After Atalanta

 Watching the semi-final between Mirra Andreeva and Marta Kostyuk, I am struck by how they both have women coaches to whom they are not related (i.e., their mothers are not coaching them, though Kostyuk's mother was her coach until 2022). I wonder how often this happens? From my fairly faithful watching of tennis, I would guess not often. But I have not run the numbers. I am also watching the Women's College World Series the final of which pits Texas against Texas Tech. I am not rooting for either team (I am just in it for the softball which has been good. I stopped having a favorite when UCLA was eliminated.) Both those teams feature men coaches. And no one talks about this, that I have heard anyway. (I am less faithful watcher of DI softball until regionals come around every May.) I know Texas coach Mike White is a former softball player, so at least he has played the game at a high level.  And then there are the ongoing conversations in the WNBA this season about the behavi...

Just saw Safin a lose the French Open final. It was heartbreaking. I had a slight inclination to root for Kuznetsova, but still, I would have liked to see a better second set. And maybe even a third! Good for Kuznetsova though. As someone who has fought the same nerves Safina had today, Kuznetsova had a great match. A great tournament which included an amazing match against Serena Williams. And Kuznetsova was quite gracious in her win. There was not a lot of exuberance--out of respect for Safina. (She was crossing herself quite a bit, though. I had not known she was quite so religious.) And how amazing did Steffi Graf look in her off-white/beige suit?!

Glad to have an excuse to post my pictures of Svetlana Kuznetsova (and her camp which includes her female coach, Larisa Savchenko) at this year's French Open. Kuznetsova beat Serena Williams today to make it to the semifinals of Roland Garros Thirtieth seed Sam Stosur (pic from Wimbledon 07) is into the semis after her easy win over Sorona Cirstea. Roger Federer also won today beating Gael Monfils in straight sets. I was really surprised by this result. When Nadal went out--actually before he went out--I picked Monfils to win the tournament. Mostly because I like long shots, I was tired of Nadal winning this tournament, and I really like Monfils for some reason. I like his style of play and think he is generally underrated. I have not seen the match yet, though I am sure I will get the opportunity what with the constant replays of Federer's matches. Seriously--how many times has ESPN aired his match with Tommy Haas?

Well my day two anyway. Went back to RG last Thursday when the skies were cloudy and the air cool and it was perfect. Had tickets to court 1 but only headed over there at the end of the day when Elena Dementieva was taking on comeback kid Jelena Dokic. Got there to see Dokic win the first set. Was excited to see how Dementieva would respond but unfortunately Dokic had what appeared to be back spasms early in the second set; she left the court for about 10 minutes, played out a game and a half and then retired--visibly upset at having to do so. Dementieva was quite nice and went over to Dokic's chair to check on her. Saw a lot of doubles on the outer courts, which I always enjoy since I never get to see it on television. Here are some pics: The doubles team of Schnyder and Groenfeld Azarenka and her partner beat the French team of Coin and Bremond.

As promised more pics from my first trip to Roland Garros: Flavia Penetta Anna Chakvetadze Alexa Glatch Sabine Lisicki Lucie Safarova

Hot, hot, hot! Or "il fait chaud." (Actually that means "it is hot" and what I should be saying is "it was hot" but I don't remember the past tense of faire.) Anyway it was hot at Roland Garros on Monday. And crowded. And one does not realize this when watching on television. One also has a tendency not to perceive the full impact of how long clay-court points are. Sure they are long; we see this on television. But when it's hot and crowded (crowd control is definitely an issue, worse than the US Open in NYC and of course worse than Wimbledon where they are all about the queue) and you are waiting to get into a court to see Agnes Szavay play an Italian player I had never heard of, length of points becomes important. Showed up at 40-15 the game before a changeover. Didn't get in until 20+ minutes later. A guy next to me, who I believe worked for Wilson, said something about 1) how he hated this tournament and 2) how ridiculous it was that the ga...

No, not because of the day off. My semester is over so every weekend is a three-day weekend in the summer. (Well, as any academic knows, that's not really true. What really happens is that you keep on going forgetting that certain days are holidays and become really confused when you can't find any place open for lunch and why there was so much traffic in the middle of the day which is what happened to me yesterday.) Anyway Memorial Day weekend is a great time for sports. I watched a fair amount of softball this weekend and on Sunday found myself happily ensconced on the couch toggling between Serena Williams's first round match at Roland Garros and the Women's College World Series. There was golf on as well with the Corning Classic concluding in New York though I didn't actually get to see any of it. I was even mildly interested in the Indy500 given Danica Patrick's potential. I followed the results on the ESPN ticker but before I could change over to watch (b...

Justine Henin and Raphael Nadal are the women's and men's 2007 French Open singles champions. It's a three-peat for them both. Browsing through stories about Henin's win I found that the American media focused on two things: Henin's reunion with her estranged family members--all her siblings were at the final; and Ivanovic's nerves. The non-Americna media actually wrote about Henin's play and success. Despite the gushing over Henin's family situation, some commentators still take issue with her behavior. Mary Carillo, during today's men's final, chided her for not attending the International Tennis Federation Awards this past week. Check out Women Who Serve for an interesting story about the special presentation to the men's winner and the lack of anything special for the women--a situation remedied by Martina Navratilova. Navratilova and a Slovak artist are making art using paint soaked tennis balls . Pieces were given to the women's sin...

1. Reminder: Sports Center will air fired Missouri lacrosse coach Kyle Hawkins's story tomorrow (Sunday) night at 9pm (eastern). 2. Bad news: Amelie Mauresmo is out of the French Open. I didn't see the match which is probably a good thing. I really didn't think she was going to win given her history of shaky performances at Roland Garros combined with her recovery time off due to appendicitis. Still I had hoped she would make it to the second week and at least lose to a higher ranked player. 3. It's a big weekend for Annika Sorenstam. She's hosting her first tournament, the Ginn Tribute in Charleston, South Carolina, and it's her first weekend back after taking time off to recover from a serious back injury. She made the cut and though she won't be in the hunt for the title on Sunday, she has held her own and is currently 1 over. Final round airs Sunday on NBC at 4pm (eastern). 4. Women's College World Series is in its championship weekend and this year...

1. New blog! Diane of The Dees Diversion (sadly she has decided to discontinue this blog) has created a new blog called Women Who Serve devoted entirely to women's tennis. Yea! 2. Ashley Harkleroad. Ashley Harkleroad was supposed to be one of the U.S.'s next stars on the women's side. Alas after some good results she has kind of faded away. I always found her too cutesy in an "I'm so innocent and I carry the Bible to every tournament and my nickname is Pebbles, tee-hee" kind of way. This reputation was enhanced when she married, at a very young age (19), fellow American pro Alex Bogolomov. I figured it was the strict Christian thing--if they wanted to have sex and not feel too guilty about it they would have to do so within the confines of a marriage. Harkleroad says it is Georgia thing : "that's what they do in Georgia; get married at 19 and start having babies." And then they get divorced, if it's economically feasible, that is. Luckily it ...