Keeping Up With The US Men's Clay Court

If, like me, you can't be there in person for the last few days of the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championship, there are still lots of ways to follow the action.

1. You can watch it live on the Tennis Channel. Tonight, April 13, two quarterfinal matches will be televised starting at 6 p.m. (Central Time): John Isner vs. Ryan Sweeting (the 2011 Clay Court champ), followed by Spain's Feliciano Lopez vs. Argentina's Carlos Berlocq.  On Saturday, April 14, semifinal singles matches will be televised starting at 1 p.m. and the doubles final will be shown at 6 p.m. The singles final will air on Sunday, April 15, at 2 p.m.

2. You can follow every point of every match by downloading the ATP/WTA Live Scores app to your iPhone or iPad (there is also an Android version but I haven't used that one). You can see a screen shot of this great app above and read about it in this post: Follow ALL The Action With The ATP/WTA Live App. This app is updating the scores in almost real time - there was maybe a 30 to 45 second delay I noticed the other day when watching a match and also following it with the app (I think this qualifies as tennis nerd-dom). And this is also the app that a lot of players use to follow the scores as I found out from Juan Monaco's hitting partner and a German doubles player.

3. You can keep up with winners, losers and check out a few photos by following the official Twitter account for this tournament - @mensclaycourt. While you won't get point by point tweets, you will get the overall big picture plus a fun look at what's happening on the River Oaks Country Club grounds.





© Kim Selzman 2012 All Rights Reserved

Clay Court Tourney Ends For Me And Mardy Fish

So yesterday was the last day at the 2012 U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships for me and Mardy Fish. I can't be there any longer because I have to go out of town. Mardy won't be there because he was beaten by 136th ranked Michael Russell 6-3, 6-1. Russell is from Houston and, while the Clay Court crowd loves Mardy, they also love the hometown boy. Russell faces Ryan Harrison today.

I had to include the photo above because yesterday was one of the Fashion Show luncheon days held at this tournament. This is a photo of the ladies waiting in the valet line to get their cars after the luncheon was over. This photo really doesn't do a good job of showing you the reality of this event - LOTS of ladies in very fancy dresses, very big hats and very high heels who seem to have absolutely no interest in the tennis going on right next to their luncheon. It is a lot of fun to watch them but not much fun to try and drive through them during luncheon time. I had at least two players ask me why I wasn't at the luncheon. Maybe in Europe the tournament drivers dress a lot better (my uniform is one of the things that precludes me from going - baggy Fila shirt, khaki shorts and tennis shoes).

The best part of my last day? I got to drive Sam Querrey and he is definitely now one of my most-favorite players to follow. He was so sweet and laid back when I drove him so it just killed me to see him get beat in a tiebreaker with South Africa's Kevin Anderson. Here are my "action" photos of Querrey:

He is 6'6" and seems huge when he's sitting next to you in a car but then it turns out all of these guys are huge and Querrey is not the tallest by any means (Anderson is 6'8", Isner is 6'9" and Ivo Karlovic, who is still alive in doubles, is 6'10").

FYI - I am lately into using the Camera + app to take all my iPhone photos because I love the quirky little editing features - especially the Offset border I've been using for all my Clay Court photos. The photos aren't that great, but isn't the border cute?

Anyway, Querrey lost his singles match but went on to play doubles later with James Blake, beating the Number 1 seeded team of Alex Bogomolov, Jr. (Russia) and Scott Lipsky (U.S.). So Sam Querrey is still alive and plays today at 4:30 p.m.!

Other fun things - I drove some ATP scoring trainees to the tournament. I think that's what they were anyway. They had very thick French accents and when I asked them about some of the problems I had seen with one of the score boards, they told me, "Zat is not our fault! Zee net is not controlled by us! We are at zee mercy of zee net contractors!" or something like that. I have no idea what all of the jobs are that you can have with the ATP but that seems like a fun one.

I also got to drive a German doubles team to the mall. I'm not sure who they were and they may have already lost and just be hanging out. But they were very fun and had some great ideas about what is appropriate for college students to be drinking these days (sometimes you get to talk about things other than tennis when driving).

I am so sad that my time is up at the Clay Courts. I actually got a call last night asking me if I could drive some extra shifts (I guess I am a desirable driver. Or I am known as someone who will work for free.) but unfortunately I have to return to my normal non-ATP life. My final thought - good luck to Sam Querrey and James Blake in their doubles quest. That would be so incredible if they won!




