Slice Girl Spins on Tennis

USTA ARGH!!!!

2011-06-01T18:09:00.000-07:00

Rough day on the courts for our last USTA match. Lost 4-1 but three of the four were extremely close, I mean two of them were third set tie-breakers. We threw all we had at it. So instead of being in second place, we're in fifth place. Some days the ball just doesn't bounce our way. And, it was a very busy day at Wagon Wheel with only one staff person working. I personally saw him get chewed out, up and down out at least three times by players, teachers and league captains. People need to chill out...and Wagon Wheel needs to hire more staff.

Did I mention we won our Metro division, that is some consolation. No progress on the app yet but what a great French Open underway. The men's semifinals look to be great matches. And who doesn't love Franchesca Schiavone's spirit?

Time Flies

2011-05-09T18:30:00.000-07:00

I'm reminded that I haven't blogged in a very long time! Last year at this time I had a mid-life crisis and decided to go back to school for my master's degree and that has been taking all of my time and intellect - and even some of my tennis playing time. It will take me about 4 years going one class at a time. No bueno. I carry my Aggie backpack to school every class night. So far no SMU ponies have questioned it, but I am an Aggie, not a Pony for sure. I'm in between semesters at the moment. It was a good Metro season, we won our division so we'll move up to the next level in the Fall. Now on to USTA and the summer heat. Then in July we have the Davis Cup match, USA vs. Spain in Austin - should be fun. May have some extra tickets if anyone is interested.

In the meantime I have an idea for an app. If there truly is an app for everything, then I'm going to create an app for people to take inventory of their tennis skills so that at the end of a match that a third party audits for you, you have a stat sheet that tells you what you did well and what you need to work on. This is information that we players only get anecdotally, we think we know what needs work but we don't have data to back it up. The details are still sketchy but me and my friend Ana are going to work on this as time permits. Stay tuned for the outcome. Serious hacks may really find it fun.

There is no dearth of weird activities that happen on or around the courts - just a dearth of time to write about them...

Day Three of the Fortnight

2010-06-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

It's finally happened. A tennis match that will not end. The normally ho-hum matches that pair humongous servers are usually ignored cuz they're boring but today we had one that captured the attention of tennis fans around the world ONLY because it WOULD NOT END. (and also because I emailed ten friends and they emailed ten friends and so on until the whole tennis world was watching the spectacle.)

Now Wimbledon has a huge problem in the part of the draw with John Isner and Nicholas Mahut. This match could conceivable go on for days and if it does, it will wreak havoc on the schedule because that section of the draw and ultimately the entire draw cannot proceed until the match is over. And it may never be over. Between these two serving giants and the racquet technology that allows them to continue to serve an unnatural number of aces, the draw cannot proceed until one of them blinks and after 50 million games, neither one has so far. Eventually their arms will fall off but so far we haven't seen any evidence of that. (of course the match could be over in ten minutes when they resume tomorrow too)

This match is so bizarre that it almost caused us to miss a very tight four set match from The Great One, who had another early round challenge from the 153rd player in the world, Ilija Bozaijac from Serbia (who's won less than half a million in his tennis career). And #7 seed Nicolay Davydenko, who faced Daniel Brands of Germany, suffered a straight sets loss to the 100th ranked player in the world.

Crazay things are afoot at SW19 this year... (yes, I did mean to type CRAZAY)

The Fortnight is HERE!

2010-06-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

Oh the smell of freshly mown grass! It must be the fortnight. At 5:30 a.m. CDT the tv was switched on and we assumed the position. Two crazy weeks of tennis. Every four years it becomes more complicated as it overlaps with World Cup Soccer but for a tennis fan, nothing. beats. Wimbledon. period. The first thing we saw this morning was the most pristine grass court you'll ever see. It was the new Court 2, which is literally brand new. Gorgeous. And then came the tennis. I got to work around 8:15 and switched on wimbledon.org and went to Live Matches, then turned on Radio Wimbledon, cuz that's what we do during the fortnight. WHA????? The mighty Federer was down by two sets already. I immediately started emailing my friends and before too long work had stopped all around the country, and sometimes in mid-air. Were we about to see the mighty Federer go out in the first round of the tournament that he has mostly owned for years. Couldn't be happening. I promptly im'd my boss and said I'd have to be late for staff meeting. What's really cool is that I can watch it or listen to it from Dallas from 6 a.m. till about 4 p.m. because it stays light in London till about 9 p.m. And today they closed the roof and played till almost 11 p.m., another crazy five-setter. Its gonna be a good one. SW19 - I'd give anything to be there! I would volunteer to be this year's streaker if someone would buy my ticket. Maybe my professor won't notice if I keep my mobile device tuned to the matches during class for the next two weeks. I'll just tell him its business! IT IS! Now if the Tennis Channel would just get rid of that horrible Jimmy Connors...sorry I just can't get over him being rude to me one time when he refused to sign my T2000! Let the games begin.

Temper Temper

2010-04-02T15:53:00.000-07:00

How many times have we seen it from junior tennis to the pros. A person loses control of their temper and the match slips out of their grasp. They get so angry they cannot recover and the farther behind they get the more angry they get. A vicious cycle. This happened in my match just the other day. An otherwise good player lost it so badly that by the end of the match she shouted that we were cheating bitches. Her head started spinning around on her body and she started spewing split pea soup. It was surreal, a Jimmy Connors moment. From the first point of the match she had convinced herself that we were cheating her when we called a ball out. Then later when we challenged her scorekeeping she apparently filed that away in her "to be dealt with later" file. After the match she broke into a stunning rant. We were almost speechless. Almost. After the hollering subsided I thought of all kinds of clever comebacks, it was a shame she couldn't hear them. But she did hear a few choice words from me, mainly that I thought she was out of line and she needed to calm down, then when she couldn't I told her I didn't want to talk to her again. My guess is that she's still not over it. Funny thing is her partner couldn't understand why we didn't offer them any hospitality after the match. Cheating bitches can be so rude.

