HEY, COACH: Who is more underrated as a coach: Boris Becker, who has led Djokovic to 4 Slams in 8 tries, or Patrick Mouratoglou, who guided Serena to victory in 8 of her last 14 Slams?…There was a spate of coaching breakups last year, including Federer and Edberg, Radwanska and Navratilova, Madison Keys and Lindsay Davenport and Sloane Stephens and Nick Saviano.
HAVE A NICE DAY: Anastasia Rodionova won a qualifying match and got married on the same day.
WHY DO WE ALWAYS ZIG WHEN EVERYONE ELSE ZAGS? Reflecting on tennis’ self-destructive tendencies Jon Wertheim said, “I’ve never seen an enterprise, never mind a sport, that beats itself up so regularly. Everyone’s got an idea of how to improve it, and this sucks and that sucks. Let’s zig where everyone else zags.”
WHAT HAS THAT RUSSIAN BEEN SMOKING? Shamil Tarpsichev, the czar of Russian tennis, once said, “Doping scandals…are impossible in tennis…Tennis is the purest sport.”
INSIDE THE BETWAY: The International Tennis Federation, which comes down heavily on players who gamble, signed a lucrative endorsement deal with Betway, the world’s leading betting company. The ITF insisted there was no problem.
THE MAN DOESN’T HAVE A DISCRIMINATORY BONE IN HIS BODY: Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov said, “I like all the surfaces, to be honest. I don’t discriminate against any of them.”
DON’T MESS WITH WTA WOMEN: Serena Williams chasing down a thief who stole her cell phone at a San Francisco restaurant brought to mind the time Amelie Mauresmo and her girlfriend punched out three knife-wielding thieves on a Caribbean beach.
GO FIGURE: For the first time since 2001, neither Nadal nor Federer won a major last year. The Bryan brothers didn’t capture a Slam for the first time since 2004…Federer and Martina Hingis are planning to play mixed doubles in the Olympics…The top seven players – Djokovic, Murray, Federer, Wawrinka, Nadal, Berdych – have been Davis Cup winners in the last six years…For three years in a row a woman player who won a Grand Slam retired – Marion Bartoli, Li Na and Flavia Pennetta…Serena told IT that on court she stays in the moment by singing Irene Cara’s “Flashdance”…Americans Tommy Paul, Reilly Opelka and Taylor Fritz won the last three junior slams…At last year’s Aussie Open, three African-Americans – Serena, Venus and Madison Keys – reached the quarters…No. 1 Serena didn’t play after the US Open, and Sharapova missed almost four months but still finished at No. 4…Last summer Serena had twice as many ranking points as the world No. 2 and at one point the distance between her and No. 2 was bigger than between No. 2 and No. 1,000…The AP sports story of last year was American Pharoah winning the Triple Crown, while Serena’s Grand Slam quest was No. 6…Rafa doesn’t like to sleep because he thinks it’s a waste of time…The average age of the ATP’s top 10 is over 30, the oldest ever…Andy Murray said if his wife – who’s due in February – goes into labor early, he’d leave the Aussie Open to be with her…Aga Radwanska lost two of three round-robin matches in the WTA Championships and then came back to win the biggest title of her career….Roberta Vinci joked that Leonardo da Vinci was her uncle.
JUST WONDERING: Has a player ever carried a nation’s Davis Cup fortunes on his back as mightily as Murray?…Is there a more underrated story in sports than Djokovic, and this year will he finally win the French Open, an Olympic gold medal or, for that matter, all four Slams?…Will Federer ever age?…While reflecting on Roger’s fabulous shots, Rohit Brijnath asked, “For all his cultivated cool, does he ever think, How the hell did I do that?”…Who will have a bigger bounce-back year: Nadal, Sharapova, the Bryans, Genie Bouchard or Juan Martin del Potro?…What player will win a Grand Slam first: Garbine Muguruza, Simona Halep, Aga Radwanska, Belinda Bencic, Karolina Pliskova, Madison Keys, Kei Nishikori, Milos Raonic or Nick Kyrgios?…Will a big name like Venus or Serena or, God forbid, Federer or Nadal, retire after the Rio Olympics, or by the end of 2016?
THE $175-AN-HOUR POST-FREUDIAN THEORY OF THE YEAR: Mary Carillo theorized that Djokovic, who emerged out of a much-criticized nation, war-torn Serbia, chose Boris Becker as his coach because as a boy, “Becker seemed to think that on his strapping young shoulders at 17 (when he won Wimbledon) he had to change everybody’s mind about what Germany is like.”
HELLACIOUS HINGIS: Martina (“still giggling after all these years”) Hingis teamed with two Indians – Sania Mirza and Leander Paes – to win five slam titles. Martina and Mirza won five tour titles and she and Paes led the Washington Kastles to a record fifth consecutive WTT title. Speaking of doubles, after finishing No. 1 for six years in a row, Bob and Mike Bryan were replaced by Marcelo Melo and Horia Tecau in the top two spots.
DARLING DAUGHTERS: It’s not surprising that Riley Curry, the adorable scene-stealing two-year-old daughter of NBA MVP Stef Curry, brought to mind Kim Clijsters’ darling daughter Jada, who at 18 months captured our hearts at the 2009 US Open awards ceremony.
THE QUESTION THAT WON’T GO AWAY: When will an American man win a Slam?
THE QUESTION THAT NOBODY WANTS TO ASK: Just how serious is Serena’s knee injury? And like the beloved Li Na, will it lead to her retirement?
