Break Points is a daily roundup of tennis news, videos, links, and tweets. If you have something you think I should include, email me at amy@changeovertennis.com.
Today’s notable results:
- Beijing: Richard Gasquet d. David Ferrer, 6-3, 6-4
- Beijing: Petra Kvitova d. Li Na, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4
News and Links:
Via SI, Andy Roddick spoke to Justin Timberlake for an interview:
Roddick sat down with Timberlake to talk about the pop star’s deeply ingrained love of sports, but before he let him go, Roddick showed JT a video of his dance moves and asked for his honest critique.
“Don’t let anyone see this, bro,” Timberlake said. “I think this is the highlight of my day.”
After soaking in the glory of Roddick’s smooth moves, Timberlake laid down his final verdict.
“I’m gonna shoot straight, man,” Timberlake said. “You are … a great tennis player.”
Billie Weiss, who took photos for the Indian Wells tournament, shared his favorite pictures from this year’s event over at the tournament’s website.
Miguel Morales took a look at the WTA’s push in Asia for Forbes:
No doubt fewer tennis tournaments in America aren’t helping to raise the sport’s profile there in the short-term. And when tennis’ superstars and Asian pros aren’t playing, it’s hard to fill the big stadiums that have sprung up across Asia in recent years. But Allaster believes that if the women’s tour wants to evolve and thrive it needs to embrace these emerging markets.
“It’s not a coincidence that tennis TV viewership from 2011 to 2012 increased 60%,” she says. Allaster’s referring to Li Na’s banner year in 2011, where she reached the finals of the Australian Open and became the first Asian player of either gender to hoist a Grand Slam trophy at the French Open. Allaster points to that moment as a watershed event for tennis. Certainly, television viewership for those events back her case; 116 million of Li’s countrymen watched her wrest the trophy from defending champ Francesca Schiavone. Allaster added, “25 million Americans play tennis, 8% of the total population [of 300 million]. There are 1.3 billion people in China. If we get 8% playing, that is a very strong base to build on.”
Novak Djokovic had some strong words about Viktor Troicki’s case, via Tennis.com:
“The whole case around Viktor is just very unfair towards him,” Djokovic told reporters. “I believe that he’s innocent. He hasn’t been charged for being positive on any kind of substance. He was just accused of failing to provide the blood test that day. I know him since I was eight years old. We grew up together. He’s one of my best friends. There is no doubt in my mind that he’s innocent. I supported him from the first moment. I hope that he’s going to be discharged and he’s going to be able to play, because he’s definitely not guilty. What happened in that room on this day, for me, it’s very clear that he is supposed to play. I’m confident that he’s going to come back on the tour, hopefully already in the next couple weeks, and he’s going to be with us in Davis Cup final, because we wish him that.”
“I don’t see why they’re keeping him suspended. For what? For failing to provide the blood test? He asked the lady that day, you know, he’s not feeling well. Can I provide you tomorrow? She said, ‘Yes, if you write report.’ He wrote the report, and the next thing you know she’s failing to say the truth in the court in London. She was saying that he was convincing him, that it took her 20 minutes to walk from anti-doping office to the ATP office in Monte-Carlo tournament, which is 20 meters. So she was lying a lot. That’s very bad for our sport. That’s very bad for anti-doping agency, to have people who are responsible for this work to fail to say what really happened that day. There was another person present in the room that day that wrote a perfect English on the report, and then in the court in London he didn’t understand a single word.”
Tennis on Twitter:
The bug in the bottle pic.twitter.com/VM5Xk0YHbd
— Inés S. (@gandaines) October 4, 2013
On this same field @DjokerNole played tennis for the 1st time! #Kopaonik #Drugarijada @novakfoundation pic.twitter.com/PSFxNL0RTo
— Jelena Djokovic (@jelenadjokovic) October 4, 2013
Excited Su wei Hsieh and Peng Shuai…semis now in Beijing qualifies them for WTA Championships. Bring on Istanbul pic.twitter.com/lCw4jojVe9
— 🎗️ Paul McNamee (@PaulFMcNamee) October 4, 2013
