Congratulations. It is always good to have another voice promoting women's tennis in the mainstream media.

OMG, no. The thing though is that with the weight loss has come a much more speedier player. I think though that if she is going the Dani route, then she should think about adding a bit of muscle to the baby fat that has been taken away. This look is definitely not a healthy one.

not on an attack on Kim. Just the way how the media treats the issues of certain players viz-a-viz others. No one calls for the retirement of players who are constantly injured or whose games have gone down the toilet. I think it is just a tad disrespectful for journalists and media writers to be calling for Venus to hang up her racquet as if she is out there embarassing herself on the court. It needs to stop.

According to that really young guy, Cronin, Venus should not even attempt to get out of bed in the mornings. Not only was I extremely disappointed at the crowd booing Venus, but I was also extremely disappointed at the level of discussion that ensued by so-called journalists and bloggers and fans of the game. This is a woman who has an undying love of the sport. I thought that was essential to anyone who is a fan of tennis. I love my players because despite what anyone says they get up and they go to work every single day. Andre Agassi did it until he was 35 years old. Martina did it until she was close to 50. Chris, Monica, Pete, Fed and many others play this sport until or have played this sport until they finally say no mas. Who are these journalists to question the competitiveness that is ingrained in these players from the day they pick up a racquet until the day they call it quits. I recall when Clijsters retired in 2007, she took every opportunity to complain about her many injuries and she basically told all her fans, fcuk you on her way out the door. Those who were waiting to see her at Wimbledon for one last time, were disappointed because she up and got herself pregnant and married without even a goodbye. Venus is still going strong. Her game may not be what it used to be but her heart is still there and I as a fan will continue to support her until she says no mas

Man, 4 cups of coffee and my heart has still not gone down. Nice to see the exchange at the net between both men. They totally entertained the crowd, which is what all fans of tennis like to see. No guts. No glory and walking off together, icing on the cake for sure. Nice As a Fed fan, all I can say one point at a time, one game at a time, one set at a time, one match at a time. It gets harder than ever from here on in.

I did not get to watch the match but I woke up this morning and saw the twitter chat. Thanks for the write up. Good going Venus. Like to see you gritting your teeth and pulling out a win against a tough opponent. Hopefully, she can recover in time to play someone against whom her game should match up pretty well. No more defensive players. Go get it Vee

LOL, tee hee. I hope you are keeping safe down in Australia CNote. I have a couple of co-workers here who are worrying about their friends and family. Stay safe

You are so right on with this comment. The American justice system rewards snitches. That is the whole concept of plea bargain, something I have never really liked because a criminal will tell anything to anyone in order to save his/her own neck. What amazes me though is that the fellow has never tested positive, and neither was Marion Jones for that matter. I also hate the fact that I see players tweeting about drug testers coming to their hotels or homes early in the mornings to get urine samples. If tennis is to remain above the fold, then frankly speaking players have to get used to being visited by drug testers in the early mornings. As Nadal said recently, what is happening to Contador in cycling casts a bad light on all sportsmen in all sport. What Odesnik did and will be doing is either going to be good for the sport or it will be really bad, but at the end of the day the cheats in tennis and in all sport must be routed out.

He did not say anything about Rafa. It was just that he had a bit of a dust up with Rafa while playing against him in Madrid sometime ago. This was when he turned to the crowd with his fingers at his lips, telling them to be quiet and annoying Nadal in the process. CNote posted this morning that Tomas had played 26 tournaments this year. 26 tournaments and not one victory and all he can find to complain about at the end of the year is the fact that someone did not give him credit for beating them. Fellow needs to get a life. K

Tomas Berdych is a bitter athlete. Incredibly bitter. He needs to get over it. What is he looking for, validation? Give me a break already. Who cares that he never voted for Federer for Sportsman of the Year? He needs to try and find some mental fortitude and stop kvetching in the press about something a player said months ago that only he seems to have remembered. Enough already. I guess he perhaps voted for Federer all those years when he still bore animus towards Nadal for Madrid. Phewt

