Champion's Art

This is a sampling of art packages used by some of the internet's most visited web sites after Rafael Nadal's Wimbledon win yesterday.

(The ATP tour's official web site.)

(The New York Times featured the match on its front page for much of Sunday and early Monday morning. It can now be found in the sports section, along with an archive of Wimbledon articles from Times writer Christopher Clarey.)

(Less than 24 hours after the match, the story is hard to find on The London Sun's web site. The Sun is one of London's ultimate tabloid papers.)

(ESPN.com still has the story on its front page a day after the title match. This is the graphic they have used, which is linked to a plethora of ESPN-written stories about the future of the men's game.)

(ESPN goes with a little different look on its TENNIS page. The "Simply Smashing" text focuses more on Nadal's performance on Sunday.)

(This graphic comes from TENNIS.com. TENNIS links to its bloggers and AP articles below the graphic, and also has put up a photo gallery of the Championships.)

(TENNIS WEEK gives weak play to the epic moment with a simple headshot of Nadal. The magazine's web site, however, has been a leader in featured video since its revival earlier this year.)

(CNNSI.com packages this graphic with lots of content from its main tennis guy, Jon Wertheim. Also featured are photos and video, plus an SI article from the "vault" following McEnroe's win over Borg in 1981.)

Tennis Chatter: The Hangover

It seems like it always takes a couple weeks to get fully re-oriented after the fervor a grand slam brings. I call this the "hangover." There have, although, been some developing stories this week along with the much-anticipated first round of Federation Cup play on the women's side while the men open play next week for Davis Cup.

The United States women are without the Williams sisters but have Lindsay Davenport leading the charge this weekend against Germany in a tie played in California. Barring a disastrous showing from Davenport and company (Granville, Harkleroad and Raymond), the Americans should move on from here. Check out the link above for a complete first-round preview.

There's been much abuzz about Novak Djokovic's major win at the Aussie on Sunday, and not just about the Serb himself. Tennis experts across the globe are declaring a three-way race for number one has begun featuring Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. If you remember, however, Fed has few points to defend at the Pacific Life and the Nasdaq (the "Canas weeks") while Nadal and Djokovic are the respective defenders of said titles.

Much excitement has occurred for me in the channel of fellow bloggers this week. My friend Erwin received some ink in Australia's Daily Telegraph for his coverage on everyone's favorite new eye candy, Novak Djokovic. Meanwhile, my fellow Montanan Matt debuted his brand-new line of Ranting Details t-shirts that are hot off the press. If you're looking for something stylish and simple, grab one for yourself!

The always-thoughtful Jon Wertheim gave us his thoughts through week one, but now I'm just waiting on the tournament wrap. If you haven't seen the "Mailbag" halftime version, check it out.

And finally, Christopher Clarey completed his refreshing coverage of the Australian Open with a piece on Djokovic and Maria Sharapova's hardships in reach the top of the tennis game.

Tennis Chatter: Side Dish

While I'm guessing your plate was, is or will be quite full, I thought I'd give you a side dish of entertainment. I was hoping to post some absurd YouTube video featuring turkeys playing tennis or something of the like. But, alas, no such video exists, which is certainly disappointing.

I did, however, gather a few fast facts to fill your tennis hunger for the day.

Happy Thanksgiving all!

--TENNIS online editor Kamakshi Tandon has compiled the key stats from this past year's WTA Tour.

--Jon Wertheim discusses Davis Cup and much, much more in his latest MailBag.

--Can Vaidisova cool down her temper to heat up her results? Ravi Ubha weighs in on ESPN.

Tennis Chatter: Foggy Saturday

It's a foggy Saturday morning and I've already been up for three hours. But things have been slow at the coffee shop, so I get to peruse the internet and catch up on emails and blogging.

Yesterday the "Yikes factor" went up three fold with Nicolay Davydenko's fine from the ATP for "lack of effort". Is this really happening? See what Tennis Planet has to say about how our sport is handling a rather embarrassing scandal.

Speaking of turn-around matches, Andy Murray came back to beat Dmitry Tursonov in three sets in St. Petersburg yesterday. Is Tursonov going to get a fine now too?

Wertheim chats it up about all the goings on in the tennis world.

Things are getting sloppy between Andre Agassi and Target.

Patty Schnyder beat Anna Chakvetadze in Linz today. It took 39 minutes. Ouch.

Tennis Chatter

The Tennis Channel's Steve Fink takes a look at Justine Henin's recent domination of the WTA Tour and if her "rivalry" with Jelena Jankovic will ever become just that: a real rivalry.

Anna Kournikova still isn't playing tennis. But for some reason, people are still taking her picture.

Andy Roddick was spotted toting racquets in NYC today. Fashion shoot? Practice in the Indian Summer?

