Medals. And Stuff. Whatever.

Last post on Commonwealth Games tennis, I swear. I still loathe it with a fiery passion, but I should probably talk a little about how it turned out.

It was pretty much the Anastasia Rodionova show, which is not unsurprising, because she was pretty much the highest ranked player there. She won singles gold over Sania Mirza - in what was a surprisingly good match, though it wasn't particularly high quality - and then doubles gold with Sally Peers. She also got silver in the mixed doubles with Paul Hanley - they lost to a pair of Scottish players I have never heard of.

It's a pretty sad story for Commonwealth tennis when Australia is winning pretty much all the medals, which is essentially what happened. There were a few for India - I was, I confess, glad to see that Somdev Devvarman won gold for his nation (it at least made their ridiculous inclusion of tennis worthwhile) - and Sania Mirza, of course, won silver, but Australia won a ridiculous amount of medals in this event. Rodionova, as mentioned, won gold in the women's singles, and Sally Peers won bronze. Greg Jones and Matt Ebden (still a big Ebden fan, in case anyone was wondering - love his game) won silver and bronze. Then there was gold in the women's doubles, as well gold in the men's doubles. Oh, and also silver in the women's doubles.

Let's face it - Australia is not currently one of the world's tennis powerhouses. We have some good up and coming players, but we can't even get into the world group for Davis Cup. And yet we managed to win all this stuff. It's ludicrous.

Congratulations to all medallists. I mean that sincerely. I wouldn't want my ranting about the inclusion of the sport in the games to reflect badly on your achievements, of which you should be very proud. But seriously, Commonwealth Games? How about we stick to what we're good at next time?

CommCrap

Yesterday, we talked about Andrey Golubev, who is awesome. Today, we're going to talk about something which is decidedly un-awesome.

That's right, we're talking Commonwealth Games tennis.

Now, I understand why Comm games tennis is so dodge. Not that many awesome players come from the Commonwealth, to begin with. Sure, there's Murray and Stosur, but beyond that...? not so much. And it's at a stupid time for the few awesome players there are, and they have pretty much zero incentive to play, apart from some faint sense of nationalism. So surprise, surprise - guess what? they didn't choose to play. Which leaves us with a draw where Somdev Devvarman and Anastasia Rodionova are the top seeds, essentially rendering it meaningless as any kind of major tennis achievement.

I understand all these things. All these things were predictable things, quite outside of the whole furore with security in Delhi. And this begs the question - why the f*ck is tennis in the Commonwealth Games at all?

I'm a big fan of tennis in the Olympics. But you know what? That's because the field is awesome and people have an incentive to play. No one is really going to come to the Comm games, because it's not a productive use of their time nor is it good for their rankings. Tennis in the Comm games is, quite simply, a big fat waste of time.

I know India put it in in the hopes that Sania Mirza could win a medal. Here's hoping that at the next Comm games, it comes straight back out again, because it is spectacularly useless.

If You Hear Us, Clap Your Hands!

Okay, I admit it. I was SUCH a tennis patriot last night. I cheered my lungs out for the Aussies - hell, you probably heard me if you were watching! The atmosphere in Rod Laver Arena was electric! But more on that later. Let us start at the beginning.

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I got there just before play began, and got myself a pretty decent seat on Show Court 2 to watch a bit of Cilic and Tipsarevic. One thing I had not considered in choosing this match to begin my day's viewing is that Cilic is Croatian and Tipsarevic is Serbian, and both groups of fans are very, very vocal in Australia, so there was a whoooole lot of shouting! I didn't understand most of it, not understanding either Croatian or Serbian, but it made the whole thing feel like a footy match, and it put the crowd into the match from the start - it really created a great atmosphere! Seriously, it was akin to the endless chants of 'MAR-COS - BAGH-DA-TIS!' that floated out of that same court in the afternoon. And it was a good match as well - I only watched the first set, which Cilic won, but there were some great shots made and good fun for everyone.

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I had a bit of a wander round the back courts to see if anyone interesting was practicing, but I had determined not to spend my whole day waiting for Fedot again, so when I determined that no one especially interesting was, I went back to Margaret Court Arena and settled in for a good couple of hours - and it was lucky I went when I did, because the whole place got packed out very, very quickly! As it was, being alone, I got a pretty decent seat - right at the top, with an excellent view of the whole court. I watched the second set of Petrova/Mirza, which was good fun, but I was really there for the next match - Safin/Garcia-Lopez.