© Kim Selzman 2012 All Rights Reserved

I Love My Job! (US Men's Clay Court Update)

Well, I have been driving my Lexus off this week taking players back and forth for the ATP US Men's Clay Court tournament at River Oaks Country Club here in Houston, Texas. This is absolutely one of the most fun volunteer jobs you could ever hope for if you are a tennis fan. While I still have some driving left to do this week, here are a few highlights so far:

I got to see lots of Tommy Haas, both practicing and playing, before he withdrew during qualifying due to a right knee injury. Here's a photo of him during his qualifying match:

Here he is after the match, looking pretty fresh despite the fact that it was about 90 degrees outside and he had just played two not un-challenging sets:

He is incredibly good looking and these photos, taken by me with my iPhone because I'm too lazy to use a real camera, don't do him justice.

Other highlights - Ivo Karlovic is back! Yay!! And he is not a qualifier this year - he is the the 8th seed in the tournament and I think he is ranked something like No. 41 by the ATP right now. I watched him play doubles today, which he won, so I hope he will be around for awhile. Here he is serving in his doubles match, partnered up with Germany's Franky Moser:

For some reason, these photos don't look nearly as good as I think they do when I'm taking them.

Other fun things I've done - I got to drive Wayne Bryan around. He's the father of the Bryan Brothers and is here to kind of MC the center court matches. He is very nice and explained to me the Bryan Brothers clay court season schedule and why they couldn't make this tournament this year.

Also, I got to pick up Juan Monaco from the airport and drive him to the club - so cute! He is seeded No. 4 for this tournament and is ranked something like No. 12 so I'm sure I'll see more of him.

Finally, I almost got to drive Feliciano Lopez to Starbucks but I hesitated because I wasn't sure where the Starbucks was and some other driver jumped on the chance. A woman driver of course. Oh well.

I'll keep trying on the photos and see if I can get something really good. For a change.




© Kim Selzman 2012 All Rights Reserved

Free Tennis Tips With USPTA's iPhone App!

I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve my tennis game that are not only fun to use and easy to understand, but are absolutely free. And here's the latest one I've found - the United States Professional Tennis Association's Tennis Tips app for the iPhone and iPad.

I just downloaded this today so I've barely had time to work my way through it but I can already tell, there is lots and lots of good stuff here. Since it's coming from the USPTA, the world's largest and oldest association of tennis-teaching professionals, the incredible content should be no surprise.

The tips cover anything and everything related to tennis - fitness, drills, specific shots, singles, doubles, tactics, strategy. Here's a screen shot showing a quick sample of the tennis tips you can choose from:

Not only are there plenty of tips, but many of them include short videos demonstrating drills or shots, making the instruction that much easier to understand. Just to give you an idea, here's a screen shot from the "snake drill" video, a drill designed to improve your approach shot and finishing volley skills:

The videos are narrated by USPTA pros so you get the idea of what you're supposed to be doing very quickly.

I can see myself cruising around all of the tips in this app while waiting around to play a match. Or actually while I'm waiting to do anything (doctor's office, restaurant, driver's license renewal). And I hope you're noticing the early morning time on those screen shots above - I'm ALWAYS thinking about tennis.

Consider this my early Christmas gift to you - the USPTA Tennis Tips app, totally free courtesy of Tennis Fixation (and the USPTA, of course). You can find it by searching for "tennis tips" in the App Store.




© Kim Selzman 2011 All Rights Reserved

Tennis Fixation's U.S. Open Wrap-Up

Just so you know, I didn't check out on the 2011 U.S. Open. Oh no. Instead, I wasn't posting about it because I was completely overwhelmed by it. As usual. And that feeling of "it's all just too much" did not go away until the entire thing ended yesterday.

But now that its all over, I want to be sure and get out my Tennis Fixation memorable 2011 U.S. Open moments:

• It's always great to see which Hollywood super star will show up at the U.S. Open (a lot of them do) but seeing True Blood's Eric Northman, actor Alexander Skarsgard, on the grounds on Day 2 (see photo above, what a cutie!) would make anyone a tennis fan (or maybe a True Blood fan).
• How could Bob & Mike Bryan possibly have been knocked out of the U.S. Open in Round 1? Well, they were, by one of my U.S. Men's Clay Court Tournament favs - Ivo Karlovic (and his partner, of course, whose name I can't remember).
• I didn't even have a chance to dis Venus Williams' awful dress with large pink exposed zipper on the back. She played Round 1 and then withdrew from the tournament after announcing she had been diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease that can cause joint pain, swelling, numbness and fatigue. I hope this will not be the end of her and her tennis/fashion-designing career.
• I personally was excited that Australian Samantha Stosur won the women's singles. She was due for a breakthrough and just think of all the pressure she'll now have on her for the next Slam - the 2012 Australian Open. I liked her outfit from Lacoste too. Here she is in her very cute dress (please note the size of her arms!):