The match-fixing scandal continues to eat up the news. Are we going to have a Marion Jones-esque, tearful confession from some WTA star in the near future? I sure hope not.

Seattle University, the place that educates me so, is planning a move to NCAA Division I next year. With that, an added varsity tennis program. (So, to get that straight, I went to SU four out of the five years the school did not have tennis in the last 50 or so years. Awesome...)

Jon Wertheim weighs in on who's up and who's down this week in tennis.

Tennis Chatter

Radek Stepanek is wearing the single most disgusting tennis outfit of all time for the Czech's Davis Cup tie against Switzerland. It's reported that they used Bethanie Mattek as a fashion consultant. Surprise, surprise!

Erwin's on fire today with these Davis Cup pictures. Here's a classy one of Novak Djokovic semi-shirtless and completely headless. Djoko is always good for a laugh, especially off the court.

Corina Morariu calls it quits from the WTA Tour on her own terms. What an inspirational story to all of us. And with the company she kept on tour (Davenport, etc.) you know Morariu will be an incredible mother and do-gooder for the rest of her life. Good luck, Corina!

Wertheim has a great mailbag up at SI right now. Check it out. Who knew we would be adding Helga Masthoff to the list of Comeback Queens for this fall?!

My friend Matt has been exploding with good content over at Ranting Details lately. And though that doesn't fall under the category of 'Tennis Chatter', this is, after all, my blog!

Another good friend of mine, Troy, has been blogging up a storm from across the pond in France. Troy and I interned at TENNIS together this summer, and along with being a diehard Daniela Hantuchova fan, he's a pretty dang good tennis player himself, too.

After Igor Andreev (looking quite good, I might add) embarrassed Tommy Haas in the Germany-Russia tie, Philipp Kohlschreiber somehow beat Nicolay Davydenko to draw even after day one. There's a reason to love Davis Cup.

Blah Blah Blogs

I was telling one of my good friends last night how taxing blogging can be. When I first started to blog in January, I thought that it would be easy to put up content everyday that got reader's attention.

The ideas and execution take a lot of effort, I soon realized, and everyday blogging was as difficult as everyday working out. Over the past two weeks I did my best to keep up with the Open and all its goings on, but sometimes life calls in other ways.

TENNIS Magazine still churns out what I think is the best blog in the biz: Peter Bodo's TENNIS WORLD. Bodo himself posts intriguing and thoughtful entries about every two to three days, while 'TW Tribe Members' help with posting week in and week out.

I also want to give a shout out to Erwin Ong, over at Tennis Served Fresh. Erwin was a blogging maniac when it came to the US Open this year, keeping us all up to date on who looked best on the court and who just shouldn't have shown up (Bethanie Mattek, anyone?). Erwin's efforts earned him some recognition in a recent SacBee article, too.

And while talking about the blog arena, I can't help but mention Jon Wertheim, over at SI. Though Wertheim doesn't have what would be technically be called a blog, he does great tennis coverage, especially during Slam time. His mailbag at the end of each Major is always fun to read - check that out early this week.

Tennis Chatter

Poor Camille Pin. After losing to Maria Sharapova in the first round of the Aussie, the Frenchwoman lost 8-6 in the third set to Patty Schnyder in the opening round at Wimbledon and now has fell to Aikiko Morigami 7-6(2) in the third set (after having a match point) on day one in Cincinnati. Can you think of anyone who deserves a close three-setter to swing her way more?

Speaking of blowing close three-setters, Jennifer Capriati has a few (think US Open semifinals in '91, '03 and '04) to her name. But no on-court victory is as sweet as the battle she's slowly overcoming off the tour.

If you didn't get good and full after breakfast at Wimbledon, make sure to check out Jon Wertheim's 50 facts. They're always entertaining.

Venus couldn't quite do what Francesca did this past weekend. Check out Peter Bodo's TennisWorld entry on this weekend's Fed Cup action.

Final Thoughts (French Style)

I'm going to leave the post-tourney wrap up to Mr. Wertheim. I always enjoy what Jon Wertheim has to say over at SI-CNN. He's got a different set of lenses than the rest of us. Make sure to check out the link to Serena dancing - classic! And well, weird.

For me, the emerging stories out of this year's French will come into fruition over the few months. Can Rafa use his clay dominance as a platform to perform well elsewhere? Is Roger in a slumperer? Will Amelie ever win another slam? Has Justine found new life in family?

A lot to ask as we head to the greens of England.

Cheerio all!

Final Thoughts: Part two

I really enjoy Jon Wertheim's tidbits from the Aussie. He always comes up with some good stuff.

As suggested by Jon, here's Gonzalez's runner-up speech:



Also, did anyone try to access the WTA website earlier today? I wanted to see how Tokyo was going...but I got the page from last Monday's Aussie. Am I living in a severed world? Maria's into the quarters (of the Aussie) though, if anyone was wondering.