tennis, life and a few things in between

Watching him getting married and has his first child, a beautiful girl. All the best. Am I a grandma now?

全球最美的17大网球俱乐部，绅士贵族们的最爱
Really? I don’t know but find this amusing. One of the photos looked really dated.

Boris Becker won his only US Open beating Lendl in 1989 from the baseline. He’s a serve and volley kind of guy so I took he wanted to prove that he could win anywhere on the court. That reminded me of Pao who just lost her suit against her former employer. Sex harassment might have been a winnable case for her or had higher winning percentage but she chose gender instead. Becker and Pao all made their stance but only one came out a winner.

New York Times, 2015.03.05 Swiss Stars Are Absent at Davis Cup, and So Is Change

The Davis Cup is still officially in Switzerland’s possession with another campaign set to begin on Friday, but the Swiss have already given up any real chance of defending their title.

There were confetti and celebration in Lausanne and elsewhere in November after Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka finally brought the trophy home. A promotional tour is still planned in the hope that more Swiss — particularly young Swiss — will be bitten by the tennis bug.

But further festivities could fall flat if the team, as expected, is beaten in the first round in Belgium this weekend.

Neither Federer nor Wawrinka agreed to defend the prize that took them many years to win. That leaves their friend, adviser and captain, Severin Lüthi, with a Swiss lineup whose top player is No. 321 Adrien Bossel now that No. 292 Yann Marti has reportedly left the team in a huff after not being picked for Friday’s singles. The only holdover from the winning team is No. 576 Michael Lammer.

Transition at the top is coming — the longtime International Tennis Federation president, Francesco Ricci Bitti, has decided not to run for re-election this year. But turning the event into a true monthlong World Cup of tennis seems to involve too much risk and calendar juggling. Holding the event every two years might endanger short-term revenue that is vital to the smaller tennis nations that are part of the I.T.F.

Another smart proposal — requiring home teams to pick surfaces that are in use on the regular tour during that time of the season as a way to reduce injuries — could founder because of the dearth of clay courts in some countries.

Even the modest and reasonable idea of giving the previous year’s finalists a first-round bye has failed to gain traction, partly because of resistance from sponsors and broadcasters and partly because I.T.F. officials are not convinced it would improve player participation.

It would, however, help players stay fresh, and it would also help prevent the buzz kill of seeing the reigning champion quickly fumbling its crown.

For now, with Davis Cup dates set through 2018, the idea of holding the final at a neutral site determined well in advance — à la soccer’s Champions League final or the Super Bowl — is gaining momentum, with the goal of improving the event’s organizational and promotional potential.

“We are disappointed that Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka have decided not to play in the first round of Davis Cup, especially for the thousands of fans in Switzerland and around the world who supported their progress to the title last year,” Ricci Bitti said. “Davis Cup is not a mandatory event, and players do choose from time to time to miss a tie.”

They certainly do, but what sort of message does it send when the titleholders have no interest in repeating?

Federer fought the clock and a significant back problem to make it on court and help beat the French in last year’s final. Now, less than four months later, he would rather save himself the hassle and the energy at age 33. He will instead play a lucrative exhibition match against Grigor Dimitrov on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden.

“I always feel there is so much guilt put on you from the federation or from the I.T.F., more so than anybody else,” Federer said of the Davis Cup last week on his way to the title in Dubai. “So I’m happy I was able to finally tick that off and do it.”

Federer made it clear that he played the Davis Cup from start to finish last season more to address his teammates’ wishes than his own. He also made it clear that it had been more of a burden than a pleasure through the years.

“Those are powerful quotes,” Jim Courier, the United States Davis Cup captain, said in a telephone interview from Glasgow, where his team has a first-round rematch with Andy Murray and Britain after losing last year in San Diego.

Courier, who won the Davis Cup twice as a player, would prefer big changes in an attempt to broaden the event’s reach, but he appreciates the event too much to write it off in the face of stasis. Still, there is a notable disparity in excitement between the Davis Cup and the Ryder Cup, the golf team event contested by the United States and Europe. The Ryder Cup was played at Gleneagles near Glasgow in September.

“We just did a press conference with the local press, and there’s not one American member of the press here, and we didn’t expect there to be,” Courier said Wednesday. “The golf community and general sports community knows in America when Ryder Cup is coming because it’s focused on. There are tennis fans that know we are playing here, and no one else knows. That’s not our fault, necessarily. We’re not responsible for promoting this.”

The top players, who united for increased prize money at Grand Slam tournaments, could have done the same to force change on the Davis Cup. They do not seem interested in doing so.

More matchups between the game’s biggest stars in this age of great rivalries could have made the Davis Cup more impactful globally. Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Murray have too seldom faced each other in Cup matches, a combination of bad luck of the draw and flickering commitment.