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And when the big man came out, let me tell you, the cheers were massive. There were about three lonely Spanish fans chanting 'G - G - L! G -G - L!' and everyone else was roaring for Safin. (There were a lot of women in the audience... go figure. The queues to get into the stadium were over an hour long at one point, and the match was only an hour and a half - Marat has a whooole lot of fans in Australia! And I don't know whether the crowd lifted him or if he was just having a good day, but he played beautifully - very clean tennis, by his often erratic standards. I watched the whole match and I enjoyed every second. I'm so sad he comes up against Federer next - and sad that I don't have arena tickets for Friday night, because I'm pretty sure it's going to be then...

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When Safin finished I went for another wander round the back... just to check if anyone was out. (Not that Federer would have been out - he was about to play. But someone else might have been there.) I caught a bit of Nieminen hitting up then sat down at Court 19 and watched a bit of Tommy Robredo pummelling Viktor Troicki into the ground. That one was almost painful to watch because Troicki was so upset with himself and playing so badly, so I left and went back round the front - just to discover that the Roger match in Rod Laver Arena was about to begin!

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I had a lovely hour-and-a-half, sitting on the grass in Garden Square, watching the match on the big screen. Federer played beautifully and you could hear the cheers wafting out from the stadium. Also, I was in some Channel 7 footage of Garden Square. That made me glad. It wasn't as hot yesterday (probably only 32 or 33 degrees compared to the 37ish 38ish the days before) and so it was very pleasant - almost like a picnic, sans food and company. (Otherwise exactly the same.)

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I went offsite to eat, then came back at about 6, to find a huge crowd glued to the big screen watching Lu/Nalbandian, with not a seat to spare, so I wandered round and caught the last two games of Bolelli/Fish and the second set of Santoro/Kohlschreiber, which was a totally excellent match which I would have watched more of, but the main event was starting in the arena!

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I didn't know how the crowd was going to react to Jelena Dokic, and I don't think she did either, but they got behind her 110%. There were some folks holding up a 'Welcome Back Jelena!' banner and I think that pretty much says it all. The crowd were cheering and chanting like anything - me included. The amount of times that the 'AUSSIE FANS IN THE STANDS, IF YOU HEAR US, CLAP YOUR HANDS!' cheer went round was obscene - and it was such a great match as well. When Jelena finally pulled it out deep in the third, the whole crowd rose as one and just screamed and screamed and screamed. She started crying - and I confess I shed a tear as well. It was such a great moment.

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And then when Tomic came out, the crowd didn't lose any momentum! There were innumerable 'AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE, OI OI OI!' chants as well as a whole host of others... it was like being at the cricket, seriously. And what a match Tomic played - especially that first set. He may not have won the match, but he sure won the hearts of the crowd. He served notice, I think - the a-Tomic bomb is here to stay!

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Today's Results

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Australian Open

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Men's Draw

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Roger Federer def. Evgeny Korolev, 6-2 6-2 6-1

Novak Djokovic def. Jeremy Chardy, 7-5 6-1 6-3

Gilles Muller def. Bernard Tomic, 3-6 6-1 6-4 6-2

Andy Roddick def. Xavier Malisse, 4-6 6-2 7-6 (7-1) 6-2

Yen-Hsun Lu def. David Nalbandian, 6-4 5-7 4-6 6-4 6-2

Juan Martin del Potro def. Florian Mayer, 6-1 7-5 6-2

Marat Safin def. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, 7-5 6-2 6-2

Marcos Baghdatis def. Robin Soderling, 3-6 7-5 6-3 6-3

Marin Cilic def. Janko Tipsarevic, 6-2 6-3 406 6-3

David Ferrer def. Dominik Hrbaty, 6-2 6-2 6-1

Stanislas Wawrinka def. Brydan Klein, 6-3 6-4 6-4

Fabrice Santoro def. Philipp Kohlschreiber, 5-7 7-5 3-6 7-5 6-3

Mardy Fish def. Simone Bolelli, 6-4 6-1 7-5

Tomas Berdych def. Brian Dabul, 6-1 6-1 6-3

Amer Delic def. Paul-Henri Mathieu, 1-6 3-6 6-3 7-6 (7-3) 9-7

Tommy Robredo def. Viktor Troicki, 6-1 6-3 6-0

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Women's Draw

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Jelena Jankovic def. Kirsten Flipkens, 6-4 7-5