• This same dress was worn by a couple of other players but with the colors switched around. Here it is on Yaroslava Shvedova, a finalist in women's doubles (again, note huge arms):

• I'm usually not a fan of Adidas tennis wear for women as I find it kind of boring. But many women at the U.S. Open were wearing Adidas in one of my favorite ever color combos - a bright bubblegum pink (called "Intense Pink") and turquoise (called "Intense Blue").  Hey Adidas - just sticking the word "Intense" in front of a color does not make me feel like I'm getting my money's worth. Get creative a la Nike. Anyway, here is break-out German superstar Andrea Petkovic in this outfit (her arms are downright scary!):

•  Finally, didn't you feel like you were seeing the beginning of the end for a certain generation of American tennis players? So many American teenagers were out there winning and I think they will all start coming into their own. Let's hope so - things are not going to get any better for Andy Roddick or Mardy Fish.

By the way, at this time, I am not going to address the whole "hindrance" issue that occurred with Serena Williams in the 2nd set of the final as I want to take that up in a separate post. Believe it or not, I think she did something that a lot of us do all the time but I don't think anyone, least of all Serena, should be getting away with it.


Photos by Philip Hall, Rob Loud, Andrew Ong and Don Starr, all of USTA via www.usta.org



© Kim Selzman 2011 All Rights Reserved

Tip From The Pro: Counteracting The Baseline Lobber In Doubles

This is a guest post from Brian Montez, tennis pro and owner of K Factor Sports. Brian is a teaching pro working with players of all levels and abilities, from kids to adults, beginners to open-level, and everything in between. Here, Brian gives a great tip for dealing with lobbers.


How do you get out of a rally with a baseline player that lobs the ball every time they hit it you? Attack! Don't be afraid to take the ball out of the air and attack to the net player's alley or angle the ball off and away from the baseliner, forcing that person to move out of position and opening up the court. You should never stay at the baseline and hit it right back to the lobber because they will only continue to lob. Playing the lob game will cause you much frustration and take you out of your game!


DON'T FORGET: Leave a comment on this post to enter the Tennis Fixation Super Giveaway Extravaganza for a copy of the tennis instruction book Bring Your Racquet. Go to this post - Tennis For Kids Made Easy In Bring Your Racquet - for info on how to get more entries!



© Kim Selzman 2011 All Rights Reserved

More Fun At The U.S. Men's Clay Courts!

My last day at the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships was my most fun day. Highlights included:

• I got to drive Ivo Karlovic one last time. He plays his semi-final match against American John Isner tonight. I'm sorry America. I'm rooting for Ivo because he is so nice. I'm sure John Isner is nice too but he has his own car.
• I got to see just a few minutes of Kei Nishikori's victory over Russian Igor Andreev.
• I got to hear the Bryan Brothers band!
• I got to drive a really cute kid around. His name is Andrea Collarini. He is 19, grew up in Argentina, plays for the U.S., trains with the USTA and - bonus - he was a finalist in the French Open Boys' Singles (he lost 4-6, 5-7 so it was a good match). Apparently, the last American boy to win the French Open Juniors was John McEnroe so I was impressed with Andrea's status as a finalist. He is now one of my new players-to-follow.
• I got to watch Mardy Fish win his match against Spain's Albert Ramos. I'm told that if Fish wins this tournament, he will break into the ATP Top 10!
• I got to watch John Isner and Sam Querry defeat fellow Americans Donald Young and Denis Kudla in doubles. 
• And the No. 1 fun thing I did yesterday - I got to sneak into the Lexus Pavilion with two of my friends, who apparently have no pride, morals or scruples, and enjoy free drinks and food while watching the doubles match. I hope no one at the tournament finds out although I kept waiting for someone to ask me to leave since I was in my "volunteer" get-up (not attractive, about one step above janitor duds) and everyone else in the Lexus Pavilion was way over-dressed.

Sadly, after all of this hard work, I am leaving town for the weekend and won't get to see the completion of the tournament. Oh well.

