TEST

With 8 days remaining til I go to Paris, I don’t have much time to post anything besides links.  One quick note – Gasquet, who should be punished if he is ultimately found guilty of the cocaine allegations, should raise all kinds of hell if he is indeed suspended for the reported two years.  Considering a typical suspension for first time PED offenders in tennis is 7 months, doesn’t two years sound absurd?  That would be like a parent grouding a child for three months after a DUI, but only not feeding the kid dessert after his third stint in rehab.

James Martin agrees. So does Jon Wertheim.

Bonnie Ford weighs in (with words, not grams).

Pat McEnroe advocating that Americans ‘embrace’ clay.  Well, it should be noted that Blake made it to the Finals in Estoril last weekend, and is in the Round of 16 in Madrid.

Serena, the ‘best player in the world,’ has lost 4 matches in a row.

Retractable roof in the plans for Roland Garros.

New CNN/SI feature.

Ad In/Ad Out.

Just a few months after claiming Murray should not be talked about in the same category as the “Big 3,” Djokovic finds himself ranked behind him.

Nalbandian may be out awhile with hip surgery.

I thought betting on tennis was illegal?

Great piece by Tandon on a ‘legend‘ of the ATP circuit.

Newest Wertheim mailbag. And Ad In/Ad Out Feature. (An ‘ad in’ for Coria, really?)

Congrats to Hewitt.

I feel terribly for Jelena Dokic, and anyone else her nut of a father has hurt.

Scroll down to May 4th to read tweets from Courier live during a match!

See, I knew Federer was still the best.

Update: Serena lost her first round match to Patty Schynder, just a few days after announcing she was  “the best in the world.” Classic. 

Let me start off by saying I respect and admire both Venus & Serena as players.  They are thrilling to watch (especially against each other), and helped to revitalize interest in Women’s tennis that was sorely lacking after greats like Steffi Graf started to leave the game.  I am tired of them, though.  I doubt I’m alone with these thoughts.  When I woke up on Monday, poured my bowl of Frosted Flakes, put some blueberries on top, and checked ESPN.com, I saw two headlines that annoyed me.  They were not ‘bad,’ in the Dayydenko Betting Scandal/Dokic had an abusive father kind of way, but as I said, they were simply annoying. 

The first one I crossed, “Venus, Serena ‘would love to play’ Fed Cup Final,” is clearly a good thing.  But it’s still annoying.  Consider the following – this is only the second final Team USA has reached this decade (2000 doesn’t count because as everyone knows the new millennium didn’t actually start til 2001); and out of a possible 22 ties since they began playing in 1999, Serena has played in four 4 them, and Venus has played in a more respectable (but still undesirable) 8.  To me, this screams “I don’t want to work too hard…but I want the glory,” a la Roger Clemens that time he signed with the Astros when he only had to pitch home games.  This might not be true in the least, but it certainly appears to be, and that’s the point.  If you want my opinion, Mary Jo should say “thanks, but no thanks,” go with the team that got here there. 

The second headline  actually did more than annoy me, it incensed me - ”Serena: ’Despite Rankings, I’m still world’s best.’”  No Serena, right now, you are actually the world’s second best.  Dinara Safina is the world’s best.  Ok, I am going a bit overboard, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that ultimately I think Safina is a better tennis player than Serena, but in the article Serena frankly says, “We all know who the real number one is…” referring to herself, of course.  And it’s not true, the real number 1 is in fact DINARA SAFINA.  Serena has been on the tour for quite awhile now, is she not aware that the ranking system favors those who play tournaments on a more consistent basis than she (or her sister) does? 

Listen to Safina’s defense, “It’s not luck. Nobody gave it to me. I played two Grand Slam finals and last year I won four titles. This didn’t come out of sky.”  I love it…here’s to hoping they are in the same quarter in Paris this year.

Roger Federer just dominated a  formidable opponent for what seems like the first time in months.  Facing Radek Stepanek in the Round of 16 in Rome, whom Federer lost to in the same event last year, Federer rolled over the Czech Vet 6-4, 6-1.  In other startling news, James Blake lost to a qualifier in the first round.  Ok, so that was a bit sarcastic, Blake’s slow start has obviously become cause for concern.  However I am not as concerned as others; he hasn’t lost a step or lost his mechanics, he has simply lost some confidence.  All it takes is a big match or two to get that back, and once he does I’m confident he’ll be back in the later rounds of most events. 

One piece of startling news from Rome is Andy Murray crashing out early to qualifier Juan Monaco, he certainly seems to be taking it in stride though.

Weakest No. 1’s in history.

John McEnroe offers Federer a phone call.

Wertheim mailbag & Ad In/Ad Out.

Andy Roddick discusses his wedding.

Great idea here from Jim Courier.