Spring for a day

Yesterday I woke up and everything was covered in snow. Today it was 70 degrees and perfect. No joke. Practice was solid, and afterwards I ran around the park because it was a nice day and I wanted to try out the new Nike running shoes. It was a successful venture on both counts. I walked up to school at 5 for a dinner meeting and took a little pic on the way home because the light in Pueblo is best at the end of the day. Wanted to share. Anyhow, it's a good thing that I managed to get maximum enjoyment out of it too because tomorrow the weather is supposed to start sucking again.

Not much going on in the world of professional tennis today. Today was the first day of the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships, and if you want to read about it...well go for it.

I am trying to find a relatively unknown tennis player to stalk when I go to Wimbledon this summer. He (or she, I guess!) would have to be ranked somewhere around 75 to 100 in the world. My boss and I just think that it would be funny for the 82nd ranked player in the world to have two stalkerish superfans for a couple of days. We could go to the players' hotel and rush him for autographs and what not. Man, I am looking forward to this.

You wouldn't believe me if I told you...

Life has been insane!! Where to start?

We took a trip down to Silver City, New Mexico to play a match against WNMSU. It sucked. 22 hours in a van round-trip and we got rained out after about 90 mins of play. Mitch and I won in dubs and then I played a set of singles and the rains came. End of story. Good thing we didn't play ENMSU.

We have now had four matches in three days. It is draining. We played CC today and I felt much better after I was done playing than I did at any point during the day. Yesterday we had to play four times (singles and doubles...you get it) and man, tiiiired legs today. We made it with an 8-1 victory though. Oh and I was THIS close to some deer that ran through the Broadmoor today. Yeah. I wish I went to CC and got to play my matches at the freaking Broadmoor. Back to the public park for me...

Tomorrow we play Metro State and it will be difficult. Really difficult. Looking forward to it though.

And pro tennis...Novak Djokovic is sick! He reminds me of a guy around here: robotic type strokes and just all sorts of game. He wants it, too, much more so than a lot of people around that have shit tons of ability but don't have that killer instinct.

The one thing that I already knew but have learned all over again in college is that the game is all about being consistent. All you have to do is be confident that your shots are going to go in and then you can start figuring out how to beat people. It's pretty simple, really. But Djokovic...his match against Canas was a solid example of Consistency vs. Power + Consistency. Power and consistency won. It won't always. There are ways to beat it, but you have to be good enough to take that guy out of his comfort zone, and Canas was not going to wear out Djokovic.

And get off of Federer's back. He has lost twice in two weeks to a guy who is playing out of his gord. Canas is not afraid of anyone, especially now, and especially after beating Fed the first time...

And finally, I guess I should address my lengthy absence from the "blogosphere"...I dare you to not snicker when you say that word seriously. This past week was spring break, and I was doing my best to disappear. Basically I watched a lot of TV and played some tennis and made a few bad decisions that I could not afford to make during the regular school week. The week before that we took the trip to NM and I missed three days of school and work. Then this weekend and week we have 5 matches in four days. I used to have too much time to waste; I still do, except I just waste it more dramatically and without noticing.

I am supposed to pass along some other blogs that I read (it's an assignment) so here are a couple of pretty nice ones. Exhibit A, and Exhibit B. I wish I knew people like this in Pueblo.

On another note, the team made a little spring break trip up to Denver and took in a Nuggets game. They played like shit and lost at the end to the Sonics, but they made up for it by wasting the Sonics right back last night in Seattle. They need to figure their shit out and get a playoff push going so they can play with a little momentum.

There is lots more coming in the next few days; the ATP tour is getting into Davis Cup ties and the clay court season, and the team is getting ready to try to make some noise at the conference tournament in a couple of weeks...and oh yeah, LIVERPOOL is going to dominate...er, hopefully dominate, or win, or show up. Balls.

Now I must unfortunately be getting back to letting school kick my ass and tend to my sick dog...he's not really that sick, but he got a tooth removed today and needs some nursing.

Nay-dal

Rafael Nadal slapped Andy Roddick 6-4 6-3 in the finals at Indian Wells. That's old news though. You want new news on here, and new news is what you shall get. I'm gonna do this like Fox News. I report, you decide! Yay!! Vote conservative and destroy the planet now!!

You can read about how Nadal is "not just a clay court specialist," and then you will probably roll over and say "DUHHH."