Senior Tennis

2010-03-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

She had her tennis shirt tucked into her tennis skirt...tucked into her tennis skirt. Who does that? She was short, stooped when she walked and had her shirt tucked into her tennis skirt...She could hit the ball back and forth and keep it out of reach of the net man ALL DAY LONG. Three hours later we had won the doubles match but it came at a cost. We could never accomplish the obvious, which was to draw her in and then lob over her. Her defensive skills were simply amazing. When it was all said and done we could barely walk, she had given us a three hour lesson in tenacity.

Senior tennis is a game of strategy. Never underestimate your elders!

Red Hot Rafa

2010-03-05T15:37:00.000-08:00

Rafa Nadal doesn't seem to be the least bit sidelined by a knee injury in his new venture. He's playing doubles - the horizontal kind! Ladies, make a mad dash to youtube.com and search Shakira - Gypsy to see Rafa's music video debut. (And what a debut it is.) Men, you can look too but you have to hand over your man card if you do...so don't say I didn't warn you. I've been waiting and hoping for something good to draw new fans, but didn't see this one coming. Enjoy.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

2010-01-26T19:40:00.001-08:00

Frasier: Afternoon, all.
Woody: Hey, how's it going, Dr. Crane?
Frasier: Oh, the usual. The crying, the tantrums, the bed-wetting.
Woody: Yea that's fatherhood.
Frasier: No, that's my therapy group. What a buncha losers.

Most competitive tennis players, regardless of their level, do some kind of drills between their matches - at least if they want to get better and win. Mine happen on Monday nights at the local high school, 15 bucks and all the balls you can hit in an hour and a half. It struck me one day that Monday night drills are my Cheers bar, my therapy group, a respite from the bad stuff of life.

Whether we really know each other off the court or just know each other on Monday nights, everybody knows your name there. They also know every flaw in your game and they can trash talk like your best friend. From time to time we have dating couples like Sam and Diane. Yea, that's uncomfortable. I'm the closest thing to Carla that we have, the perennial wisecracker. Chuck is definitely Norm, prognosticating from the baseline. Coach...well there are three, June, Warren and Rob. These guys have the best time of anybody out there. They laugh at us constantly like we're some kind of weird inside joke. You might have to drag yourself out there and you might show up in a bad mood. But the great thing about my Cheers bar is that before too long everybody is laughing, its the best hour and a half of the week. Heck, I'll even miss Antiques Roadshow for it!

"Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away? Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same. You wanna be where everybody knows your name."

This post is dedicated to my friend Mitzi.

You win some, you lose some...2009 in review.

2009-12-17T18:55:00.000-08:00

Under the category "You win some, you lose some..." we are fast approaching the end of 2009 - thank heavens, Just one more hour! So a quick year in review (the tennis year, of course) is in order. Here's my list of the top ten tennis bits in 2009.

10. For some unknown reason Agassi confessed all his sins in 2009 - none of us are the better for it. Maybe he needed the money but he could've easily kept his story private!

9. I lost money betting in favor of Andy Roddick...lesson learned.

8. The sport lost Jack Kramer this year, we all gotta go sometime.

7. I had my picture taken with the great Rod Laver at Indian Wells and the picture didn't turn out and none of my friends were with me at that moment so nobody believes me! It was pretty unemotional for Laver.

6. Federer won just about everything he could've ever dreamed of in 2009, but mostly cuz Nadal wasn't around.

5. Serena Williams lost her temper in front of the whole world this time. And it happened the same week her inspirational book came out. She said she just wants to be a "role model."

4. My tri-level team went to nationals at Indian Wells, it was SO much fun. This should really be #1 on the list but I'm trying to be fair to all the other tennis news of the year.

3. 2009 turned out to be the year of Kim Cljisters so much that Justine Henin thinks she'll give it a go in 2010. Maybe I should bet on her.

2. Who knew that Rafa Nadal would lose his mojo this year - he's glad the calendar is rolling over more than most of us.

1. In 2009 Jimmy Connors- my least favorite person in tennis - got arrested and went to jail. Then the Tennis Channel signed him to do commentary for the US Open. Its a crazy mixed up world!!!

Enough already, its time for slicegirl to go to bed. Bah humbug on being awake at midnight. Happy New Year - see you on the courts!

Tennis is Life

2009-10-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

Every now and then something crazy happens in tennis - like Serena Williams losing her cool or Roger Federer hitting a winner between his legs at a Grand Slam (assuring the entire world would see it!) Every week on the pro tour those players have hope that this might be their breakthrough week and even if it isn't, they keep trying week in and week out. And so it is in life, hundreds of thousands of amateur players around the world hope that this might be their week or their season and hope springs eternal. Maybe they'll get enough wins for the computer to move them up (or enough losses to move down). Just today a bunch of over 50 women took the courts seeking tennis immortality or just one good win. We're really not looking to make our mark, we're just looking for a good, fun day on the courts and hopefully a check in the win column at the end of the day. We keep slogging it out week after week and why do we do it? Because Tennis is Life! It has its ups and downs, sometimes a little rain falls, a little wind blows, but on average any day we can get out and play is a really good day.

On the downside, some ladies can't be too proud of their tempers today...calling their over 50 opponents "cheaters" because they didn't agree with the call is absurd. The elasticity in our eyes is gone and we do well to get close to right most of the time. Someday slicegirl is going to write a book on the bizarre behaviors that happen in women's amateur tennis. Don't look for it on the NY Times bestseller list yet.

WOWOWOW

2009-09-14T17:32:00.000-07:00

Watching the trophy presentation for the 2009 U.S. Open men's championship. Juan Martin Del Potro is watching Federer give his runner-up acceptance speech, looking very humble and learning from the champ. I can't imagine the focus a 20-year-old has to have to stick with that kind of tough five-set match. He played an amazing match, just unbelievable. He was so determined, it was great. Federer wasn't as hungry today. Now Del Potro is speaking and I can't understand a word he says! I feel like he'll win lots more and his English will get better.

