Tennis

[Tigers of Old]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

Hope Latent Homosexual plays...

Not that there's anything wrong with that... :hihi

Speaking of surnames I think Philippoussis has been up against it from day one with sections of the Australian media..
Pick the odd one out:
Rafter, Hewitt, Cash, Philippoussis :-X .
Gets a pretty rough go in the media does Mark considering Hewitt and Cash come across as much bigger prats IMO. He's made Grand Slam finals and won Davis Cups for Australia yet has never been embraced by the public. I wonder why?
Then again they're possibly just jealous because of all the hot women he gets.

 

[Liverpool]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

Hope Latent Homosexual plays...

Not that there's anything wrong with that... :hihi

Speaking of surnames I think Philippoussis has been up against it from day one with sections of the Australian media..
Pick the odd one out:
Rafter, Hewitt, Cash, Philippoussis :-X .
Gets a pretty rough go in the media does Mark considering Hewitt and Cash come across as much bigger prats IMO. He's made Grand Slam finals and won Davis Cups for Australia yet has never been embraced by the public. I wonder why?
Then again they're possibly just jealous because of all the hot women he gets.

Rubbish mate....Viduka, Deledio, Bogut, Campese, Bresciano, Akermanis...all names with an ethnic background, and all don't get the amount of negative press that Phillippoussis does.
Why?
Because Philippoussis is full of it....sure, he has shown glimpses of talent over the last 10 years or so, but his 'head' isn't in it.
And read what Redford posted earlier....its reasons like that why he hasn't had the same respect that other Aussie sportspeople with ethnic names have.
So please, don't play the 'racist card'/persecution here! :

 

[Tigers of Old]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

Rubbish mate....Viduka, Deledio, Bogut, Campese, Bresciano, Akermanis...all names with an ethnic background, and all don't get the amount of negative press that Phillippoussis does.
Why?
Because Philippoussis is full of it....

Fair call.

 

[mainlandy]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

The Poo always tries the hero shot in tennis, that's why his unforced error count is always in the 30's or 40's. He's got the biggest head in tennis and it is mightily unwarrented.

 

[CarnTheTiges]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

Hope Latent Homosexual plays...

Not that there's anything wrong with that... :hihi

Speaking of surnames I think Philippoussis has been up against it from day one with sections of the Australian media..
Pick the odd one out:
Rafter, Hewitt, Cash, Philippoussis :-X .
Gets a pretty rough go in the media does Mark considering Hewitt and Cash come across as much bigger prats IMO. He's made Grand Slam finals and won Davis Cups for Australia yet has never been embraced by the public. I wonder why?
Then again they're possibly just jealous because of all the hot women he gets.

Know why the Poo is the odd one out there. The other 3 have won at least one Grand Slam title.

 

[Otis]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

CarnTheTiges is the first person with a logical post on this page...

don't see why some think that Philippoussis has a big head? I have never heard him run his mouth like a Mundine, I haven't seen him run around the court screaming egotistically like Hewitt. He just goes about his job, albeit unsuccessfully. Although mainlandy is right, lately his unforced error count is rather high.

Did Lleyton lose tonight?

 

[jb03]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

CarnTheTiges is the first person with a logical post on this page...

don't see why some think that Philippoussis has a big head? I have never heard him run his mouth like a Mundine, I haven't seen him run around the court screaming egotistically like Hewitt. He just goes about his job, albeit unsuccessfully. Although mainlandy is right, lately his unforced error count is rather high.

Did Lleyton lose tonight?

Keep fighting Otis. If the Poo lost tonights game a la Hewitt the headlines tomorrow would be along the lines of he tossed it in.

Kournikova, Goodrem, Barbara v Clijsters, Cartwright

I know where my money is.

 

[jb03]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

Feel sorry for Jelena, I can't imagine what it would be like to have an arrogant mental-case bully for a parent, must be tough.

Hope Latent Homosexual plays and gets crushed by Andy Roddick. Yeah great player, great fighter balh blah blah, but what an annoying *smile*. Showing secret Aboriginal paintings in a film he made for profit, like he needs the dough, when his so-called mate Andrew Mcleod asked him not to was the icing on what was already and undisputably huge cake.

At least he will never beat Rog

Got a feeling he might go down to Chela (good value at $3.00).

And I just want to pat myself on the back. :clap :clap

 

[Tigers of Old]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

Feel sorry for Jelena, I can't imagine what it would be like to have an arrogant mental-case bully for a parent, must be tough.

Hope Latent Homosexual plays and gets crushed by Andy Roddick. Yeah great player, great fighter balh blah blah, but what an annoying *smile*. Showing secret Aboriginal paintings in a film he made for profit, like he needs the dough, when his so-called mate Andrew Mcleod asked him not to was the icing on what was already and undisputably huge cake.

At least he will never beat Rog

Got a feeling he might go down to Chela (good value at $3.00).

