TAYLOR DENT - ENDANGERED SPECIES

Taylor Dent announced his retirement from tennis Monday.

It's not a total shock. Dent is 29, and that he was playing for the last 18 months or so was a sweet bonus for a man who spent nearly two years fighting debilitating back injuries, underwent three back surgeries in 2006 and 2007 and wondered sometimes whether he would walk unaided and without pain.

But it is a loss for tennis.

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For Dent is taking with him into retirement the kind of game we don't see anymore.

Dent is an unabashed serve-and-volley player, always at the net. In fact, he has always been unwilling to stay at the baseline and pound ground strokes. It wasn't how he was taught, by his father and former pro player Phil Dent, and it wasn't how he wanted to play.

"It wasn't my nature," Dent said. "I love to serve and volley."

After his 12 years on the pro tour, where he was ranked as high as No. 21 in the world, and as he has watched the ascendance of big hitters of ground strokes such as Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, Dent sounds almost wistful that this style of play is disappearing.

"In the past, tennis has been cyclical," Dent said. "You'd have a wave of guys who stayed back, then a wave of guys who served and volleyed, then a wave of guys who stayed back.

"But lately the technology of tennis is taking the game in one direction. The balls are heavier, the courts are slower, the strings and rackets are enabling players to hit so much harder and with so much spin, it all works against the serve-and-volleyer.

"You might see somebody like a Pat Rafter or a Pete Sampras who have serves so good and so accurate they could negate the technology, but I don't think you'll see many."

Dent, who has a 9-month-old son, said he and his wife, Jenny, sat down last week and talked about what's next.

"It's the deal we have had since my comeback," Dent said, "that at the end of the year we sit down and have a scheduled talk about whether to go forward or retire. I've been playing for 12 years now and I met a lot of my goals, almost all my goals after coming back from the surgeries and the time seemed perfect.

"I've got a son and a strong desire to be a family man. Pro tennis is a grueling schedule and it gets pretty tough after a while. My body was able to hang in there, a testament to my surgeon, but at the end of the day it's just a lot of little things."

Dent, who grew up in Newport Beach and who has been based in Bradenton, Fla., for the last couple of years, said he would probably settle down in Kansas City, where his wife is from. He said he's interested in exploring careers in coaching and in tennis commentating.

"We'll see where the chips fall," he said.

As for what he'll remember most fondly about his career, Dent has a list.

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"Any time I've won titles [four], those are big deals to me," he said. "Not very many players win at the ATP level. I've had some big wins in my day, over James Blake and Andy Roddick and Juan Carlos Ferrero. And if I look back on the broader picture, clawing my way back from surgery, it gave me a lot of pride because it wasn't something easily done and it wasn't only me but my whole supporting cast.

"There are things I'll regret that didn't turn out as I wished, the top prizes — being ranked No. 1 or winning a Grand Slam," he said. "Those would have been incredibly special. But as I look back I think I always gave myself a chance to do my best. So I'm proud of that."

diane.pucin@latimes.com

BALLS TO FOOTBALL MATCH

Outraged FC Basel and FC Luzern fans were so angry at a change to the kick-off time for their match at the weekend that they staged a protest by throwing thousands of tennis balls on to the pitch.

A Swiss TV company had engineered the early kick-off to allow them to broadcast both the Swiss Super League match in Emmenbruecke and Roger Federer's final against Novak Djokovic at the ATP Basel tennis tournament, with the football match moved to 12.45pm to ensure that it would be finished in time for the tennis to begin at 3pm.

That prompted the fans of the two clubs - who occupy the top two spots in the Swiss top flight - to protest their treatment with a flurry of tennis balls.

And, with the pitch almost covered in them, the referee had no choice but to send the players back to the dressing rooms.

But as soon as they were cleared by stewards and security staff, the crafty fans began to rain a second wave of balls on to the pitch - forcing a further delay at the Sportanlage Gersag stadium.

When the game was finally played Basel fans were left celebrating an injury-time equaliser that saw them rescue a point to remain top of the league - while in the tennis, Federer beat Djokovic in three sets to win the title in front of his hometown crowd for the fourth time in five years.

