(image courtesy of rampant_media)
- Power play: The WTA Tour introduced the "power index" at last week's Acura Classic to rate the hardest hitters on the women's side. The index takes into account a player's fastest groundstroke (forehand or backhand), first serve, second serve, first-serve return, second-serve return and overhead or volley. Rankings at the Acura Classic: No. 1? Venus Williams. No. 2? Maria Kirilenko - they may need to check their meter.
- Talking to the press in Carson, CA for this week's East West Bank Classic Serbian World No. 5 Ana Ivanovic described the bombings in Belgrade, saying "I still remember the first night we went into a cellar because we didn't know what to expect," [...] "At first we were very scared because we didn't know what to expect, but later they explained that they were aiming only at military targets. Still, there was quite a bit of collateral damage, but we still tried to live as normally as possible."
- Double vision: Swiss Martina Hingis definitely sees similarities between her game and Russian Anna Chakvetadze saying, "She’s very smart around the court and she has good vision. You don’t see anything specific that she’s winning matches [with] so I definitely see some similarities." We agree and we like.
- Take that NBC: Sports network giant ESPN gave struggling NBC the proverbial finger by hiring legendary sports writer (and tennis Hall of Famer) Bud Collins after Collins was unceremoniously dumped by the peacock network during this year's Wimbledon. Gotta love it...
- Frenchie Amelie Mauresmo, who's having a less than stellar year as it is, has pulled out of the upcoming Tier I Rogers Cup in Canada and the Pilot Pen in New Haven, CT to recover from her appendectomy in March. You can scratch her from your US Open office pools this year.
Does it really make a lot of sense to have one measure that takes into account groundstrokes and serve?
ReplyDeleteIt seems like that is not a very useful index.