And I just want to pat myself on the back. :clap :clap

On a side note. I'm tipping we've seen the best of Lleyton Hewitt and I predict an early exit from the Aussie Open this year.
Why?
Now that proud Lleyton is a Dad and husband I think his focus will shift and already has as he's taken 3 months off playing.
He strikes me as very family orientated and whether he'll continue to put the same efforts into his game I seriously doubt.
He knows he can't beat Federer so Grand Slams & being no1 are slipping from his grasp.
He's made a motza in prize money so that's no longer the issue.
Dare I say it his last throw of the dice was losing to Safin at last years Aussie Open.
Yep we've seen the best of the man who squeals "C'mon!" I expect injuries, excuse and poor form to dog him for the rest of his career.

and so it begins...wish I'd taken Chela at $3.00 Jim Beam, well done if you did!

 

[CarnTheTiges]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

Feel sorry for Jelena, I can't imagine what it would be like to have an arrogant mental-case bully for a parent, must be tough.

Hope Latent Homosexual plays and gets crushed by Andy Roddick. Yeah great player, great fighter balh blah blah, but what an annoying *smile*. Showing secret Aboriginal paintings in a film he made for profit, like he needs the dough, when his so-called mate Andrew Mcleod asked him not to was the icing on what was already and undisputably huge cake.

At least he will never beat Rog

Got a feeling he might go down to Chela (good value at $3.00).

And I just want to pat myself on the back.  :clap :clap

Did you put money on him, though?

 

[Redford]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

Feel sorry for Jelena, I can't imagine what it would be like to have an arrogant mental-case bully for a parent, must be tough.

Hope Latent Homosexual plays and gets crushed by Andy Roddick. Yeah great player, great fighter balh blah blah, but what an annoying *smile*. Showing secret Aboriginal paintings in a film he made for profit, like he needs the dough, when his so-called mate Andrew Mcleod asked him not to was the icing on what was already and undisputably huge cake.

At least he will never beat Rog

Got a feeling he might go down to Chela (good value at $3.00).

And I just want to pat myself on the back.  :clap :clap

Did you actually take him at $3 ?

Hewitt looked out of sorts. His forehand was terrible. Chela: deserved winner. Played heaps better.

 

[pahoffm]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

KB was talking to that fellow Livingstone, who created the "Fanatics" with John Newcombe many years ago. Many people are very tired of Paul McNamee and are very glad to see he is gone.

Apparently McNamee worked according to his own ideas and could not work with nor incorporate the ideas of others. Hewitt has inferred much the same thing about the courts' surfaces.

Livingstone said that the Fanatics were the first organised group of its type in tennis and worked closely with the US Open to set up an American styled Fanatics group.
The Fanatics are given excellent ticket allocations from the organisers of the British, French & US Opens. But McNamee always gave the Fanatics a hard time regarding tickets.

There were only 5 Fanatics at Hewitt's match last night. Livingstone said that that was all the tickets that they could get hold of. Commentators today have said that the game was flat, Hewitt was flat.

(Imagine the Tiges rolling up to a football game with only 5 members of the Cheer Squad to support them.)

So, you have the CEO working against Australia's best tennis player and against the leader of its cheer squad, and people ask what is wrong with Australian tennis?

Hopefully the new CEO sees the light.

Another insight was Livingstone's comments regarding the organisation of Australian tennis being split in 2.
The Australian Open v the Davis Cup - two separate organisations that don't work for or with each other. The inference was that they seem to work against each other.

I'm no expert in tennis. Rarely played it and have no real interest.
It would seem that the Australian Open is infact an impediment to Australian tennis. So much money and effort goes in at the top end that nothing is left for the lower levels.

Seems strange to me that both the British & Australian Opens are Grand Slam events yet both British & Australian tennis is struggling. I don't know enough about French tennis to comment. As for the US Open, well there are plenty of people and $$$$ to be successful.

Just seems strange that the countries, outside of the US, that have the most successful players don't have Grand Slam tournaments. The money is going in at the lower end to build resources rather than wasted at the top end.

Well that's my ill-informed comment anyway.

 

[tigersnake]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

I don't disagree with the comments bagging the Poo, he's his own worst enemy. I will say though that I reckon he was one of the unluckiest Wimbledon finalists ever when he met Federer in dynamite form. Poo played brilliantly that match and would have beaten anyone else, and any finalist from the previous 2 or three years. But Federer that day played the most perfect and explosive tennis match I've ever seen, and as we've seen since, it was no fluke.

 

[mk33]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

With your comments though Phantom should we have our courts especially set up for just one player.
I don't know has the court always been at this speed ?
Apparently the courts are at this level to make it different from US Open.

Re the fanactics I don't see why they should be given priority seating.
I have had the misfortune to seat near them at the cricket and they were not interested in the cricket and a lot of them were interested in hitting beach balls, being very drunk and shouting obscenties and a friend said they were not much better at the tennis either with no interest in the court action except Golden Boy Hewitt but bagged Scud during his Davis Cup Match.