YAHOO

TSN (2) PARIS SKED

HOMEYS WIN

FERRER WINS VALENCIA

FEDERER TAKES BASEL

BRYAN'S CLINCH TOP RANK

Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan celebrated clinching the year-end No.1 ATP Doubles Team Ranking by defeating Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic 6-3, 3-6, 10-3 to win their 11th tour-level title of the season at the Swiss Indoors Basel Sunday.

The Americans, who will finish the year as the No. 1 team for a record sixth time in eight years, extended their perfect record in tour-level finals this season to 11-0, including two majors at the Australian Open and the US Open. It is the second time in their career they have won 11 titles in a season (also 2007) and they will look to set a new career-high tally in their final two tournaments of the season at the BNP Paribas Masters and the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.

ATP

NESTOR TAKES HIS 70TH

Top seeded Daniel Nestor of Toronto and Serbian partner Nenad Zimonjic won the Bank Austria Tennis Trophy on Sunday for their sixth doubles title of the season.

Nestor and Zimonjic, ranked second in the world, defeated No. 3 seeds Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski of Poland 7-5, 3-6, 10-5 in the final for their first victory since the French Open.

“It’s great to be back in the winners’ circle,” said Nestor. “We played really well, beat one of the hottest teams on tour, so it’s a good feeling.”

The win was also the 70th doubles title of Nestor’s career, making the 38-year-old just the fifth player to reach the mark.

“It’s amazing. I’m fortunate to have had great partners,” said Nestor. “I’m playing well still, even at this age, and hopefully I can get a couple more years in there (and win a few more titles).”

Nestor and Zimonjic announced earlier in the month that their three-year partnership will end following the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London. Nestor is slated to join Max Mirnyi of Belarus, while Zimonjic will team up with Michael Llodra of France.

Both Nestor and Zimonjic had previously won in Vienna. Nestor triumphed with former longtime partner Mark Knowles in 2005; Zimonjic with Yevgeny Kafelnikov in 2000.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/Nestor+wins+70th+career+doubles+title/3755375/story.html#ixzz13znH4Uue

NESTOR - ZIMONJIC

Top seeds Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic made an emphatic start to their Bank Austria TennisTrophy campaign on Wednesday, crushing Italians Andreas Seppi and Simone Vagnozzi 6-0, 6-0 in just 33 minutes.

Nestor and Zimonjic have endured a barren run in recent months and are bidding to win their first tour-level title since Roland Garros (d. Dlouhy-Paes) in early June. Courtesy of winning five trophies in the first six months of the season, the Canadian-Serbian duo are assured of their place in the elite eight-team field at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, to be played at The O2 in London 21-28 November.

TWEENER

GONZALEZ - HIP SURGERY

Chile's Fernando Gonzalez is bracing for an extended layoff after announcing that he will have hip and possibly knee surgery next month. The former Australian Open finalist and World No. 5 will have right hip surgery on 4 October in New York.

A statement on Gonzalez's official web site said that he could be sidelined for eight to nine months, which puts his return date at midway through or late in next year's European clay court season.

Gonzalez will have the surgery with Doctor Brian Kelly, who is a noted orthopaedic surgeon specialising in sports medicine and arthroscopic surgery of the shoulder, hip and knee.

ATP

BRAIN-BODY FITNESS

But it’s the neurological impact of sustained aerobic fitness in young people that is especially compelling. A memorable years-long Swedish study published last year found that, among more than a million 18-year-old boys who joined the army, better fitness was correlated with higher I.Q.’s, even among identical twins. The fitter the twin, the higher his I.Q. The fittest of them were also more likely to go on to lucrative careers than the least fit, rendering them less likely, you would hope, to live in their parents’ basements. No correlation was found between muscular strength and I.Q. scores. There’s no evidence that exercise leads to a higher I.Q., but the researchers suspect that aerobic exercise, not strength training, produces specific growth factors and proteins that stimulate the brain, said Georg Kuhn, a professor at the University of Gothenburg and the senior author of the study.

