Learning How to Surf!

The goal of today’s blog is to help make a reader internet-savvy when it comes to professional tennis.  There are a few key links that will make any tennis fan’s search for players, results and information quick and to the point. 

First, http://www.wtatennis.com/page/Home/0,,12781,00.html  is a must-have for results and draws of the biggest tournaments in women’s tennis.  If you click on the address above, then go to the ‘Scores’ tab which is the second from the left, you will see the ‘Draws’ option scroll down and that is what will give you the qualifying, doubles and main draw singles draws of WTA events.  On the WTA Tour Site above there is something that says Men and Women at the very top, and when the mouse is over it, the WTA and ATP Tour tournaments, plus their dates, scroll down.  Clicking on a tournament takes you to the tournament website, which is not always an easy place to find draws, but the scroll-down gives a nice outline of all the WTA tournaments in a calendar year.

The men’s ATP Tour website is http://www.atpworldtour.com/ and to look for draws simply go under the ‘Scores and Stats’ tab which is the second from the left. 

The WTA website is not a very good tool for finding information on rankings and player activity.  This is because it is more focused on top-100 rankings when there are 800+ players with WTA rankings, many of them players who will, and have been, top-100.  The easiest site in my opinion for players’ rankings and activity is www.itftennis.com .  Down on the right-hand side, below all the multi-colored options, is a box that says ‘Find a Player.’  Typing in a players’ last name brings you to a list of all players (men and women both) with that last name.  It shows Junior, Men’s and Women’s results.  By clicking on the tab of the desired results next to your players name you can bring up a page with the following good information:

            Career-high singles and doubles rankings

            Current singles and doubles rankings

            Year-end rankings (for every year they had a WTA/ATP Tour ranking)

            Current year win/loss record

            Birthdate

Then, by clicking on the ‘Activity’ tab you can see the past year’s tournament results in singles and doubles.  Scores, opponents, rounds, dates and tournaments (ITF Pro Circuit plus ATP and WTA Tour events); it’s all there.  I often scout potential doubles partners who I don’t know very well using this website to see who they’ve beaten and lost to, and what the scores were.

For during-tournament results (a tournament that is going on the current week and has not finished yet), if it’s a WTA tournament then http://www.wtatennis.com/page/Home/0,,12781,00.html  is the place to go.  For ITF tournaments, two places are good.  American tournaments can be found at www.usta.com: go under ProTennis on the right top tab, then click USTA Pro Circuit also at the top in small lettering (which will bring you here: http://www.usta.com/Pro-Tennis/Pro-Circuit/USTAProCircuit/).  Then on the right either the tournaments for the current week are posted or something that says, ‘No tournaments are posted, for info on this week click here,’ will show.  And you want to click where it says, ‘here,’or on the tournament you wish to see.  As an example, this is the website that shows the information for this week’s Pro Circuit event, where I am currently playing: http://www.usta.com/Pro-Tennis/Pro-Circuit/ResultsSchedules/ .The men’s and women’s qualifying, doubles, main draw singles draws, plus the schedules or ‘order of play’ are posted and can be clicked on.

For international tournaments and slower information on American ones, you have to go to www.itftennis.com and click on either the men’s or women’s circuit colored tabs on the right.  There are three lists of tournaments:

            Completed (from directly previous week if available)

            Upcoming (coming week)

            Current (going on the current week)

The lists include all of the ITF events that fall in those three time frames, plus sometimes also WTA and ATP Tour tournaments like Indian Wells and Miami (Sony Ericsson) that fall into those three time frames.  Clicking on one gives you winners of singles and doubles, or you have to choose your category on the top right (qualifying doubles or singles, main draw singles or doubles) and if the draw and results are available they will scroll down once you have chosen the category.  This is usually the worst way to get current results because it is not updated very frequently during each week for whatever reason.

When the players sign into the tournaments, they use a site called the WTA Playerzone.  For WTA tournaments it costs about $200-$500 per year (depending on if you pay for a full WTA membership or just the ability to sign into the tournaments) to be able to use this website.  It costs $500 per year for a full WTA membership, and without it a player must pay $150 every time he or she plays in a WTA Tour event.  A player has to gage which is the cheaper option for him or her depending on the kind of schedule they intend to have in a year.

For signing into ITF tournaments, a player must pay $55.00 a year for an ID # called an IPIN.  Then, they go to www.itftennis.com/ipin, sign in with their IPIN and password and sign into tournaments as well as view tournament information from there.  A player can also withdraw from tournaments, far enough before certain deadlines, on this site.  Otherwise they must fax a paper withdrawal sheet to the tournament site, and to the ITF headquarters in London.

Happy surfing!!

Story

Serving and Stalking 'em Up!

I was in Surprise, AZ at a tournament a few weeks back and I stayed with some very nice elderly folk who have traveled the world and had many great stories to tell.  As I listened to them, I thought of a few stories of my own that I wanted to share.  One is about a super-server, and the other is about a super-stalker.

Both Venus Williams and Brenda Schultz-McCarthy have the fastest clocked serves in women’s tennis.  Brenda is originally from the Netherlands and her fastest serve is clocked at 130 mph in 2006 at a tournament in Cincinnati.  My first story is about an experience I had while playing her.

I was at a Challenger (50K) event in Indian Harbour Beach, FL about 3 or 4 years back.  I lost in the last round of qualifying to a lady from Portugal named Rossana de los Rios, who ended up in the finals of that tournament and becoming top 100 in the space of the next 2 years.