 

[Redford]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

I’ve got a good friend who lives next door to me who has his own specialist artificial turf company. He’s been sub-contracted several times to lay the courts at Melbourne Park.

I dunno jack about these courts, and whilst I watch a lot of it, I don’t play a lot of tennis either. But this guy’s an expert on the Melbourne Park courts and he is adamant that Hewitt is making a mountain out of a molehill.

He reckons that yes, there is a difference in court speed between some surfaces, but that at the end of the day it is negligible and he reckons that if they went for quicker courts this would result in some of the advantages that Rebound Ace provides being lost - and subsequently instead of just Hewitt complaining about a minor speed difference, they’d have a deluge of complaints from heaps of players about other issues.

He was telling me that the preparation of the courts is second to none. They start preparing them months and months in advance i.e. re-laying, blasting and cleaning existing surfaces etc. Absolutely everything and anything they need to do.

 

[Otis]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

With your comments though Phantom should we have our courts especially set up for just one player.
I don't know has the court always been at this speed ?
Apparently the courts are at this level to make it different from US Open.

Re the fanactics I don't see why they should be given priority seating.
I have had the misfortune to seat near them at the cricket and they were not interested in the cricket and a lot of them were interested in hitting beach balls, being very drunk and shouting obscenties and a friend said they were not much better at the tennis either with no interest in the court action except Golden Boy Hewitt but bagged Scud during his Davis Cup Match.

It is for this reason i will never attend an Australian cricket match. It's a shame that some of these Australian cricket fans are the equivalent of European and South American soccer fans. They ruin the experience for people who are there to simply enjoy the game.

Having said that, I remember going to the Aus Open (i think it was Margaret Court Arena) to see Eleni Danilidou (greek player) against some no-name US player. The Greek fans were hysterically loud and it was unbelievably annoying hearing them all cheer and scream after every single point (even after errors made by Danilidou's opponent). There were no racial slurs from the Greeks (unlike the drunken Aussie cricket fans) but I quickly noticed the general mood in the arena of all the other fans swung to the US players' favour. These "fanatical" groups can have a rather alienating affect, especially when a majority of these other fans entered the arena as neutral tennis fans.

I was on the opposite side of the court and it was annoying, I felt extremely sorry for those sitting near them (like mk33's misfortune at the cricket).

 

[Otis]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

He reckons that yes, there is a difference in court speed between some surfaces, but that at the end of the day it is negligible and  he reckons that if they went for quicker courts this would result in some of the advantages that Rebound Ace provides being lost - and subsequently instead of just Hewitt complaining about a minor speed difference, they’d have a deluge of complaints from heaps of players about other issues.

yeah, isn't the whole point of having 4 grand slams to have them on different surfaces to test the true "greats" of the game? if it's sped up it'd be more like the US Open surface, which would probably suit Hewitt considering he plays well there.

 

[jb03]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

Did you actually take him at $3 ?

Hewitt looked out of sorts. His forehand was terrible. Chela: deserved winner. Played heaps better.

Believe it or not I backed him at $3.10 (thank god for BEtfair).

As for the fanatics on centre court, the guy was trying to tell KB that centre court tickets are all sold in advance so it is very difficult to arrange a block for the fanatics whereas games on outside courts etc are easier as they are sold day to day.  KB didn't seem to get the guys point.  He also said Hewitt had 32 tickets of his own to allocate but chose not to give them to the fanatics (as is his right).

With your comments though Phantom should we have our courts especially set up for just one player.
I don't know has the court always been at this speed ?
Apparently the courts are at this level to make it different from US Open.

Re the fanactics I don't see why they should be given priority seating.
I have had the misfortune to seat near them at the cricket and they were not interested in the cricket and a lot of them were interested in hitting beach balls, being very drunk and shouting obscenties and a friend said they were not much better at the tennis either with no interest in the court action except Golden Boy Hewitt but bagged Scud during his Davis Cup Match.

Agree, good post mk.

I don't disagree with the comments bagging the Poo, he's his own worst enemy. I will say though that I reckon he was one of the unluckiest Wimbledon finalists ever when he met Federer in dynamite form. Poo played brilliantly that match and would have beaten anyone else, and any finalist from the previous 2 or three years. But Federer that day played the most perfect and explosive tennis match I've ever seen, and as we've seen since, it was no fluke.

Agree, good post snake.

 

[mk33]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

Agree Otis I know its only a small % but some of our fans are the worst
I dont barracking and banter but the fanactics are not even interested in watching the sport.
Personally I don't mind the Barmy Army, they add atmosphere

Re the courts I heard it was laid months prior and they continully hit balls on it to get to the speed of the outside courts.

 

[Anduril]

Re: Aust Open Tennis

Some tennis supporters are very intimidating and threatening. Spent a morning at Margaret Court Arena once near a large group I would not wish to meet again. Sadly they all had Aussie accents, though it was not an Australian they were supporting. (Some were so OTT they were escorted out by Security.)