Forty Deuce

Pic This: In Like A Lamb...

Day 1 is on its way into the books. 

And except for a few moments of stress, it was pretty snoozy.

 

Fed won easily, though Devon Britton, the young American, showed some stuff to be excited about.

 

Makiri won easily in her new Adidas Competition gear. 

Hmm...maybe it *was* the clothes.

 

Don't tell Aga, but that ain't a checkmark on her kit.

OK, This Is Getting Ridiculous.

I honestly didn't think there was anymore shit in the sky that could rain down on Jelena Dokic.  You'd think the Tennis Gods would be all out at this point.  You'd be wrong.

Tennis Australia confirms that JD is suffering from mono.  Hopefully she can recover soon.

Snot Rocket Out. But Not Before Getting The Last Word.

Bummer.  I was really hoping she'd be able to make a run here but it sounds like she's still struggling with her fitness.  She lost to Malek in three sets.

But just as she was in Australia, she was nothing but candid in her presser. 

Q. I understand your reluctance to talk about your father. There has been speculation in the last couple weeks about some kind of reunion between the two of you.

JELENA DOKIC: Once again, I've said it a million times: I have absolutely nothing at all to do with him. So I don't see why people would think that I would reunite with my dad when every single question I answer is about me not doing that.

So, you know, there were reports I was there during Eastbourne, and I was practicing three times a day at Eastbourne in front of players and people. I don't understand where all these articles come from.

But it's okay. Now and forever, there is nothing, no way that I would ever, uhm, reunite with him or ever have a relationship with him, so...

This is the last sentence ever you guys will hear from me, and that's the way it is.

We're rooting for you, kiddo.  Get better and bust some nuts during the hard court season.

I Hope It's A Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison.

Damir Dokic was sentenced to 15 months for making threats on the Australian ambassador to Serbia.

Isn't Father's Day this weekend?  Nice. 

Does Hallmark make a "Happy Father's Day, Dad!  Don't drop the soap!" card?  They should.

Pic This: So What'd I Miss During My 72 Hour All Nighter?

It's a good day to be Agnes.


We get it.  You're *so* pretty.  Stop.


Something about Pavs is very Mini-Dina.  I can't stop lolling.


Suspect.


Jesus!!!


Devil. 

They are often dressed the same.  Some might argue they have the same sponsor.

Yeah, wrap you little heads around that one, kiddies.  Suck it, C.S. Lewis!


"Pass the dutchie 'round the left hand side, Pass the dutchie on the left hand side."


Show off.


Man.  The 'coon eyes need to go.


Oh, look at you pounding on your heart.  I just want to give you a noogie.


Ana.  Tongue.  Wrinkly Sausage Finger Man Hands. 

You're welcome, boys.


Masha/Dina semis?  Masha/Ana semis?  The world is your oyster.


Gilles Simon: The Daniela Hantuchova of the ATP.  Wear some bike shorts or something. 


I want to go to there.  Minus the RogerSex.  But otherwise, YES.


I'm going to pretend that's Mo in the chair.  Because that makes it 700,000% awesomer.


Never Forget.

Pic This: Cloudy With a Chance of HoYay

Nom nom nom.

I understand, Jo.  It's overwhelming me a bit, too.

Sad face x 1000.  Poor Jelena.

Smiling, watching the match, relaxed even though her man's in trouble, not on the Blackberry... I dunno, pregnancy agrees with Mirka.  Not to mention, her hair looks fantastic.

Coolness.

I dunno, the size differential cracked me up.  Come on, Serena's not that tall.  What are VRP's stats, is she 4'11" and 70 pounds?

How great umpires are born.

Yahoo tells me this was at RG today and I'm going to choose to believe them, because puppehs are awesome.

And, finally, by popular request...

LOLZ.  That is all.

Ladies, You're Killing Me

Seriously.

Oh Lucie, Lucie.  My poor little Starburst.  So close, yet so far.  Match point?!  She's got to be the biggest "almost" giant slayer in the last month-- almost got Dina, almost got Venus... twice.  This is the kind of stuff that keeps a girl up at night.  Possibly until next clay season.  Good luck with that, Lucie.  (And she lost in doubles, too!  Just not Miss Safarova's day.)

And then there was this...

