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Fed’s (Davis) Cup runneth over

November 24, 2014

So Roger Federer and Switzerland finally have their Davis Cup. Fed defeated Richard Gasquet 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 to win the opening singles match Sunday, Nov. 23 and give Switzerland the three matches (out of five) it needed against France.

"It's not for me. I've won enough in my career and did not need to tick any empty boxes," Federer said of the emotional win. "I'm just happy for everybody else. I'm happy we could live a great tennis historic moment in our country."

Yeah, uh-huh. Let’s not pull any punches here. Winning the Davis Cup was the only thing Federer hadn’t done in tennis. Tennis and thus, the Davis Cup may no longer be a big deal in this country, as American men’s tennis is somewhat in disarray. (If you want to see America win the Cup, check out my novel “Water Music,” part of “The Games Men Play” series, in which Iraqi-American prodigy Alí Iskandar delivers the goods.)

But tennis and the Cup are still a big deal internationally. With this win, Fed’s career is complete. It has to be satisfying, particularly as rivals Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic helped the Spanish and Serbian teams respectively to Cups.

But Spain and Serbia have a lot of tennis depth. Switzerland has Feddy and Stan “the Man” Wawrinka. Credit “the Stanimal” with playing lights out against Jo-Wilfred Tsonga on Friday, then teaming with Fed to win the doubles Saturday. ...

Knocking Woods

November 22, 2014

The single most interesting thing about Tiger Woods is that his ex-wife once took one of his golf clubs to him.

And the reason that’s the single most interesting about him is that character is destiny.

That the ex-Mrs. Woods took a golf club to his car as he tried to speed away from her five years ago this Thanksgiving after his infidelity came to light says much more about his character than it ever would about hers.

Woods cheated on his then-wife, Elin Nordegren, with a bunch of other women, each of whom, unbelievably, thought she was the only other one. (Ladies, ladies, you know the old saying: If he cheats on his wife with you, what makes you think he won’t cheat on you? And by the way, I have a bridge to sell you.)

At first glance, it’s hard to understand what they saw in him. His is not “the face that launch’d a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium.”

But then, as Elizabeth Taylor once shrewdly observed, “there’s no deodorant in life like success.” And few have been more successful than Woods, hitting all those little white balls around all those greens over all those years for all those millions, donning all those green jackets and afterward answering all those questions with responses that promised much and delivered nothing. ...

In sports, sexism knows no bounds

November 19, 2014

Boy, no sooner had Andy Murray bombed out against Roger Federer in the disastrous ATP World Tour Finals and Mirka Federer kicked up a firestorm by calling Stan Wawrinka a “crybaby” as he played her husband, than the misogynists were out in force.

First came the suggestions that Andy should quit coach Amélie Mauresmo for a male coach who would be more compatible.

That was mild compared to the epithets hurled at Mirka, who was called everything from a cow to the pants in the family to Lady Macbeth to, well, rhymes with “rich.”

I don’t believe in heckling or booing people as it’s a reflection on me. But there is equally no reason to call her a shrew.

Then came word from Rafael Nadal, who was critical of Spanish Davis Cup team captain Gala León for allegedly fanning the flames after Rafa coach Uncle Toni suggested that the team needed a male captain.

For years, men have coached, captained, trained, shepherded and generally led women. And for years, women have borne men’s verbal and physical abuse. ...

Curtain comes down on tennis’ ‘comedy of errors’

November 18, 2014

What a frigging mess.

The World Tour Finals – which some clever headline writer at Tennis magazine called “WTF, Indeed” – were a disaster with pull-outs, flame-outs and shutouts from start to finish this past week.

I blame Rafa’s appendix. It all started there. Rafael Nadal had his appendix removed so he couldn’t play in the round-robin, season-ending London tournament that features the top eight players. David Ferrer, asked to be an alternate, showed up and promptly lost to Kei Nishikori. But at least he showed up. Grigor “Baby Fed” Dimitrov, also an alternate, didn’t bother to. Steve Tignor, author of the “WTF” article, explains the Dimitrov philosophy of declining invitations with a baseball analogy.

