kathleen J. Wu and Lauren Barnikow, Directors at Large;  Todd C. Martion, Elite Athlete and Director at Large; and Chanda R. Rubin, as an Elite Athlete and Director at Large.

 

SUCCESSFUL TEAM

The heroes of France’s recent rich Davis Cup history – members of its winning teams of 1991, 1996 and 2001 – were honored just before the reverse singles rubbers of this year’s final. Arnaud Boetsch, Olivier Delaitre, Nicolas Escude, Guy Forget, Henri Leconte, Cedric Pioline, Guillaume Raoux and Fabrice Santoro participated in the ceremony before a crowd of 27,000 at the Stade Pierre Mauroy. The most memorable of those three victories came in 1991 when Forget and Leconte combined to defeat the United States 3-1 to clinch France’s first Davis Cup title in 59 years. Forget and Leconte were earlier honored with the Davis Cup Award of Excellence by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Hall of Fame (ITHoF). Boetsch, Raoux, Pioline and Forget led France over Sweden in 1996, a tie noted for being the first Davis Cup final to be decided in the fifth set of the fifth match. That was when Boetsch saved three championship points in the decisive rubber against Niklas Kulti, winning 10-8 in the fifth set to complete nine hours of play on the final day. In 2001, Escude won the decisive fifth rubber to give France a victory over an Australian team featuring Lleyton Hewitt and Patrick Rafter.

 

SERGIO’S CADDIE

Former French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero has a new job in his retirement. He will be the caddie for fellow Spaniard Sergio Garcia when he attempts to defend his title at next month’s Thailand Golf Championships. Also in the field will be Bubba Watson, a two-time US Masters champion, US Open champion Martin Kaymer and former world number ones Lee Westwood and Ernie Els. Ferrero was ranked number one in the world in tennis in 2003 and retired two years ago after 14 years on the ATP World Tour. “I’ve played golf with him many times, but he never caddied for me before,” Garcia said of Ferrero. “We just talked about it and he mentioned about it and we decided to do it. He is excited about it. … It is good fun to be able to enjoy golf and have a good time with a good close friend.”

 

SELECTED

Geneva, Switzerland, will be the site of an ATP World Tour 250 tournament beginning next year. The tournament, which had been held in Düsseldorf, Germany, will be staged at the Tennis Club de Genève at the Parc des Eaux-Vives, the oldest and largest tennis club in Switzerland. The Geneva Open will be held May 16-23, 2015, returning to the Swiss city for the first time since 1991.

 

SYDNEY BOUND

Three of the top six women in the world will in the battle at the Sydney International in January. Romania’s Simona Halep, ranked third in the world, Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic and Australian Open semifinalist Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland will headline the field. Kvitova is ranked fourth and Radwanska sixth. The Sydney International will be held January 11-17 at the Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre.

 

SERENA THE MODEL

Tennis champion Serena Williams has shown another side of her talents. The 33-year-old is part of a new television advertising campaign for an Australian lingerie company, Berlei. Her photo shoot came in Miami, Florida, USA, right after she captured the WTA Finals Championships in Singapore last month. The 33-year-old American said she felt comfortable while posing for the underwear ads. “I’m a normal woman,” Williams said. “I can get self-conscious. But I think that is just natural for women to feel that way. I have learned to be proud of my curves and to embrace them. It’s important to love who you are and realize that you’re beautiful, no matter what society says.” Kellie Warwick, senior marketing manager of Berlei, said Williams was a natural model. “She was without a doubt a natural behind the camera and was an absolute delight to work with,” Warwick said. “She is such a professional.” The ad is scheduled to be released in time for Williams’ appearance at the Australian Open in January, when she will be seeking her 19th Grand Slam tournament singles title. It is the first ad Williams has done for the label since signing on as a sports bra ambassador in 2013.

 

SAD NEWS

Pablo Llorens, former president of the Spanish Tennis Federation, died on November 18. Llorens was an honorary International Tennis Federation (ITF) vice president. He also served as chairman of the ITF Olympic Tennis Committee and along with former ITF President Philippe Chatrier was instrumental in re-establishing tennis as an Olympic sport in Seoul, South Korea, in 1988. Llorens had been a member of the Spanish Olympic Committee since 1971 and in 1975 founded the European Tennis Association together with federation presidents of France, Switzerland, Germany and Great Britain. In 2001, Llorens was awarded the ITF/International Tennis Hall of Fame Golden Achievement Award.

Arturo Grimaldi, president of the Argentine Tennis Association, is dead at the age of 63. He had been suffering from cancer. A lawyer, Grimaldi was ranked number one in the junior under 14 category in 1963 and was Argentine’s seventh-ranked junior in the under 18 age group in 1967. After serving as president of the Tenis Club Argentino, Grimaldi became a board member of the Argentine Tennis Association (AAT) in 1996 and AAT president in 2009. He also was president of the South American Tennis Confederation (CASAT) between 2011 and 2013. “We at the ITF worked closely with Arturo and his team on successful Davis Cup and Fed Cup ties over many years and we thought of him as both friend and colleague,” said Francesco Ricci Bitti, ITF president. “He will be missed by all of us in the tennis family and we send our condolences to his family and his friends around the world.”

 

SHARED PERFORMANCES

Toyota: Eri Hozumi and Makoto Ninomiya beat Shuko Aoyama and Junri Namigata 6-3 7-5

 

SURFING

ATP: www.atpworldtour.com

WTA: www.wtatennis.com

ITF: www.itftennis.com

World Tennis Magazine: www.worldtennismagazine.com

 

TOURNAMENTS WEEK OF JAN. 5, 2015

(All money in USD)

MEN

$1,195,500 Qatar ExxonMobil Open, Doha, Qatar, hard

$511,825 Brisbane International presented by Suncorp, Brisbane, Australia, hard

$459,140 Aircel Chennai Open, Chennai, India, hard

 

WOMEN

 $1,000,000 Brisbane International presented by Suncorp, Brisbane, Australia, hard

$500,000 Shenzhen Open, Shenzhen, China, hard

$250,000 ASB Classic, Auckland, New Zealand, hard

Roger Federer
Roger Federer