You know, you'd think that with everything she's been through, Jelena Dokic would be in for a seriously huge karmic payday at some point.  Today felt particularly cruel-- up a set on the number 4 seed, her back seized up while she was waiting to return serve.  She called for the trainer and went off for treatment; when she came back, she was more or less gifted a break by Lena D double faulting (imagine that).  Up a set and a break, and your back gives out again??  That's just mean.  She gutted out two more games before she had to finally say no mas.  Heartbreaking.  If only it had been a half hour later, she might have gotten away with pleading to have the match suspended for darkness, but that's just not the way it goes.  

I hope these two have a good old time with their hotel minibars tonight.  

Pic This: And By Rabbit I Mean Rochus.

Yucky day.  Wet and windy conditions for all.  Not that it really had any impact on play.  Overall, kind of a boring day on the courts.


Hold up.  He ain't done yet, folks.  Let's see if he can pull a rabbit out of his hat tomorrow.


Snot Rocket and furry friends scampered away with a win.  Thank God.  I was getting worried.


I am digging the yellow that Nike's rocking for the boys.  So fresh and so clean.


Fed is balletic, Rafa is powerful, but for my money, Nole has the best action shots in the biz.  And if I haven't said it yet, mucho kudos to Adidas on their choice of blue for the clay court season.  It looks fantastic against the red clay.


Oh, Gypsy.  I want so badly to hate you, especially when you bounce Dani "Just Give Her A Damn Chocolate Tart" Hantuchova. But then you smile that dorky but sweet smile and not even my hater heart can...well...hate.


I'm gonna go out on a limb and say those are some British fans. 

I don't know what gave it away...


Dear Cone.  Please win tomorrow.  I miss your "Sacrebleu!" game faces.


I could stare at those long gangly Elf arms all. day. long.


One word.  700,000 syllables. 

Comfortability.


I'm not sure beating Blah on clay is worth "shitting the pants" but ok.


Jo Belly!


Phillipe Chatrier is officially christened.

Bring on Round 2!

1-1

That's Serena's new record against Klara Zakopalova for the '09 clay court season.  So... there's that.  I can't really say anything about anyone's level of play since I didn't watch very much of it, but I can say that Serena's knee wrap looked oddly high tech.  Although I could be making that up in my head.

I don't think she's even wearing jewelry from her own line. What kind of marketing strategy is that, Serena?  

There were other matches this morning, of course, mostly wrapped around a two hour rain delay...

Jelena's new not-entirely-horrible, but not-entirely-awesome Anta dress made its debut today. That's also a pretty good summary of how she played against Petra Cetkovska-- it's kind of like her game is currently on a factory reset: the big problem is gone, but none of the old programming has been reinstalled yet. Competent, and certainly enough to get her through the first two or three rounds, but not entirely solid yet. Meanwhile, look who's wearing pink!

Man. If, in some alternate universe, it ended up being a Dinara/Sveta final, Sveta would immediately have the upper hand because Dinara would be so. Jealous. Sveta played a really solid match against Claire Feuerstein, a French journeywoman who turned out to be much better than anyone thought she'd be-- possibly including Feuerstein herself.

'Round the ATP side, Nicolas Lapentti did his part to get Philippe Chartrier back on schedule by retiring down 4-6, 1-3 to Nole.  

  

Lapentti rolled his ankle-- which was already heavily taped-- towards the end of the first set, and obviously never got comfortable again. Nole looked calm and collected, had some silly misses, but mostly looked in perfectly good shape for the beginning of the tournament. 

Other results thus far: Monfils, Kohlscreiber, JMDP, Gicquel, Seppi and Disco Tommy all through easily in straight sets. Juan Monaco just knocked out Marcos-- Marcos, we hardly knew ye.  Caro, unsurprisingly, took the third set against Vera D fairly easily (6-1). The Gypsy prolonged Dani's misery by beating her in straight sets, Ruano Pascal did the same to Nikki V. Aleks Wozniak went through in 3, U-Rad went out in 3. Lena D through in straights, but went down a couple of breaks in the first. Sania's out and Dokic is through (only her second win since the AO?!). Quality guy Ivan Ljubicic is in a deciding set with Ferrero and Jo Willy and Apricot Bars are locked down in battle on Chartrier, but ESPN2 has decided I'd rather watch Blah. They are incorrect. Thank god for livestreaming. One note: conditions today have been terrible-- hours of rain delays this morning, terrible wind ever since. It looks like hell out there.

