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Bob and Mike Bryan tuned up for their second Olympics by posting a 4-6, 7-6 (2), 10-7 doubles victory on Sunday over Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram in the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters in Cincinnati.
The 30-year-old Bryan twins reached the quarterfinals at the 2004 Athens Games, losing to eventual gold medalists Fernando Gonzalez and Nicolas Massu of Chile.
The Assn. of Tennis Professionals issued a news release with some thoughts from Beijing-bound Mike Bryan about the importance of Sunday's win. It's a huge confidence boost and it's our first title in a few months. In this tournament I think we played extremely well. Last week we lost in the finals, which was a positive also. So we're going into the Olympics playing, I think, the best we have all year. To beat a great team like Andy and Jonathan, who have had a tremendous year, it bodes well. I mean, a huge goal of ours is to have a good performance at the Olympics. We've been looking forward to it all year. We're going to take a week off and then give it our best shot.
In Athens, the twins joined the great-great-uncles of President George W. Bush as the only other brothers to play tennis for the United States in the Olympics. (Arthur and George Wear competed in the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis, with each winning a bronze medal with different doubles partners.)
-- Greg Johnson
Photo: Bob (left) and Mike Bryan react after winning their doubles final against Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram during the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters on Sunday in Cincinnati. Credit: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
Updated at 12:44 a.m. on Friday. Sharapova's website now confirms that she will miss the U.S. Open.
Russia’s Vera Zvonareva (No. 11 in the women's tennis world) will replace the injured Maria Sharapova in the women’s singles of the Olympic tennis tournament, the Russian tennis federation said Friday.
Sharapova (No. 3 in the world) was forced out of the Beijing Games by a shoulder injury suffered on Wednesday night during tournament play in Montreal.
Speaking of Sharapova, the Associated Press is reporting that the tennis star won't be able to play in the U.S. Open, the last Grand Slam tournament of the year.
A U.S. Open official spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because Sharapova had yet to publicly announce her withdrawal Friday. (There isn't anything about the U.S. Open on Sharapova's website.)
The Beijing Games begin on Aug. 8. The U.S. Open opens play on Aug. 25. Sharapova won the 2006 U.S. Open.
Photo: Vera Zvonareva playing at the East West Bank Classic tennis tournament in Carson on July 24. Credit: Reed Saxon/Associated Press
It's official. Maria Sharapova, the world's No. 3 women's tennis player, will skip the Beijing Games after an MRI found small tears in the tendons of her right shoulder.
Here's how Sharapova explained it on her website:
After yesterday's match I knew there was something seriously wrong with my shoulder. After taking a few different exams and MRI's this morning, the doctors found two small tears in the tendons of my shoulder. There are so many mixed feelings because last night they were almost positive there was something wrong with my nerve which could have ultimately been much more serious but after the tests this morning, for the first time in a while, they were able to give me a different answer and a different problem. But on the other hand this is something that needs a lot of time to heal, which really hurts me to say that I have to miss the Olympics.
The next question is whether Sharapova will be able to compete in the U.S. Open, which begins Aug. 25 in New York City.
-- Greg Johnson
Photo: Maria Sharapova talks to a trainer about her shoulder injury during Rogers Cup Tennis action on July 30 in Montreal. Credit: Elsa Garrison / Getty Images
Tennis star Maria Sharapova moved to the box marked "tentative" for the Beijing Games, despite winning her second-round match at the Rogers Cup tournament in Montreal on Wednesday.
Sharapova beat Marta Domachowska, 7-5, 5-7, 6-2, and then withdrew from the tournament.
And, incredibly, it was not a knee injury.
Sharapova will have an MRI on her aching right shoulder, and the outcome of that test will likely determine her availability for the Olympics, as well as the subsequent U.S. Open.
Her absence in Beijing would be a big blow to the Russian team.
"At the end of the day, it's tough to go on court and not be close to even 50%," Sharapova said in a Canadian Press report. "I'm too good of a player to go out there and try to fight through something that I think can eventually become something serious."
-- Lisa Dillman
Photo: Maria Sharapova gets medical treatment to her shoulder during a Wednesday match against Poland's Marta Domachowska. Credit: Jacques Boissinot / Canadian Press
Tennis and the Olympics always seemed like an odd combination, not the worst you've ever imagined, just a slightly off-center alliance.
Like Bob Dylan winning a Pulitzer. Better yet, Dylan appearing in a Victoria's Secret advert.
But let's bring it all back to home or at least to Beijing.
Had a chat last week at the Home Depot Center in Carson with the head of the women's tennis tour, Larry Scott. This was before Serena Williams pulled out because of a knee injury. The tournament already had lost Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport due to the same problem.
Venus ended up pulling out of this week's tour stop in Montreal. If something had to give for the top players, it seemed, it was going to be the regular tour events, not the Olympics.
So with the wreckage piling up on the tour, it seemed a good time to ask Scott about the relevance of the Olympics and tennis. He gave a thoughtful answer, as he often does.