CNote, the other day you wrote that Gauloises should be given a paid job. I now nominate you to be given a paid job to write about tennis. The increasing FeDal nonsense is getting on my nerves, and I am a big Fed fan. I wrote to a Nadal fan the other day and I told her that Fed and Nadal enhance each other. I am with you in being over FeDal. I have been crying for new blood in the ATP and I am yet to see it. I still enjoy watching Fed play but unlike the WTA where there are new story lines every year, or indeed every 3 months, in the ATP, it has been stagnant for quite some time. For me going into 2011, with Serena out of the AO, the field is wide open for some new players to take control and for some old ones to revive their careers. The best moment in women's tennis at the majors for me this year was seeing Schiavone and Stosur playing. That was a fantastic match to watch. Let us all end FeDal now. Enough is enough

My sources have told me that the way Serena injured her foot was that some Germans were celebrating and they threw glass all over the place and that is how the foot got cut. My sources have also told me that there is a slight chance the injury could be career threatening. I am not happy.

No Hopman Cup and no Australian Open. She was in my neck of the woods recently for Venus' book signing. Not even one sighting of her in the local paper. Kept a very low profile. Not even a picture of her arriving or departing. Only evidence was the fact that she tweeted that she was there. I know Venus was there because I got a picture with her. Such a sweetheart.

OK, I live nowhere near Australia. I live in the Caribbean, but in case you want to stop off on your flight before you get to Australia, feel free to holler at me and I will definitely buy you a Red Stripe in Jamaica or Cayman. I love your life and I appreciate everything that you are doing to promote tennis. Yes, you are doing that. I just wish others who claim to love the sport would do something similar. Nice.

Wow. The bullying article really made my skin crawl because it was only just yesterday that a 16 year old boy was set upon in the bus centre in Kingston and stabbed repeatedly over his body. A taxi driver rushed him to the hospital where he died from his injuries while undergoing treatment. The worst part about this: while he was being stabbed, there were hundreds of adults and fellow students who did absolutely nothing. His alleged crime: rumours that he was gay. The Caribbean is uber conservative when it comes to homosexuality and how I wish that there was legislation in place to deal with the cases of hate crimes against these members of our society, but I will not hold my breath because any politician who changes the buggery laws in the Caribbean can see themselves out of office forever.

I am a big fan of Serena and Venus Williams, 2 of the sports biggest stars who have had their whole careers dogged by speculations that they are doping. It goes even further when people actually attack these women and accuse them of match fixing and even worse of being born as men and got sex change operations. Yeah, I have heard it all. I know for a fact that I am not accusing anyone. There are some who do accuse players. My issue is that rather than we all pretend that doping does not exist in tennis, I would really like the powers that be to address this issue once and for all by providing more transparency in terms of the enforcement of the whereabouts rule as well as providing information as to those players who have failed to turn up for out of competition testing. As you well know from what has happened in previous sports, testing an athlete every single minute of every single day can still come up with a clean athlete who is performing dirty. I am not implying that this is the case with Nadal, but Marion Jones never tested positive. Neither did Barry Bonds, Tim Montgomery, Alex Rodriquez, Lance Armstrong and the list goes on and on. Even closer to home neither was Wayne Odesnik. All I am asking for as a fan is to see the authorities doing something, anything to negate statements being made by people like Rochus.