The good news is I took a bunch of photos with my camera and my Blackberry yesterday - all pretty terrible but the one above is a decent one I got of Mardy Fish (obviously I'm very loose on the definition of "decent"). I took some video with my Team 4all Flip camera and, based on those results, I will not be pursuing a career in videography any time soon. But I'm going to post my video clips to my Tennis Fixation YouTube channel just for fun. (Yes, that's right. I have a YouTube channel - don't ask me why. You can visit it by clicking here: The TennisFixation Channel.)

Just for fun - here is a photo of cutie-pie and up-and-comer Andrea Collarini from his finals match at Roland Garros. I just wanted him to get some Tennis Fixation recognition for his efforts. And for being very sweet when they didn't have his post-workout-recovery drink when we went to get it at GNC!

Photo via www.2010.rolandgarros.com

© Kim Selzman 2011 All Rights Reserved

Update On U.S. Men's Clay Court Tournament

I'm still driving for the U.S. Men's Clay Court Tournament. Who knew driving a Lexus for 6 to 7 hours a day could be so exhausting?

I did get to watch a little bit of tennis yesterday. I saw the end of the Kei Nishikori vs. Franco Skugor match. This was a hard one for me - I was supporting Skugor because I had driven him and that is the only requirement for me to be your fan at this tournament - that you've been in my car. But I also wanted to see Nishikori win because:

• he's an up and coming player from Japan, currently ranked No. 61;
• he's working to raise money for the recent tsunami disaster victims in Japan, check it out here - Kei Nishikori - Help Japan; and
• he wears Uniqlo tennis wear which I posted about here - Uniqlo Gets Into The Tennis Game.

In the end, Nishikori took the match 6-3, 6-2.

The best part? I finally got to take some pictures! They aren't very good and I was fooling with the focus and the sounds the whole time, but here's what I got.

Nishikori set up for a return:

Nishikori's service motion:

Skugor, who is huge, hits a return:

Nishikori, mobbed by fans, after his win:

Obviously, I am not a professional photographer. I'm going to try and take some video today if I can turn off the sound on my Flip. That may beyond my technical capabilities, however. We'll see.



© Kim Selzman 2011 All Rights Reserved

I Heart The US Men's Clay Court Championship!

I have spent the past 4 days as a volunteer driver for the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championship at River Oaks Country Club and, for me at least, it has been so fun! I have had the chance to see and speak with more ATP players in the last few days than I'm sure I will ever again. I discussed my latest doubles match with a ranked ATP player from South Africa! I can't remember his name but how great was that? For me anyway. He probably thought, "Where do they come up with these nutty drivers?"

Anyway, I'm back to driving again today. This is the final day of qualifying - the guys who win today will take the 4 spots into the Main Draw that are open to qualifiers. On Saturday, there were 32 qualifiers playing and by the end of today, there will only be 4. I have learned a lot about the whole qualifying process from one of the chair umpires that I drove and from a player's wife. It is brutal.

So, here is a quick and very incomplete list of some of the players I've gotten to drive with these past few days:

• picked up Ivo Karlovic of Croatia from the airport; at 6'10", I figured he would be easy to spot but one of the Final 4 basketball teams happened to arrive at the same time as he did; suddenly, there were LOTS of very tall, very athletic guys coming out of the airport; he is currently ranked a low No. 174 due to injuries but I saw him play yesterday - he hit 29 aces to win his match; he is playing Donald Young today for one of the Main Draw spots;
• drove Paul Capedeville of Chile and his coach, I even got to take his coach to GNC for whatever special post-recovery sports drink it is that Paul likes, he is currently ranked No. 138 and plays today for one of the spots in the Main Draw;
• drove Franco Skugor of Croatia, currently ranked No. 149, he was so quiet I thought he must have lost his match but he too is playing today for one of the Main Draw spots;
• drove Grega Zemlja of Slovenia, he was so nice and now I know where Slovenia is (near Italy);
• drove Guillermo Canas of Argentina a few times, he's coaching;
• drove Carlos Berlocq of Argentina and his wife and baby, he is into the Main Draw already as his current ranking is No. 72;
• drove Jonathan Erlich of Israel, he is ranked No. 46 in doubles and was very nice and very convincing in telling me why I need to visit Israel;
• saw Mardy Fish, the No. 1 seed for this tournament, he gets his own car so I won't get to drive him and pester him about my tennis matches.

Every one that I've driven, without exception, has been so nice and polite and they don't appear to be bothered by my incessant chatting. Maybe they're just good at keeping up appearances. Anyway, my rule is that if I drive them, I root for them. So today, I'm supporting Ivo Karlovic, Paul Capdeville and Franco Skugor. I'm going early to watch some of the matches and hope to get some pics to post here. I used my cell phone to take pictures of Ivo hitting his 29 aces yesterday but my photos were SO bad that I'm not even going to try to show you those. Hopefully, good pics today.