What an amazing open, surprising with many many great matches. I can't remember another US Open being as crazy and fun as this one was. Setting Serena aside for a moment, watching the joy of Melanie Oudin, Kim Clijsters and Caroline Wozniacki was so much fun. It was a drag to watch Roddick go out so early (and to lose $20 to Will) but to lose to Isner somehow made it better. Roddick and the Bryan brothers have been tweeting from the golf course and the deck of the sailboat - they don't even seem too upset and they're doing just fine. Serena has also been tweeting like she's got the world by the tail.

I hope that the powers that be in tennis come down hard on Serena this time. No sport should put up with a player threatening an official. And she clearly did that. Its immaterial whether the foot fault call was right or wrong (it was wrong...) you just can't treat people like that, cuss them out in front of the cameras and an audience and act like you didn't do anything wrong. Nobody else could get away with it, they'd be bounced out of the tournament on their head. One player shouldn't have so much power that they are scared to deal with her bad behavior. She took two days before she actually said she was sorry. All week she's been tweeting about her new book (ad nauseum...on the NYTimes bestseller list) and saying how she wanted to be an inspiration to people. She got too big for her britches and showed her true colors. Never my favorite Williams sister, if I were the Queen of Tennis, I would say off with her head. Same with Jimmy Connors never did ANYTHING for the sport and now he's out of money and needs a job. (I'm making that part up but who knows...)

And so now its fall tennis season on courts all over the U.S. - let's have fun and be careful out there! Hope you win a lot!

2009-06-27T17:31:00.001-07:00

I hereby promise never to call Fernando Gonzalez the Chilean Cheater on this blog ever again. Today at Wimbledon he achieved some redemption from his Olympic faux pas. The umpire lost track of the score and Fenya corrected him, even though the error would've been in his favor. He went on to lose to "over the hiller" Juan Carlos Ferrero. Don't know what I'll do on middle Sunday. Just sit around and wait for Monday!

Bruised and Battered

2009-06-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say right up front that the photo on the right is not my photo. I told my husband that I was going to take a picture of my bruise and post it but he didn't think that was a great idea. Only because my bruise can only be found where the sun doesn't shine and he's right, nobody would want to see that. But it does reflect how I feel more and more after playing tennis, allegedly a non-contact sport. Sunday in an 8.0 mixed doubles match I got hit by a ball on the second point of the match. Its a small wonder that I didn't fall over on impact, that's how hard the guy hit the ball. If I hadn't been in the way of the ball, it would've gone out the back of the court by 20 feet. Unfortunately he hit it from mid-court right at me, also standing mid-court, so there wasn't time to move out of the way of this 100 mile an hour trajectory. My leg still hurts two days later.

What's wrong with that picture? Of course the guy was apologetic, he didn't mean to do it and I let him off the hook saying that's just tennis and sometimes it happens and blah blah blah. He and his partner were very happy that they didn't have to feel bad about it but for a minute. But that's not how I felt inside, I was irritated. He wasn't 19 years old, he was probably 40-ish, too old to be swinging that wildly. But he was and he continued to do it throughout the match, ultimately losing a match he probably should've won. I know it was an accident but I'm guessing that it happens to him regularly. I admit I'm scared to play against players like that who don't have enough control over their balls to not hit people (HARD). Next time I hit a guy in the nuts with an overhead and I say sorry, thanks for your understanding...I hope my partner will kick me to the curb. Its just not all right.

On to Wimbledon...Did you know that Americans have won 52 of the 115 women's singles titles at Wimbledon? We are tops followed by UK with 36, Germany with 8 and France with 7.

I'm going with Andy Murray to get to the semis, which means the British will go nuts. Some of them will talk about how he's Scottish and is that really British enough afterall? I'd like to see him go all the way but I think Federer will regain his balance and the title in spite of that ridiculous Nehru jacket he's wearing. And for sentimental reasons I'd like to see Venus win again and bring her total Grand Slams closer to Serena's. Afterall, she's 29 now and probably doesn't have much more playing time unless she pulls an Agassi. So ultimately Federer and Venus Williams are my picks...time will tell. Sure wish I was there!

French Final Flake

2009-06-08T18:57:00.001-07:00

What is it going to take before major tennis events offer more/better protection to the players on the court. If they can't even protect players in a Grand Slam final playing on the world stage they really need to take a serious look at their security policies. Something truly awful could've happened last Sunday in the finals of the French Open. Fortunately it didn't, but we've seen it happen before in tennis and there's no reason to think it couldn't happen again. It just takes one crazy person. Monica Seles could've won so many more Grand Slam events but her tennis career was halted mid-stream by a crazy man with a knife. It was one of the greatest disappointments in recent tennis history. Heaven forbid something could've happened to Roger Federer, surely the best thing to happen to our sport in forever. Earlier this year a streaker ran on court with Serena and Venus Williams. He paraded his stuff around the court far too long before he was forcibly removed. This is really inexcusable. Federer's attacker was dressed like a court jester (no pun intended), waving the flag of FC Barcelona. Didn't anybody notice this guy coming through the gate. Or if he changed clothes when he got there, didn't anybody think enough of that to tip off security? People don't hesitate to call security down when someone is being obnoxious (like the Serbians who show up to "cheer" their countrymen). Individuals have to take responsibility too, to keep people safe. I hope that Wimbledon pays attention and begins to offer the players a better, safer environment.

Viva la Federer!