Dinara Safina def. Ekaterina Makarova, 6-7 (3-7) 6-3 6-0

Ana Ivanovic def. Alberta Brianti, 6-3 6-2

Vera Zvonareva def. Edina Gallovits, 6-0 6-0

Nadia Petrova def. Sania Mirza, 6-3 6-2

Caroline Wozniacki def. Virginia Ruano Pascual, 6-3 6-3

Alizé Cornet def. Andrea Petkovic, 6-1 6-0

Marion Bartoli def. Tsvetana Pironkova, 7-5 6-2

Jelena Dokic def. Anna Chakvetadze, 6-4 6-7 (4-7) 6-3

Daniela Hantuchova def. Mathilde Johansson, 6-3 4-6 6-3

Kaia Kanepi def. Patricia Mayr, 6-3 6-1

Ai Sugiyama def. Nathalie Dechy, 1-6 6-1 6-3

Alisa Kleybanova def. Stéphanie Cohen-Aloro, 6-1 3-6 6-2

Sara Errani def. Monica Niculescu, 6-2 6-3

Lucie Safarova def. Marina Erakovic, 6-1 3-6 9-7

Galina Voskoboeva def. Karin Knapp, 6-4 6-1

Tertiary Tennis

I graduated from university today - something which has little to do with tennis. (Surprisingly, there are other things than tennis I'm interested in... Renaissance theatre, for one!) But I thought it thus appropriate to talk tennis and university - more specifically, this so-called ATP university.

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Question: does anyone actually know what the hell it is?

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There are tennis players who have earned degrees, and they are thus exceptional - Mario Ancic, for one. But this ATP university is not so much a university as... well, a seminar, really. It's a very misleading name. There was a story on the ATP website the other day about how sixteen players graduated from it. Naturally, I was intrigued, so I went and looked... and on the list of graduates was Thomaz Bellucci and another one of my Stars (can't remember which), who are both VERY young, nonwithstanding them being professional tennis players.

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Turns out all you have to do to graduate from the ATP university is attend a three day seminar about management and some other stuff (unsure of specifics) and probably not burn anything down. As someone who has slaved away earning their degrees for five years and only now comes away with the precious testamur, I think I object to the use of the term 'university...'

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In the same vein, Sania Mirza got given an honorary doctorate the other day. I hate honorary doctorates. I know she's awesome and what she's done for Indian tennis is good and everything, but a doctorate is something you work at, damn it! As someone who is intending to do a PhD, I am always really pissed off when someone gets handed something that I, who am not famous, will have to study for for years and years and years...

Reconciliation, Double Time

Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi hated each others' guts. But now they're suddenly playing doubles together in Indy. What's with that?

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Maybe India made them reconcile so they can play doubles at the Olympics. But that's naive - you can't just MAKE people reconcile... unless they haven't, and they're just doing this because they've been made to. I would love to know what's gone on behind the scenes there. Are there secret police in the mens' locker room, forcing them to shake hands and talk tennis strategy? Not that I'm suggesting India has secret police. Not that I'm suggesting they don't have them, either.

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Thing is, India has another really good doubles player in Rohan Bopanna. I've never seen him play men's doubles, but I saw him play mixed with Sania Mirza at the Hopman Cup this year, and they were pretty extraordinary. I don't know whether that was just with Sania or whether he's just a good doubles player, but I'm going with the latter. So if the Indian Sporting Federation (or whatever they're called) wants a doubles team for the Olympics, they could partner either Paes or Bhupathi with Bopanna - whichever they preferred. But I suppose that Bopanna probably has a better singles career at the moment than either Bhupathi or Paes, so I guess it wouldn't be fair to cut out either one...

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In which case, the Bhupathi/Paes reconciliation might actually be genuine. Maybe they're both trying to ensure that they get to play in the Olympics - which is a pretty decent motivation. (Cough Roddick cough Gasquet cough.) But surely, if they hated each other as much as I was under the impression that they did, they would be trying to backstab each other and stuff to ensure they got the one spot on offer. Who knows?

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You've got to feel sorry for Rohan Bopanna. No matter what's going on, it's got to be hard for him.

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You never really think of India as a powerhouse of tennis, but they have a few good players coming through now. In the women's game, you obviously have Sania Mirza, but Sunitha Rao is coming up, and she's not half bad. In the men, there are Bhupathi, Paes and Bopanna, and now Prakash Amritraj, who made the Newport final. So on the whole, they're not doing too bad.

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Although, when you consider that approximately one seventh of the earth's population comes from India, you would expect a much higher proportion of good players. I don't think there's any racial disposition that lends itself especially to tennis. So why are there so few Indian tennis players - and Chinese players? I mean, there are a few, but not as many as you would expect.

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The answer, I suppose, is to do with poverty and the lack of opportunity for people in these countries. And it makes you wonder - how much talent is there in the world that goes unrealised, how much potential untapped? Maybe somewhere in the slums of Varanasi or the suburbs of Shanghai, there is someone with talent that could rival Federer - but we will never know, because they have not had the opportunities. Imagine if Roger Federer had somehow never been introduced to the game of tennis. All that talent, all that potential gone to waste. What a tragedy that would have been - except no one would ever, ever know. Not even Roger.