Also - I'm figuring out who is the winner of the latest Tennis Fixation Giveaway for the 4allbyjofit skort. I'll try to post that today and definitely no later than tomorrow!



© Kim Selzman 2011 All Rights Reserved

Follow ALL The Action With The ATP/WTA Live App

If you want to be absolutely on top of what is happening in the world of pro tennis, its easy during the Slams because each Slam has its own app. But what about the rest of the year? What about those other tournaments? Well, now there's an app for that.

I just downloaded the ATP/WTA Live app to my iTouch. (Yes, I admit it - I don't have an iPhone yet. I'm still using a Blackberry. Which i happen to like.) Right now, the BNP Paribas Open is going on in Indian Wells. And this app is feeding me the draw, the order of play, completed match scores, live scores, and live match statistics. So I can see that, at this very moment, Melanie Oudin is up 2 points in her first set tiebreaker against Elena Vesnina. I can even see that Elena just faulted on her first serve and is hitting a second. Pretty amazing!

I can also see what's happening on the Challenger Tour so I'll be able to keep up with some of those up-and-coming players I keep hearing about.

And I can check the most current ATP and WTA rankings. That's how I know that Bethanie Mattek-Sands, a player I love to follow, is currently ranked No. 43 in WTA singles, the third highest US woman behind Venus Williams (No. 8) and Serena Williams (No. 11).  

The best thing about this app? It's free. All of the good ones are. So download the ATP/WTA Live app and keep up with ALL of the tennis action.






© Kim Selzman 2011 All Rights Reserved

Make Every Lesson Your Best Tennis Lesson Ever!

This is Part 5 of a series on getting the most from your tennis lessons.

Let's face it - when you have a tennis lesson, you're being bossed around. Your tennis coach tells you to run over here, serve over there, hit this shot, aim for that target. And you do most of this, or at least you attempt to do most of this, no questions asked.

But don't forget who the boss really is out on the court. Don't forget who is paying for that lesson. Not your coach, right? It's you! And you need to make sure that you are getting your money's worth out of each and every lesson you have. You need to make sure that every tennis lesson you have is a great tennis lesson. Here's how to do that:

1. Communicate your goals to your coach. In the last post in this series (click here for that - Get A Goal And Get More From Your Tennis Lessons),  we discussed the importance of having a goal for your lessons. Make sure your coach knows what your goal is and that he is designing drills to help you get to that goal.  So if you want to work on your serve, some time should be spent with you hitting serves. Obviously. But those serve drills should be not only you standing at the baseline, hitting serves while your coach stands there and critiques you, but should also include some live ball drills where you serve and then play out points against your coach.

2. Ask questions during your lesson. While you want most of your lesson to consist of you hitting balls, you need to spend some time talking to your coach and asking questions. Now, I ask a lot of questions during my lessons, probably way more than is necessary. But I know my coach has played since he was a kid, I know he plays singles and doubles, and I know he's pretty smart about tennis (although I would never admit that to him). So I want to know what he thinks about some of the situations I come up against in match play. I want to know when to hit my backhand with top spin and when to slice. I want to know how much to pronate on my serve and what does that mean anyway. Talking with him and asking lots of questions is a good way to get expert advice on the specific situations that I come up against again and again.


3. Learn something in each lesson AND write it down! I try to take away at least one thing from each of my lessons. It may be something major - apply spin when hitting an overhead (that was major for me anyway). It may be something very minor - wear a better hat on sunny days. I then jot down these lesson points on a notepad I keep in my tennis bag just for this purpose. I do this because, even though I think I'm really smart and will remember everything I learn in my tennis lesson, the truth is - I won't. But if you do this - learn something AND write it down - you will soon have a great list of tips specific to your game that you can pull out and review before your matches. And maybe one day, like me, you'll type it up into your own personal cheat sheet (read this post - Keeping A Personal Cheat Sheet - for info on that great idea)!

4. Apply what you learn outside your lesson. This is really the hardest part of taking tennis lessons. When you are learning something new, it very likely will mean changing your old way of doing things. I've actually witnessed someone else taking a lesson, arguing with their pro why their way of hitting a backhand was better than the way the pro was trying to teach them. Ladies - if this is you, you're wasting your money taking lessons. Face it - want to get a better backhand? You might have to change your grip. And that new grip is going to feel awkward and uncomfortable for quite some time. But if you don't put it into play and you keep using your same old backhand grip, well, your backhand is never going to improve. So accept the awkwardness. Ignore the fact that you are going to have some trouble with that backhand for a little while (or whatever it is you're working on). Apply what you're learning in your tennis lesson to your tennis game and have faith that you will soon see the improvement.