JAS, as a big Serena fan I too was a bit puzzled by the cut glass foot incident. I wrote to Serena directly as a fan informing her that she really should give us more information on this alleged injury. I did read many accounts from bloggers, tennis writers etc in relation to the injury and I read many accounts of how the incident happened, ending with Serena's interview with USA Today about it. At the time when Serena was pulling out of the USO Series of events I was under the impression it was because she wanted to be ready for the USO, when she withdrew from the USO however, I realised that it was much more serious than previously thought. I have also had word from sources that the injury is so severe that it may very well be career ending. The fact is that in terms of injuries to players, that I can understand and perhaps players really do not wish to broadcast to their peers just what ails them. You will recall in 2007 onwards that Sharapova's serving woes were all attributable to her having the yips. It was not until 2008 after yet another loss to Serena that we began hearing about her rotator cuff being misdiagnosed and that she would be requiring surgery. Some skeptics will say that she was not really injured, but when you serve upwards of 21 double fault in a match then something is really wrong with you physically. The problem I am having though is because of the incestuous nature of our sport, we really cannot get authentic writings from our sports writers to address what ails our system. It is like this morning I am seeing where a tennis writer is using valuable time to compare Wozniacki and Clijsters. Come on now. How can you compare a player who is only 20 years old and who has just made it to the top of the rankings with someone who is going through a career resurgence. Clijsters needs to be compared with her peers. Those same ones that everyone is saying that she is now beating since her return from hiatus. I guess when she looked at those h2h she realised she really could not retire like that. Phewt

Marcela that is true, but how else are we ever going to find out who is doping and who is not if not for whistle blowers? I admit that bulging muscles are no sure signs that someone is doping. After all one of my favourite players has muscles to die for. The point I am making is that I wish there was more transparency in tennis as it relates to doping controls. It is inconceivable that a sport as global as this does not provide its fans and stakeholders with a report each year which addresses the steps that are being made to wipe out doping. In Germany this year, Phillip Petzschner (sp?) was dropped from the DC squad because he refused to submit to doping tests. You will all remember that this was the fellow who gave Nadal his sternest test at Wimbledon this year. Do we know how many Federations are testing their players? Are the testers in compliance with WADA/ITF standards? The whole issue raises so many questions and I would hate to see our sport be shrouded in mystery in the way that cycling and before that track and field seemed to be.

but Tim, do you think that tennis can withstand a Canseco/Landis revelation? Say for instance Rochus does decide to start naming names, can you imagine the fall out if he starts naming some of the biggest names in tennis. Can you imagine for a start if he came out and said that Federer missed 3 doping tests and yet the ITF/WADA/ATP covered it up and did not disclose that he was in violation of the whereabouts rule. No matter what happens after that Federer's reputation would be severely damaged if those allegations, even if proven to be untrue, were to result from Rochus going Canseco on us. Does anyone really look at Armstrong with eyes that say, nope he was not doping? Nope, they look at the fact that before Contador was found guilty of a doping violation, he had never tested positive. Before Odesnik was found guilty of a doping violation he had never failed a drug test. Do we look at Wickmayer with the same eyes since she failed to show up for 3 out of competition tests? If you do, you are a better person than I am. Let us look at the one player that he has named. when Justine retired she had beaten into submission the whole tour in 2007. She ended 2007 as the YE#1, had beaten both WS and Sharapova and she basically owned the Tour. 6 months later the woman calls a press conference and quits. If you do not have a question sign over your head about that then you are not as suspicious as I am. I hope everyday that this sport that I love is clean. I really do, but sometimes the things that I see happening and the cover ups that have taken place prior to this with the whole Agassi revelation really makes me wonder just how clean this sport really is.

It will never happen unfortunately because the tennis writers, governing bodies and the players are too wrapped up in each other to even try and get some modicum of impartiality in this situation. I know it is perhaps not relatable, but it took TMZ, a rag website if there ever was one, to actually bring to the attention of tennis a lawsuit that had been filed against one of the biggest organisations in sports. To this day, the only person who has actively dealt with this issue is Greg Couch. People try not to think that there is doping in our sport, but I for one sometimes do raise my eyebrows at the withdrawals, the retirements, the energizer bunny play and even more the bulging biceps and triceps and quadriceps of today's players who make a point of telling folks that they do not go to the gym. In addition to that we need to remember that Wayne Odesnik, caught with 7 vials of HGH has never tested positive. We saw WADA come down hard on Wickmayer and Malisse regarding the whereabouts rule, but I cannot recall any of the hundreds of tennis writers ever thinking of doing a follow up with either WADA or the ITF regarding disclosure of players tested over a season. It would be good if at the end of each season, when both the ATP and WTA are telling us who performed well etc, they could also provide us with the WADA/ITF testing results over the season. We are not trying to draw and quarter people here but the whereabouts rule are there for a reason and if players are breaching that rule by avoiding testing, then I think we should know who those players are, when did they not present themselves for testing and what, if any, excuse was given. I think doping in the sport is a bigger problem than betting and it is really the big old elephant in the room right now.