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Kind of makes you question your own life, hey. What box are we not thinking outside of? Maybe you or I or anyone has an amazing talent that we just don't know about. Maybe I could have been, oh, I don't know, the world's best bridge player or aerial skiier, but I'll never know, because I've never tried either. The lesson is, I suppose, to try everything, because you never know what you might be good at.

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Wow. That was deep.

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Today's Results

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Austrian Open (Kitzbuhel)

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Potito Starace def. Daniel Koellerer, 6-4 6-3

Eduardo Schwank def. Daniel Brands, 6-1 6-4

Victor Hanescu def. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, 6-2 6-1

Brian Dabul def. Ivo Minar, 6-4 6-3

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Dutch Open Tennis (Amersfoort)

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Marc Gicquel def. Thiemo de Bakker, 7-6 (8-6) 6-3

Steve Darcis def. Alberto Martin, 6-1 7-6 (7-5)

Teimuraz Gabashvili def. Martin Vassallo Arguello, 6-4 6-0

Christophe Rochus def. Philipp Petzschner, 6-3 6-4

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Studena Croatia Open (Umag)

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Fernando Verdasco def. Mathieu Montcourt, 7-6 (7-5) 6-1

Carlos Moya def. Viktor Troicki, 3-6 7-6 (7-2) 7-5

Fabio Fognini def. Filippo Volandri, 6-4 6-4

Mischa Zverev def. Marcos Daniel, 6-4 6-2

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Indianapolis Tennis Championships (Indianapolis)

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Sam Querrey def. Go Soeda, 6-4 6-4

James Blake def. Dudi Sela, 7-6 (7-2) 6-2

Vince Spadea def. Donald Young, 6-2 6-4

Gilles Simon def. Benjamin Becker, 7-5 3-6 6-0

Dmitry Tursunov def. Wayne Odesnik, walkover

Tommy Haas def. John Isner, 6-3 6-4

Paul Capdeville def. Joseph Sirianni, 6-3 6-4

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Bank of the West Classic (Stanford)

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Anna Chakvetadze def. Shahar Peer, 6-3 6-4

Ai Sugiyama def. Daniela Hantuchova, 6-3 6-1

Dominika Cibulkova def. Kateryna Bondarenko, 6-2 6-3

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Gastein Ladies (Bad Gastein)

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Agnes Szavay def. Viktoriya Kutuzova, 6-4 6-2

Rossana de los Ríos def. Alizé Cornet, 2-6 6-2 3-2 retired

Caroline Wozniacki def. Hsieh Su-Wei, 6-1 6-1

Timea Bacsinszky def. Liana Ungur, 6-3 3-6 6-3

Karolina Sprem def. Vera Dushevina, 6-3 6-4

Mariya Koryttseva def. Tzipora Obziler, 6-2 6-1

Yvonne Meusburger def. Stéphanie Cohen-Aloro, 7-5 6-2

Lucie Hradecka def. Zhang Shuai, 6-3 6-0

Tereza Hladikova def. Nuria Llagostera Vives, 3-6 7-6 (8-6) 7-5

Anna-Lena Groenefeld def. Julia Vakulenko, 6-1 6-1

Patricia Mayr def. Martina Müller, 6-3 6-3

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And today in Stars of the Past, Stars of the Future: Eduardo Schwank.

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Eduardo Schwank won three Challengers on clay in a row coming into Roland Garros, where he defeated Carlos Moya and was the last Argentinean left standing. However, he is perhaps best known for accidentally starting a fire in a hotel in Paris, which saw other players (including the Ratiawana twins and Rik de Voest) fleeing for their lives, and sent Schwank's winnings from the Rome Challenger up in smoke. It was his own fault, one might argue, but one can't help feeling a bit sorry for him. For a player on the satellite circuit, those winnings can be lifeblood.

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But Schwank appears to have left the satellite circuits behind him. His third round finish at the French Open gave him automatic entry into Wimbledon, and although he lost in the first round, it looks like Eduardo Schwank is here to stay. He is seeded this week at the ATP tournament in Kitzbuhel - a far cry from the Challengers. He is back on clay, his favourite surface. He was the Challenger circuit's Rafael Nadal this season, and it will be interesting to see how he will perform on clay next year, when he won't be playing those satellites, one assumes. No, Schwank is playing with the big boys now - and one gets the feeling that he likes it.

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The real test for Schwank will be the upcoming US hard court season. He is virtually untested on hard courts in the main ATP draw, and his performance here could determine whether or not he falls back to playing those Challengers, or whether he continues his rise towards the upper echelons of tennis. Perhaps it will be a test of Eduardo's character rather than his game - getting to the ATP level is one thing. Staying there is quite another.