OT: The Tennis thread

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Milos into the final of the SAP Open against Tommy Haas - Looking to win this tourney for the 3rd straight year. Go Milos!

Raonic reaches SAP Open final for third straight year

 

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Milos just won his 3rd straight SAP Open - Too bad this is the last year of the tourney.

/Did not drop a single set in the last three runs to the Championship.

 

[puckhead]

250 ATP points ought to move him to #12 in the rankings.
(pending if Cilic got any points, which I didn't check)

 

[jstewismybastardson]

... its cdn tennis so why not

sad ... Rebecca Marino could use a hug and her bullies could use a slap ... this story came out yesterday in the NYTimes ... I followed her on twitter ... and I say FOLLOWED because after it came out she deleted her twitter account

Two years ago, at an indoor tournament in Memphis, Rebecca Marino of Vancouver made her first WTA final. Marino, then 20, was seen as a rising star on the tour. She and her countryman, Milos Raonic, who also made the Memphis final that year as a 20-year-old, inspired unprecedented optimism for Canadian tennis.

Powered by a strong first serve and a blistering forehand, Marino had played some of her best tennis on the sport’s biggest stages, including Arthur Ashe Stadium, where she tested Venus Williams in the second round of the 2010 U.S. Open.

“Now I know what it’s like to play myself,” Williams said of Marino after that match.

Ranked as low as No. 192 a year earlier, Marino climbed quickly, reaching a career high of No. 38 in July of 2011.

But with her sudden rise came a spotlight she often found harsh, and occasionally cruel online chatter that overwhelmed her. Marino realized the damaging effect the Internet critiques often had on her, but she still struggled to keep herself from falling into the rabbit hole of columns, comments and fan message boards.

After losing in the first round in Memphis last February, Marino reached a breaking point. She retreated to her family home in Vancouver, leaving the sport behind, unsure if she would return.

She did return, seven months later, after missing three Grand Slam events and a chance to play in her first Olympic Games. Last week she returned to Memphis, losing in a qualifying round match Saturday.

“Things were being written about me, and I’m quite sensitive about that,” Marino said in an interview last week. “And I’m quite nosy, so I’ll look it up. And then I’ll realize I shouldn’t have looked it up.”

She added, “With professional athletes, people put them on a pedestal sometimes, and they forget that they’re actually a person still.”

Marino, who has a soft-spoken, shy demeanour, felt helpless to respond.

“I have a tendency to bottle things up,” she said. “So I would hold it in, and then I would carry it out on court and it would affect my on-court side as well.”

She acknowledged that it was often her own searching of online comments that hurt her. But what bothered her most were messages to her Twitter account sent by people who had lost money betting on her matches.

“They’ll say, ‘You gave that match away, you cost me such-and-such amount of money, you should go burn in hell,’ or ‘You should go die,’” Marino said. “And oh, my gosh, that is really scary.”

Gambling on tennis is common, opening professional players to social-media abuse by bettors. “You know, there’s that saying ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me,’” she said. “But that’s not true. Names definitely hurt. Words hurt.”

After emotional conversations with her coaches and relatives, Marino decided the best option was to take an indefinite break from the tour.

“It was not just about the tennis,” Marino said. “It was about taking care of the person.”

But away from the grind of the tour, Marino grew restless.

“I was just used to being busy and having a purpose,” she said of her first weeks away from tennis. “I would just make up random errands for myself to do.”

Three months into her hiatus, as her ranking fell hundreds of spots, Marino applied for two other jobs: as a cashier at a bakery and as a hostess at a restaurant. At her second interview for the hostess job, Marino discovered that the interviewing manager had played tennis with her while she was growing up.

“He knew I was going to go back to tennis, that I couldn’t just drop it,” she said. “So he didn’t give me the job.”

Shortly after the interview, Marino returned to the courts.

“It was actually really fun to hit with my friends,” she said. “And I was like, well, I still love it, so why don’t I go to the gym and start training a little bit?”