nytimes

BALLS

In 1480, Louis XI of France forbade the filling of tennis balls with chalk, sand, sawdust, or earth, and stated that they were to be made of good leather, well-stuffed with wool.^[1] Other early tennis balls were made by Scottish craftsmen from a wool-wrapped stomach of a sheep or goat and tied with rope. Those recovered from the hammer-beam roof of Westminster Hall during a period of recent restoration were found to have been manufactured from a combination of putty and human hair, and were dated to the reign of Henry VIII. Other versions, using materials such as animal fur, rope made from animal intestines and muscles, and pine wood, were found in Scottish castles dating back to the 16th century. In the 18th century, ¾" strips of wool were wound tightly around a nucleus made by rolling a number of strips into a little ball. String was then tied in many directions around the ball and a white cloth covering sewn around the ball. This explains why modern rubber tennis balls still have a cloth covering (in the early days of lawn tennis, it proved quite difficult to get the cloth to adhere very well to the rubber). This type of cloth ball, with a cork core, is still used for the original game of tennis, today called real tennis. With the introduction of lawn tennis in the 1870s, vulcanized rubber was first used to manufacture balls, often in tubes of four with a package, but not with the name of the brand.

Wikipedia

JERSEY GIRL

Kim Clijsters made short work of Ana Ivanovic on Sunday for her 18th straight victory spanning five years at the U.S. Open, the tournament at which she happens to have won her only two Grand Slam titles. There has not been such home-court advantage at

the National Tennis Center since John McEnroe.

Venus Williams is the last American in the women's draw, but Clijsters is the only player left with a commutable home in the New York area.

There are weeks during the North American hardcourt summer when Clijsters retreats to the house she owns in Wall, N.J., with her husband, Brian Lynch. Wall is one town inland from Belmar, where Lynch grew up a huge Knicks fan, the third of four sons of Richard Lynch, a retired Belmar police chief.

"My parents are still in Belmar and my brothers all live and work in the area," Lynch said. "I was the only one who ventured off."

They are not quite the cast of "Jersey Shore," but Lynch said that Clijsters seemed to enjoy being part of his big, noisy Irish family in the quiet beach community.

"The reputation has become tainted because of the show, but Kim really feels comfortable here, really at home," Lynch said after his wife, the defending Open champion, breezed into the quarterfinals with a 6-2, 6-1 dismantling of the unseeded

Ivanovic. "When Kim is comfortable, she is pretty tough to beat, so I guess, yeah, you could call her part Jersey girl."

She played the first match of the day in Arthur Ashe Stadium, when the crowd is sparse, typically sleepy. Two years ago, when Ivanovic looked like the next big thing in women's tennis, this might have been a premier slugfest instead of a third-round yawner. Then again, two years ago, Clijsters was at her primary home in Belgium, thinking she was finished with tennis, content with her 2005 Open title.

This is their story. Lynch played basketball at Villanova, where he was a teammate of NBA players Tim Thomas and Malik Allen. He graduated in 2000 and took his 6-foot-6 frame and small-forward game to Europe. He moved around - Germany, Israel, Greece, Poland, Italy, France, not in that order - before landing in Belgium in 2004.

The club team happened to be in Bree, Clijsters' hometown. Lynch knew little about tennis, less about Clijsters, but found himself in the VIP room after a game one night, talking to a woman who turned out to be Clijsters' mother.

The subject was bulldogs; they each owned one. When Lynch learned that the famous tennis star was the pretty woman across the room, he figured he had an opening: the canine conversation. He introduced himself. They went on a date and brought their bulldogs. The emotions culminating in marriage were unceremoniously unleashed.

When their daughter, Jada, was born in February 2008, the plan was for Clijsters to stay home while Lynch continued his basketball career, then for a team in Antwerp one hour away. Then there was bad news: Clijsters' father, Leo, had cancer.

"Whatever plan we had became irrelevant once we found out," Lynch said. "It was all about Kim and the baby spending time with her father." Leo Clijsters, 52, died in 2009. Looking for a distraction from her sadness, Kim agreed to play a few exhibitions. She took to the practice court and found that the ball-striking made her move her feet, move forward with life.

"I could see it develop over a month or so," Lynch said. "She would come home and say: 'Last week I couldn't move the way I used to. Today, I could."' She wanted to play tennis again. He knew it was coming and already had a new plan percolating.

"I'd already been playing nine years abroad," he said. "I was almost 31." He told Clijsters he would retire and travel with her on the tour. He would begin building bridges into the coaching career he fancies once Clijsters has gotten tennis out of her system.