You can check out how Kim Cljisters is effectively taking her last year on tour completely off -- she is retiring after this year, but she might as well have just retired a few months ago, because she is now taking the US Open off to go on her honeymoon. I understand it and all, but what?

I found a fairly interesting piece on ESPN.com about the hazards of balancing tennis with rest on the pro tour. It was pretty interesting, and James Blake was one of the featured players.

The Pueblo team had a match today. You can check the site for scores -- I don't know if they put anything up yet though. For the record, we were playing the #17 team in the country. That's no excuse for getting whipped though.

We play again on Wednesday against The U of Rhode Island, and I am sure that it will be just toooooriffic. They have a player who is 6'9''! I am impressionable enough to be intimidated by that.

We're taking a trip down to Silver City to play WNMU...should be a fun time. More on that later. Time for.....

Out of the desert and into the sun...

I am once again doing this from class, because strangely enough, the end of classes seems to be the only time where I can get anything done. School is insane!

We had a match yesterday against Minnie Mankato, and even though we won, I don't want to talk about it. In fact just typing that makes me want to cry.

At least I can watch Indian Wells. Sharapova lost her match and the #1 ranking, but whatever. Roddick swept past Gasquet, who looked like he gave up for the first three games of the 2nd set. He was playing with such little effort...he hit a cross-court forehand winner halfway through the 4th game of the 2nd set, and I swear, if he had missed that shot, he would have tanked the rest of the set. I like Gasquet, but damn...

Murray beat Davydenko yesterday, and he probably did a little bit of yelling in that match too - rascally Scotsman.

That's all I got for now -- I gotta run across campus to class, then get a paycheck, then maybe eat lunch, then go to practice, then back to work, then home for dinner, and then find out what sort of homework I have to do. Noooooooooooo

AHhhhhhhh!!

I know. Creative title, jackass.

Lots of stuff happening lately. Federer losing has been a big story, but I am not making a big deal out of it for a couple of reasons. People lose. Even Federer. He is human. The guy that beat him is pretty freaking good too, and you would have heard a lot more about him recently had he not been suspended for 15 months.

I haven't posted too much lately because I have been listening to the Format a lot and doing tons of work. School is kicking my ass right now, or at least chasing me around with a big stick. Found out I can graduate in three years, but if the work that would have to go into that is anything like what I have now...passssssss.

We played CC yesterday and won. It was a decent day of tennis, but the more I think about it the less satisfactory it was -- bad doubles, OK singles...we need to get better, fast.

Roddick is moving along in the now-Federerless draw, which you know is making him a happy little man. JB lost and that sucks.

I hope I didn't just link to the same article twice, but if I did that's too bad -- I'm off to go get manhandled by a Business test. See you fools later

Some numbers

1: Number of stereos stolen from my car and windows broken while my car was parked in the athletic parking lot.

2: Minutes spent doing homework on the trip -- not even kidding.

3: Slices of pizza eaten by Kyle even after a 7:30 pm steak dinner followed by a double serving of chocolate ice cream.

4: Bathrooms assaulted on the way home from Topeka to Pueblo -- we had eaten some Chipotle.

5: Consecutive hours of TV we watched last Thursday while it was snowing.

6: Number of foreign players that Northwest Missouri State has in their top 6. (I know it looks like five, but six of them are from other countries...one of them is Japanese.)

7: Times I pondered quitting the sport of tennis after a demoralizing defeat at 12:30 AM.

8: Reasons I found to keep playing.

9: People I can think of off-hand who should have suffered a torn ACL instead of Josh; I won't name names at this time.

10(2): Hours spent getting to and home from Topeka.

The trip was not a complete disaster -- no one died. That said, I want to forget about most of it right now. I hate to say it, but it's one of those things that I'm sure we will laugh about later in life, but holy hell, what a depressing five days in the American midwest.

We had a match yesterday. I won both of my matches, Ricardo won his singles match and he teamed with Beau to win at 1 dubs. We didn't pull out any other team wins though, so we lost 5-4. We played Montana State-Billings and they were an interesting bunch. The match almost got called on account of darkness, so it's a good thing it's almost daylight savings time.

In the world of professional tennis, things are just getting interesting. It's time for one of my favorite tournaments: Indian Wells. I love that place. Federer, obviously, is the favorite, but there is a lot of good tennis being played right now. The women's side has been plagued by withdrawls, so hopefully the men can avoid that crap.

Federer sets new record -- and a sick video

Roger Federer has now spent over 3 years at the #1 spot on tour. That is just amazing. It's the longest consecutive run at #1 ever.

