I'm ringing in the new month and celebrating Ladies' Day (all four women's quarters will be played Tuesday) by doing a LIVE blog from 6 AM to 9 AM Mountain Time. Yes, my friends, I'm in the metropolitan known as Helena, Montana watching lots and lots of tennis.
You know you are jealous.
Swing by on your lunch break (East Coast), or breakfast (West), or perhaps dinner (London)!
Oh, and I'll have a video up tomorrow, too :)
Jelena Jankovic has just crashed out of Wimbledon in dismal fashion.
Now, it's all up to the Williams sisters.
More tonight - let the driving begin!
I'm taking the day off to finish up what has been an epic run of cleaning and packing the house the myself and four others lived in in Seattle for over two years. When that many people are in one place for that amount of time, you accumulate stuff. And, being the ignorant one in the house, I didn't realize that if you leave last, you're most likely to end up taking care of all the extra accumulation, even if it's not yours.
Tomorrow (Monday), I'm hitting the road for the Queen City of the Rockies, better known as my hometown of Helena, Montana. It's a 600-plus mile drive, so I'll be sure to be thinking all about how week two could go and should go while watching the hills of Eastern Washington roll by.
Be back with a video tomorrow night!
Well, getting up at 6:30 AM and not watching or listening to any tennis certainly wasn't in my day's plan, but I ended getting a lot of cleaning and packing done, and also took in a lot of reading and poking around the web. Not a bad morning at all.
What a first week we've had at Wimbledon. Some champions have risen to the occasion, while others have exposed gaping holes in their tennis armor that we didn't really know exist. Overall, it was a week of quality tennis. Lots of three set matches on the women's side (40) and five setters on the men's (17).
Fellow blogger and the much more fashionably-minded Erwin Ong was interviewed by the Globe and Mail in Saturday's issue talking about fashion in the world of tennis. A big kudos to Erwin for this interview as he continues to emerge as one of the sport's most knowledgeable fashion critics.
One of those fashion-wearing tennis players Erwin often talks about is Miss Jelena Jankovic, who avoided the upset bug and is into week two of Wimbledon following a three-set win over Caroline Wozniacki today. Lately I've been all superstitious when it comes to Janky, and wrote an article for Sportingo.com comparing her to Jennifer Capriati and her "early years."
Now, this might be a stretch, but in 2001, in the "later years" (will there be "later later years?") of Capriati's career, she fell to Justine Henin in the semifinals of Wimbledon. She did so by losing the match 2-6 6-4 6-2 after winning the first two slams of the year. Today, Jankovic (or, as I like to call her, Jelena Capriankovic), beat Wozy 2-6 6-4 6-2. Yes, more Capriankovic-ing going on, but Justine did go on to win the tournament after that scoreline. Same result for Jelena? Venus is one who certainly stands in her way.
Superstitions aside, my favorite Kiwi, Marina Erakovic ended her bid at Wimby today with a tight, three-set loss to tour veteran Tamarine Tanasugarn 4-6 6-4 6-4. It's great to see such a young and spirited player like Erakovic play consistent and tough tennis over the last two grand slams. One thing I really appreciated about this match was two women representing such nations that aren't traditionally tennis havens in Thailand and New Zealand. For a couple hours on Court 11 today, Wimbledon was the Official Grand Slam of the Asia Pacific!
(Note: I said the Globe and Mail was based in London - that's the London Globe - in my video post. It is located in Toronto.)
It's a little past 6:30 AM in Seattle and for some reason I'm already awake. I wasn't happy to hear construction going on outside my window this morning so early, but I didn't mind that much because today was the day I was splurging a little and watching LIVE Wimbledon coverage on the tournament's web site!
I was as giddy and anxious as a young child on Christmas morning, so I pawed at my computer at my bedside and logged on as quickly as I could, wiping the sleep out of my eyes and blocking out the sounds of hammering and power drills as I do.