"I think there’s always been a healthy debate and discussion about if it is a positive or negative, and I think there are pros and cons to tennis being in the Olympics," he said. "I certainly view it as positive, on balance, a strong positive."
Venus Williams was incredibly emotional when she won the gold medal in singles in 2000 at Sydney, and Serena said the impact of the Olympics hit her after they won the doubles in 2000.
The impact is even more striking for players from smaller countries.
"It is the world’s biggest sporting event," Scott said. "I think it helps for the popularity of the sport to be there and our athletes do get exposure, to have stature and prominence because the Olympics are so important. They get a certain amount of gravitas and stature in the home country."
Then there’s the downside of the Olympics, as experienced firsthand at Carson.
“Some of the negatives are the calendar absolutely wreaks havoc, the date of the Olympics wreaks havoc on our calendar because our calendar is based on annual events and the Olympics sort of plops in every four years,” Scott said. “And it takes not only the two weeks the athletes have to be available and then the border events. The players won’t be as prepared for the U.S. Open as they might be otherwise.
“From that, at a minimum, a major inconvenience, if not detrimental, to the events that touch the Olympic time frame.”
Still, he thinks the positives far outweigh the negatives. There is the short shelf-life of the Olympic platform during the Games, and then, perhaps more important, the long-range impact.
“They need a legacy after the Olympics,” he said. “We’re going to have a huge event in China, post-Olympics. They’ve got this amazing new tennis stadium they need to fill it with something big. That’s one of the motivations for doing a big thing at the tour level.”
Even a prospective bid for the Olympics, in 2016, has helped the tours. Madrid is building the Caja Magica (the Magical Box), which eventually will serve as a venue for men’s and women’s tour stops.
“The only reason it got built is because Madrid is bidding for the Olympics,” Scott said. “If tennis weren’t in the Olympics, tennis would have lost that 300 million Euro investment.”
-- Lisa Dillman
Photo: Serena Williams left, and her sister Venus at Wimbledon. Both are nursing knee injuries. Credit: Kirsty Wigglesworth / Associated Press |
The Olympic tennis entries seem to be getting shuffled like a deck of cards in the hands of a nervous dealer. The latest switch came Monday, courtesy of Argentina.
Out: Juan Ignacio Chela and his aching shoulder. In: Agustin Calleri.
Not exactly a surprise, considering that Chela also missed Wimbledon because of the same injury. And, the Beijing Olympics will be contested on a hard-court surface, not Chela's beloved clay.
The biggest mystery will unfold on the women's side. I wonder what the odds are of Venus and Serena Williams both getting on an airplane to China -- and both finishing their matches in Beijing?
Medal picks in the obscure sports are much harder to figure than that one.
-- Lisa Dillman
Photo: Things are looking up for Agustin Calleri, who on Monday was named to Argentina's Beijing-bound tennis team. This photo shows him on the ground during a match in southern Germany on July 12. Credit: Daniel Maurer/Associated Press
Pauline Parmentier will join the French Olympic team for the Beijing Games after injuries to two other players the International Tennis Federation reports.
The ITF earlier today said on its website that the former Wimbledon champion Mauresmo would replace the injured Pierce. Moments later, the ITF changed course. The ITF website now says that "Mary Pierce (FRA) was replaced by Amelie Mauresmo (FRA), who also withdrew and was replaced by Pauline Parmentier (FRA."
“The French Tennis Federation sent us a list on Friday, which included Mauresmo’s name,” ITF spokeswoman Barbara Travers told Bloomberg during a phone interview. “Just after we issued our statement today, we got an amendment from them, saying she isn’t going after all.”
Two-time Grand Slam winner Pierce has been struggling with a long-term knee problem, ITF spokesman Neil Robinson said earlier in a phone interview with Bloomberg. Pierce, 33, hasn’t played since the end of 2006.
Parmentier, ranked 40th in the world, will play singles and doubles at the Beijing Olympics, the ITF said.
Mauresmo, who won a silver at the 2004 Athens Games, withdrew from the French squad earlier this month after the French Tennis Federation failed to select her for the Beijing-bound team. In a message on her web site, Mauresmo said she would instead focus on the U.S. Open.
-- Greg Johnson
Photo: France's Pauline Parmentier in action June 25 at Wimbledon during her second round match against Australia's Casey Dellacqua. Credit: Alastair Grant/Associated Press Photo
Andy Roddick was on the line earlier today with handful of reporters, talking about the upcoming summer hardcourt season, known as the US Open series, in North America and what had been a very tough call for him to skip the Olympics.
"Let me first say that it was probably one of the most difficult decisions I've had to make in my career," he said to Liz Clarke of the Washington Post. "You normally don't have to choose between two huge events.
"My decision had nothing to do with lack of respect for the Olympics or anything like that. I completely am the biggest fan of it, and I'll be a huge fan watching it from home. It had to do more with at the end of my career I want to have been making runs in Slams.
"So I felt the best way to do that is to play a lot in the hard-court season and get my body ready for it. Especially with everything that's gone on. I didn't feel like a trip to Beijing, you know, followed by playing a first round match five days later at the U.S. Open was the best preparation for Flushing."
