Welcome to another installment of your bi-weekly look into what people type in that pesky Google box and somehow arrive to our site. If you missed any of the previous episodes of this series, you can find them here.
As always, these are actual terms that people typed when searching on Google, Bing or Yahoo. Somehow, they were led to our site. What you will see here are screencaps of the search term page on Google Analytics. Don’t you like how transparent we are?
Without further ado, let’s see what people have been up to in these past two weeks:
Existential Questions
Good one! As far as I can tell, Serena has been bageled six times. Here they are, in chronological order:
1. In 2008, older sister Venus bageled Serena in the third set of their round robin WTA Championships match.
2. Serena retired from her first round match in Switzerland in 2007 against Patty Schnyder, after trailing 6-0, 3-0.
3. Justine Henin achieved the feat in the 2007 Miami final (though Serena ended up winning the match).
4. Jelena Jankovic bageled Serena in the Dubai semifinals in 2005. She would end up retiring after being down 6-0, 4-3.
5. Mary Jo Fernández bageled Serena in the third set of their round of 32 match at the 1999 French Open.
6. Finally, someone named Alexia Dechaume-Balleret bagelled Serena in the first round at Indian Wells in 1997. That was Serena’s second ever WTA match, and she was just 15 years old. She lost.
As you can see, bageling Serena is a very rare achievement. It hasn’t happened in nearly 5 years!
While the previous question took a little bit of time to research (thanks to the WTA site being formatted in a silly way), this question requires no research at all: the #BernieGOAT has never beaten Rafael Nadal.
The “how many times” part of that search term kills me.
For reasons that make perfect sense to Ernests Gulbis. Jazz Hands Forever!
Ernie’s forehand wind up. Hah! twitter.com/nidssserz/stat…
— Nida (@nidssserz) April 16, 2013
Because those pesky tournament directors keep scheduling her matches on outer courts instead of the main court! She’s also had to play these tough lower-ranked opponents in front of very few British fans. It makes complete sense.
For starters, one is about women playing tennis and the other is about men playing tennis. Small detail.
…….
Just because this one didn’t make it in time the last time we did this:
I’m pretty sure this hasn’t happened. Like, ever.
What’s more like a unicorn: a Del Potro backhand down the line, or a Del Potro serve and volley? Tough choice.
Not sure where, but I can tell you what he was wearing
HOW MANY TIMES do I have to tell you? The Changeover IS NOT a porn site!!!
This has to be one of the strangest porn searches ever, right? Who thinks of a tournament when looking for kinky stuff? Is this a new fetish? Does this involve Rod Laver Arena and Margaret Court Arena doing nasty stuff?
As in, more than one site? But the main question is…WHO?
I’m confused about this one. Was the Googler searching for porn that is set during fictional changeovers? Or porn designed to be watched while a changeover takes place?
Double the porn, double the questions.
Ah, those Frenchies
All I could think of when I saw these was “gael monfils coach crazy.” I don’t know why.
If you say so.
Nope, Ali Nili is not Richard Gasquet’s father.
The “I Have Nothing” Division
Is there such a thing?
What?
Benoit Paire feels left out of this search term.
I’m really confused/intrigued by this one. Did Radwanska interview Errani for 3 hours? Did someone interview both of them for three hours? Is this some sort of extreme art documentary?
If someone wants to do a photoshop version of this, it’ll be posted here.
Our reader Rachel has obliged, adding this bit of text to her admirable efforts:
“I should really be working, but I found something to procrastinate with in your recent searching for column… Rafa with Bangs, attached. And not just any bangs, I might add. They are Michelle Obama’s. Not very good with photoshop, but hey, I tried.”
So there you go: Rafael Nadal sporting Michelle Obama’s bangs. Because… yes. Thanks, Rachel!
An incorrect fact about Maria Sharapova
This is false based on the universal fact that nobody can hate Venus Williams. Speaking of Maria…
I don’t know why, but I love the “positive comment” part.
The current side of Fernando Verdasco
And the very dark side of Fernando Verdasco
That’s really disturbing, Verdasco.
(Fortunately, there’s nothing to be afraid of.)
I can actually help with the “two crazies search”. It’s about the Llodra/Paire fiasco.
After it happened Stan was getting all big brotherly and trying to find out what happened and defend Benoit on twitter. He said that when you put them on the court together you have two kinds of crazy out there. Benoit is a good crazy, Michael… not so much.
He might have said it in french? But yeah. These are pretty hilarious as always.
I think you’re very right, Georgina! And I’m glad you liked this.
These are hilarious ! Thank you.
Thank you, SamG for reading!
Sooooo… I think I might have been the “changeover porn” person. You see, I wanted to find the “Searching for…” post where somebody searched for “redfoo porn”. You’ve brought it on yourselves. Now the porn searches will NEVER STOP. 🙂
Didn’t A-Rad and Errani play a 3+ hour match at the 2012 WTA championships?
In any case what I really want to know is, was the “difference between atp and wta” person the same as the “Sharapova menstruation” person? Because wow.
Oh, Brian. Now I get why there were so many porn search items this week. *shakes head*
And yes, I think you’re right about the origin of the Errani-Radwanska thing. About your last point…I only wish Google Analytics could give us more info about the search terms!
I’m pretty certain the person doing the Radwanska Errani 3 hr interview wanted to access any post match interviews of the exciting Radwanska-Errani marathon in Istanbul last year.
I don’t think you mentioned the search engine, but searching YouTube, in particular, for matches is often tricky beause uploader use all sorts of titling formats for matches. For example if you are looking for Serena Williams matches, do you search on ‘Serena’ or ‘S Williams’ or ‘Williams’ or ‘Serena Williams’. Sometimes it helps to include the opponent’s surname, but in other cases it’s better to enter the venue and/or the year and/or the round (QF, SF, F) — and then you have to guess whether to use those abbreviations or spell them out (quarterfinal, semifinal, final).
And then, after finally finding the match you’re looking for, it is invariably in Russian or Italian ** or grainy or soundless or – as in the case of most of the matches from the 2012 Olympics – of very poor sound quality, i.e the sound of the racquet hitting the ball and the crowd noise is much too loud relative to the sound of the commentators.
** I have nothing against Russians or Italians or Spaniards or Czechs but the picture quality on my trusty Commodore 64 is so poor that I need all the help from the announcers I can get!
That was a hilarious rant about YouTube searching, Patrick. I agree – it’s not the easiest thing!
What’s more like a unicorn: a Del Potro backhand down the line, or a Del Potro serve and volley?
I laughed out loud at this.
Benoit Paire feels left out of this search term.
MDR encore!
Glad you liked it, Ribbons!