I went through all the steps to sign up, and just couldn't help but check the scoreboard to see which action I should check out first. "Oh!" I thought. "Janky is already in a tough battle with Caroline Wozniacki ... but, look! My favorite Marina Erakovic is serving to stay in her match against Tamarine Tanasugarn."
So I pointed and clicked my mouse as fast as I used to tear open presents and excitedly selected Court 11 to watch my Koala girl go at it. But wait! What's this?!? A message pops up and tells me that LIVE Wimbledon coverage doesn't work with MACs. I feel as crushed and disappointed as that kid who get coal in his stalking. (But really, who is that kid?!?)
I open Firefox in hope that maybe I can work around the system, but, alas, it wasn't meant to be. It's early and now I'm agitated, sent back to the world of YouTube highlight clips and online scoreboard gazing.
My live blogging from Wimbledon just wasn't meant to be, but I'll be near a TV in the near future ... so Christmas will come again soon, and I'll be as ready and excited as ever.
It's Breakfast at Wimbledon without all that cheesy NBC music and camera pans of strawberries and cream! I'm doing a live blog tomorrow, Saturday, of third-round matches from the All England Club.
No, no, my friends, I won't actually be there, but I will be buying a one-day pass off of Wimbledon's web site to watch any and all matches I please.
Stop on by to check out what middle Saturday will bring before the tournament takes its traditional Sunday break. Or, pop in sometime Sunday to check out my Wimbledon U mid-term grade video post!
Watching the last game of Ana Ivanovic's implosion today against Jie Zheng was rather painful. Ivanovic ended the match with four mis-hit forehands, much like Maria Sharapova opened up her dismal performance yesterday with three double faults.
Women's tennis is have a miniature identity crisis currently, with two of its foremost stars plummeting out of the tournament in incredibly bad form. There has been an abundance of swirling talk surrounding Sharapova and her motivation following her loss yesterday, especially because there had been so much talk about her outfit during the first four days of the fortnight.
But I found this most interesting: Maria Sharapova had no idea who or what Alla Kudryavtseva was. This clip (especially 0:57 to 1:23) is rather telling:
Maria says "Did she?" when the reporter tells her of Kudryavtseva's close call with Venus last year here and then proceeds to mindlessly say she "Practiced with her" and played her on clay "a couple of years ago." No, no, Maria. Not a couple of years ago, honey, last year, at the French, a grand slam, in a match that Maria was down 1-4 in the second set.
To me, it's inexcusable and rather disrespectful for a top player to give more thought to how to change up her outfit from round one to two instead of her game. Yes, I understand that thousands of matches have been played in which a higher-ranked player gave little to no thought or effort into what their opponent would do on the court, but this is Wimbledon, and this is Maria Sharapova.
Kamakshi Tandon wrote a great piece over at TENNIS.com about how the tour, the media, the public and the players love to hate Sharapova. Yes, it's true that she is not the most loved individual on tour, but Sharapova helps the process along when she refuses to say hello to others in the lockerroom, doesn't mingle at social events on tour and dismisses reporters like they are ridiculous for asking if the Biggest Sharapova Story of the tournament (um, her outfit!) has been distracting.
Wear is your motivation, Maria? Because the tuxedo outfit is history, and there's no trophy to go along with it this year.
Continued discussion on Maria and day five wrap below:
The first-quarter grades for the students of Wimbledon University have been posted:
The grades coming across the Atlantic are rather mixed after four days of play at The Championships. I'll have the full report card later today in a video post, but for now, here are a few thoughts from the professors of Wimbledon U (aka journalists):
Chris Clarey | Sharapova Exits at Wimbledon
Jon Wertheim | Wimbledon Tennis Mailbag
Steve Tignor | On Mauresmo and Pavlyuchenkova
Yes, I just called Marat Safin a dragon, but why not? I mean, the guy totally breathed tennis fire on the court today. So much, actually, that Novak Djokovic was still smoldering as he walked off the court, chin against chest.
The question now is, will Safin continue his run at SW19?