The Wind is Not my Friend

2009-04-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

It seems appropriate in light of our recent (crummy) weather to talk a minute about the wind. Playing tennis in the wind is one thing (one bad thing) but playing in 50 mph wind is another and it is not tennis. That's what happened last Thursday for the TCD matches - I didn't play but every other lady in town is talking about it. Even though Sunday was also totally rotten, no day since or in the future will be as bad as last Thursday...

www.tennis.about.com says "Have fun with the wind. If you use it creatively, you'll find the mishits less annoying, and you'll have all the fresh air, trees, and sunshine to yourself and your hardy opponent, while the lesser masses are huddled indoors." While you want to laugh at their pathetic attempt at humor its obvious that the writer has never, ever played in the wind.

Wind makes you look like a beginner. Its every player's nightmare. We joke about calling the other captain to reschedule but nobody wants to look like they don't know how to play in the wind (but they don't).

Here are a few tips for playing in the wind:
1. Get your first serve in, period.
2. Hit the ball hard on one end and soft on the other - you have to figure out which is which.
3. Mess with your opponents when you change ends by saying things like, "boy it sure is hard to serve down on that end, I feel your pain."
4. Start "pushing" the ball, yea that'll help
5. Get your carcass to the net as quick as you can, it gives the ball less time to behave badly.
6. Drop shot to annoy your opponent.
7. Don't trust your instincts, they are wrong.

Looks like this wind will probably be with us for a few more weeks. Good luck with it.

Tri-Level Nationals, The Rest of the Story

2009-03-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

Spend a few days in close quarters with nine other women and you learn a lot. I had the good fortune to spend my weekend with some really neat ladies. None of us ever dreamed when we got together more or less as a group of friends for a little tennis at the Dallas tri-level tournament that we would be together in Houston the next month and a couple of months later at the national tournament in Indian Wells, CA. But there we were and it was super fun. I won't reveal anyone's secrets here just suffice it to say that they have many talents beyond tennis. All nine of us agree on one thing and that is that we want to go back next year! Thanks to the Dallas Tennis Association - Tina Anderson and Jane Gilpin - and the Texas section - Tosha Smith - for helping fund the trip, it was awesome!

It was quite hot in Indian Wells most days. We'd typically play one or two matches a day and then go watch the pros at the BNP Paribas Open. From Thursday to Sunday we saw all of the top players at least once and most times twice. We also got to be close to them on the practice courts. This included Nadal and Federer who at one point were practicing side by side on the practice courts. But also Andy Roddick, Mardy Fish, Richard Gasquet, Stan Wawrinka, Andy Murray, Fernando Verdasco. The ladies were there too, just not quite as interesting. There were some early dismissals like Elena Dementieva and Jelene Jankovic which made their draw a little thinner. The only reason we didn't see more was because we were there for the last few days of the tournament. If you want to see all the top players but you don't want to go to New York, go to Indian Wells and see them up close and personal. On the ladies side we saw Ivanovic and Zvonereva play in the finals on the windiest day of my life. Nadal and Murray also played that day but they didn't seem to be as bothered by the terrible wind.

The tri-level tournament was a non-elimination format called a Compass draw. Hard to explain but once you see it you get it. The winning section was the Southwest that had a ladies team from Chihuahua, Mexico and a men's team from Arizona. We played the ladies team a couple of times and they were very steady. They take their tennis very seriously, during one of our matches with them the ladies went off the court for a smoking break between the second and third sets which we thought was funny until they beat us. The Texas men did better than the ladies winning the 4.5 draw and taking second in the 4.0 draw. They did very well.

There were 14 of the total 17 sections of the country represented at the tournament. Interestingly, some sections didn't go through city and section round robin tournaments. Different people got to nationals in different ways. One even said they just flipped a coin to see who would go to nationals. Sadly, we didn't play any of those teams! And suffice it to say, we earned our way there the old fashioned (hard) way.

If we don't make it back to the national tournament next year I'm suggesting we pool our funds and buy a kettlekorn machine cuz they made a mint off of us! See you on the courts!

Tri-Level Nationals

2009-03-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

In just over a week we leave for Tri-Level Nationals. We received our draws today and we're getting really excited. The format for this tournament is called a Compass Draw. "This is a non-elimination format that is so named because players advance in four to eight different directions depending upon when they lose their first match and when they lose their subsequent matches." We're just going to go with that definition for now...

There are more than 200 players representing 14 sections of the USTA. We are now combined with the men's team winners from Texas to form one team. So all of our points on the ladies side combine with the points on the men's side to determine the overall winner. Individual awards will be presented to the champions and finalists in each ability and gender compass draw - so its possible that any of our levels could also win separately. Additional awards will be presented to the players of the Sections with the three highest total number of points, men's and women's. And just like at the Oscars, each player will receive a "product package" (this one from the tournament sponsor Fila).

Stay tuned for more updates.

Somebody Pinch Me

2009-02-26T18:18:00.001-08:00

Almost a month has gone by and I figure its finally time to talk about the Australian Open. It's taken me this long to get over it. I would look at the computer and try to blog but just shake my head. I like Nadal a lot but on the day of the finals I was hoping that Fed would pull out a win and tie Sampras' record. Not that it matters much because Nadal is coming up right behind him and Federer could potentially hold the record for just a short time. But on that day I really wanted Roger to do it and he didn't. He tried hard but he couldn't do it. OK, there I said it. So my batting average for the Australian Open, if I get to count my pick of one of the Williams sisters - in this case Serena - is just 500. But I came SO close...

And then something happened that was totally unexpected...my 4.5 and under tri-level team (that is 4.5, 4.0 and 3.5) won the Dallas tri-level tournament and went to Texas sectionals in Houston. With a few key exceptions this was the same team that played in the tournament last year and came in dead last :o) We were very excited. We won and we went to Houston with the idea that we'd have a good time at sectionals. The team is Ana Castano-Mears, Ruth Brown and Dorothy Ripka at 4.5; Carol Thumlert, Tiffany Miller, June Cliff, Sandra Lindstrom at 4.0; and Sally Hicks, Jeannie Campbell and Elly Hulleman at 3.5.

