Sports Then and Now

In this series we’ve talked about how tennis in the early days (late 19th and early 20th century) was a game for elite members of society. Dwight Davis, a Harvard student and tennis innovator was wealthy enough at the age of 20 to purchase from his own funds an enormous sterling silver ‘pot’ to serve as trophy for the Davis Cup. Fred Perry was the son of a leading member of the British Parliament, and self-made 1930s-style British millionaire. An exception – Don Budge was an unassuming middle class kid who learned to play tennis in a public court in Oakland California. (If you’ve never been to Oakland, it is where the docks associated with San Francisco Bay are actually located. Few would confuse Oakland, California, with … San Francisco.).

No elite athlete in tennis’ long history probably had a loftier pedigree than that of Baron Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm. He usually dropped the ‘Baron’ and the ‘von’ when interacting with his peers – asking people to call him ‘Gottfried Cramm.’ He was the third son of Baron von Cramm, a title inherited by his eldest brother, Aschwin in 1936 associated with a Saxon region of Germany in what is now the county of Lower Saxony (created by the British after WWII).

In the 1980s, the late Jack Kramer listed Von Cramm as one of the 21 greatest tennis players of all time. And Von Cramm played perhaps the greatest tennis match in history in 1937 in front of the British King at Wimbledon, representing of all things, Nazi Germany in a Davis Cup final (WWII broke out in 1939). He was devastatingly handsome, he was blond, he was athletic, he was aristocratic (ever the gentleman on court). Though he was everything the Aryan race was supposed to be (and his wins are listed next to a Nazi flag on websites such as wikipedia [see Fred Perry]), von Cramm was anything but a Nazi. Read the rest of this entry →

Two Grand Slam champions: two former world No. 1s: two of the most likeable women on the WTA tour. And both Kim Clijsters and Venus Williams will be hoping to reclaim the Sony Ericsson Open title. It should be a blockbuster.

The stats alone make the mouth water.

They have both won dozens of titles: Williams 43 and Clijsters 36.

This will be their 12th meeting in nine years, and Williams leads Clijsters by just six wins to five.

Four of those match-ups have been in finals, and in those they share the honors at two apiece.

Both women, too, are enjoying something of a renaissance.

The Clijsters story, leaving tennis to marry and become a mother, only to return as an unranked player and win the 2009 U.S. Open, is the stuff of Hollywood.

She has not played in the Miami event since 2007, and has not won it since 2005. On that occasion, too, she was making a comeback from injury. She was unseeded, beat four of the top six seeds, and did not lose a set on her way to the title.

Williams has won the Miami title three times before, but this would be her first in nine years. What’s more, it would mark her third consecutive title of 2010, following victories in Dubai and Acapulco. By reaching the final, Williams has achieved a match-winning streak to 15, and the last time she did that was in 2004.

So the stage is set for a real crowd-pleaser of a final, which also raises the small question of just who the record-breaking numbers of fans will support on Saturday. Read the rest of this entry →

The Florida Keys at the height of spring simply burst with “weather” in all its drama.

Hot sunshine alternates with breezy outbursts. The coastal winds kick up the odd storm, then die away to leave air so heavy it presses like a saturated sponge on the forehead.

Residents and visitors alike can take to the sea, or sink beneath the waving palms, indulge in every sport known to man, or simply sit back and soak in the atmosphere.

The Miami Sony Ericsson Open, the second of the two giant Masters that bestride the early hard court season and the late spring of clay, is in full swing.

It is surely the brightest and breeziest tournament of the year: the sprightly allegro before the transition into the adagio of the second movement on clay.

Crandon Park, home of this popular tournament, is bright and breezy in the old fashioned sense, too. It wears its heart on its sleeve, burgeoning with primary colors, Mexican waves, and more diversions from the tennis than you can count.

Perhaps it is the humidity—touching 90% at its halfway point.

Perhaps it is the ebullience of the Latin American fan-base, here to support a wide field of south American players.

Perhaps it is the temperature, soaring from a night-time in the 50s to a daytime approaching the mid-80s.

Or maybe it’s the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring: thunder and lightning or cloudless skies.

Whatever it is, Miami seems to live for the moment.

For some players, though, the moment was quickly gone. Read the rest of this entry →

Victoria Azarenka

What an eventful day in Miami.  Not that I was there to watch the game in person, I did catch the two matches featured Victoria Azarenka vs. Kim Clijsters and Vera Zvonareva vs. Justine Henin on streaming.  What strikes me most was the resemblance of the (almost) complete collapse of both young stars, I have to say more so to Azarenka as she didn’t or possibly couldn’t get her mind to settle to even put up a fight in the second set.  It’s close to a complete handover or you can say, worse than actually retiring from the match.

After since Azarenka lost the lead in the middle of the first set, she got wrecked up, cursing, shouting, swinging racket to the ground, spitting foul language (and received a warning).  All drama.  And still no result.  She was not playing bad in my eyes, she just needed to play more rallies as Kim kept returning the balls.  Read the rest of this entry →

Jelena Jankovic won the tournament in Indian Wells and tops the Power Rankings this week.

The action is hot and heavy this week in Miami. It marks the end of the traditional hard court season in America before the world turns to clay in April.

The surprises on the women’s tour continue as Serbian Jelena Jankovic overcomes her slump to take the No. 1 spot in our Power Rankings this week after winning the tournament in Indian Wells.

You just have to wonder who will orchestrate the next big surprise as the women fight for positions in the quarterfinals at the Sony Ericsson Open.

The Top Ten

1. Jelena Jankovic (Last Power Ranking: NR; WTA Ranking: 8 )

Last Four Tournaments: Sony Ericsson Open Miami [R16+], Indian Wells [Winner], Monterrey [R32], Dubai [R16].

Power Ranking Points: 681

Just when everyone was erecting a tombstone to mark the passing of Jankovic’s career, the Serb came back and won it all at Indian Wells. Jankovic progressed into the fourth round in Miami, so things were definitely looking up for her. The question remained––had she found her form and her energy level which had been missing in action for so long?

She had some tough matches awaiting her in Miami that would demonstrate if the Serb had the right stuff to continue her upward path. Unfortunately for Jankovic, she lost her fourth round match to Australia’s Samantha Stosur 6-1, 7-6.

As the tour moves on to the clay courts, counterpuncher Jankovic still hopes to climb back to the top of the WTA rankings.

Read the rest of this entry →

Juan Martin del Potro is a throwback to Todd Martin.

Todd Martin had many of the qualities we ascribed to a top pro in the 1990s. In fact, he had no real flaws in terms of shots, as his return of serve was deadly, his 6’6” wingspan shrouded the net, and his serve was one of the most effective in the game.

In fact, in his autobiography, Andre Agassi described Martin’s serve as being so accurate that he aimed not at the lines, but the edges of lines. Throw in his excellent tactical skills, and Martin was able to serve his way to a pair of major finals and eight titles.

He might well have made more had he been a great mover, not suffered frequent injuries, and his cerebral approach not led to meltdowns in some critical moments in his career. Nonetheless, Martin was a trendsetter in men’s tennis, as one of the first players standing at two meters in height to reach the last round of a major. It took the finest players of his generation – Pete Sampras in the 1994 Australian Open and Andre Agassi in the 1999 US Open – to beat him in the finals he reached. Read the rest of this entry →