Tennis Chatter

Today’s headlines in the tennis world are dominated by MORE rain at the All England Club, and NBC’s Bud Collin’s being let go after 35 years of tennis commentating. Wimbledon match scheduling is going to be tight this week with only a few matches being completed today. Henin advanced to quarterfinals today with her win over P. Schnyder 6-2, 6-2. This wasn’t a pretty match with both players hitting more unforced errors than winners. Henin will face Serena Williams in quarterfinals. Serena had a three set win over D. Hantuchova today, 6-2, 6-7, 6-2.

L. Granville’s Wimbledon run ended today when she lost to M. Krajicek 6-3, 6-4. Krajicek hit 41 winners to only 18 unforced errors. Venus Williams finished her rain suspended match today with a win over A. Morigami 6-2, 3-6, 7-5. She plays Sharapova in her fourth round match. I think Sharapova wins this, unless Venus is absolutely on-fire (which she hasn’t been so far this tournament).

On the men’s side of the draw, M. Baghdatis advanced easily over D. Nalbanian 6-2, 7-5, 6-0. Baghdatis has a great chance of making quarterfinals, as he will likely play Davydenko next round (he leads Monfils 6-3, 7-5, 6-0). Davydenko has historically been very weak on grass, despite his (career best) showing this year.

Things are shaping up in Nadal’s section of the draw. T. Berdych defeated H. Lee 6-4, 7-6, 7-6. He plays J. Bjorkman in his fourth round match. Bjorkman was a quarterfinalist last year, but I think Berdych takes this match. Berdych has been coming into form on grass lately, with his title at Halle. Finally, Nadal is in a tight one with R. Soderling, at 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 4-6, 2-0. Nadal has the advantage in the fifth set, being up a break. The winner will play M. Youzhny.

It was announced today that Bud Collins has been fired after 35 years of tennis commentary for NBC. NBC stated that it was a “management decision to save money.” Collins doesn’t harbor an resentment, he was quoted saying:

“So I had 35 great years with them,�?

“I have no complaints about them, but I hope to stay in tennis. “I’m not retiring; too young to retire.�?

I’m kind of split on how I stand on this issue. There are a lot of articles on blogs around the net saying this is a travesty (Link 1, Link 2), but I don’t really agree. I thought Collins was an interesting personality, and sometimes had an interesting word on tennis, but overall his coverage wasn’t spectacular. He fits NBC’s strategy of appealing to Americans who know very little about tennis (as evidenced by them showing only mainstream tennis players), and for reason he is a loss. He was a well recognized commentator, who brought a lot of attention to tennis, in the 80s and 90s. However, everything he writes at MSNBC.com is about Venus, Serena, Roddick, Federer, Nadal, or Sharapova (as I wrote about here). It would be great if NBC was firing him to bring in some new analysts who would shed light on the entire field, but I’m sure they’re not. He probably just didn’t fit with their image, and for that reason they let him go. Overall, in my view, it’s an acceptable firing, for the wrong reason. NBC’s coverage does need to be overhauled, but this wasn’t it. They’ve been fazing Collin’s out for a while (he stopped doing in-match commentary a while ago), and now it’s complete. Just don’t expect any radical change with his departure. When you turn on your television, you’ll still see some Roddick match from several hours ago being replayed, even if there is a more exciting live match between Djokovic and Kiefer.

Sunday is traditionally a day off for Wimbledon play, and today is no different. Only three times in the past (last one was 2004) has weather forced matches to be played on the Sunday of week one. Yesterday all but two matches were suspended until Monday due to rain. It’s a little surprising with all the rain, that matches aren’t being played today. Instead, Wimbledon will start earlier (at 11:00) Monday to compensate.

Mauresmo and Sharapova were the only winners Saturday, Mauresmo over M. Santangelo 6-1, 6-2 and Sharapova over A. Sugiyama 6-3, 6-3. Sharapova has an interesting fourth round match-up against Venus Williams, if Venus holds on to win over A. Morigami. Venus was up 6-2, 1-4 when play was suspended. The rain delay probably helped her, because she was playing pretty bad in the second set.

Federer was guaranteed a quarterfinal berth when Haas pulled out of Wimbledon today. Haas cited a torn abdominal muscle as the reason for his withdrawal. I don’t really know how Federer’s draw could have gotten much easier. His first two rounds were against nobody special. Safin was the Safin of 2006 and 2007, and not the Safin of 2000 US Open or 2005 Australian Open, when he played Federer. Federer played his match last Friday, whereas players on the other side of the draw have to play their third round matches Monday. And, Federer gets another day off by not having to play a fourth round match. If he makes it to finals, his oppenent will have had to play five matches in seven days, while Federer will have had to play three matches in nine days.

Last week Safin was quoted saying he hated Wimbledon because of the prices (primarily of spaghetti) and the security. Link I’m not going to lie, but both complaints seem rather trivial. Security? Who needs that? Especially in London. Prices? It must be tough when you’ve won millions in your career. But, he’s not alone in his complaints of Wimbledon. His fellow countryman Davydenko stated today that Wimbledon is too boring. Davydenko even went as far to say that:

There’s hardly anything to do apart from tennis. You constantly find yourself yawning, there’s no entertainment here

Well…its really unfortunate that a tournament of Wimbledon’s class hasn’t established some form of entertainment for the competitors. Apparently hosting a tennis tournament isn’t enough, Wimbledon needs to set up some carnival to please the Russians (neither of which have been any good at Wimbledon).

More news:

Wimbledon tightens security in response to Friday’s attempted car bombings

Wimbledon is going to refund fans who missed action on Saturday due to rain delays