That's when it got crazy...we won the Texas section (10 wins, 2 losses) and now we're off to Indian Wells, CA to compete in tri-level at the national level, March 20-22. I can hardly believe I just typed that. At this tournament, we combine our efforts with the men's team from Texas (Houston) and all of our points count together as one Texas team. The format is called a Compass Draw - most of us have never seen it before...google it, its difficult to understand. Just getting us all to California is requiring some fancy footwork since it comes at the end of our Spring Break. We have one player coming from Jamaica, two from New York City and the rest from Dallas but we were determined to get there. Its not often (or ever really) that you go to nationals.

I suppose I must come clean about the fall lest you hear it from someone else. Yes, I had another spectacular fall at sectionals. But when it was all over I asked my partner Carol, did I get the ball back...yes. Did we win the point...no. It was 5-3 in the 3rd set tiebreaker in our favor but I was never right after that (sorry Carol). Nothing broken, just my pride...again. Carol said I should get new shoes...at this point I'll try anything. In the immortal words of Cher, "if I could turn back time..."

I digress, let me get back to the good news. The best part of this nationals experience is that we all get free tickets to the BNP Paribas Open (formerly Pacific Life Open) for all the matches from Thursday to the finals on Sunday. All the top players go to this tournament (except Venus and Serena and you can read about that in Tennis Magazine). It'll be a big photo safari. Needless to say, we are very excited. If anybody out there is going to the BNP Paribas Open from Dallas please let me know. I'll be the one with the player credentials...and I need someone to carry my bags.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

2009-01-30T07:47:00.000-08:00

If you didn't see it, you missed an amazing match today between Rada Nadal and Fernando Verdasco (otherwise known as the Naked Man in this space). It was a slugfest, one for the books. And it sets up another gargantuan match in the Australian Open final between Rafa and Roger. I'll be watching at 2:30 a.m. - will you!? Check out the fantastic photo of Rafa at the end...

P.S. I know its way to early to boast but you recall that two weeks ago I picked Fed and a Williams.

Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!!!!

2009-01-19T13:40:00.001-08:00

Great news Sports Fans on two fronts! The Australian Open has begun and between ESPN and Tennis Channel we'll get tons of coverage. (sadly, no coverage of the streaker who appeared during the Williams' sisters doubles match ... more on that later.) And its particularly great if you have insomnia since they're 17 hours ahead of us and coverage starts at 3:30 a.m. AND, my Tri-Level team won the Dallas tournament so we're advancing to sectionals. We are so excited! And USTA begged my mixed captain to put together a seniors mixed team, which she did. Now I have three mixed doubles leagues and a senior league going at the same time, which should help with the preparation for sectionals. Its embarassing when the captain can't win a match...which did happen in Dallas!

Back to the open, I have to go with Federer, he is looking strong and fresh and completely different from last year. He'll tie Sampras' record in two weeks. That's my pick on the men's side. I think 6 of the 9 American men went out in the first round. Ouch. Women, definitely not Ivanovic, unfortunately not Sharapova, I think this draw is wide open. I'd like it to be JJ Jelena Janovich but I don't think she can stand the extreme heat. Oh heck, I'm picking one of the Williams sisters, doesn't matter which one. They're not going all the way to Australia to get beat at this stage of the game.

Now, about that streaker...this guy came out of the crowd only half naked, the important half. He pranced around for 14 seconds which is like an eternity when you're on tv naked. Now, because player protection is job one, the security guards did almost nothing to get this guy off the court. That's the thinking behind them (and the guards at Wimbledon where this happens more frequently) not doing anything to remove the naked person. So he got his 14 seconds of fame instead of being tackled in the first second or two. Is it any wonder they call it the Happy Slam. I'm not sure why nakedness has such a place of honor on this blog but it does.

Word has it that Ana I and Fernando Verdasco, otherwise known as the Naked Man, have split. Venus and Hank Kuehne - or however you spell it - have gotten engaged. Ana was seen with that hot Australian golfer Adam Scott but unfortunately so was Kate Hudson according to the latest People magazine that I stole somewhere. How can we keep up with all of this?

Connors Arrested -

2008-11-28T17:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! My tennis pals old and new are at the top of my thanksgiving list--lasting friendships built on the desire to slay the person on the other side of the net in the name of a good time--and there is nothing wrong with that. I'm also super grateful that I was able to go to Wimbledon this year with my sisters, we had such fun. And also thanks to my long-suffering husband who would've loved to go to Wimbledon but he approved the girls trip and so we will definitely have to (get to) go back soon so he can also go. This is the same man who gave me the Tennis Channel for Christmas! I'm thankful that I didn't have any injuries this year and most of my friends and teammates also got by unscathed (sorry Jim), in spite of our advancing years!

Here's where my delight turns dark...but I'm also grateful that on Thanksgiving night I got the news that James Scott Connors, yes Hall of Famer, winner of ten major titles and countless smaller ones, feisty wiseguy who was always better than everybody else, got arrested. Details are still sketchy but apparently he supports his local college basketball team, the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos. On Wednesday night they were playing North Carolina at home and Connors got into a confrontation of some kind and got arrested. I cannot wait for more details. Aside from trying to coach Roddick for two years and making some lame tennis lesson videos that he tried to sell, I can't see that Connors has given anything back to the sport that made him rich and famous. Maybe he can parlay a little community service into supporting underprivileged tennis players in Santa Barbara - if there is such a thing. I really am grateful for all the people in our sport who give back to it in all kinds of ways, from donating used equipment to funding tennis camps for kids and all kinds of every day kindnesses that we don't even know about. So okay, shame on me for being giddy about Connors getting his comeupance, I know its wrong. I'll try to be a better person next time.

To my friends in Coppell, be sure to turn out for the Coppell Christmas parade to see the Tennis in Coppell float. None of us know what we're doing but we Will have a float and we Will be festive. 6:30 p.m. on December 6. Wave at us!

