I thought it might be fun to start a new TennisWorld ritual, Sunday Brunch With. . . That is, on weekends when we have no Masters Series, significant Tier 1, Grand Slam or Davis Cup in progress (all occasions on which we will have Crisis Center threads posted), we will have a Sunday Brunch, meaning, a nice, casual, indolent, gathering that warms us up for the finals being played that day. (in other words, we switch to match-calling and discussion when the mood hits you).
To really make this work, I am going to ask you to email me, via the contact tab, or one of my comments (just click on my name where appears in blue above the comment) with a suggestion for a topic for Sunday Brunch discussion, along with your thoughts on the matter and whatever other personal info you want to provide. That is, feel free to mention where you live, which NFL or first-division soccer team you support, your drink of choice, whatever. . .it's nicer when there are a few personal elements in these kinds of communications. But that isn't obligatory.
I will then create, say, Sunday Brunch with Tari and then summarize or simply post her thoughts, perhaps with some editing and comments of my own. Don't worry, your submissons needn't be long nor particularly well-written. They can be utterly frivolous. You can submit pet-peeves, paens to players whose Kool-Aid you quaff, a call for a TW survey on any given subject.
In fact, although I'm thinking on the fly here, let's make this Sunday Brunch With Sam And Schwab - two regular posters who have been chomping at the bit to make predictions for 2008. Now neither of them sent me their thoughts/predictions, but in the future they would. At any rate, my own feeling is that it's more or less meaningless to guess who will win, oh, Wimbledon or the French Open of 2008 at this stage. It's pure guesswork, because we have nothing solid to go on (okay, Vince Spadea will not win the French Open), form-wise, and who knows if the guy or woman we pick will even be healthy and ready to play in an event that far out?
I'm not sure what Sam and Schwab meant , and even if it is, there certainly is no harm in having a guessing game. I also think there are areas in which we can make reasonable predictions - like anticipating who will be the highest ranking player with the first name "Andy" in 2008.
So let me start it off with the kind of thought I'd submit for a Sunday Brunch topic, which also addresses Sam and Schwab's interest in predictions. I predict that the winner of the Olympic singles gold medal in Beijing will be neither Roger Federer nor Rafael Nadal, but Novak Djokovic, Fernando Gonzalez or perhaps even Marcos Baghdatis. I say this based on the "Rosset Principle".
You'll remember that Rosset won singles gold at the Barcelona Olympics - which was a surprising result. The other medalists were Andrei Cherkasov (silver) and Goran Ivanisevic (bronze). There might have been a second bronze awarded (for the other losing semifinalist) but I'm too tired to look it up.
The Rosset Principle has nothing to do with Swiss nationality per se (which is why it won't help TMF), and everything to do with small or not very successful nations in which winning an Olympic medal is a ticket to national hero status. The thing with the Olympics is that you can throw the form chart out the window; it's as if all those ATP and WTA pros suddenly ignore the pecking order that rules the rest of the year and every player suddenly asks himself, Hey why not Me? Which is the same as telling his rivals: I don't give a dang what your ranking is, or what you did in the Slams, all bets are off, bucko!
Look at the last Olympic games result: Nicolas Massu over Mardy Fish in five very tough sets. Who would have predicted that final? Of course, Roger Federer has made clear his interest in winning Olympic gold, which means that a lot of players may suddenly be asking, Hey, why not him? But I still think chaos rather than order will prevail. Sam, Schwab?
Feel free to call today's matches after brunch. And please, start sending me any thoughts you may have for Sunday Brunch.