Want to read other posts in this series? Just click on these titles and find out how to get the most from your tennis lessons:

Part 1 - Federer Hired A Tennis Coach - Should You?
Part 2 - Where, Oh Where, Can I Find A Great Tennis Coach?
Part 3 - Eenie, Meenie, Miney - Tennis Coach!
Part 4 - Get A Goal And Get More From Your Tennis Lessons



© Kim Selzman 2011 All Rights Reserved

Tip From The Pro: Improve Your Toss, Improve Your Serve

This is a guest post from Brian Montez, tennis pro and owner of K Factor Sports. Brian is a teaching pro working with players of all levels and abilities, from kids to adults, beginners to open-level, and everything in between. Here, Brian gives a great tip for improving your serve.


Without a good toss, your serve will be inconsistent. To improve your toss, first, place your toss correctly. To do this, imagine yourself in the middle of a clock and noon is directly perpendicular to the net from where you line up for your serve. If you are a righty, your toss should be at 1 p.m. If you're a lefty, your toss should be at 11 a.m. (since you will be facing in the opposite direction from a righty).

Next, adjust how far in front of you that you place your toss. There is a difference here between the first and second serve. Since you usually want a more aggressive first serve, your toss should be farther in front, but still located at the correct "time" for either a righty or lefty. Your second serve needs to be more consistent, so your toss should be a little closer in. And add some spin for more net clearance.

Developing a good first serve and a super reliable second serve is key. Just getting the second serve in is not good enough. You must develop confidence in the spin, depth, and placement of your serve, so that your opponent does not eat up the second serve every time!




© Kim Selzman 2011 All Rights Reserved

Roddick's Tennis Art Brings In Biggest Bucks for Charity

Well, guess who was the big winner in the ATP's "Art of Tennis" charity fundraiser? Not the usual suspects - Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal. Nope, it turned out to be Andy Roddick!

While Andy didn't make it too far in the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals (Federer won the tournament), the piece of art he created drew the highest bid, selling for $33,100! All of the money raised by all of the players went to benefit charity, with 50% of the proceeds going to the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals official charity - Save The Children - and the other 50% going to each player's chosen charity. Roddick's is, of course, the "Andy Roddick Foundation." You can see Andy's handiwork in the pic to the left - not sure this is the look I'm going for in my own home but obviously someone thought it was worthwhile.

FYI - I did some looking on eBay, where these items were sold, to try and figure out who came out the winner of Roddick's piece. But I can't tell - all I can say it was someone who shops on eBay quite a bit as they have an eBay "blue star."

Here's how the art produced by the other players fared:

2. Roger Federer - $27,300
3. Rafael Nadal - $26,500
4. Novak Djokovic - $22,103
5. Andy Murray - $7,301
6. Robin Soderling - $5,100
7. David Ferrer - $3,350
8. Tomas Berdych - $3,001

My conclusion to all of this - Yay for Andy Roddick for beating everyone else at something for a change!



© Kim Selzman 2010 All Rights Reserved

Happy Black Friday! Tennis Art For Sale!

It's Black Friday - the biggest shopping day of the year! Instead of joining the throng at the mall to save $5 on pajamas, go for something truly unique, feed your Tennis Fixation and support the charity of your favorite tennis star - all at the same time!

While the stars of the ATP play in the 2010 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, an auction of art created by them is going on. Each of the players recently created a unique piece of art by hitting paint-covered tennis balls against large canvases. Each canvas was then overlaid with a stenciled image of the star, ultimately revealing a one-of-a-kind self-portrait.

Just to give you an idea of how all of this worked, check out these photos. Here's Roger Federer working on his piece:

And here he is with the stencil:

Here's Rafael Nadal with his piece:

And here's Andy Murray with his piece:

Want to see these cool pieces or actually place a bid? Just click on this link: ATP Art of Tennis. You'll be taken to the site where you can bid, through eBay, and you can check out more images showing these "artists" at work.

The other cool part of this is that, as you probably would guess, they're doing it all for charity. All proceeds from the art as well as autographed racquets used by the players will benefit charity, with 50% of the proceeds going to the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals official tournament charity – Save The Children – and the other 50% going to each player’s chosen charity.