Dear Santa

2008-11-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa,

Apologies for the break in etiquette by talking about Christmas before Thanksgiving but this is serious. Among my many tennis excuses (net too high, net too low, court too short, serve too slow) is the much-debated equipment issue. My friend Tim says his Wilson K Factor K Six-One Tour 90, the racquet of Roger Federer, has improved his game even when he didn't really believe in the power of great equipment. Racquet experts are saying its great for 5.0 players and above. But for players like me, Wilson suggests the K Factor Zen. Now the K Six-One is $199 and the K Factor Zen is only $99, which makes me suspicious. Santa, if a racquet costs more will it make my game better? 'Cuz if it does I'd like you to bring me a K Six-One. I need an answer on this one old man.

Tennis fans of the professional game are in the dead zone here at the end of the year. The players are exhausted and broken down. I was talking to Wayne Bryan in Dallas during the Outback Championships, father of the Bryan brothers Mike and Bob - yea, you should've been there. He said basically that his kids are suffering from exhaustion and injuries and they can't wait to get home and get away from tennis for a while. Tennis bums are just going to have to endure NFL, NBA and NHL until the end of January. We can always watch re-runs and hand-ball on the Tennis Channel if we get desperate.

We do get one last hurrah before the pros totally go on hiatus and that's the Davis Cup final match between Spain and Argentina in Argentina, starting Friday November 21. Spain has this one in the bag from a looks standpoint. Let's see Fernando Verdasco (the naked man) and Feliciano Lopez for Spain...David Nalbandian for Argentina...get the picture? The Spanish team is Verdasco, Lopez, David Ferrer and Marcel Granollers, who replaced the injured (and sad) Nadal. Argentina has Juan Martin Del Potro, David Nalbandian, Jose Acasuso and Agustin Calleri. Frankly without Nadal in the lineup this makes the match-up more competitive from a tennis standpoint. Argentina has extremely high hopes and the whole country is tennis crazy in the days leading up to the matches so it should be lots of fun. Let's see if Ana Ivanovich flies halfway around the world to watch Verdasco play... Happy watching!

P.S. Hello to a long-lost tennis friend, Julie Jones out in Abilene, Texas. We had SO much fun in our younger days! I'm digging for a picture to prove it!

Happy Dia De La Muerte

2008-10-31T10:12:00.000-07:00

Buenas dias de la muerta - or Happy Days of the Dead! My little Day of the Dead tennis players in the photo to the right were a birthday gift from my big sis. On the days of the dead they return to the world of the living to enjoy the things they liked to do when they were alive. Oct 31, Nov 1 and Nov 2 are their days to return to the tennis court and play the best game of their afterlife! So buenas dias my little friends...

If you've never trusted me before, do yourself a favor and trust me now. Run, don't walk to amazon.com right now. I'm reading Levels of the Game by John McPhee (my husband said, "THE John McPhee?") Yes, THE John McPhee. This is hands-down the best tennis book ever (not like its a crowded field...) Written in 1969, Levels of the Game is a narrative of a tennis match played between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner at Forest Hills in 1968. It begins with the first serve of the match and ends with the final point. What lies in between is McPhee's brilliant, stroke-by-stroke description, while examining the backgrounds and attitudes which have molded the players' games. Its just terrific and if you call yourself a tennis bum you need to read it. The story is brilliant, and the writing is equally so.

Missed you last week at the Stanford Championships. It was a nice tournament, the weather was good for the most part. But you weren't there! If we have any shot at getting a Davis Cup we all need to get out and support the game in our hometown. There were some great matches, Jim Courier still has it, he won the tournament easily but there was surprisingly good play from some others like Aaron Krickstein and Thomas Enqvist. Next year you need to be there!

On this Halloween night I find myself doing the Time Warp again. This week I was contacted through Facebook by an old friend who remembered playing tennis with me 32 years ago. He made no comments on the quality of my game back there but it was such a fun surprise. Little did he know I'm still playing and blogging about tennis. So hello to Ricky Lewis, one minute you're getting a Facebook account and the next minute you're in the blogosphere! Makes you dizzy, doesn't it?!

As the fall season winds down for Metro and TCD I'm happy to report that my teams are scorching the competition. TCD (where I'm really just a ghost player) - winning their flight, Metro - winning their flight, TCD mixed - in a three-way tie for second place - three teams have all lost only one overall match competition. Winning is so much better than losing.

Last Train to Chokesville

2008-10-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

Last week some friends sheepishly mentioned that they'd been up 9-1 in a third set tiebreaker and let it get away from them. They said they just went away mentally. That would be an understatement. Who among us hasn't been to chokesville at some point?

Choking, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, is looking to the future instead of playing in the moment. That's the word according to Roy Barth, pro at Kiawah Island Resort.

What happens in your brain when you're up 5-2 and lose the set 7-5? Or you're up 6-1 in the tiebreaker (or worse 9-1) and let it get away from you? It is said that when you're up 5-2 that's the worst place you can be in the match. And why is that you ask? Self-sabotage.

We typically start out the match with pretty good concentration and then it goes downhill from there. So by the time it gets to 5-2 we're just about out of gas when it comes to concentration and focus. On the other side of the net the opponent is saying - boy, I've really got to get focused if I'm going to stay in this. Then the match starts to turn. Negative thinking creeps in, which affects your body's ability to perform, you start to tell yourself that if the other team gets to 5-3 then you're almost back on serve and then you tell yourself how embarrassing it would be to lose the set when you were up 5-2 and the next thing you know you've lost it. One commentator on this nasty problem suggests that we practice beginning a match at 15-40, 4-5 in the final set. That if you practice this way that you'll learn to love the challenge of developing that mental toughness. Another tip is not to start taking big risks when you're way ahead, always change a losing game but never change a winning game. That's it from this armchair psychologist, that will be 5 cents please.