Marin Cilic might not have bothered to show up either for all the good it did him. The US Open champ looked flat, as did Tomas Berdych, as did just about everyone, except new daddy Novak Djokovic.

And then there was the battle of the Swiss, known for their peace-loving neutrality. Apparently, Roger “Feddy Bear” Federer – who was breezing through the tourney, on track to play Nole in the final smackdown of baby daddies – and Stan “the Man” Wawrinka got into it after their semifinal bruiser, exchanging heated words in a makeshift locker room (a huge tournament and it doesn’t have a locker room?) sparked by Mirka Federer’s supposed “heckling” of Stan courtside.

But wait...

Will Fed London drama spill over into the Davis Cup?

November 17, 2014

Shockeroo at the Barclay’s ATP World Tour Finals in London Nov. 16 as Roger Federer withdrew from the final against Novak Djokovic due to back spasms, leaving an admittedly mentally exhausted Nole the winner in a walkover.

But the real shock may be the underlying reason for the withdrawal. Simon Briggs, tennis correspondent for The Telegraph, reports that Fed got into a heated exchange with compatriot Stan Wawrinka in the locker room after their taut semifinal duel, which at the very least delayed treatment for Fed’s back injury. The reason for the exchange: Stan the Man had taken exception to Feddy Bear’s wife, Mirka, rooting too loudly for her man and against himself.

Tennis players regularly take their opponents’ “teams” to task for such cheerleading. Fed’s been known to tell the Djokovic clan to shut up and Rafael Nadal’s coach, his Uncle Toni, to pipe down. Sometimes the players get on their own boxes as when Nole told his father once to leave an arena. ...

Men’s tennis at a crossroads?

November 16, 2014

Had an interesting conversation with a saleswoman the other day regarding watches. I remarked that it’s intriguing that so many watch manufacturers have tennis players for pitch men – and women. You don’t see as many NFL players representing watches.

That might seem counterintuitive since tennis isn’t played against a clock – although it certainly records the time of each match, whereas football is played in four 15-minute intervals, albeit with lots of timeouts and a halftime. Shouldn’t Peyton Manning be the spokesman for Piaget?

But a watch – a gift of time – is a classy thing, she said. Tennis players are classy, she added. By implication, football players are not.

It’s always dangerous to generalize, of course, but there is some truth in what she said, as I myself have pointed out in this blog. Tennis has prescribed rules for deportment and an intimate, relatively quieter setting – though it can get pretty loud – that underscores infractions. When Novak Djokovic sarcastically applauded the crowd as it applauded his double-fault in a semifinal against Kei Nishikori at the Barclay’s ATP World Tour Finals in London Nov. 15, he was quick to blame himself for letting the crowd get to him and losing his concentration.

The once and future king

November 14, 2014

You would think that someone whose earthly life ended more than 2,000 years ago would be beyond controversy. But then look at Jesus. He’s still “a sign to be contradicted,” to quote the Gospels, almost two millennia after he was crucified.

So it is with Alexander the Great. Some 330 years before Jesus was born, this king of Macedon and hegemon of Greece conquered the Persian Empire, ushering in a Hellenistic age that would unite East and West. (The reason we call Jesus Christ “Jesus Christ” is because of the Alexandrian spread of the Greek language and culture.)

Such is the Alexander mystique – he never lost a battle but died at age 32 in Babylon, possibly of cerebral malaria – that he thrives in the imagination today as a metaphor for many things, including leadership from the front; the ultimate gay in the military (many consider him to have been the lover of his right-hand man, Hephaestion); and the tension between East and West.

That tension has escalated recently with Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski’s decision to give waxworks of Alexander, his father, Philip II of Macedon and his mother, Olympias, pride of place in a new archaeological museum in the capital city of Skopje, which already has the world’s largest statue of Alexander in its central square.

A little background here...