So spend your Black Friday supporting your fav tennis stars, checking out some awesome art and shopping for charity! And do it soon - all of these pieces will be sold by the end of the ATP Finals - November 28.




© Kim Selzman 2010 All Rights Reserved

Eenie, Meenie, Miney - Tennis Coach!

This is Part 3 of a series on finding and getting the most from your tennis lessons.

So, you've decided to spend the time and money on private lessons. You're looking for a great tennis coach. You've even come up with a list of potential coaches. But how do you find the one that's right for you?

1. Give all of your potential coaches a call. While this seems obvious, I know plenty of people taking lessons from coaches they never spoke to prior to their first paid-for lesson. People like, ummm . . .  me! But you can learn quite a bit by just making this phone call and you most likely will weed out one or two potential candidates just based on your phone conversation.

2. Ask for AND talk to references. Before you commit to a coach, ask him to give you some references who you can call. Don't be embarrassed about this. A good coach should have several names to give you, people he teaches who won't mind spending some time talking to you. If your potential coach avoids giving you references, avoid that coach.

3. Talk to other students. So you get some references. Give them a call! Don't  avoid the hassle. You're potentially entering into a long term relationship with this coach. Do your homework and make the calls asking - How long has the student taken with this coach? What are her work habits like? Is she always on time? Does she cancel at the last minute? What are her strengths? Weaknesses? What to they really like about her? What do they hate?

4. Watch some lessons. This is such an easy and cheap way to find out what a coach is like. You may feel weird about it, you might think you're disrupting the lesson, but most people won't have any problem with this. And I'm not talking about sitting there staring at a one hour lesson. Just drop by for 15 to 20 minutes in the middle of a lesson to see what's happening and see if this lesson represents the kind of lesson you want to take.

5. Take a lesson. After doing all (or even some) of the above, just go ahead and take a lesson. And pay for it. No coach is obligated to give you some kind of free try-it-out lesson and you shouldn't expect that. It's their business after all!. But you also don't have to get into a long-term relationship right off the bat. So take the test drive, see if you click with the coach you've honed in on. Do you understand what's happening during the lesson? Do the instructions make sense? Are you getting too much talking and not enough hitting? Are your questions being answered? The actual lesson experience should tell you whether this is the coach for you.

Want to read other posts in this series? Just click on these titles and find out how to get the most from your tennis lessons:

Part 1 - Federer Hired A Tennis Coach - Should You?
Part 2 - Where, Oh Where, Can I Find A Great Tennis Coach?





© Kim Selzman 2010 All Rights Reserved

How I Get Coached By The Bryan Brothers

If only you had a tennis coach you could call upon anytime, day or night. Someone who would always be there for a last-minute stroke tune-up right before a match. A coach who could show you step-by-step exactly how to hit that two-handed backhand return, even if you want to know how to do that in the middle of the night. If only you could get coached by the Bryan Brothers. Well, your wish is granted! Simply download The Tennis App for your iPhone, iTouch or iPad and your own personal tennis coach is just a touch or two away.

I've searched and looked at every tennis app available for my iTouch and this is, hands down, the best thing out there. It's completely interactive. It shows you how to hit every, single important stroke in tennis. And, in many videos, it features the very cute and very Slam-winning doubles team of Bob and Mike Bryan.

The Tennis App provides you with what seems like a gazillion videos from the Bryans and several other top-level touring players showing you how to hit incredible tennis shots. You want to see how to hit a really great topspin forehand? Well, download that stroke and you can see Bob Bryan doing just that in three different videos - from the front, the back and the side. And you can slow each of those videos WAY down to see him hit the shot frame by frame by frame. Comments and tips are included with the videos so even us less-than-stellar players can figure out exactly what Bob is doing.

But maybe you like Mike better and want to see his topspin forehand. Guess what? The same series of videos is available with Mike. Other featured players include Jelenda Jankovic and Anna Chakvetadze so you know you're getting high quality stuff.

Sounds good but what if you're a lefty and you don't think all of these prejudiced-towards-the-right-handed-player videos will work for you? Just scroll down to the Preferences and select "Left Handed" to see all of this stuff from a lefty's perspective. How cool is that? I'm impressed and I'm right-handed.

And there's more! There's a "News & Info" section, giving you up-to-date tennis news, player tweets, ATP and WTA rankings and live scores when matches are happening.

What is my absolute favorite part of the Tennis App? Believe it or not, it's free! All of this stuff costs you nothing! I actually paid good money for my Bejeweled 2 app so I'm amazed that I'm getting everything the Tennis App offers for free.