When might that be? Lynch said he doubted she was back for the long haul. In her news conference Sunday, Clijsters said, "If I say in six months, 'OK, this has been fun,' and it's been good, you know, and I have achieved what I've wanted to achieve,then I'm the one who decides."

It is a nice place to be, she said, playing not because she has to or because she cannot think of anything better to do. These days, in a Grand Slam event, everything is at stake, or nothing, depending on how she wants to look at it.

"The pressure is a privilege," Clijsters said.

Like all tennis stars, she is a citizen of the world, belonging to whoever chooses to adopt her. She is not an American, but since she is the defending Open champion and part Jersey girl, Arthur Ashe Stadium is her house until someone takes it from her.

PROGRESS INDEX .com

$43 MILLION DOLLAR MAN (per year)

A few headliners will be on the sidelines when US Open play begins today including defending men’s champ Juan Martin del Potro as well as Serena Williams and Justine Henin who have won a combined 22 Grand Slam singles titles. The men’s tourney still features the sport’s two heavyweights Roger Federer and Roger Nadal who have won 20 of the past 22 Grand Slams. The favorite on the women’s side is Kim Clijsters who captured last year’s title after a two year retirement where she gave birth to a daughter.

Men and women typically play for vastly different sums of money in sports. Michelle Wie earned $337,500 for her second career LPGA victory this weekend, while Matt Kuchar’s paycheck was $1.35 million for claiming The Barclays men’s golf event on Sunday. The best paid players in the WNBA make $100,000 per season on the court, while men’s salaries can reach $23 million. Tennis is different though. The men’s and women’s Open champion will each earn $1.7 million for the title. The US Open has paid equal prize money the past 38 years, but credit Venus Williams who fought for equal pay at Wimbledon which finally acquiesced in 2007 as did the French Open.

Our look at the highest-paid tennis players exemplifies this kind of equality in the game. Half the top ten are men and half are women, although Roger Federer is light years ahead of anyone else thanks to his longtime dominance and 10 lucrative sponsorship deals. Several of these athletes showed up on our lists of the highest-paid athletes and female athletes this summer. In all cases for incomes we include: prize money, endorsements, exhibitions and appearance fees over the past 12-months without taxes or agent’s fees deducted.

The list below also includes a few big sponsors for each players. The shoe and apparel deal is almost always the largest endorsement for top players in tennis. The value of these deals can rise dramatically based on bonuses for tournaments won and year-end rankings. As in most sports Nike is the king in tennis when it comes to comes to signing the best (and most expensive) talent. It has deals with our four highest-paid athletes who have combined for 40 Grand Slam singles titles.

Player/earnings/sponsors

1. Roger Federer: $43 million (Nike, Credit Suisse, Gillette)

2. Maria Sharapova: $24.5 million (Nike, Prince, Tiffany)

3. Rafael Nadal: $21 million (Nike, Kia Motors, Babolat)

4. Serena Williams: $20 million (Nike, Hewlett-Packard, Kraft)

5. Venus Williams: $15 million (Wilson, American Express, Kraft)

6. Andy Roddick: $14 million (Lacoste, SAP, Lagardere)

7. (tie) Novak Djokovic: $10 million (Sergio Tacchini, Head, FitLine)

7. (tie) Andy Murray: $10 million (Adidas, Head, RBS)

9. Ana Ivanovic: $7 million (Adidas, Yonex, Rolex)

10. Jelena Jankovic: $5 million (Anta, Orbit)

FORBES

FIGHT NIGHT AT US OPEN

Novak Djokovic and Philipp Petzschner stopped playing to watch the fisticuffs in the upper deck at Arthur Ashe Stadium (and, boy, would Ashe have hated this). Djokovic, who hails from Serbia, won, by the way, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 (6).

The off-court action started after a woman appeared to take exception to the continual swearing of a male fan.

"It was far away from the court; we couldn't really see what was going on," Djokovic said. "I hope it was no Serbian up there."

THE NATURAL

 

"I've never seen a guy do this," U.S. tennis great Stan Smith, 63, winner of the U.S. Open and Wimbledon, was saying early Tuesday evening. "He's one of a kind."