Hey stranger, how you doing? You know what is so funny about how Serena is viewed? She is never given her due but the minute someone else beats her, all of a sudden, hey my player is tops because she beat Serena. Phewt. I hope everything is going well in your world. Have not seen you around these past few months

Does it really matter where Serena is ranked going into a major? Ranked No.1, No. 100, unranked, unseeded, walking on crutches, looking like an extra from the Mummy series of movies, looking like she wants to be anywhere but on a tennis court; looking like she just woke up; just recovered from a tummy tuck, face lift, lipo and any other cosmetic procedure and perhaps having just given birth to Capital (the baby that she made with Common), she still goes out there and takes names. Yeah, as a Serena admirer, I doubt if she is losing sleep wondering about her rankings, but hey, if that makes the rest of the WTA sleep better at nights, what do I know. And for the record, she played only 6 tournies this year because she was uhm, what is that word again, oh yeah, injured and it still took Wozniacki playing almost every week to take the No. 1 ranking away from her, so yeah, I doubt if Serena is too worried by what is happening with the rankings right now.

In terms of the double standard when the ATPs top 2 players dole out bagel and bread sticks and the WTA when that happens, it all has to do with the narrative that is being written for women's tennis. In my view, yesterday's matches should not have happened and here is why. Elena and JJ have both been carrying injuries during the latter part of the season. Elena as a matter of fact withdrew the week before from a tournament in Luxembourg. I would rather have the WTA that I adore put out its best players competing against each other, rather than what I saw yesterday. In the second set, JJ absolutely stopped trying and Elena, for the first time that I can ever recall also stopped trying. I am not too concerned about the scoreline so much as I was concerned about the attitude of the players. We have seen when players on the ATP are even getting bagelled that most of them try and put in a little effort in either trying to avoid the bagel or at least let their opponent win the bagel set. What I saw yesterday from JJ and Elena left me disappointed as a fan of women's tennis. A case in point. At this year's Cincy tournament, Sharapova was losing to Clijsters. She was down in the final set, carrying an injury and what did she do. She started going for her shots. She stopped screaming and just started hitting the ball even cleaner than before. At one point in yesterday's match, Elena was walking to her seat when the score was 15-40. She thought she had already lost her serve. The fans totally deserve better than this from a champion such as Elena.

I don't mind the scrawl so much if only because I wish they would adjust the screen somewhat because when the scrawl comes on, it has a tendency to chop off the top off the head of the player at the top of the screen. This happens even with HD tvs and that I find quite intolerable. I wish TC would have a Sports Centre type show though as it would be nice to have a highlight reel of the matches that are going on all over the world and it would give folks a chance to get to know players. Even if you are just reading the scores, they could put up a picture of the players so that we have an idea who they are. They should also try and do features on players who are currently on the Challenger circuit. This year's US Open really made me sit up and take notice of quite a few players who have been playing challengers. Players like Marino from Canada and Diyas who took out JJ recently in Moscow. I wish they would do stuff like that instead of all this Tennis Channel Academy. I dont know of anyone who has actually learned anything from watching pros giving tips on tv. I know I don't. I still have to pay my 50.00 for each lesson from the club pro.

I have one word from ElenaD - anti-perspirant - I hate to see women with big old sweat stains on their dresses. Just no.