Photo source: Yahoo! News/AP Photo/Rick Stevens
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Serena: Australian Open IV
Serena dropped only one set: to Kutzi in the quarters 5-7 7-5 6-1. Dinari Safina had a three set second round, a three set fourth round (against Alize Cornet of France) that Dinari barely survived, a three setter against Jelena Dokic in the quarters, and then 6-3 7-6 (7-4) in the semis when it finally dawned on her that she needed to play to get off the court. Hey, with Serena in the finals it was 6-0 6-3. Photo source: Yahoo! News/AP Photo/Dita Alangkara
So the ROCians (Hsieh Su-wei, in blue) and PROCians (Peng Shuai) speak the same dialect after all (even if it's English)
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Serena and Venus take the doubles, yes, but over . . . Ai Sugiyama and the Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia
The women's double tournament at the Australian Open has been just incredible throughout. First there was the team of Su-Wei Hsieh(ROC) and Shuai Peng (PROC), who suprisingly enough were the number 16 seed: tennis diplomacy off the table? The first two rounds unfolded pretty much according to the rankings, but in round three Hsieh and Peng took out the number 2 seed Spain's Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual while the number 3 seed USA's Lisa Raymond and co lost to France's Nathalie Dechy and co. In the quarters the Hantuyama unit as they are called sent the no. 1 seed home, while Serena and Venus took a little while with Hsieh and Peng. I stopped keeping up at that point, because I saw that Serena and Venus faced Francesca Schiavone and partner in the next round. Francesca Schiavone can be tough, but Serena and Venus handled the team 6-0 6-2. The Hantuyama unit sent Nathalie Dechy and Italy's Mara Santangelo packing. That's good tennis.
Is this a big vote of no confidence in US figure skating or what?
I still do not know what happened with the broadcast schedule for the US figure skating championship last week. The two hour segment that I saw was the men's short and long (I didn't actually watch it, but checked in several times to see if any other groups were skating), and icenetwork.com blacked out its webcast during the same period. I don't know the schedule. I am trying not to stumble into it, because I would rather watch the webcast not knowing who won anything.
But that's just the point: In a week's time, I have stumbled into nothing about US figure skating. There's a two hour NBC segment scheduled for 12 hours from now, but that . . . is very strange. In the past, a broadcast a week later would be . . . exhibitions.
Hmmmm.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Australian Open '09: first four rounds
Round One: Powerful ninth seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland out to Kateryna Bondarenko of the Bondarenko twins doubles team: that is almost a joke. Round Two: (You have to gain some composure from the Radwanska result for this): number six seed Venus out to Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro. (I told you to get composured.)
Round Three: PRC's Jie Zheng takes out Kateryna Bondarenko, while Kutzi takes out her sister. Hmmmm, this bears watching this year: France's Alize Cornet (no. 15 seed) (pictured) took out no. 19 the Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia. France, hmmmm. Alize (please do not even think a French hope in France.) Ana Ivanovic (the no. 5 seed) out. Jelena Dokic 3-6 6-1 6-2 over eleventh seeded Caroline Wozniacki. Marion Bartoli (another French), who I expect to do well this year, on to meet Jelena Jankovic.
Round Four: Marion Bartoli defeats Jelena Jankovic 6-1 6-4. Jelena Dokic on to the quarter-finals of the year's first major 7-5 5-7 8-6 over Russia's Alisa Kleybanova. Jie Zheng retired in the first set, waving through the Russian Kutzi to meet Serena in the quarters. All in all, a superb image surfing op.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
No Emily Hughes but not last year's Zhang either: the results after the short
New York Times: Injuries Force Meissner and Hughes to Pull Out of Nationals. Whatever may happen at worlds in LA, Ca next month, don't be surprised if there is an American ladies figure skating Olympic gold 13 months from now. Don't have time to search to find out what happened with what I thought was to be two nights of prime time coverage on NBC, but thanks for making within slacker get off said butt and get that icenetwork.com subscription he's talked about for more months than it is propitious to recount. 'Da bomb! Way to go.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
new jelena news pics
Back on August 28, 2007, I mentioned that Roberta Flack, who was one of "nearly two dozen other pioneering black women" (ESPN) honoring Althea Gibson on the fiftieth anniversary of Ms. Gibson's US nationals title, is one of my favorite singers. Just before Christmas, I passed a nice little covey hole in the lower end of downtown Houston I frequented regularly a while ago. Despite the fact that now it is next to a deeper ditch where important city negroes eat, I stopped to look in. It was still nice. Wine coolers were not bottled for consumers then, and theirs were delicious. In fact, the place is a Mexican restaurant now, but at least it is open again after . . . decades . . . of closure. But what drew me to that place then- I always went alone and always sat alone- was one tune on their box I could find nowhere else: "Trade Winds" by Roberta. Then I was more considerate, and I played it only intermittently (now I'd dropped a role of quarters in and could care less.)
But after just popping my head into the place a couple of weeks ago, I felt a strong compunction to try a search again, for the grazillioneth time. I got home, the impetus was still there, so I started typing: T-r-a-d-e and the search engine clue beneath showed "Tradewind". I had always entered it as two words, so when I saw that I immediately clicked it, and voila! Not only, but searching on showed that there might be Roberta (that's albums (note plural)) I may not have heard. Albums. (Okay, their cds now.)
I've been really calm. It's been 10 days, and I'll go Monday and check at the post office. I'll start with these three, then dig through my . . . albums . . . to check on the others I saw.
This has happened before: I have an obsession to bring the works of Talcott Parsons into the practical. I spent of all of January 1, 2000, and days after searching: nothing. Three years later, I tried again, and I now have an extensive Talcott Parsons collection. (I have finally stopped beating myself over the head at learning, after his death, that he was at Berkeley when I was there. My escape was the graduate social science library, and he was there. Just two questions, three tops!)
Hey, does it get better.
New Jelena news pics. She lost to former world number one Amelie Mauresmo in a tough one 7-6 (11-9) 7-6 (7-5) in the first round of Brisbane on January 5th.
We Dokic fans are a stalwart bunch.
Photo sources: (both) Yahoo! News\AP Photo\Steve Holland
Second after the short and Yu-Na Kim on her home turf, Mao Asada nonetheless reigned over the Grand Prix
| FPl. | Name | Nat. | Points | SP | FS | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mao ASADA |
| 188.55 | 2 | 1 | |||
| 2 | Yu-Na KIM |
| 186.35 | 1 | 2 | |||
| 3 | Carolina KOSTNER |
| 168.01 | 4 | 4 | |||
| 4 | Joannie ROCHETTE |
| 166.36 | 6 | 3 | |||
| 5 | Yukari NAKANO |
| 161.93 | 3 | 6 | |||
| 6 | Miki ANDO |
| 158.25 | 5 | 5 |
where "SP" is the short program result and "FS" is the free skate standing. The table was lifted from here, where notice at the bottom that the series in 2009 will not begin with Skate America, but with Skate France. Skate America will be the second to the last event, which, please excuse my cynicism, places it closer to the 2010 Winter Olympics.
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