My recommendation? Download this app NOW. These guys are going to figure out what a valuable little item this is and I'm sure it won't be free for long!


This Tennis Fixation post originally appeared on one of my favorite tennis web sites: Strawberries & Scream.


Photo: www.thetennisapp.com





© Kim Selzman 2010 All Rights Reserved

Serena Williams Receives $175,000 Fine and Probation for US Open Outburst

So the conclusion of the whole Serena Williams thing is that the ITF has decided she will receive a $175,000 fine and two years of probation. Good behavior will result in her fine being reduced by half if she does not commit another major offense prior to 2011 (so her fine is really more like $87,500). Read all about it here: Serena Williams Receives $175,000 Fine and Probation for US Open Outburst - On the Baseline Tennis News.

Posted using ShareThis.

In my opinion, this doesn't seem like a very stiff penalty, all things considered monetarily for Serena. I just wonder if we will see that particular lineswoman calling lines at another Slam final.




© Kim Selzman 2009
All Rights Reserved

Serena Williams Facing Possible Fine of One Million Dollars

Here's the latest on Serena Williams from On The Baseline. Read this and then give me your reaction. Mine? Yikes!

Serena Williams Facing Possible Fine of One Million Dollars

World number one Serena Williams could potentially face a fine of one million dollars because of her unsportsmanlike conduct at the US Open.

The International Tennis Federation’s Grand Slam Committee is expected to announce its decision this weekend as to whether Serena will be fined or suspended for her actions.

Among the options being discussed, according to Australia’s Courier Mail, is a fine of one million dollars or the loss of her US Open prize money and ranking points. Williams could also potentially face a suspension from the 2010 US Open.

Davydenko Wins ATP World Tour Finals

Hey - remember a few days ago when I said the ATP World Tour finals had just started and I had a photo up of all 8 of the participants? And remember when I said this: "Nikolay Dayvedenko is next and honestly, if he wasn't standing with this group of guys, would you have any idea he's a world-class tennis player? I love that about him." Well, guess who ended up winning the whole dang thing? That's right - Nikolay Davydenko! Here's the blow-by-blow account of the final by a BBC sports writer who was there:

Davydenko takes World Tour title
By Piers Newbery, BBC Sport at the O2 Arena

Nikolay Davydenko became the first Russian to win the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals with a brilliant display against Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro.

The 28-year-old claimed the biggest title of his career, and a cheque for just over £900,000, with a 6-3 6-4 defeat of the US Open champion.

Davydenko, who beat Rafael Nadal, Robin Soderling and Roger Federer on his way to the final, was sharper throughout as Del Potro appeared to be feeling the after-effects of his semi-final win over Soderling the previous evening.

For the eighth successive day, around 17,000 spectators packed into the O2 Arena that has proved such a success on its debut as host to the most prestigious event outside the four Grand Slams.

Davydenko was making his second successive appearance in the final, having lost to Novak Djokovic in Shanghai last year, and the Russian was full of confidence after finally beating Federer at the 13th attempt in the semi-finals.

Making his fifth consecutive appearance at the eight-man season finale, the low-key Davydenko had another chance to land a title that would finally reflect his status in the game.

He started where he left off against Federer, all industry from the baseline and prepared to make the occasional dart to the net, while Del Potro appeared to be suffering a hangover from Saturday's late-night semi-final.

His mood was not helped when, after saving a first break point in game three he was called for a foot-fault on the second and, clearly unsettled, mishit a forehand seconds later to hand Davydenko the break at 3-1.

Del Potro was still swiping his racquet in frustration as the following game began and it was not until game seven that he got a chance to recover after Davydenko double-faulted at 30-30, but the Russian immediately regained his composure and struck a perfect forehand into the corner on the break point.

Davydenko was now in command, making 70% of first serves and flinging himself out wide to anticipate Del Potro's flat serves and favourite off-forehand into the corner, and he wrapped up the first set after 38 minutes.

The season looked to have finally caught up with Del Potro in game five of the second but he did well to fend off two break points with big serves to stay in touch.

Davydenko came through a dangerous moment in the following game when he saved two break points with a first serve and a serve-volley, but the Russian remained the player controlling the tempo.

After one of the best weeks of his career, Davydenko put together his best game of the week to break in game nine as he expertly moved Del Potro around to create space for winners on his way to a love game.

The seventh seed faced the biggest service game of his life and he came through it confidently to win in one hour 23 minutes when Del Potro netted a forehand.

Photo by Getty Images

© Kim Selzman 2009
All Rights Reserved