JJ ain’t too sure bout them there Fed Cup no more:

Although you have expected to see my photos in the papers today, and the videos on TV from my practice in “Belgrade Arena”, where the first round of the Fed Cup World group tie between Serbia and Russia is to be held, everything is still in doubt. No, I haven’t come to Belgrade yet, and I’m still in Florida, where I’m fighting with back injury received in Melbourne. I didn’t want to speak in public about the problems that struck me in Australia, about the cold and the back injury that occurred during a practice while trying to change the way I served, because many would describe it to as a justification for the lost match. Furthermore, I didn’t want to make a fuss about the injury, which I thought would go away after all those therapies I had in Australia and here in the States. In the same time I hoped that would be able to go to Belgrade in due time, fresh and ready for the new battles for Serbia in the Fed Cup. Unfortunately, the situation got complicated, so I’m still in Florida, sad and in great uncertainty whether I would start the journey to my home town.

JJ NOT wanting to make a fuss about something? Maybe the Mayans were on to something, it’s only a couple years away.

As if this wasn’t bad enough news for team Serbia, Kuz is now playing for Russia. Presumably with Kleybs (it was supposed to be Pavs originally.) Um… ok. So shit went from looking pretty solid for Serbia to… well, bleak. Saddle up Ana. You’ve got some serious work ahead of you.

Oh, and in my pursuit to find the most ridiculous picture of JJ ever, I found the one above from this hilarious blog post.

Tournaments Won in 2009: French Open, China Open (Beijing), Porsche Tennis Grand Prix (Stuttgart)
Ranking Points as of October 19: 5772

The Land of Oz and American Hard Stuff

Kuz’s season got underway at the AO, blowing away a quarterfinal match to eventual champ Serena, being up a set and 5-5 in the second. (I watched the collapse while drunk at the campus bar, not pretty). She fell out in Dubai and IW in her first matches of both, to Vez and U-Rad (epic lulz forgot about that) respectively. The ship got turned around in Miami, as the Kuzonator made the semifinals where she fell to champ Vika.

Gettin’ Dirty

Kuz’s fantastic clay season started out just that, with a 10 match win streak to take Stuttgart and make the final of Rome, where she lost to Dina. After a (pretty sad) second round loss to A-Bond in Madrid, she turned around and marched all the way to a grand slam victory in Paris, this time beating Dina in the final (and you know, Serena on the way).

High On Grass

Kuz’s grass season was, well, next to non-existant, with a first round loss to CanWoz at Eastbourne and then a third round loss to Ms. Licky.

Hard For America

Kuzonator’s hard court season got off to a rough start, running into Kim in the third round of Cincy, and a hot Superhero in Toronto (I was at that match, she never really got going). At New Haven she fell in the quarters to oft dubs partner Momes, in what was apparently a totally hilarious match (one I was pretty sad to miss, safe to say). She fell to finalist Caro in the fourth round of the USO in an insanely close, third set tiebreak match.

Asia and Beyond

Kuz lost to Petkovic in the second round of Tokyo, but then ripped up Beijing winning over the Iron Chef in the final (and only losing one set along the way). Should be interesting to see if she can carry some of that momentum into Doha.

A whole lotta winning that went on today:

Beijing: Kuz def. A-Rad 6-2, 6-4

Djokovic def. Cilic 6-2, 7-6

Tokyo: Tsonga def. Youzhny 6-3, 6-3

Mons, Belgium: Tipsarevic def. Stakhovsky 7-6, 6-3

Another great win for Nole, who has won all four meetings against Cilic, and is making quite a statement at the end of the year. Will be interesting to see how he takes this momentum into Shanghai, with no Fed or Muzz.

Also a solid win for the Kuzonator, who said she normally is tired at the end of the season, but is feeling great, and clearly didn’t have much trouble against the Iron Chef, who is still struggling to qualify for Doha (and probably won’t). Still, she’s had a really great two weeks, and to be honest, was nice to see these two in the final after the slaughter that was the first couple of rounds.

Jo only needed an hour and 9 minutes, and beat the Youz with the same score that he beat Monf with in the semis.

And lastly, Tipsy won a challenger in Belgium, which is cool, but is even more awesome because he got a ridonk trophy that will likely be up for contention in the top 10 trophy YEC that will happen in December. Awesome.

Who ever said you needed a sponsor to win tennis matches? … OK probably nobody. Regardless, Kuz and the Iron Chef both came out with pretty convincing wins yesterday, over Nads and Mono respectively, both in straight sets. Nice win especially for A-Rad, who has had a solid week, and makes her first final of the year, and will now hop back into the top 10 as of Monday.

