Tennis News, Tour Gossip, and More

Written by: Staff on 3rd January 2014

Brisbane International Tennis Tournament

Tennis News, Tour Gossip, and More

epa04006853 Swiss player Roger Federer celebrates his quarter final win against Australian Marinko Matosevic at the Brisbane International tennis tournament at the Queensland Tennis Centre in Brisbane, Australia, 03 January 2014. EPA/DAVE HUNT AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY EDITORIAL USE ONLY |

Victoria Azarenka on why she wasn’t planning on watching the Brisbane semifinals between two of her greatest rivals, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. “I just don’t really like to watch a lot of matches sometimes, because when you’re in the tournament, in that free time you want to just relax a little bit and get your mind off tennis,” she said. “I never like to play the match before I step on the court, so that’s the only reason.” . . . Jelena Jankovic says that she missed the presence of brother and full time coach, Marko, during Brisbane, when she and the temporary coach she used got into a disagreement on court in her semifinal loss to Victoria Azarenka in Brisbane. “It was a little bit different, to be honest, when I was playing, especially in the first few matches, not hearing his voice on the court,” Jankovic said. But, he’s going to come in Sydney. It’s going to be the same. But here I think I still did well with my other team. We worked very hard together.” . . . France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is unhappy with the Parisian crowd , or lack thereof, during his loss to David Ferrer in the 2013 French Open semifinals “It affected me because I saw that the people weren’t supporting me a lot because when I came on the court the stadium was half empty,” he told Sport360. “Because there was a long match before me [Rafael Nadal’s five set win over Novak Djokovic] and they all went out to do other things. It was half empty in my own country. But I didn’t lose because of this. I lost that match because I think David played well.” . . . Pullouts due to injury on Friday included Vania King from Shenzhen, Jamie Hampton from Auckland, and John Isner and Sloane Stephens from Perth. . . In 2015, tech company and WTA partner SAP will ask the tour to consider allowing coaches to come on court during matches with up to date extensive match analysis data and show it to the player during matches.

Word is that Prince is going back in the ball business. Yikes, their balls were only so so. They should stick to what they do well. Rackets! Since we are on our favorite subjects “Balls”. The men’s pro tour changes balls at events way too often. There is no consistency. Can you imagine baseball or football changing the ball every week? The adjustments to altitude and court surfaces vary. Ok. But the balls all the time? Personally 10sballs.com loves Slazenger’s balls. Loves them. Even if we have to get them shipped. Dunlop always made a great ball. Tretorn always made a weird ball (but cool shoes). Macy’s even made a ball back in the 60’s. There has been a soft launch of the new Babolat racket. (yes ,we got one) It’s so AmazeBalls! You play. Then you connect the racket to your computer thru a usb port and download tons of info about how and where the ball was hitting the strings. How cool is that! FYI our favorite string is still Solinco. The string is a quality product at a reasonable price. The feel and play of the string is awesome. When you see a player like Donald Young jr ( D.Y. to his friends) playing with the string you know it’s good. Why? Because he is a player with great touch and feel. Update on some of this and that. Jamie Hampton had to pull out of Auckland in the semis. She was do to play Venus Williams. Poor Jamie glides thru and then her body doesn’t hold up. Flipper, Flipkens played dubs this week with Ana Ivanovic. We can call them a beautiful team. Flip lost to Ana in the singles semis, a bagel and a breaker. 6-0,7-6. In dubs they had lost to the team of Michaela Krajicek and Lucie Hradecka. 3-6,6-4,10-3. (welcome back misha)

The doubles team of Roger Federer and Nicolas Mahut was a beautiful thing to see. They played great together all week, but the best part was seeing how much fun they had together on and off court. All smiles. We still say that the Wilson racket Roger is play testing is not 98 inches.

We Hear—

—That Pullouts due to injury on Friday included Vania King from Shenzhen, Jamie Hampton from Auckland and John Isner and Sloane Stephens from Perth.

Topics: 10sballs, Ana Ivanovic, Donald Young, Kirsten Flipkens, Nicolas Mahut, Prince, Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Sports, Tennis, Tennis News, Venus Williams