I asked him about the turnaround in 2004. Of course, Athens to New York is not nearly as problematic as Beijing to New York.
"It was tough," he said. "Coming back on short notice, it was pretty tough. I think I definitely remember that. I don't know if my body was in the greatest shape for that tournament. I was playing good tennis at the time, but I remember feeling a little bit beat up before that Open. You know, that probably played into my decision as well."
He will catch the Olympics on TV, being a huge sports fan and is looking forward to the swimming, saying: "I think [Michael] Phelps' run -- he's always kind of an Olympic legend. He's so young and he has a shot at so many more medals this year. I'm big into track and field and the swimming. I think those are probably the events that make the Olympics."
Roddick, who will be playing in Los Angeles and Washington D.C. instead of the Olympics, was getting ready for this week's Rogers Cup tournament in Toronto. And there is a big-event buzz around that event because of the post-Wimbledon lift the sport has received from the epic final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
"I watched the first part of it," Roddick said. "I was up at my fiancée's parents house. I got to watch the first set and a half. Then I took a flight home and got to watch the last little bit when I landed at the airport. So I actually watched the last half of it at the airport.
" ... There weren't a lot of people there. I rushed off the plane and had about 20 text messages on updates from the match. I kind of just ran to the TV and settled in and watched the end of it."
-- Lisa Dillman
Photo: Andy Roddick reacts during his match against Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic last month at Wimbledon. Tipsarevic won the match. Credit: Carl De Souza / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
OK, so it's the left knee this time.
That's about the only difference between all the injuries hitting all three singles players on the U.S. Olympic women's tennis team.
Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport were first, pulling out on Friday of this week's tour stop in Carson because of injured right knees. One day later, Serena Williams withdrew in the second set of her semifinal at Stanford because of a left knee injury, feeling inflammation in the joint.
Serena is back in Los Angeles and said she will have an MRI. She remains entered in the Carson event, as of this morning. The draw for the tournament comes out later today. Still, let's put it this way: It will be a much bigger shock if she steps on the court to play a match at the Home Depot Center than if she doesn't.
"I haven’t made any decision yet, but my main goal is to be at the Olympics,” Serena told Matt Cronin of tennisreporters.net Saturday night. “My goal is stay healthy and I've been doing pretty good this year, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to get back in that position."
-- Lisa Dillman
Photo: Serena Williams on Saturday before bowing out of the Bank of the West match at Stanford because of an injured left knee. Credit: Phil Carter / US Presswire
 Tennis star Andy Murray, ranked ninth in the world, will represent Great Britain in singles play at the Beijing Games, the British Olympic Assn. said today.
It will be the first Olympics for Murray, who played well at Wimbledon, where he lost to eventual champion Raphael Nadal in the quarterfinals.
The annoucement came as no surprise. Murray, a Scot, also will pair with his older brother, Jamie, in doubles play at the Olympics. Jamie, 22, is ranked No. 33 in doubles.
"I am delighted to welcome Andy and Jamie into Team GB for their first Olympic Games," team head Simon Clegg said. "With Andy and Jamie, we have one of the best chances of achieving in this event."
On Friday, Murray announced that he had pulled out of next week’s ATP tournament in Indianapolis to better prepare for the Olympics.
-- Debbie Goffa
Photo: Andy Murray during his Wimbledon match against Rafael Nadal on July 2. Credit: Adrian Dennis / Getty Images.
The alarmist view of today's double hit -- meaning the unexpected withdrawals of Wimbledon champion Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport from next week's U.S. Open Series tour stop in Carson -- deals with future Olympic implications.
Are they in danger of not making it to Beijing? Could half of the U.S. Olympic women's team fail to make it to the service line in China?
Probably not.
The educated guess here is that Williams, who grew up in nearby Compton, and the OC's Davenport, are playing a little defense here with their dodgy right knees, giving themselves the best chance to be ready to make the trip to Beijing. In fact, Davenport also has pulled out of the ongoing event at Stanford this week.
The other half of the squad is Wimbledon runner-up Serena Williams, and Davenport's doubles partner Liezel Huber, by way of South Africa.
These sort of late withdrawals are a virtual summer rite in tennis. They usually occur on Fridays, and there is an obligatory story by the tennis writer. Or maybe a skeptical look by the tennis-loving columnist who questions the last-minute losses after the players already have been used in advertising to promote the tournament.
But that's a blog for another day.
Who knows? Davenport's comeback centered around the possibility of playing in the Olympics one more time, and she is scheduled to play singles and doubles. And for Venus, the Olympics represented one of the most-moving moments in her career -- when she won the singles and doubles with Serena at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Still, they could just as easily skip Beijing. For many tennis players, the Olympics is still the post-dinner drink, it will never be the main course like Wimbledon or the U.S. Open.
-- Lisa Dillman
Venus Williams reacts after winning the women's singles final against her sister Serena on the Centre Court at Wimbledon on July 5. Credit: Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press Photo
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