[UPDATED] VIDEO VAULT: Sabine Lisicki throws downs a 131 mph serve and sets new record

During her opening round match against Ana Ivanovic in Stanford, Sabine Lisicki served a 131 mph bomb that the WTA tour certified as the fastest recorded woman's serve in history. The former record was 129 mph held Venus Williams.

It was certainly a phenomenal consolation prize since Boom Boom ended up losing the match in straight sets.

UPDATE: Here's Boom Boom's tweet about the record-setting serve. Even she admits it's a pretty good consolation prize:

Well...at least I broke the world record for fastest serve on @WTA ... 😉💪 #131mph #history #record pic.twitter.com/vhWGNtMDHo
— Sabine Lisicki (@sabinelisicki) July 30, 2014

GUEST POST: The German 5 on the rise

By Anna Nartova

In the semifinals of Dubai Duty Free Tennis Open, Julia Goerges defeated Caroline Wozniacki for the third consecutive time, so I thought it was high time to document the whirlwind revival of German women’s tennis. Although these girls haven’t reached the heights of Steffi Graf yet, having 5 players rising to the WTA Top 40 is more than ‘fantastisch.’

Read the rest of "The German 5" after the jump. Click the headline, y'all.

PHOTO OP: Double-fisting

"WAAAAAAH!"

Sabine Lisicki brought the bombs while on the brink of defeat and held on to upset Li Na 3-6, 6-4, 8-6 in the Wimbledon second round. The Roland Garros champ served for the match twice in the decider and even held two match points but couldn't close the deal.

As much as I love Li it's exciting to see Lissie finally healthy and playing great tennis of late including her win at Birmingham. She imposed her power game towards the end of the third set and took the match from a clearly tight Li. It was really impressive to see how boldly she served to save those match points and close out the ninth game. That's what you call 'winning'. Brave stuff.

[Photo(s) credit: AFP PHOTO / LEON NEAL]

HE SAID/SHE SAID: Wimbledon Day 3

 Q. You said you watched Scream last night to relax. Do you normally watch horror films to relax?

ANDY MURRAY: I wasn't watching it to relax. You normally pick the one thing that will stop you thinking about tennis. Scream did a pretty good job of that.

Q. Have you picked a film to relax to before your next match?

ANDY MURRAY: No, not yet. I'll see whatever is on Sky Movies. I mean, the movies on Sky aren't great, I don't think. There's about 20 movie channels, and you're normally struggling to find a good one. Wait and see tomorrow what they've got.


Actually, I did hear yesterday at the end of Scream they have Scream II on tonight and Scream III on on Thursday. Maybe I'll watch one of them.

Q. The Wimbledon homepage did an online survey yesterday who was the best looking male player who played Wimbledon in history. Who would have gotten your vote?

VENUS WILLIAMS: Usually I've never liked any of my colleagues. I try to keep it professional, hence no tennis relationships. So it's probably for the best for me to stay out of this. I usually like winners, though (smiling). So anyone winning is pretty cute to me.

Q. The difference with Roger, though, was that you were deemed to be in the ascendancy. If you look on the Wimbledon website today, the most popular story is you being toppled as No. 1 if you don't win this tournament and that you may be a man in decline. Do you feel like a man in decline?

RAFAEL NADAL: Me?

Q. Yes.

RAFAEL NADAL: Maybe. But I won Roland Garros two weeks ago. I don't forget (smiling). Maybe you or the website yes. After winning Roland Garros, two weeks later is a little bit fast to say I am. You can say that maybe next year, but probably now is a little bit dangerous to say that. But, no, you know, is my seventh year without be out of the top two. Is a lot of years. Probably I started to be decline, but hopefully not. Maybe they are right. I don't know.

Q. What effect did that title and victory in Birmingham have on you for your confidence? What did you take from that?

SABINE LISICKI: Well, a lot of confidence, of course. You know, after two years not playing on grass I didn't know how I'm going to play on it, so I just wanted to go in and play as many matches as possible.

It went pretty well. Yeah, a lot of confidence and just the feel for the grass as well. It's different to anything else.

Q. Could you take a moment and talk about the job you think the American media does covering tennis.

ANDY RODDICK: Well, I think I'm going to have to separate this into first of all, there's no way I can answer this and have it be a win for me, but I'm going to do it anyways.

I'm going to separate. Tennis journalists like yourselves who cover week to week to week to week to week I think do a great job, and I respect the job that you guys do. Someone who, you know, covers something and it's the first tennis match they've ever been to and all of a sudden they become an expert bothers me a little bit. I feel like we get that sometimes. That's probably the only time where I get a little perturbed, when someone isn't, one, researched, and when I feel like they have their article written before a match takes place.

Q. Is that mostly in terms of is tennis dying, a country club sport?

ANDY RODDICK: Listen. Here is what we're going to do. If you want to talk about an, Is tennis dying article, let's go by participation numbers, retail numbers, prize money, up, up, up, up, up. I hear this, Tennis is dying. Maybe it's water cooler talk. But I'll put more stock in the business of tennis in our country growing as opposed to having fun conversations around a water cooler.

Q. Why do you think it is that people refuse to accept the stats? The Wall Street Journal printed some stats which said that tennis over the past nine years is the only sport to increase participation in America.

ANDY RODDICK: This kind of gets to my first point. You can just say something and people read it as fact, but it's not researched. If you look at racquet sales, USTA memberships, across the board, it's been up. Do we have four guys in the top five in the world? No, we don't. That's about the only difference. That doesn't mean that tennis is dying. It's an international sport. I feel like a lot of times people refuse to accept that back home, which is unfortunate. It's as international a sport as there is as far as popularity. I feel like it doesn't get its maybe fair shake.

