Tennis Tour Tidbits

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 17th September 2013

Tennis Tour Tidbits

epa03865743 Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland serves a ball to Emilio Gomez of Ecuador during the Davis Cup World Group Play-off round match between Switzerland and Ecuador, in Neuchatel, Switzerland, 13 September 2013. EPA/SALVATORE DI NOLFI |

ADDITIONAL NEWS

In his first appearance since retiring in his second round match at Wimbledon on June 26 with a left knee injury, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will go for his third straight Moselle Open title in Metz this week. Top-seeded Frenchman Gilles Simon, who like Tsonga skipped the US Open due to an injury, will also play. . . Andre Agassi is expected to be on hand Tuesday for a grand opening of a new Detroit charter school, called the Southwest Detroit Lighthouse Charter Academy, where music, dance, art and theater are interwoven in the curriculum. The school’s new building comes thanks to Agassi’s Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund, which builds new schools or renovates existing buildings for charter management companies. The Southwest Detroit Lighthouse Charter Academy is the first charter school in Michigan to benefit from Agassi’s fund. . . Family and friends of Alex Rovello, the University of Oregon tennis player who died in a diving accident earlier this year, gathered in Portland Sunday to raise money to renovate the tennis courts where her first learned to play. . . The WTA’s 5th annual Qatar Airways Tournament of Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria is still on tap from October 29-November 4 despite 95 straight days of anti-government protests in the capital city. . . Stan Wawrinka badly wants his buddy Roger Federer to recommit Davis Cup next year. Federer did not play in Switzerland’s win over Ecuador last weekend. “My dream is that Roger would text me and say, ‘Go and win this tie and next year I’ll be a part of the team,” Wawrinka said. . . Aussie captain Patrick Rafter after his team qualifies for the Davis Cup World Group for the first time since 2007: “We want to make a stand again and feel like we should be part of it.” . . . Even prior Canada’s Davis Cup tie against Serbia, Canadian channel Sportsnet’s tennis broadcasts were 92,000 viewers this season, up 60 percent over last year. Davis Cup audiences had leapt 35 percent to an average of 126,000. . . The fifth annual USTA $50,000 Pro Circuit women’s event in Las Vegas , called the Party Rock Open returns Sept. 23-29 at the Darling Tennis Center. Andrea Hlavackova, who won the US Open Women’s and mixed doubles titles is the top seed. Former Wimbledon quarterfinalist Tamira Paszek is also on the field. . . Bethanie Mattek-Sands tore the Medial Collateral Ligament (MCL) in her right knee on indoor carpet at the Quebec City tournament and is out the rest of the season. . . On CNN, former Wimbledon champion and analyst Pat Cash that the men’s game has become too homogenous. “Nowadays they all settle down and say “OK, this is going to be two hours of baseline rallies. The guy who outlasts the other one wins. It’s taken a lot of the skill out of tennis. Nadal and Djokovic are exceptional athletes, there’s no doubt about it, but to say they are better athletes than past greats like Bjorn Borg and Stefan Edberg is just nonsense.” Human beings love variety. We don’t want to watch the same style of play, we don’t want to watch the same shots all of the time. Players have got to mix it up.” . . . John “Lex” Kessler and his ICA company were proud that one of the facilities that they designed, Sportime Randall’s Island, was presented with the USTA’s Outstanding Tennis Facility award. Now Kessler is hoping that an indoor tennis facility at Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C. that they are building will win the same award next year.

Topics: 10sballs, Jo Wilfried Tsonga, Moselle Open, Roger Federer, Sports, Tennis, Wimbledon