But Smith wasn't talking about Bopanna or Qureshi. He was staring at the other end of the court. There, for a moment anyway, stood a 31-year old American about to serve named Brian Battistone. He held his racket in his left hand, tossed the ball some 15 feet into the air with his right, then switched the racket into his right and leapt high before smacking the ball over the net like Karch Kiraly spiking. Battistone's father used to own the Utah Jazz, and he's a former ballboy with a 36-inch vertical leap; his serve was clocked last year at 139 m.p.h. The ball cracked down at an unholy angle as Battistone landed. You have never seen anything like him.

And that's only the half of it. The racket in Battistone's hand was fire-engine red. It had two handles, splayed on the end like a divining rod, and goes by the name, "The Natural."

"He does two things that are very, very odd," Smith said. "The two-handled racket, plus the serve is, uh, pretty amazing."

Still, Smith was less shocked than most onlookers, whose comments ranged from "What the hell is that?" to "That jump makes no sense on the second serve" to "What was his coach smoking?" Tennis has a long tradition of geeks obsessed with string hybrids and the latest experimental gear; 43 years ago, Smith himself was knocked out of the 1977 U.S. Open by a no-name wielding soon-outlawed spaghetti strings. Battistone's two-handled racket is legal, though at first he traveled with a certificate for disbelieving referees, opponents and tournament directors.

"When my brother and I first came out on tour 2½ years ago, it was the worst," Battistone said after. "Nobody had even seen it before, and people would laugh constantly, make jokes. But after we were able to win a few matches, and in the first year we made the top 200. I don't think it's quite normal yet, but a lot of players are used to it and have fun with it now. They'll try it out. People see it as somewhat legitimate."

Somewhat. Battistone, who started playing with the racket -- developed by Southern California inventor Lionel Burt -- in 2007, teamed for this Open with Ryler DeHeart, who refuses to even pick up the racket -- much less swing it -- for fear that it will mangle his stroke. In the locker room before Tuesday's match, Battistone showed "The Natural" to Rafael Nadal, said it would be a natural for him, and Nadal took a few swings. Whether that had anything to do with his surprising difficulty that night with unranked first-round opponent Teymuraz Gabashvili isn't clear, but Nadal said after that such a racket was, well, crazy.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/sl_price/09/03/bopanna.qureshi/index.html?eref=si_tennis&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fsi_tennis+%28SI.com+-+Tennis%29&utm_content=Google+Reader#ixzz0yTydJG7t

BETWEEN THE LEGS

SERENA FOOTFAULTED - - AGAIN??

NYTIMES 

Article on Serena's injured foot.

Jesse Witten Wins 1st Qualie Round

Next round for Jesse is tomorrow, Friday.

A SHOKING LOSS - NOT!!!

 

Both Serena and Venus were subjected to psychological abuse at the mouth of their father, and probably physical abuse at his hands. Their Mom had been admitted to hospital twice with broken ribs.

Champions they are, but only if they feel unthreatened. Leading a match, they will run roughshod over their opponents.

But if their opposition can stay close, their internal temperature rises and an implosion is not far off. Today, was a stellar example.

Tsvetana Pironkova - WHO? - of Bulgaria, stayed close and Venus shattered like glass on rock. Double faults, missed put-aways - it was ugly [more than most women's matches].

Serena could have gone the same way, but struggled past Na Li [7-6, 6-3].

Women's tennis is mediocre, but most matches devolve into psychodramas.

Martina Navratilova was the same - in tears and the match not yet finished.

It's difficult to name any balanced woman player - Kim Clijsters only comes to mind.

Tom Tebbutt in today's Globe touted Serena's mental toughness.

Quite the opposite, Tom, she has an Achilles' head!

WIMBLEDON KEY DATES

June 7, 2010: Wild card announcements start, LTA wild card play-off begins.

June 14, 2010: Qualifying begins.

June 16, 2010: (12 noon) Seedings announced.

June 17, 2010: Qualifying ends.

June 18, 2010: (10 am): Official draw.

July 3, 2010: (from 2pm, weather permitting): Ladies' singles final, men's doubles final, ladies' doubles final.

July 4, 2010: (from 2pm, weather permitting): Men's singles final, mixed doubles final.