Break Points: Federer Talks About Life on Tour, Family, and His Career

Notable Results:

  • New Haven 2R: Petra Kvitova d. Ekaterina Makarova 6-2, 6-1
  • New Haven 2R: Magdelena Rybarikova d. Simona Halep, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3
  • New Haven 2R: Camila Giorgi d. Caroline Wozniacki, 6-4, 6-2
  • Winston-Salem 2R: Sam Querrey d. Steve Johnson, 6-4, 6-3

News and Analysis:

The Washington Post has an excellent piece on the dilemma of court scheduling:

John Isner was a virtual unknown when he got a wild-card berth in Washington’s summer tennis tournament in 2007 and unexpectedly made the final. Now the highest-ranked American on the ATP Tour at No. 15, Isner has special regard for Washington’s tournament, now called the Citi Open, because it’s one of the places he got his start.

But when Isner walked off a grandstand court after an upset loss at the Citi Open earlier this month, his warm feelings were gone. He expressed displeasure with the court schedule, implying that the top American and a tournament regular should have been on center court rather than one of the more intimate courts on the periphery.

“I didn’t like playing out there, I thought it was [expletive],” Isner said. “I just didn’t think I deserved to play there, simple as that.”

Tournament court scheduling involves balancing the players’ preferences, international and domestic television requests and what’s going to please ticket holders. It’s hard to please everyone. In a Grand Slam like the U.S. Open, which begins Monday in New York, draws are bigger and courts are occupied all day, making decisions on who plays where and at what time even more complicated.

“It’s like a Rubik’s Cube,” U.S. Open Tournament Director David Brewer said.

Jon Wertheim has a must-read, wide-reaching interview with Roger Federer:

SI: You really seem to have taken to [social media].

Federer: Yeah, it took me awhile. I started with Facebook slowly. Then Twitter — I started last year at the French. Took a lot of convincing. I didn’t quite understand the idea. Everybody uses social media differently. Some use it as information coming to you. Some guys are really open and say, “Look, I’m having an espresso right now,” which to me is like, What?

Then I just said, “If I do it, it needs to be me.” My idea was to give people extra insight nobody else has. Feed them something they didn’t know. People like what I’m saying. I think it’s been actually quite nice.

SI: You set the tone.

Federer: Then let’s say I read the press sometimes. At the end of an article, those seem very mean quite often.

SI: Comments? Yeah, don’t read those. It’s like you see the decline of civility in real time.

Federer: Yeah. That’s how I thought it would be on social media. But it’s not so bad. It’s actually super supportive.

Maria Sharapova is on the cover of the September issue of Self magazine.

Tennis on Twitter:


Amy can be spotted on a tennis court in the Philadelphia area, shanking backhand volleys.

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