And so maybe you know by now that the naked man has made another splash in the media. Seems that Fernando Verdasco and Ana Ivanovic are an item. Oh what fun this will be - slicegirl is giddy with excitement - we haven't had a top ten romance since Agassi and Graf. (I don't count Hingis and Stepanek, ick)

Congratulations to my big sis and "Team Federer" who won the club championships at Onion Creek Tennis Club in Austin, Texas this weekend. Nice going, welcome to the neighborhood. And on the local front, the Dallas Athletic Club was a terrific host to our mixed doubles team this weekend. The final score was 5-4 so there was no big winner and no big loser, which is nice. They offered us many beers and we felt it would be impolite not to accept. Jim, this was your kind of place - where were you? Thanks Laura for that fine reception!

KIDZ!!

2008-09-25T16:08:00.000-07:00

Just when you think you're being a clever blogger a teenager comes along to burst your bubble. She says research shows the average blogger has a readership of exactly two people. I know for a fact that I have more than two readers, I have a mother and two sisters, so I think there are least three people reading Slicegirl! If you're reading this blog, please help me out...take a minute and leave a comment for my offspring so I can prove to her that I'm above average. She doesn't believe it...

It was announced last week that among others, Boris Becker will play the Stanford Championships in Dallas at SMU in October. Others include crowd favorite Anna Kournakova playing mixed doubles and Jim Courier, a founding partner at InsideOut Sports and Entertainment. InsideOut was founded in 2005 by Courier and a partner and they've been bringing our favorite players over the age of 30 to different cities around the US. These events always have a strong charity tie-in. The Dallas tournament will benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. If anyone is interested in volunteering, leave a message here or on my email and I will send you the forms.

If you're wondering where all the pros have gone, apparently they've gone to Asia. Both men and women competed in various spots all over Asia this past week. Check out the results on the weblinks to the right.

I got to wondering why a tennis bracelet is called a tennis bracelet. Bear with me men, your turn is coming...it's way off down the road but its coming. There is actually a story here. In 1987 Chris Evert was wearing an elegant bracelet during the US Open. The bracelet broke and the match was interrupted to allow Chris to recover her diamonds (an odd parallel happened when Venus tried to retrieve her plastic hair beads also at the Open). The "tennis bracelet" incident sparked a new name for the item and a huge jewelry trend. One day Slicegirl may own a tennis bracelet but not until the offspring get highly educated, which is also way off down the road. Until then I'll have to settle for plastic beads.

P.S. Dear Forehand Bandit, I completely agree.
P.S.S. While I found that pictures of naked men are good for readership, its time for Fernando to go...bye-bye

On the Topic of "Hooking"

2008-09-17T19:59:00.000-07:00

In junior tennis a few hundred years ago, we used to say if someone was making bad calls all the time, he or she was "hooking" you. Juniors are notoriously bad about making calls that bear no resemblance to reality, but I digress. Hooking means to steal or snare according to the dictionary. In tennis it means to steal the point away from your opponent by unsavory means, in other words cheating (like a certain ATP player whose initials are FG, also known on this blog as the Chilean cheater- James Blake may forgive but I cannot). Hooking and simply making a bad line call are miles apart but in match play the lines begin to blur when opponents start making accusations about your line calling ability.

If at least once per game your opponent says "are you sure?" you begin to think that they think that you're hooking them (when you're not) and you begin to question your own good judgement. It could be tone of voice or the fact that they question you over and over, but the implication is that you're hooking. Here's a news flash - what they see and what you see are two completely different things and if the ball is on your side of the court you call it, period, end of story. If its 110 degrees and you have sweat in your 50-year-old eyes you still get to call it and you get to be right, whether you are or not because its YOUR call. And besides, the irritating "are you sure?" question just makes most normal people dig in and say "heck yea I'm sure, it was right here at my feet, yes I'm sure. And by the way, aren't you like 75' away from said ball?" It probably doesn't help that you're saying these things much louder and in a higher pitch than you ever intended. All of which just makes your opponent more certain that you're hooking. Now some pros would have you intentionally make bad line calls to teach your opponent that two can play the hooking game. I think that's a real bad idea. That's when the line between hooking and making a bad line call is crystal clear. Just don't do it! (apologies to Nike)

Unbelievably, my friend Tony accuses my blog of being slanted to the female perspective. It must've started with the whole Playboy thing. Guess what? Its about to get a lot worse. I've just been doing a little online shopping and bought about a hundred of the new ATP World Tour Player Calendars for 2009. This is eye candy on speed for the female tennis fanatic. I highly recommend it (even if it does feature the Chilean cheater, I'll exacto-knife that one out). Seriously, go to the ATP link on the right and check it out, its good stuff. I bought one for all of my ladies doubles partners, but don't worry Tony, you won't find this in your Christmas stocking.

The Joys of Fall Tennis

2008-09-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

Fall tennis for the middle aged means stocking up on Advil (at least two before and two after playing). It means the return of the knee and elbow braces, the backaches and the inevitable surgeries that take your team members down. At the end of a long, hot summer after playing A LOT of tennis, it also means laying off the game awhile to give your tendonitis a break. When we were young, we were told that "tennis is a sport for life," we just didn't realize the full implication of that! Life is different at 50 than it was at 18!

You've gotta love a team that puts out a notice saying, don't forget we have a match tomorrow at this time and place, here's who's playing, blahblahblah, and "drinks following the match are mandatory - food is optional." Mind you, this is ladies doubles in the middle of the day in the middle of the week, every week throughout the fall. And to make matters worse, this is the skinniest team in the league by far. That's almost as good as my mixed doubles partner Jim (no last names mentioned) bringing a six pack of beer on court in a cooler for a USTA match. Jim needs a beer hat for tennis, it would just simplify his life. You've gotta love fall tennis in Texas.