This year, Federer is out (perhaps for good), but the fifth-ranked Murray and the top-ranked Djokovic, who is set to lead Serbia against Croatia in the first round, are back in the mix. So are No. 4 Kei Nishikori of Japan and No. 6 Milos Raonic of Canada, whose teams will face off in Vancouver in what could be the most compelling of the first-round encounters.

No matchup has a longer back story than the United States versus Britain, however. The two countries played the first Davis Cup tie, in 1900 in Boston, after the Harvard student Dwight Davis had the bright idea of starting an international tennis challenge. The Americans won, 3-0, benefiting from the absence of Britain’s best players: the brothers Reginald and Laurence Doherty. The Americans also made good use of twist serves, which left the Britons lunging and searching for answers.

There should be no such secret weapon this time. The top players know one another well in this globalized era, although the Belgians could certainly be excused for lacking information on Bossel and the other Swiss players filling in for Federer and Wawrinka. At least they no longer have to worry about scouting Marti.

What a difference three months make.

Andy Murray’s then gf Kim Sears had here cursed at his opponent, for what? Can’t you control yourself woman? He isn’t exactly the popular guy on the tour.

Foremost, she won two grand slam titles, French Open 2011 and Australian 2014, has just retired for the second time on 19 September, 2014. She is pregnant, expecting her first child this summer. This 60 Minutes segment is just a feel good piece, nothing is unknown. Lesley Stahl called Li’s career “remarkable” and applauded her standing up to Chinese government. Li has the reputation as a rebel, which the New York Times Magazine portrayed her in 2013.

In this 60 Minutes interview, Lesley Stahl said, “Li Na is one of the wealthiest female sports figure in the world. She’s probably China’s most famous athlete and an idol to young Chinese not only because of her ability but because the way she stood up to the Chinese system.”

Ms. Stahl. .. “..  .. Li Na became one of the highest paid and most watch female athletes ..  state run sport system… .. leaving the sport after a remarkable career. Remarkable, not just because she won two grand slams, but because she stood up to the Chinese authorities, to win some freedom.”

wenxue; file 21519

The NYT reports: Another Loss for Nice Guys, but This One Wins Raves on Tim Smyczek, a qualifier from Milwaukee ranked 112th, playing third-ranked Rafael Nadal in the second round at Australian Open.

As Nadal served for the match ahead by 6-5, 30-0, in the fifth set, a fan hollered during the toss of his first serve, disrupting his motion. The serve sailed long.
As the crowd began to boo, Smyczek caught the attention of the chair umpire and held up two fingers, indicating that Nadal should be able to have both of his serving opportunities. Once the umpire announced that it would again be a first serve, Nadal gave Smyczek a thumbs-up sign and a small wave, and several members of Nadal’s team stood to applaud the gesture.

..

Despite clinging to ideals of gentlemanliness and fair play, tennis has had its low moments in sportsmanship. Justine Henin’s declining to give Serena Williams a second chance at a first serve after holding up her hand midway through Williams’s service motion at a 2003 French Open semifinal serves as a counterpoint to Smyczek’s gesture. Medical timeouts, bathroom breaks and illegal coaching from the stands are common forms of gamesmanship.

底线 on wenxuecity

If was a day match in the 1992 at the Louis Armstrong Stadium. The former champ Ivan Lendl got a questionable line call in his favor. Back then there was no instant replay. Line umpires and chair umpire wielded the absolute power over each shot. The player could only confer with the chair umpire which Lendl’s opponent did but the chair empire upheld the call. However the next shot another line umpire called a close shot in the opponent’s favor.

We cheered. It’s vigilante justice I suppose.

Lendl protested,
“You don’t have to give him back so quickly.”

We laughed, then despised him. Tennis is really a gentlemanly sport. You compete fair and square. If you think the call is wrong, you correct it. Which, Thomas Muster did during a tournament. Muster felt the call in his favor was wrong and gave it back to his opponent Michael Chang. However a few games down the road, when another close call occurred but Chang did not reciprocate, Muster got mad. He eventually beat Chang, feeling vindicated. Not many people like Lendl and Muster. I admired Muster for his conduct. Also his come back to win the same tournament in Miami in 1997 where he was hit by drunk driver (1989). A side note, Muster had just beaten Noah after losing the first two set early in the day in the semi final and was scheduled to play Lendl for the final.

易中天: 你问当下中国缺什么？我看最缺底线.

Our club has seen an increase of Chinese members. Last night I saw a young couple, the girl in bikini, trying to learn to swim from the boy. They speak standard Mandarin.

A couple of months ago, as I was existing the pool, I saw an Asian woman spitted into the pool. I went to the membership and complained, asking if they could put up a sign. A Caucasian woman dismissed it as, “all swimmers do that ..”