Also watch this disgusting knee dislocation -- it went down last night. EWWWWWWW



All I got for now -- in class, gotta go.

As promised

I said I'd be back by Sunday, and I shall deliver. I am even feeling mellow enough to discuss what happened on Friday. But first, some news.

• Tommy Haas absolutely crushed Andy Roddick today. It wasn't pretty. I watched the whole match and Roddick looked how I feel out on court lately. I remember some of the numbers...Roddick's first serve percentage was like 22% for most of the match. Just won't win many matches like that.


• By the way, Haas didn't face a break point during the entire tournament. = amazing


• Venus Williams apparently won a tournament. That statement should tell you how much I care.


• This is some upsetting news. Joachim Johansson, Pim Pim, to some of you, had another shoulder surgery. He is always getting injured, and that sucks because he is amazing. I remember watch him play Agassi a few years ago at the US Open. He lost, but he hit like 47 aces in four sets. It was ridiculous.

I don't normally do this, but the trip and the delay calls for some personal explanation.

About Friday: I had class until noon, then I downed a delicious BBQ sandwich from a local sub shop. I fired up the TiVo and watched Liverpool beat down Barcelona (still pumped about that), and then at 3 I went up to school and we set out for the USAFA to play Weber State.

So we get to Springs and the traffic is terrible, nothing new...finally get to the Academy and find the proper field house. The facilities are AMAZING. I have some pics coming -- they are on my buddy's camera but I will get them soon. So we got there during the lowering of the colors and it was a very eerie experience. This weird bugle sound was warbling over the top of the hill and everyone was standing perfectly still facing the hill...nevermind.

We get inside and sat around for over an hour while UNC finished playing the Academy. We finally got a court to warm up on...7 guys, one court, cool... At 6 when our match was supposed to start, I go up and take a seat (I was playing singles, not doubles). There was some delay, and then when matches started, of course one match had to be tight and took about 80-90 minutes. Then our first four singles matches went on -- I was playing 6th that day.

Finally at 9 pm I got a court. I hadn't eaten a meal since noon; my only bio fuel was a soggy PBJ that I had put in my bag. The courts were Rebound Ace, and the elevation was like 7000 feet, so it was really awkward. The ball was all over the place.

That's one of the things I have come to realize: The great players at this level will make that adjustment in 20 minutes and have a competitive match. Me -- I will take about 2 sets to get to feeling like I know what the ball is going to do and then the match is over and I'm headed back to Pueblo and my shitty hardcourts and my 4000 some feet. I wish I could adjust faster.

Anyhow, long story short, we got back to Pueblo starving and defeated so we headed to Buffalo Wild Wings for some comfort food. Our wings took over an hour to prepare, apparently, but when they got there, oh man...delciousness times TEN. I took some people home, it started to snow, the wind started to blow, I got to bed at 2, I got up at 7 and had to work at a conference at school all day. It was amazing. Hope that explains the delay.

We are going to Kansas on Wednesday, so I will be doing a Road Trip feature type thing. I'm also going to try to invest in a new camera before then, so be prepared for some amazing footage.

LIVERPOOL LIVERPOOL LIVERPOOL!!!

Tomorrow is the day that we all (as long as "we all" means a few of my friends and I -- and probably part of England) have been waiting for. Liverpool is playing Barcelona in the first of two Champions League matches. It's going to be amazing, but we don't get it on TV here in America. Gay ass digital cable. I'm going to have to try to watch it on the Internet somehow, but I have a feeling that soccer on the Internet is going to be a disappointment.

In tennis news (I am taking this shit way too seriously), Mardy Fish is everything I wish I was. He is good at tennis, making changes to his game and still being successful, generally a bad ass...I'm getting upset.

There are all kinds of tournaments going on right now but they're all in the first rounds so you can check them out at your leisure...if you care.

It's also worth mentioning that if you are living in a foreign country and can get the Liverpool game on TV, I hate you.

PERFECT

Yesterday and then again today the weather finally cooperated, and by that I mean the mercury rose to within exactly one degree of a little number I like to call BEAUTIFUL. It was amazing. I walked to the courts yesterday and hit for 90 minutes and then walked home; it was stunning. Today we practiced for two hours at the park and it was wonderful. Actually, it was great until coach made us run a couple of parks and thanks to the excretory emergency I was forced to deal with at that time, there was a whole other set of problems to deal with. Aaaaanyhow.

