Backcourt Buzz: Hewitt Headed Stateside and More

Here’s some news you may have missed during the Australian Open...

Guitar Hero
Tour newcomer Somdev Devvarman, an Indian citizen who resides in Virginia, had a nice start to his new year. In January, he reached his first ATP tour final, in front of a hometown crowd in Chennai, India. (He lost to Marin Cilic, 6-4, 7-6 (3).) Two weeks later, Devvarman had his college tennis jersey retired. Who knew college tennis players had jerseys to retire, right? It turns out Devvarman, who won back-to-back NCAA titles (2007 and ’08) playing for the University of Virginia, is the first Cavalier to receive such an honor. Another tidbit about Devvarman: he used to play his guitar at an open mic night at a bar in Charlottesville when he was at UVA. The band he most liked to cover? Dave Matthews, of course. He’s a friend of DMB violinist Boyd Tinsley. Devvarman, who turns 24 on Friday, is currently ranked No. 155.

Quantum of Jankovic
In light of some recent news reports that Jelena Jankovic had hit No. 1 at the box office as well as on the WTA tour, I did some digging. What I found was that Jelena’s World, a documentary about the Serbian tennis player (in Serbia, the film is called Jelenin svet), was in the Top 10 for two weeks last November, but I couldn’t confirm that it had kicked James Bond off his perch in Serbia & Montenegro. As far as I can tell, Jelena’s flick got as high as No. 7.

Alfred, be a doll and get my racquet, will you?
If you didn’t receive a copy of the January J. Crew catalog, you missed a unique background setting for the models (click to pages 72-73). The popular clothing company shot the catalog on location at the recently renovated Astor Courts in Rhinebeck, N.Y. In November, The New York Times did a story about the remarkable renovation of the building, originally designed by Stanford White for John Jacob Astor IV in 1902. Wouldn’t you love to wake up in the morning, have a cup of coffee, and then play a leisurely set on an indoor tennis court like this?

Relocate Like Beckham?

Is Lleyton Hewitt considering a move to the United States? Hewitt’s manager, David Drysdale, says the change is a likely scenario for his travel-weary client. “He's such a family-orientated person and that's why he's always come back to Australia in between tournament,” Drysdale told the Melbourne Herald Sun. “If he had an overseas base, he could come home for a couple of days between tournaments to spend time with his family.”

This makes me wonder… Will Hewitt’s wife, Australian soap actress Bec Cartwright, get a one-off reality show like Posh did when the Beckhams moved to the States so David could sit on the bench play for the Galaxy? Bec has reality show experience, having won the Australian version of “Dancing With the Stars.” Let’s hope if Hewitt makes the move, he has better luck than Beckham did.

A Fitting Expert
Men’s Fitness asked Ivan Lendl, himself a notorious fitness junkie when he was on tour, who he considers today’s fittest players. Here are the three players Lendl tipped as being in tip-top shape. He admitted in the article that if he were to face today’s young guns on court, “My a-- would get kicked so fast and so hard.”

Word of the Day
Whenever there’s a story that mentions an event occurring before 1980, I always like to check out how Time magazine handled it. There’s just something about old school journalism. Well, I was fact checking an item about a 1937 Davis Cup tie (you’ll have to wait for the April issue to read it), and sure enough, Time ran a short item about the tie. The best part: the writer called the tennis players “tennists.” I never knew this word existed! According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, it’s a “blend of tennis and –ist” (creative, huh?) and has existed since 1932. I think it’s time we started using it again.