Meanwhile, the Tribe has a huge international contingent who either can't or don't receive Tennis magazine, so I'm posting two items here: a link to Tennis in the Green Zone, the story of Haider Abbud's Baghdad tennis project. I'm proud to say this was recently named Best Feature of 2006 by the United States Tennis Writer's Association. I helped Haider put it all into words. And in case any of you haven't looked, yesterday I posted my thoughts at ESPN on a guy who's really under pressure in Miami, and it ain't Roger Federer!
This evening, I'm heading for the farm in game-rich Andes for the first time in nearly three weeks. But we have a fair amount on tap over the weekend, including at least one more Miami post from Todd and in Charge, and we''ll have a few match call threads up for you, too. If I can get my expense reports done (I'm up to mid-2006 already!) pay a fistful of speeding tickets, change my Miami hotel reservations, etc. etc. I'll post before the end of the day. But the odds are looking pretty slim.
Meanwhile, as you may or may not know, I now write a monthly TennisWorld column for Tennis. The other day, a few posters mentioned the latest TW column, so I'm going to paste it in below for your reading pleasure:
Nerds Win Lot
Space is the bane of the magazine editor’s existence. The lament of the mainstream journalist is: So many stories, so many great topics, so few pages. Somehow the topical material always exceeds the number of pages you have to fill, even in magazines that smell like perfume or feature models sucking in their cheeks while dressed in $6,000 leather pantaloons.
The Internet is different. And my weblog, TennisWorld, at TENNIS.com, is way different. Because TW is a single, rolling “issue”—constantly updated, with no constraints on space—we get to amuse ourselves with all kinds of comfort food for the restless mind. Late last year, for example, we picked the winners in our First Annual Bec Cartwright Armadillo Poetry Slam (just go to year 2006 under the “Categories” section at the blog and check out the second item from the top—“Armadillo Poet Laureate(s)”—or type it into the search bar). The poem that earned one reader, Ray Stonada, TW Armadillo Poet Laureate honors is—of course—too long to reprint in this space, but here is the winner penned by Ryan Crinnigan in the haiku division:
*
That between-the-legs
Spinning half-volley
Backhand
Was Ilie-advised*
Read them all—they’re more colorful than a Serena Williams outfit. Sometimes stuff just seems to happen spontaneously. In January, TennisWorld was stricken with a bad case of Anagram Influenza—the strain that the main carriers, regular contributors Lucy Perkins and Siva Shankarnarayan, dubbed Nominative Determinism. Leave it to those two to come up with a Nobel Prize–grade term for the act of coming up with name-based anagrams that can be said to determine players’ results, or constitute fitting descriptions of their travails and triumphs. Stay tuned: They’ve agreed to take a stab at curing cancer next week.
Lucy kicked it off with Camel Ride (for the slow progress of American player Amer Delic), an intriguing if somewhat obtuse start (TW posters do “obtuse” well). She then came up with Vain Jock (Jankovic), Giant to No Avail (the less than imposing Tatiana Golovin), Ends on Favored Arc (Fernando Verdasco, he of the big-loop forehand), and one of my favorites, Wary Net Rusha—why don’t you figure out the name, and feel free to e-mail me at TennisWorld if you’re stumped and can no longer sleep nights. (Hint: An even more accurate anagram of his name was offered by Siva: Was Hearty Run.)
Siva, in fact, went nuclear on the subject. After Roddick’s press conference following his loss to Roger Federer in the Australian Open, Siva dubbed him Candid Dorky. He also came up with To Net With Yell (Lleyton Hewitt), As I Face Valour (Czech Republic’s Lucie Safarova, after she upset No. 2 seed Amelie Mauresmo), Bad Try Schmoe (Safarova’s boyfriend, Tomas Berdych), and A Charged Squirt (Richard Gasquet).