Scotland's own Andy Murray took down Andy Roddick and Ivo Karlovic in quick succession this weekend. That's a pretty impressive pair of servers to beat back to back. Karlovic does this a few times a year; it will be interesting to see if he can stick around this time. I mean, he's 6'10'', there is no reason that he shouldn't just pulverize anyone who comes on court with him. You don't even need to be able to play that well past serving if you hit 20 aces a match. That's more aces than I've hit this year. And last year.

This cat took down Robbie Ginepri in 3 sets in Memphis. It's too bad because I like Robbie. And also because that guy is two years younger than me. You can check out the Memphis tournament website, but I should warn you that it sucks ass.

Back to Scotland for a minute. Is this an amazing t-shirt or am I retarded? I bought it, so I hope I'm not retarded. Of course, I won't wear it tucked into a kilt that goes up to my nipples, so I will at least have that going for me. I also bought an amazing Scottish flag bandana a while back that I am going to sport at a few matches this season. The whole soccer thing and a little bit of tennis and a lot of wanting to bring some European strangeness to my house has led me to buying cool stuff on ebay. I will probably buy a new sibling on there eventually.

I guess this is kind of a cool trophy. Whatever, Mauresmo is a man, I bet she doesn't enjoy the diamonds too much. Or maybe she does. I make it a point to ignore her. Just another irrational tennis bias, I suppose.

By the way, happy belated Valentine's Day to you people. I didn't think to say anything earlier because it's not a real holiday (what do I know though? I am single and ready to mingle). I'll be getting back to the homework now...

No courts...no problem...jokin!

I should be studying for my Business Communications test right now, but in a few words I can accurately sum up my opinion of that class: F that shit.

That is also my opinion of the weather, which continues to be cold and depressing. Yesterday it was 9 or some ridiculous temperature like that. Today it was a little bit warmer (warmer, lol...) but it snowed most of the day. What snow is still on the ground is light and flaky, but it is snow nonetheless.

This brings me to the match update, and really the week so far.

• Monday: Practiced for one hour in 38 degree weather. It was amazing. </sarcasm>
• Tuesday: I cannot tell a lie. I didn't do anything. My legs hurt, it was about 10 degrees outside...yeah.
• Today: Worked on a stationary bike for 30 mins at school, did some core stuff, flexibility work...what? Yep. Futile.
• Thursday: We're going to squegee some tennis courts tomorrow in the hope that we can play Friday. This leads us to...
• Friday: The forecast calls for 48 degrees and 40 mph winds. The coach's solution was to move the match up two hours, when it is just as windy but much colder. 12:30 is the start time, but I'm hoping I get a phone call at about 10 telling me to forget it. It's one of those things where you really hope things work out, but you know they probably won't, so avoiding the whole situation would just make life easier.
• This all reminds me of a short exchange between me and Ricardo, the kid from Mexico on our team. He taps me on my shoulder in lab on Monday and says, "James, what will the weather be like this week? Will we get to practice?" I said, "Ah man I dunno, it's only supposed to be like 26 tomorrow." He gave me a confused look and said, "Twenty-six, umm, I don't know - what is that in Celsius?" I said, "That's like -2 degrees," and he just sat back and said, "Fawwwwwwwwwk."
• I looked up the Puebla, Mexico forecast yesterday, and depite being over 7000 feet in elevation, the high for Tuesday was 70 degrees and the low was 58. Fahrenheit. LOVE IT

If you read this and wonder, "Well, dumbass, just go play indoors!" then I commend you for your sense of logic. Then I would remind you that Pueblo is a community that really possesses no logic. We have some indoor courts...at the Pueblo Country Club. Private party. Then there were some indoor courts at the state fair grounds, but as I think I mentioned earlier, they suck, and actually now they're shut down for the rest of the month. Our school doesn't have any tennis courts, indoor OR outdoor, so we are basically screwed if the weather keeps up its freezing ways.

Anyhow, there is some real news to attend to.

Mardy Fish is still playing good tennis. Andy Murray won in spite of himself. This was at the SAP Open...an indoor tournament! Gasp! Apparently Safin won as well.

• It's nice to see Guga still being a bad ass. I will always root for a shaggy Brazilian. Look at that guy, it looks like he just walked up to the court and grabbed some random guy's racquet and started throwing down. What a man.

In other sports news, I find this to be a little bit funny. 18 games!! I feel so bad for Paul Pierce. The Celtics are tanking the shit out of their season to get a shot at Oden or Durant. Also, how old do you think this guy is??