Fed Cup Foto Fun

Sigh.  I'm really sad that I was too drunk and hungover to enjoy this round of Fed Cup in any meaningful way.  I guess I'll just have to piece it all together CSI style:

  
I love how JJ gets away with this shit.  Classic.


"Pop the corks, boys.  Mama's thirsty!"


Sigh.  Oh, Chakky.


"It's the one that says 'BADASS MUTHAFUCKA', motherfucker!"

 
"Drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry."


Heeeeeeeeere's Kimmy!

(Also, I'm pretty sure there's a gyno joke I could make but seriously,
I'm not firing on all cylinders quite yet.)

 
Rad!


"Will you give all you can give
So that our banner may advance
Some will fall and some will live
Will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs
Will water the meadows of France!"


It takes a pretty dress and a million dollar smile, too.


Huh?  What's Bepa doing here?


All that's missing is a can of Fosters.


Liezel rocks her O face.


Heh.  Heh heh.  The world is changing, indeed.
 

Acne, cold sores, and manhands.  I don't think you're ready for this jelly, World Group.

Sania and Snot Rocket Descend On Indian Wells

 

Nice!  Snot Rocket, Sania, and Melanie Oudin were granted main draw wildcards for Indian Wells.  I hope I'll get to see Snot and Sania.  I want to hear Snot and see Sania's awesome off-hand action in person.  And then I can just giggle to myself.

Vania King, Alexa Glatch, Michaella Krajicek, Urszula Radwanska, and Alja Tomljanovic were also granted WCs.

What's With All The Avenging Lately?

The Woz dusted Snot Rocket, 1 and 2.  That's quite a statement.  But could this be the beginning of the end of JD's run?  She's gotta be exhausted.  She hasn't really had much of a break since Melbourne.

Memphis Scores:

WTA Singles 

[5] M Erakovic (NZL) d [WC] M Oudin (USA) 46 62 63
[Q] M Krajicek (NED) d K Barrois (GER) 63 36 76(0)
[2] V Azarenka (BLR) d S Cohen-Aloro (FRA) 62 62
[1] C Wozniacki (DEN) d [Q] J Dokic (AUS) 61 62
[Q] C Scheepers (RSA) d L Hradecka (CZE) 61 57 76(5)
S Bremond (FRA) d K Flipkens (BEL) 64 60
S Foretz (FRA) d M Czink (HUN) 62 46 62

ATP Singles

[2] J del Potro (ARG) d G Canas (ARG) 63 76(5)
E Gulbis (LAT) d T Dent (USA) 64 36 62
[WC] M Baghdatis (CYP) d K Nishikori (JPN) 75 63
F Serra (FRA) d [4] R Soderling (SWE) 64 67(1) 62
C Rochus (BEL) d [WC] D Young (USA) 64 63
S Koubek (AUT) d G Garcia-Lopez (ESP) 62 62

Appendectomy? What Appendectomy?

Momes!  Where you been, dude?

It brings a smile to my face to see her into the semis of a Premier tournament.  And she's not really scrapping her way through.  By all accounts she's been fairly spectacular and the beautiful all court game is back.  I mean, she just beat A-Rad 2 and 0.  Jigga what?

But does she have enough to beat a semi-struggling JJ?  Yet another three setter, this time against The Cone, who seriously should be considering some seppuku with the way her year has gone so far.  She took the first set off JJ 75 and went on to drop the next two 64 64.  That is rough.  But maybe she took just enough out of JJ to even up the match with Momo tomorrow.  Those Frenchies.  Loyal to no one but each other.  And even then, not so much.

Just a quick thought on JJ.  Wasn't all that strength and conditioning work she did over the off-season supposed to amp up her game so that she wasn't playing these ridiculous three setters?  Much like Rafa, she's such a grinder that she really needs to get off the court in the early rounds to save her body over the long haul.  Tourneys like this one aren't good for her.  Not that she cares.  It's not like this is a European tournament. 

Oh wait.

The other semifinal will see BFFs together again.  These two just can't get enough of each other.  They've both been rolling through their draws but I'm going to give the edge to Lena.  Why?  Because she has the game to frustrate Serena and this isn't a Slam so she won't get all nervy and wuss out.

But we gonna see.