 As luck would have it, I got lucky loser!  (Lucky loser is when somebody who either lost in the last round of qualifying, or really anybody who is at the tournament, signs in to a list and when somebody in the main draw pulls out after qualifying has started, whoever is first on the list and signs in by a certain time on the day of play gets a spot in the draw.)  Guess who I drew as a lucky loser in the main draw?  Yes you guessed it, Mrs. Brenda Schultz-McCarthy.

I thought to myself, ‘OK, I’ve seen her play and she’s really just getting back into tennis after retiring-she has a wildcard into the tournament-if I can make her play her groundstrokes and get past her serve I’ve got a good shot.’  Easier said than done.  In one game in particular, none of my returns felt right.  I sat down on the change-over and tried to move on in my mind to the next game, and as I did so I looked down at my racquet.

My racquet had been sheared---not cracked, not broken, but SHEARED across at the point where the head starts and the neck ends.  Brenda broke my racquet with her super serve!  Can you believe it?  I couldn’t, so I took a picture—you can see it to the right. 

Now for the second story that I said was going to be about a “super-stalker.”  This is an exaggeration, really, but it caught your attention and made you want to read, right? 

I played a tournament about 4 years back my first January after finishing college and turning pro—this tournament was in Fort Walton Beach, FL which is right on the panhandle of Florida on the beach and kind of in the middle of nowhere.  That year at the tournament they did not have regular transportation to and from the site, so one of the volunteers at the club recommended that her son give me and my roommate a ride back to the hotel.

Turns out he was regularly available to give rides that week, so he drove us back and forth quite often.  He even took us to dinner one night which was very nice, since eating from the same hotel restaurant every night can get a bit boring. My roommate knew he was crushing on me, what can I say?  That’s how it goes sometimes.   I think he was about 34 years old---he was kind of an odd bird, very skinny and the rest of the details about him I have forgotten.

The end of the tournament rolled around and when I looked at flight prices, the closest and cheapest airport to fly out of was Mobile, Alabama.  I asked at the tournament how I could potentially get to Mobile.  Well, guess who offered to take me?  I was a bit wary because I knew he had a crush, but I needed to get to the airport and he seemed normal enough, so  I let the guy who was giving us rides that week take me.

It could not have started off on a weirder note.  I got in the car and he turned on a CD, stating that he had made a CD for the ride which included all of the songs from that week on the radio that I had liked or sung along to.  I had not made a big deal about any of the songs on the radio that I heard during that week—he must have paid REALLY close attention to me in order to be able to figure that out—and then the fact that he remembered which songs they were?  I thought, “And this is only the beginning, you have 3 hours to go!”

However, to my surprise the ride itself was quite uneventful.  He tried to make some deep conversation and I tried really hard not to share in it so that he wouldn’t think we were building a deep connection-this was not hard since his idea of deep conversation was a bunch of talk about premonitions, voodoo and magic.  He even believed in telepathy, and of course thought of himself as someone able to tap into that stream of consciousness.

 “As long as he doesn’t tell me that this ride was meant to happen and that it means something magical, and as long as I get to the airport safe he can believe in all the magic in the world!”

I breathed in a heavy sigh of relief (hidden from plain view of course) as we pulled up to the airport.  I thought, “Please just let me go, please!”  But no, I would not be allowed such a peaceful exit.  We got out of the car and right as I thought I was free, he said, “Before you go, I have something for you.” 

“Oh crap!!”

To my surprise and odd relief, he reached in his pocket and pulled out something—I couldn’t tell what it was at first and to be honest I was about to bolt for the door.  Showing some true grit, I stayed there to let him reach out his hand and give me his present.  He said as he reached out, “This is for you, for when you need a light in your life.”  Then he, turning out to be a bit of a shy guy (who knew?) turned around and bolted. 

As I stood there watching him peel off, I looked down in my hand and saw a keychain flashlight thing. At the moment, the thought didn’t cross my mind that he had been planning to give me a key-chain probably since he knew he would be giving me a ride to Mobile-- upon reflection, that makes the situation seem even more bizarre.

As it turns out, it was a super awesome keychain flashlight with a really bright light.  It was flat, not in a normal flashlight shape, and had three modes.  Off, regular light and then the real kicker!  This bad boy had a strobe light setting—yes, a strobe light setting.

 It was an interesting gift, and quite possibly the funniest part of this whole story is that I still carry that darn keychain in my purse to this day.  The battery is still good, probably because I hardly use it and most of the time I forget that it’s even there.  However, like he said, it is there for me in case I ever need a light.  Or, as in my case, a party tool or silly music video special effect. 

Each time I change my purse I make a conscious decision to keep that little keychain.   The strobe light setting really is pretty awesome.   

The moral of the first story is this: If you are playing against the woman with the fastest serve in the world and you can’t return her serve, it’s not your fault because your racquet’s probably broken.  And if you lose the match it’s not your fault either because she will probably just break all of your other racquets one after the other.

The moral of the second story is this:  If somebody has a crush on you and you do not share the sentiment, it doesn’t hurt to let them do nice things for you and for you to still be kind to them.  Your kindness may mean more to them than you think.  Even if they know their sentiment will never be shared by you they might still be able to give you something of value- like a strobe light keychain flashlight. 

Story