Well, it’s time to close-up shop for Spring break; I’m off for the three-day weekend, and then I’ll be blogging in fits and starts next week – Little Son Luke has the whole week off and I’ll be hanging out with him in the mornings. Then fair Jana J., who picks him up from school most days, will take over.
Here’s something funny: Jana is a twenty-something, six-foot tall blonde from the Czech Republic, who also models (she was on the cover of upscale Bergen County (NJ) magazine recently) and teaches Sunday school at this great church, Redeemer Presbyterian.
I can’t wait until Luke is, oh, 15, so I can bring out a few killer pictures of Jana and say: BTW, cowpoke, this is the girl who used to wipe your nose and help you go to the potty, and . . . . Well, you get it.
Loose ends: I had a nice note from my old pal, Bonnie DeSimone, who brought my attention to the fact that she had done yeoman's work covering the Davis Cup for ESPN’s website. She did this partly to alert TW readers to their numerous coverage options. Bonnie is another runaway from the MSM ( Chicago Trib), and she’s working hard to amp up ESPNs coverage of tennis. The main problem, it seems to me, is that ESPN site is such a sprawling operation that it’s hard finding Bonnie’s stuff sometimes. Here’s the link to the tennis home page. The least they could do is turn Bonnie’s by-line or credit line into a hyper-link, sending you to other things she’s done. How about it, folks?
A hat tip to TW’s Irish buddy, Aiden, who sent along the link to this piece (via the ubiquitious Croatian princess, Tina Lyonsivec), for those of you who followed our controversial postings on the Dubai tournament and the official policy of the UAE prohibiting Israelis from entering their kingdoms.
And don’t miss Jon “Fair and Balanced” Wertheim’s comments on Serena Williams over in his mighty postal kingdom. Is there a more reasonable tennis writer out there than this guy (disclosure: he’s my buddy.)?
My own feelings on the latest turn of events re. the Sisters is that their saga is reaching critical mass and, in a curious way, working itself out. The lengthy break they took, stretching from the fall of 2005 and lasting until, well, now had to be a period of consolidation and stock-taking. They could have (and still might) come off that hiatus with a new resolve to regain their sovereignty on the WTA Tour – making a clean start, as it were.
Or – and this now seems the more likely case – they may simply be unable to find the motivation to throw themselves back into the grind: you know the daily practice-play-travel-practice-play-travel grind. So they keep extending their sabbatical and coming up with reasons not to play, even though this coy and irresponsible strategy drives their fans nuts and makes the WTA brass look like bunch of timid, captive enablers.
Actually, I’m fine with either of the two main courses of action. If the Williams girls would jump back in the saddle, you’d suddenly see a lot of pretenders hunting their holes. That would be an agreeable spectacle. On the other hand, if they don’t want to play, God bless them. They can’t be expected to exploit their obvious talents any more than anyone else, and they certainly can’t be forced to continue their run as flesh puppets on the stage of the public imagination at our whim.
Follow your lights, girls. I’m just glad we’re out of this horrible cycle in which the Williamses and their Kool-Aid Drinkers responded to any criticism of their wavering dedication and obvious lack-of-fitness with arrogance and denial. The unprofessionalism and indifference of the sisters were the real deal breakers.
John also threw in a link (I’m stealing it as I write this) to a tennis singles dating service. We’re going to get back to this and have some fun with it in the near future. Maybe we can run contest asking you to make up a “personals” singles posting for the player of your choice. That, and we’ll definitely have another caption writing contest soon.
Have a great Passover, Easter, whatever (you know who you are, devil worshippers).