In other ladies’ ranking news, Venus and Vika have locked up the 6th and 7th spots for the YEC, with JJ hanging on for dear life for the 8th and final spot.

Chang def. Safina 7-6, 4-6, 7-5.

Pavlyuchenkova def. Williams 7-6, 7-5

Petkovic def. Kuznetsova 7-5, 4-6, 6-3

“Welcome to Tokyo Burgers, how may I take your order?… the number 2 combo? Not a problem. Did you want seeds on that?… no? Sounds good. That’ll be a whole lot of shame and a bunch of “WTF”s, I’ll see you up at the window”

Perhaps this isn’t the first thing that came to mind when reading those scores, but likely your “WTF-sense” was tingling a something a mighty. It tells us something, for sure. Either the seeds really do blow, or this whole super long season is out of control. Not to be an apologist, but to make these players, not too shy of the final grand slam, hop on a plane to the other side of the world, fuck their sleeping patterns, and then count on them to compete at the highest level for the billionth time this year… I dunno. This is a bit silly. Its not even like those are winnable matches against tough, top 30 players. Those matches were ALL against qualifiers. Regardless, all sorts a crazy shit is going down over there.

Banana got bagelled by Mono (sad face), Bensova bagelled Gypsy in the third set, Vika and Masha apparently practiced together (I think a firetruck just drove through my house), and get these doubles teams: Flavs and Lisa Raymond, and Kuz and Vika. Flavs/Lisa actually won, and Vika/Kuz fell to top team Bluber.

On a bit more happy and regular note, CanWoz knocked out recently championed oldie Date Krumm, Sammy Superhero bagelled Glatch and won easily, and Masha, A-Rad, JZ and Dani all won.

The fun matches are coming though, promise. The Wozes face off tomorrow, as well as JJ/Ms. Licky, to name a couple.

First off, the match started with me meeting up with sodapop and Carrie from Forty Deuce! Courtney quickly noted that the time/blogsphere space continuum had been broken, that must have been close. The ridiculousness was well under way before the match even started, as Flavs’ coach was beside the court having a smoke before the match started…

Then things REALLY got underway. The match was surprisingly close at the beginning, Kiri was really spanking the ball around rather nicely. One game went to like, seven deuces, it was insane. One point, Flavs knocked a ball wide and started yelling at her self “whyyyy Flavia whyyy”.

The two most hilarious things were both on Kiri’s serve, if I remember right. First, Kiri went to serve, and there was a huge erruption of aplause from a nearby court, and Kiri got totally surprised, and then had a look of fear on her face as she realized her ball toss was coming back down at her, but she was luckily out of the way. I kind of had a fit, it was so awkward and hilarious.

And then not long after, a line judge was stung by a bee, on his bald head none the less, and was forced to leave the cort, or “take care of it” as the chair said. Lastly, in true Batman fashion, Flavs won the set in a total badass fashion, chasing down a Kiri lob that had beat her, and off the bounce, whacked a blind two handed backhand that somehow caught a piece of the line and went as a winner. Kiri was not impressed and tossed her racquet once she got back to her chair.

I missed the second set, because my dad and I needed to move and get some food, and we later caught the entire CanWoz/Fichman vs. Two Random Poles dubs match, which the Canadians unfortunately lost despite being up a set and a double break. Ugh.

I won’t go on about the night matches, but I caught the second set of the Kim match, and it was a pretty routine win for her really. Can’t wait to see her play Vika tomorrow, her forehand is a crackin’.

Kuz/Sam was quite the match. Kuz really wasn’t playing that badly, but dear lord, Superhero was firing on all cylanders. I was rooting for Kuz, but by the end I had just given up and was prepared to give mad props to Sam. She was serving and volleying, coming in, drop shotting, hitting crazy angles and lines all over the place. It just really looks like she’s used some of the skills from her doubles playing and worked them into hard court singles playing so that she can really mix up her game and throw the kitchen sink at her opponent. It doesn’t hurt that her consistency and lack of errors was totally deadly.

Tomorrow on the bill, looking like Dina/Rezai on centre, Caro/JZ on court 1, Vika/Kim, possibly Caro/A-Rad dubs match, likely ReRe/SafarovaShvedova, and definitely Ana after that (last two are the night matches). Plenty of other fun matches going on too, mind you, but those will be the ones I’ll be checking out likely, definitely Caro and Ana of course. Hope you’re all enjoying the blog posts and tweeting!