[Photo(s) credit: Getty Images]

Talk about shiny, happy people

Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen Andy Murray as happy/excited/toothy as I did today after he won his first title of the year over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 3-6, 7-6(2), 6-4 at Queen's Club. He even sounded genuinely happy talking about how actually enjoyed his tennis this week after struggling in the early rounds. Notice the word 'fun':

"It's been one of the most fun weeks for me because the tennis, the last two matches was very good. It was relaxing. I said everyone thinks at this period of the year it's so stressful, you can't play, you can't enjoy yourself, you can't do anything. But I felt like I expressed myself on the court. I felt like I was hitting the ball really good. I enjoyed it."

Fun? Who IS this person? It's like someone shoved a happy pill down his throat or, better yet, something clicked and he now knows his game is right up there with the very best. I saw signs of this new attitude over the clay season especially during that 5-setter against Viktor Troicki at Roland Garros. He didn't seem overcome with frustration about an injury, missed opportunities or errors. Rather, he just dug in his Barricades and went to work. And now the Brit baller is even talking like he actually believes he could win the big ol' Wimbledon thingy:

"I'm going to Wimbledon with the feeling that I'm going to win the tournament. I don't think you can go in with any other attitude. I feel like I'm playing good tennis. I'll need to improve the next week or so and work on some things going into Wimbledon." 

Oh my GAWD. His gonads just dropped and he's already talking like he's ready to kick some baller ass. He's ready for the fight and believes finally his best is good enough to win his first major, even at the All England Club. Fuck. Now wouldn't THAT be something???

Just a quick shout out to Sabine Lisicki who won her first title since 2009 defeating Daniela Hantuchova 6-3, 6-2 at Birmingham. I didn't see the match but apparently she served lights out against the slender Slovak. I mean, talk about someone who's been through it. I still can't get the image of Lissie being carried off on a stretcher at Roland Garros out of mind and here she is winning her first title in two years. Go ahead and drink yourself silly, girl. You earned it.

More celebratory shots of Muzz + Lissie after the jump!

VIDEO VAULT: Charlie called. He wants his Angels back.

Maria Sharapova and WTA tour sponsor Sony Ericsson revealed the six lady ballers who will be taking part in the Xperia Hot Shots initiative during a launch party in South Beach, Miami ahead of the Sony Ericsson Open.

Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Heather Watson, Alize Cornet, Sabine Lisicki, Sorana Cirstea and Dominika Cibulkova were chosen to take part in the web-based series which will help them "realize their dreams" (aren't they doing THAT already?) by giving them exclusive access to a bunch of really cool events thereby helping grow their Facebook fan base (see the page here.) The lady baller with the biggest base gets a "support deal" from Sony Ericsson. No idea what that means exactly.

There's also a dedicated YouTube page where these webisodes will premiere. It's a bit Charlie's Angels to me - not that there's anything wrong with that. But the girls need more high-waisted pants, hair flipping and background explosions. Yes, definitely more explosions!



[Via: MariaSharpova.com]

EXCLUSIVE: Video interviews from the Taste of Tennis green carpet

So I couldn't end this great week of pre-US Open celebrations without showing you guys my green carpet interviews from Thursday's Taste of Tennis event!

I got a chance to talk tennis and food with many of the ballers who were in attendance that night including Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka and Vera Zvonareva as well as musician John Legend, chef Katie Lee and TV host Kelly Choi. Tennis Channel commentator Justin Gimelstob broke down his US Open draw for the camera.

A HUGE thanks to the awesome Sam Zalutsky and his SaZam Productions for taking loads of footage and making sense of it all. Glad someone could.

Enjoy!


[Video: DtL]

PHOTO OP: NYC gets a Taste of Tennis

Andy Roddick

The 10th annual BNP Paribas Taste of Tennis was held last night at the W Hotel and guests were invited to share in tasty foods created by some of the most world-reknown chefs while sipping on cocktails provided by sponsor Rums of Puerto Rico.

Some of the world's biggest ballers took part in the event which benefited the Food Bank of New York City.

Fernando Gonzalez

Vera Zvonareva

David Ferrer

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Sabine Lisicki

Nicolas Kiefer

Aleksandra Wozniack

Chanda Rubin

Brad Gilbert

Sam Groth

Jamila Groth

(image via wireimage.com)

(UPDATED) PHOTO OP: They won't be kissing and making up now

During Sabine Lisicki's 6-4, 6-4 upset of Caroline Wozniacki in the fourth round of Wimbledon today, the two lady ballers re-enacted the infamous "Bumpgate" between Venus Williams and Irina Spirlea at the 1997 US Open.

Here's what the German had to say about the incident in question:

Q. Seemed to be an instant where you almost bumped at net at the changeover. What happened there?

SABINE LISICKI: You know, I don't know. We've been changing the sides all the time, you know, the whole match. I was always passing on the left side and she was passing on the right side. So, I don't know. She all of a sudden went to the side I was passing all the time, and we just bumped each other.

But, I mean, there's no big deal for me.

Q. You were a little bit unhappy. You had a quick word with the umpire.

SABINE LISICKI: Me?

Q. Yes.

SABINE LISICKI: No, it was her. She was discussing with him. I was just focusing for the next game.

Damn - Wozzi was NOT pleased by the incident. But I bet losing to Lisi for the second consecutive time in a big match must have felt a lot worse.

Plus they were wearing matching adidas outfits. I'd be pissed too.

UPDATE: "Move bitch...get out the way...get out the way" SO HYSTER. Thanks Uvijek!



(images via getty)