By September, Marino was back to competing. Ranked outside the top 500, she started on the Challenger circuit and won a $25,000 (U.S.) tournament in South Carolina in her fifth event back.

Marino’s subsequent results have not been as strong, but she entered the main draw of the Australian Open by using a protected ranking, which is permitted for singles players ranked in the top 300 who have missed between six months and two years of competition. Though she lost in the first round, there were signs that her skills were still there: her top serve speed of 185 kilometres an hour made her the ninth-fastest server of the 128 women in the field.

“I don’t know if I’ll get back to where I was,” Marino, now ranked No. 422, said. “But you know what? That’s not the point of this. I still want to succeed, of course. But it’s more so I enjoy it, and that I get the most out of it that I can.”

Marino has also returned to Twitter after not sending a single message from her account during her time off. But while she says she remains cautious when it comes to reading responses and online comments, she is less hesitant about speaking out about the hurt they can cause.

“Don’t be afraid of the stigma of it, and talk about it,” she said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. If you’re being bullied, or cyberbullied, or someone’s harassing you, it’s better to be open about it and talk to someone about it than to hold it inside.”

 

[jstewismybastardson]

and this

Arash Madani ‏@ArashMadani
No surprise: Tennis Canada announces the April Davis Cup quarterfinal tie against Italy will be hosted at UBC. Terrific venue.

 

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and this

Arash Madani ‏@ArashMadani
No surprise: Tennis Canada announces the April Davis Cup quarterfinal tie against Italy will be hosted at UBC. Terrific venue.

woot!! Go Canada! Go Milos!

 

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His fitness and footwork is getting better and the consistency with his ground strokes is definitely improving (including return of service). Has a nice volley touch at the net as well. It's early, but 2013 could be a big year for Milos.

 

[jstewismybastardson]

jesus

Bruce Arthur ‏@bruce_arthur
Rebecca Marino once reached 38th in the world in women's tennis, was battered by online vitriol and pressure, and is retiring at 22. Sad.

 

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jesus

Bruce Arthur ‏@bruce_arthur
Rebecca Marino once reached 38th in the world in women's tennis, was battered by online vitriol and pressure, and is retiring at 22. Sad.

That is really too bad, she looked like she was going to have a long career in the women's game.

 

[jstewismybastardson]

Bruce Arthur ‏@bruce_arthur
Clarification: Rebecca Marino may not actually retire, but she's stepping away from the game, again, largely due to cyberbullying

 

[puckhead]

Milos in the round of 16 at Indian Wells (BNP Paribas Open)
took the first set against Jo Wilfred Tsonga

winner probably will have to face Djoker though.

 

[puckhead]

Tsonga comes back and wins the next 2 sets.
Milos let him off the hook with some pretty key unforced errors.

 

[puckhead]

sweet. Federer - Nadal set to meet up
always good fun

 

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Same Davis Cup lineup for Italy that faced Spain - Milos needs to win two singles matches and either Frank the Tank pulls another upset or Canada get a doubles win.

Canada sets lineup for Davis Cup tie against Italy

 

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Jesse Levine in for an injured Frank Dancevic - Go Go

Raonic, Pospisil to play singles in Davis Cup quarters

 

[puckhead]

Pospisil (ranked 140) up 2 sets on Seppi (ranked 18)
this could be pretty durned huge.

 

[puckhead]

ruh roh.. Seppi's come back to square the match.
if nothing else, hopefully a long match takes some gas out of the tank for Italy's anchor.

 

[puckhead]

Seppi cam back and won the last 3.
heck of an effort by young Poposil. Kid's got a future in this game.
too many unforced errors (47-26).

Italy up 1-0. Milos up next

 

[puckhead]

Milos takes the first set in 31 min.
9 aces helps.

 

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Thanks for the updates, puck - Shame about Vasek, that would have been a huge win. Oh well, let's go Milos!