12/21/24
September 03, 2004
"This guy's unbelievable. He's never going to umpire me again." : Certainly not at this year's US Open, he's not. Tenth-seeded Nicolas Massu made a loud exit from the US Open, losing to 54th-ranked Sargis Sargsian in the second round after playing over five hours and receiving multiple penalties for his outbursts -- including a game in the fourth and deciding set.
(sorry, I couldn't find any vid)
posted by lil_brown_bat to tennis at 05:55 AM - 3 comments
I'm all for passion, personality, etc.--tennis, more than some other sports, seems to thrive on that, and miss it when it's in short supply. (SI's Joh Wertheim wrote a fine piece on this point here.) But the linked report makes Massu sound like an oaf. At least he fought through the end of the match, though. Some of my favorite players are guys whose sideshow personalities sometimes distracted everyone, including themselves, from the work to be done on the court. Marcelo Rios, Marat Safin, and Goran Ivanisevic come to mind--Safin in particular, with Rios (an unworldly talent) a close second mitigated by injuries. Did anyone see the Federer-Baghdatis match the other night? Two things were remarkable. 1) Baghdatis's big smiles--it was fun to watch a player who looked like he was having fun. 2) Baghdatis plays out of his head for a set--unbelievable tennis, really--and beats Federer in a tiebreaker, but can't stay on that level and gets crushed the rest of the way. That shows what kind of game someone has to bring to top Federer. No less than John McEnroe said Federer's the most talented player he's ever seen.
posted by jason streed at 03:32 PM on September 03, 2004
Federer is amazing - he blew Roddick away in the Wimbledon final, and yet never even got close to playing top form. It was frightening.
posted by dng at 06:08 PM on September 03, 2004
Massu is my current favorite player, because he brings a lot of passion to the game. I am so sick of these tennis players who have the emotions of Data from Star Trek:Next Generation! Geez! We need a few more McEnroe and Conners-type players on the men's circuit!