Scores:
(1) Serena Williams (USA) d. (Q) Emilie Loit (FRA) 64 61
(2/WC) Jelena Jankovic (SRB) d. (5) Alizé Cornet (FRA) 57 64 64
(3) Elena Dementieva (RUS) d. (WC) Nathalie Dechy (FRA) 63 62
(8) Amélie Mauresmo (FRA) d. (4) Agnieszka Radwanska (POL) 62 60

"And now we've come, to the end of the road."

Conflicted Sad Face.  She had her chances and opportunities to keep this miracle run going, but in the end I just think the Snot Rocket ran out of gas.   He fell to Dina in three sets 64 46 64.  I loved seeing her fight though.  The rest of the girls on tour (*cough*Ana*cough*) could learn from watching her play.  Focused, direct, and just so awesomely old school.  I think my favorite thing about Snot Rocket is how she'll just serve with any ball that's given to her.  So cool.

As for Dina, this was a gift.  Plain and simple.  Because if she wasn't "Dinara Safina" and we didn't have her body of work to judge her, you know everyone would be reaming her right now.  Four double faults to give away a set???  Seriously?  She's never looked sharp throughout an entire match this tournament.  She should have been dumped by The Cone last round and she should have lost last night. 

If she can turn it around against Bepa then all power to her.  But right she doesn't look great.  Everything about her game looks fragile.  Ugh.  So frustrating.  That said, I'll give her a lot of credit for not going bonkers last night.  Her service woes, combined with the crowd, combined with the stress of being the overwhelming favorite in the match, could have led to a third set implosion.  Quite a sign of maturity to stay in the match and tough it out.

It's Nice To Know This Story Already Has a Happy Ending

Because if I didn't know, this crap would just be more and more disturbing and sad:

Late in 2006 Jelena, Tin and Borna were racially abused by a group of Croatian men in an ugly confrontation in Zagreb allegedly linked to inflammatory remarks made by Damir.

The trio were surrounded by an angry gang after a training session.

They jostled them and directed a barrage of anti-Serbian comments at her before throwing fruit juice at her.

The taunts were reportedly made in reprisal for one of several Damir rants against Croatia and his unfounded claim his daughter had been kidnapped by the Croatian brothers.

Air Quotes: The First 8 Rounds Are On Me.

"I think he might have a few drinks tonight. I think I might as well."

-- Jelena Dokic, on how her coach was doing after her win last night.

Dear Media: The Story Is Jelena, Not The Eff'ed Up Bearded Dude. Focus.

I am more than annoyed that the media, whether it's the Australian media, Serbian media, or whoever, are going out of their way to track down Damir Dokic to get his thoughts on everything.  WHO THE FUCK CARES WHAT HE THINKS!?!  Especially when he says shit like this:

"'She became depressed when she saw what she had done (leaving her family).  When she left home everything started to go bad for her.  She started losing tournament after tournament and she was panicking. Of course she was depressed, but not because of me. She became the fourth best player in the world because of me."

Now he's talking about wanting to coach her again, fly to Melbourne and attend if she makes the final, and reconcile.  His level of delusion is spectacular stuff.

Snot Rocket's reaction?

"I haven't had any contact (with him).  It's the first I heard about it.  Yeah, it's his decision (but) I've said always my whole story with him is finished.  It would have to be an unbelievable miracle for him to change. I don't see that happening.  I have my tennis and I have my life. I want to do it that way.  Knowing him, I just don't see any possibilities.  We are really different and really disagree on pretty much everything."

Good for you, Jelena.  Here's hoping the media quit mentioning him.  Let the kid move on.

I Have Warm Soup Belly. In My Heart.

Sigh.  Just...good stuff.

7-5 5-7 8-6.  Physically and emotionally drained, Snot Rocket relied on her mental strength to stay in the match and outlast Kleybs for the win.   This was her fourth straight three setter.

Tip of the sweaty cap to Kleybs though on a solid tournament.  I was really impressed that she never went away in the third set of her match against Ana and she stayed strong and competed hard to the end last night.  Still don't like her though.

It's going to be rough going forward for Snot Rocket.  She admitted after the match that she's physically drained and to make matters worse she suffered a left ankle sprain towards the end of the match.  She'll face Dinara next.

But no doubt she's the story of the tournament.  Here's the ESPN spot they did on her: