Monday, November 5
Last updated at 12:00 am EDT
BRITISH PRESS
Sharpshooter Andy Murray must mix it with the best next year - Simon Barnes, The Times
However, whenever the Mallorcan brings his racket bag to the City of Light, inspiration pushes him to new levels of excellence. Rallying from a one-set deficit to overcome Marcos Baghdatis and in effect end any hopes the Cypriot had of surging through into the last qualifying spot for the Masters Cup in Shanghai, Nadal preserved the most impressive record: he has never lost a singles match in Paris.
Until she betrayed herself against Graf in the French Open final in 1999, disputing a line-call beyond reason and serving underarm as she lost it mentally, Hingis appeared to be in control of her game and life. The smile disappeared that day. When it returned, we had to suspect it was not a window on to a sunny disposition, but a mask.
“This is from the New York Times in September 2004,” I announce. “ ‘In the fashion draw, Henin-Hardenne, as always, conservatively clothed in her white cap with ponytail extension, white skirt with blue bars and blue skirt with white stripes, is decidedly unseeded’.” “Yeah, I hate to play someone that I’m not,” she says with a smile, “and people can criticise that, or love me or hate me for it, but I’m not going to change. I am a very intense person and I find it tough to spend time with people my own age; not a lot of people are mature at 25; I love being with people who are older than me. All of my best friends are much older than me – they’re 40 or 45.”“Really?” I interject. “What is it that attracts you to older people?” “I don’t know . . . I love the maturity. I love people who have lived and already built a lot of things. It gives me an example and a sense of security. I like that I can call on them at any time and they are there for me – especially in the last few months, when they gave me so much support at a tough time in my life.”
“Okay, let’s stay with the cuttings,” I suggest. “This is from The Guardian in June 2006: ‘The image Henin projects is of a serious, intense young woman with all the warmth of a frozen bag of peas’.” “Yeah, I suffered a lot with that,” she acknowledges with a smile. “I was winning Grand Slams, but my image was pretty bad, and I was responsible for that. I’m not the kind of person who smiles when they don’t want to smile; I am intense; I’m real; if I look happy, it’s because I am happy – and I don’t have to look happy all the time, but I didn’t help myself. I was cold to people; I was distant; I was mad that people did not understand what had happened in my life. My friends know me as a warm and generous person, but I found it hard to open up and say, ‘This is me. This is the real Justine’”... The penny dropped in the semi-final of the US Open in September. “I remember watching this replay of me winning a point,” she explains, “a drop-shot volley at one-love-deuce in the second set against Venus [Williams]. It was an amazing shot, but the thing that struck me was the expression on my face, a look of passion and surprise. ‘Wow! How did you do that?’ And it felt like I was a little girl enjoying her tennis again.”
...“Every time I won, there was something missing,” she says. “I’d see these other players, sharing the good moments with their families, and suffer a little bit. I missed my mum at moments like that. I knew that if I’d had my mum, I’d still have my family, so that was hard. I had a good friend in Carlos, and my husband was there, but your family is your blood and you never forget your blood.” Her sister calls in 2004. They meet and try to build a bridge, but it doesn’t work. “It was difficult for both of us,” Henin says. “She was a teenager who needed her sister, but I wasn’t ready to give her more. The fact that she is very close to my father complicated things. It should have been everybody or nobody; it was a mistake to try to be close to her but not to the rest of the family.”
Murray is probably right to decline the offer to travel to Shanghai as a second reserve. Few professional gamblers study the form as closely as Murray and he estimated that while Andy Roddick may well have a heel injury he will need matches before the United States's Davis Cup final against Russia in early December so he doesn't expect him to pull out of Shanghai and then for someone else to.Pity he didn't do so this time because one senses he quietly fancied his chances – "I have a really good indoor record" and after three and a half months inactivity this year because of the wrist injury he certainly would have gone into it better rested than anyone else.
Asked if the awe-inspiring tennis he has played over the past few weeks could take him all the way to No1, Nalbandian remained cautious."To be the No1 I would have to play like this the whole season," he said. "It's not easy to play that well on clay, hardcourts, grass and indoors. I think the only player who can do that at the moment is Roger [Federer]."
Far from going quietly to avoid a protracted fight with the drug authorities, as she said in her press conference on Thursday, Hingis is continuing with her battle and is being represented by solicitor Tony Morton-Hooper, who worked for Modahl in the mid-Nineties in her battle against a positive test for testosterone.He also successfully defended British triathlete Spencer Smith, who was cleared of any doping offence after testing positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone in 1998.
In both cases, Morton-Hooper attacked the "chain of custody" documentation of the urine samples, which ensures that the sealed test tubes can be tracked accurately throughout the testing procedure.
Comments made by Hingis this week, when she strenuously protested her innocence, suggested Morton-Hooper would be using the same defence.
He thus completed back-to-back Masters titles, the former Wimbledon runner-up having beaten Federer in the Madrid final two weeks ago. In the Spanish capital Nalbandian had also defeated Nadal in the quarter-finals, dropping only three games, while by the banks of the Seine last week he dispatched Federer in the third round. It has been astonishing tennis by the 25-year-old who in his previous 15 tournaments this year had managed to reach just one quarter-final.Nalbandian slipped through the back door as a late reserve for the Tennis Masters Cup two years ago and promptly won it, coming from two sets down in the final against Federer. On a slow centre court in the Palais Omnisports, Nadal had been expected to have the edge.
Four spectators with laptops on their knees have been ejected from the ATP Paris Masters at the Omnipalais and ex-players have been acting as spies in the locker room on behalf of the French Federation, as efforts to crack down on insider betting continue on the tennis circuit....Meanwhile, ATP officials have been reacting with horror to the intervention of one of their number during Nikolay Davydenko's second-round loss to Marcos Baghdatis. Umpire Cedric Mourier started talking to the under-fire Russian about his poor serving. 'You should try and get it in the box,' said Mourier. 'You should serve like me.'
Davydenko has been the central figure in the betting scandal as well as having been given a fine of $2,000 (£1,000) in St Petersburg 10 days ago for 'not giving best effort'. 'Maybe Cedric felt obliged to say something because it was Davydenko,' said a leading umpire. 'But we were all appalled.'
AMERICAN PRESS
"I think Justine is looking to be respected for what she's accomplished and to be more visible in the U.S.," said her American agent, Ken Meyerson of SFX....Eleven years ago, when she began working with Argentine coach Carlos Rodriguez, she was, in her words, "a disaster, technically. We spent six months just to change my grip on my forehand. I didn't play a tournament for six months. And my serve, also, was all wrong.
"Today," she added, "I can serve 116, 117 mph. I know where I came from when I look at my serve now."
You tested positive for cocaine at Wimbledon, and you say you're going to retire from tennis rather than fight this charge that is "so horrendous, so monstrous." That clanging? Oh, that's just the alarm on my B.S. detector.Sports media and fans love to debate who the most courageous athletes are. There's no argument about who is the least courageous. That would be you. You say you are "absolutely, 100 percent innocent" and that your attorney found "various inconsistencies" in the testing process, but you're not up for a fight.
Of course not. Why would you want to fight a blatantly false charge that taints your personal and professional reputation and cuts short your career? As if you would do the fighting. Here's how it works, Martina, in two steps: One, with the money you would otherwise pay your racquet-stringer, you hire a top-notch team of attorneys and say, "Sic 'em!" Two, you kick back on the beach at St. Tropez.
By fighting - or having your attorneys fight - you might prevent the bottom line of your legacy from reading: "Busted and banned."
Um -- what part of "I immediately retained an attorney... He is also convinced that the doping officials mishandled the process and would not be able to prove that the urine that was tested for cocaine actually came from me"... doesn't suggest an appeal is in the works?
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
Lindsay Davenport has been tennis's feel-good story in a week marked by Martina Hingis's revelation of her positive drug test for cocaine and her decision to retire....Davenport won the Bell Challenge, defeating Julia Vakulenko of Ukraine 6-4, 6-1 for her second title in the three events (also Bali and Beijing in September) she has played in her comeback.
A year ago, she withdrew from the Bell Challenge because she was pregnant but not willing to reveal it. “Everyone, including your doctor, tells you, ‘Don't say anything, because so many things can happen before 12 or 14 weeks.' It was disappointing, but the best reason I've had for pulling out.”
...“I was pretty adamant I wouldn't play again,” she said. “But I went to the tournament in Indian Wells [in March]. Being around it again was maybe the first time I thought, ‘Maybe I'll try.' I always laugh, because I was too far into my pregnancy to do anything. I couldn't start practising at that point.”
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Stat-of-the-week: Several years ago, when the Bell Challenge event in Quebec City was offering $170,000 (U.S.) in prize money, it cost tournament organizers $265,000 Canadian to pay the competitors.Needless to say with this year’s prize money of $175,000 (U.S.), the current favourable exchange rate has greatly helped the event’s bottom line.
There are three former champions and three newcomers in '07 Sony Ericsson WTA Championships in Madrid, which begins on Tuesday. But for the first time since 2002, when Serena Williams entered the event on a three-Slam roll and was stunned by Kim Clijsters in the final, a player enters the tournament as serious favorite. That competitor would be defending champ Justine Henin, who is riding a 20-match win streak, and has already locked up the year-end No.1 spot....The money match is Serena v. Jankovic, as the Serb plays her very tough and believes she can outlast her.
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