Don't forget to follow the ParaOlympics in Beijing. They've kind of gotten lost in the aftermath of the Olympics and the US Open. The wheelchair players are simply amazing to watch. And now Davis Cup starts in just a few days. Seems like a very smart move to replace James Blake with Sam Querry, who made an excellent showing at the US Open. But why take my word for it? I hooked up my blog with some of the best tennis sites on the web so you can come here and find all the links for all the news that's fit to print, and maybe an occasional naughty picture of Rafa Nadal. BTW, Rafa is now saying he was uncomfortable with the recent pictures of himself in New York Magazine. Too late, its already my wallpaper...

Good wishes to Darius and Landa on their surgeries, congratulations to 10SNE1 on their first match and first win in the silver level of Metro, and bon voyage to Branda, a good tennis friend and all-round good person as she moves off to Arizona to start retirement. You will be missed!

It Ain't Easy Being Green

2008-09-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

Did you know that the US Open made major steps this year to "green" the tournament? An estimated 500,000 plastic bottles and 20,000 aluminum cans are being tossed into recycling bins provided by Evian Water. (Don't get me started...I do see the irony in this.) The tournament is also using fewer IBM servers, handing out eco-tips to visitors and using wind power to supply a portion of their energy needs. While they don't say exactly how green they're becoming, certainly these are huge steps for the largest event in sports. Other massive events like Live Aid, corporate meetings and trade shows, sports events - even the Emmy awards - are making great strides in keeping junk out of the landfills, altering their energy usage, finding new sources of power and avoiding creating trash altogether. This should have enormous cultural impact and maybe next year the other slams will follow suit. Its important that each of us start to be more intentional about greening our own lives. Start with your trash, do something! Its actually pretty easy.

Last week at the Omni Interlocken, the hotel was trying different water options on its customer advisory board. One option was an eco-bottle made of corn that looks just like a regular plastic bottle. Another was a large glass bottle, refillable with filtered water so they can continually re-use. Its nice to see businesses recognizing the problem and working on options. The entire Omni Hotel chain recently went phonebook free, saving lots of trees. Way to go!

Well, neither of my US Open picks came to be - Venus went out in a huge choke in the quarterfinals and Djokovic in the semis. They had their chances. I may stay out of the picking business in the future! But I sure would like to see and Federer come out on top tonight! Its been a good and interesting tournament and in just ten days we'll see Davis Cup play resume. Love the new FlowMotion technology that we're seeing in the finals that shows you how far a player runs during a point.

Good luck with your knee surgery this week Darius! Hopefully you'll be back on the courts real soon!

P.S. Once this low-tech blogger figures out how to add RSS feeds to the site you'll be able to come here to get all your national and international tennis news and other blog links all in one place- I'm working on it!

2008-08-31T13:41:00.001-07:00

Re: Missing Maria

I regret to admit that I am missing the supermodels, Ivanovich and Sharapova. Its always fun to see the cool dresses that Maria has for the Open and I miss that. I'm sure Tiffany & Co. is missing Maria too since they commissioned four sets of earrings for her to wear during the Grand Slams this year. She was supposed to be wearing Frank Gehry-designed earrings during this tournament. Too bad too, I was really planning on buying a pair... Unfortunately her dog Dolce is now getting more airtime then she is.

I'm still rooting for Venus on the ladies side and the #7 seed is still looking good. On a family trip this weekend to an 80th birthday celebration we passed through Venus, Texas - yep, its out there for real. There's one of everything in Texas. Go Venus and happy birthday to my Aunt Elizabeth! Elizabeth is part of one of the funniest tennis moments I've ever seen, ever. Suffice it to say that it involved a wig that went flying off of "someone's" head when they went back for a ball. In the 70's everybody wore wigs, even if they had great hair, even to play tennis in. Go figure!

High fives to Mardy Fish - he looked great against James Blake (who looked like his feet were moored in concrete, and I should know since I perfected that look). He's got a great attitude and a good shot going into his next match with Gael Monfils so hat's off to him. I'll be watching that one.

If you can't be at the Open this year, take comfort in the fact that its really warm there and its probably really nice inside your house with the a/c and the food is cheaper at home. To my friend James, I'm hoping for a great, dry day for you tomorrow in Queens and I'm jealous. What a great way to spend Labor Day!

On the local front next week is the beginning of all the various fall tennis leagues in my neck of the woods so practice is in order. Keep your eye on the ball and good luck!

Playboy Baby!

2008-08-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

Well its my first posting. What better time to start a tennis blog than during the US Open? I'm picking Djokovich and Venus to win so check back in a week and half to either hear me gloat or hear me make excuses. I'm rooting for the Bryans to win men's doubles and the Williams' to win women's doubles not because they're my favorite teams but just because the odds are so great and I like that.

But today's post is really directed to Ashley Harkelroad who is not even in the US Open draw. What were you thinking girl? Did you not learn anything from Anna Kournakova? You have traded your common sense for an invitation to Hugh Hefner's Christmas party...So sad to see a player who had potential once upon a time take the low road and pose for Playboy. I just hope you take the money and invest in a tennis coach if you ever want to be taken seriously again. Tsk tsk. Well, at least its not as bad as cheating in the Olympics like a certain unnamed Chilean player.

There are some super cool things going on at the open this year - wish I was there like my friends Kim and Tammi. Tracy Austin is eating a huge burrito at this very moment. Just for fun, go to the website, www.usopen.org and write a comment in the US Open Fan Book so you can see your name on the site. Its not like being there but its still fun. And if you're lucky enough to be in New York for the tournament let me hear from you!

If you're a Nadal fan, google nymag to see a photo spread of him in all his glory - well not as much of his glory as Ashley Harkelroad's...but still very good.

On the local front - that is Dallas, Texas - The Stanford Championships is/are coming to town in October and they're looking for tournament volunteers. Oh, and the real Slice Girls were a vision in blue during their TCD placement match at T-Bar-M last week, way to go on the big sweep! Team Wygle is a contender!