Also, while I am loving the fact that Carmelo is averaging 30.8 ppg, 6.0 rebounds and 4.4 assists, I am not pleased that they lost to the T-Wolves tonight. I only put that on here because it's fresh in my mind. And because I wanted to. You get it. I also love this even though it's a little old...I was right in front of him when it happened, it was sick, and I wanted to put it up.

ATP round-robin

The ATP has decided to shake things up a little bit this year. Instead of the normal 32-player draw or whatever each tournament features, the first few days of competition will now be dominated by a round-robin format. Essentially, players are grouped and play the other players in their group and the winners advance out to the elimination phase, which usually begins as the QF. This means that you can still lose in your round-robin group but win the tournament. Some players like it, some don't. The only time I have used round-robins is at small local tournaments when there aren't enough players to fill out a full draw sheet. I think it's kind of stupid that the ATP is doing that on tour though. It is how they run the Tennis Masters Cup, which makes sense, because if you have the 8 best players in the world, why not have them play more matches and beat on each other a little bit more for the benefit of the audience? It doesn't make much sense to do it at every tournament though, which is probably why the ATP is just trialing it at select tournaments this year. Brad Gilbert doesn't like it, which is good enough for me to not like it. And I agree with him, on-court coaching would be much better. It is allowed at every other level of the game, why not at the top?

In other news, the US Davis Cup team was announced, and it was no surprise. In fact it's barely news worthy. The line up will be Andy Roddick, James Blake, the Bryan brothers at dubs. They are playing the Czech Republic on indoor clay Feb. 9-11. It will be interesting for sure...I hope they don't lose. Aside from Thomas Berdych there is no one that should pose a threat to the US players, but because it's Davis Cup, and because we suck on clay, anything could happen.

Jesse Levine - freshman sensation, but wait, he's a pro...

If you are a somewhat serious follower of the game of tennis, you know that most good (professional) tennis players start playing when they are quite young. Most of the guys on my team started when they were anywhere from 7 to 12 years old. I started playing my freshman year of high school. I have learned that I am somewhat of a rarity; I wish I had started playing when I was 6 though so I could be good. But for the sake of making a little rant, let's think back to when Rafael Nadal started playing pro tournaments at age 16. Mario Ancic was about that age when he first started playing pro and beating people too. But it's always easy to dismiss that and be like "Bah, he's foreign, they have a different system, he can just train a lot and developed fast and plays tennis...whatever." Well, it changes when you put it in persepctive. This guy, who doesn't even have an official bio, is tearing up a pro tournament in Delray Beach, where I'm quite sure it isn't snowing. It's crazy to me because he's not even as old as I am, and I'm a sophomore in college. He is a freshman at the U of Florida, and will be one singles on their team this fall.

I was barely ready to play D II college tennis as a 18-19 year old kid...meanwhile there are 18 year old bad asses serving up losses to guys who have been on tour for 8 or 9 years? What? That's insane. Let me put it this way. If I were to go play a full match against the number one player on our team, I would probably lose like 6-1 6-1, maybe even 0 and 0, but I'm being optimistic. Either way, he would beat the crap out of me. He is from Puebla, Mexico and has been playing since he was 9. He's a stud. Anyhow, he played a couple of Futures events (a good comparison would be like the double A affiliate of a baseball team, maybe even a little lower) and he got nailed. Never made it out of the first round I guess. So that means that there are people way better than him but can't make it in the Challenger events (AAA baseball), the real minor leagues, and those are the guys who are still waiting to make it on the real tour. How good must Federer be then?

My coach's son is a tennis pro, and he played on the tour for a little bit. Mostly just challengers. He topped out around #1300 in the world, and he is AMAZING. If Federer can tool anyone in the top 15 without much trouble, and if someone in the top 15 can tool anyone in the top 100 without much trouble on a regular basis, and the #1300 guy is SICK, how does that all work!?

Guga lives!

Gustavo Kuerten: shaggy Brazilian, surfer, clothing designer, bad ass tennis player. What a stud. He's back, by the way, which is why I'm writing about him. He only played one match on tour last year because he had some hip surgeries and other problems (contributing to his stellar ranking of #1082), but he's back playing at least. He has been one of the most charismatic characters out there, and he's always fun at the French; regardless, it will be months before he is anywhere close to normal again. I hope he gets healthy soon though and can make a little run. I don't know how much more we should expect from him since he's getting up there, but good luck to him.

And then since it's a slow day, here is something for you that I have been drooling over