Really?

Might be it’s my fault that I did not mention her gurgling. I did not want to bring that up because it was disgusting. Yes we swim and we spit. But we don’t gurgle and cough up something from our throat and maybe even from the gut ….

Years ago when I swam at Flushing pool, there was a sign posted on the wall in the locker room, indicating spitting is un-sanitized and unlawful. Having this in mind, I lobbied Alex to post a sign. He laughed:

“We can’t. There would be too many signs on the wall ..” Oh well.

Why do Chinese spit so much? Smoking do make people spit. Just look at the baseball players when they used to chew on tobacco in the dug out. They spitted incessantly that made me worry by the end of the game, the diamond would be flooded by spits.

A few famous spitters and memorable spitting related anecdotes 轶事:

• Li Hongzhang: In 1895 when Li Hongzhang came to visit USA, the New Yorkers were fascinated not only by his outfit but the silver spittoon he carried with him too.
• Nikita Krushchev: I don’t know if the Soviet Premier (1894-1971) spitted but his Chinese name translation was Heluxiaofu 赫鲁晓夫. Because he was bald, we shorten his name to Hetu 赫秃, He the Bald that rhymed with spitting. This happened after the honeymoon between China and USSR turned sour. I remembered in th school yard our classmates, especially the boys, played spitting contest … much like what Jack Dawson did in Titanic ..(Krushchev to me was just a politician who existed concurrently during my youth. Decades later, when I read when 23-years old Van Cliburn won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow on Apr. 14, 1958, ‘the competition’s judges reportedly asked Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev if they could really give first place to an American. Khrushchev replied, “Is he the best piano player? Then give it to him.”‘ Then I saw the kitchen debate with Vice President Richard Nixon in 1959. Krushchev turned out, more than a cold politician. He was lively and human. And probably a fun loving person.)
• Deng Xiaoping: This undated picture (before 1992) of Deng Xiaoping showed two spittoons as he was conferring with Li Xiannian 李先念 and Chen Yu 陈云. In “Assignment: China”, [Release Date: 11/21/2011, http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=2635 @ 3:50], Deng’s spitting habit was mentioned too (even during the meetings with the heads of state), so did Fox Butterfield in his book^{page 289}.
• the baseballers: when I first arrived in New York in 1986, it was the ear when the baseball players all chewed on tobacco while waiting in the dug out. They spitted insancesively that I worried at end of each game, the diamond field would be flooded by their saliva.
• Jack Dawson in Titanic by Leonardo DiCaprio
• Back to swimming: the older pools, like the one in my high school Renda Fuzong in Beijing, Morrison Hill in Hong Kong and Queens College in New York, just to name a few, have all an around trough/槽 near the top edge/ground – the newer pools have done away with it. I never knew the reason for it, other than seeing the water sipping away. We used it as the ‘spittoon’ while in the pool. The telling moment came when I first arrived in New York and went to swim. A fellow swimmer, an older Caucasian woman after watching me attentively, then asked me, “don’t you think it’s unsanitary?”   No I did not consider it was unsanitary but after that incident, I did pay attention to people around me. I was never a spitter but in the pool I did have a habit of spitting more than necessary, because the ‘spittoon’ was there and I saw everyone was doing it. No one ever said a word otherwise. It was one of these ah moments that made me aware what is acceptable.
• Once I was doing a favor, picking up a friend’s husband who were from China. It was a tranquil, tree lined single family house street. From the front door to my car, he began doing the spitting routine: sucking it in and up loudly. My heart gone up with the sound. I debated if I should tell him to stop. Not telling him, I would be embarrassed, feeling every single one in their houses were watching. Telling him, would inevitably embarrassed him. Which adult likened to be lectured? I speeded up the walk to my car. He walked with me, and looked for a appropriated spot; with a practiced power and accuracy, thunderously he spitted it out at the root of a beautiful ginkgo tree. I climbed into the car and started the engine immediately, wished I had one of the James Bond cars where there license plate could disappear at a touch of a button.
• 2012 in Baihua Hotel in Hefei (安徽百花宾馆). At the buffet breakfast a middle aged man in dark blue suit in white hotel paper slippers sat in the table before me. He had two men who deferred and catered to him. During the short meal, another man came with a painting, unrolled for him to inspect. He took a look and waved the man away. The large restaurant was pretty vacant in the morning. He then took out a cigarette, one of the two man lighted it for him. He took a deep drag, then cleared his throat and spitted it on the carpeted floor.

Is it a mere culture issue? I wondered, were China the stronger culture, would the world adapted its spitting habit instead? Just kidding.

This is very Beijing ..kind of swear.
Tennis and dog