kishnabe
Talk Tennis Guru
This one of the best Articles I have read from Tennis.com. Really tell's ot how it and makes you think!
http://blogs.tennis.com/thewrap/2011/01/view-from-the-court.html
View from the Court 01/24/2011 - 7:18 PM
As far as the TV set goes, the Aussie Open is Jim Courier’s major, the way the U.S. Open is Johnny Mac’s. He’s analyzes the men’s matches for Channel 7 here, and interviews the winners afterward. This can seem a little odd for an American. Why not use a local hero like Pat Cash or Pat Rafter instead of one of our guys? But Courier has his Aussie Open connection. He won it twice and took a brave leap into the nearby Yarra River afterward.
Courier has his detractors down here, but I’ve liked what I’ve heard on my press-room monitor and at my hotel. Courier is a proud guy—he’s a member of the “former No. 1 in the world” club—but he has an American earnestness that I recognize and like, but which might rub others the wrong way. He knows Xs and Os and seems to stay connected to the “locker room.” I was impressed with how much he was willing to criticize his future Davis Cup charge Andy Roddick in his loss to Stan Wawrinka. (Seems like Andy’s been catching it from all sides lately.) Courier’s suggestions were original and interesting.
He’s best known for his on-court interviews. The players open up a little with Courier, their colleague. As a fan I’ve liked seeing Federer and Nadal and Murray and others laugh and joke and make fun of themselves. When he was asked about Courier last week, Roddick said, “It’s nice to see a familiar face out there.”
As a press member, though, I’ve also found his interviews a little depressing. I watch the pros ham it up with Courier, and then a few minutes later I watch them trudge into the interview room in front of us as if they’re facing a firing squad—it’s not that bad, but you get my point.
After his win over Gilles Simon, Federer went into a long and funny spiel about his thoughts at the beginning of the fifth set, how he was thinking, “Isn’t Gilles supposed to not be playing this well? Didn’t Gilles get here late from Sydney and prepare badly? Why am I not winning this match?” He left laughing; by the time he got to us, he wasn’t laughing anymore.
When Nadal beat Bernard Tomic, Courier pointed into the commentary box, where Lleyton Hewitt was sitting. Nadal hadn’t realized Hewitt had been calling the match, and he burst out, “Lleyton is in there? I saw him in the locker room, but I didn’t now he was doing the television!” It was funny to see Nadal caught off guard. He had just been talking about his losses to Hewitt at the Aussie Open when he was a teenager. Ten minutes later Nadal was in the press room frowning about his illness and bad play and looking like death warmed over.
I get it. Not only do they know Courier and trust him, the players are talking to him in front of a huge crowd and a television audience. The interview room, with its low ceiling, is cramped and claustrophobic, and the questions can seem random and irrelevant. On TV, the players are selling themselves; with the press, they’re hiding themselves.
The result is that with Courier we glimpse very different people from the ones we think we know through the press. Andy Murray never smiles in the interview room, but he was happy to flash his choppers (albeit briefly) with Courier and make a joke about how his mom was out watching his brother’s doubles match instead of watching him. Federer was effusive in his praise of Simon when he was with Courier, happy to say he was lucky to win and happy to joke about everything that was going through his mind as the fifth set started—he may have been kidding, but he wasn’t making those thoughts up. It was a window into the seemingly wacky things that come into Federer's mind (like when he daydreamed during the fifth set of the 2009 Wimbledon final about playing until he and Roddick had long beards). They're a surprise coming from someone who seems calm on the outside.
Back in the press room, Federer was, not surprisingly, less expansive. And while he still praised Simon, he added the qualifier, “I think the conditions helped him.” That’s not something you’re going to say in front of a crowd of people after you’ve just won a match. But you will say it in front of a reporter who’s pestering you about whether you let your opponent back in by changing your tactics.
The situation was similar for Nadal after the Tomic match. He praised the kid on the court, then waited until he got to the interview room to say how badly he'd played himself.
Which is the real professional tennis player? The one who opens up with Courier on court, but who also wants to make the crowd laugh and like him? Or the one in the press room who puts the walls up, but who also isn’t selling himself to the world? Both, neither, something in between. What I do know, and which is a pity for someone who watches and goes to press conferences all day, is that the pros on the court are a lot more fun.
Sorry...If that was Immature but the bolded part made me laugh!
http://blogs.tennis.com/thewrap/2011/01/view-from-the-court.html
View from the Court 01/24/2011 - 7:18 PM
As far as the TV set goes, the Aussie Open is Jim Courier’s major, the way the U.S. Open is Johnny Mac’s. He’s analyzes the men’s matches for Channel 7 here, and interviews the winners afterward. This can seem a little odd for an American. Why not use a local hero like Pat Cash or Pat Rafter instead of one of our guys? But Courier has his Aussie Open connection. He won it twice and took a brave leap into the nearby Yarra River afterward.
Courier has his detractors down here, but I’ve liked what I’ve heard on my press-room monitor and at my hotel. Courier is a proud guy—he’s a member of the “former No. 1 in the world” club—but he has an American earnestness that I recognize and like, but which might rub others the wrong way. He knows Xs and Os and seems to stay connected to the “locker room.” I was impressed with how much he was willing to criticize his future Davis Cup charge Andy Roddick in his loss to Stan Wawrinka. (Seems like Andy’s been catching it from all sides lately.) Courier’s suggestions were original and interesting.
He’s best known for his on-court interviews. The players open up a little with Courier, their colleague. As a fan I’ve liked seeing Federer and Nadal and Murray and others laugh and joke and make fun of themselves. When he was asked about Courier last week, Roddick said, “It’s nice to see a familiar face out there.”
As a press member, though, I’ve also found his interviews a little depressing. I watch the pros ham it up with Courier, and then a few minutes later I watch them trudge into the interview room in front of us as if they’re facing a firing squad—it’s not that bad, but you get my point.
After his win over Gilles Simon, Federer went into a long and funny spiel about his thoughts at the beginning of the fifth set, how he was thinking, “Isn’t Gilles supposed to not be playing this well? Didn’t Gilles get here late from Sydney and prepare badly? Why am I not winning this match?” He left laughing; by the time he got to us, he wasn’t laughing anymore.
When Nadal beat Bernard Tomic, Courier pointed into the commentary box, where Lleyton Hewitt was sitting. Nadal hadn’t realized Hewitt had been calling the match, and he burst out, “Lleyton is in there? I saw him in the locker room, but I didn’t now he was doing the television!” It was funny to see Nadal caught off guard. He had just been talking about his losses to Hewitt at the Aussie Open when he was a teenager. Ten minutes later Nadal was in the press room frowning about his illness and bad play and looking like death warmed over.
I get it. Not only do they know Courier and trust him, the players are talking to him in front of a huge crowd and a television audience. The interview room, with its low ceiling, is cramped and claustrophobic, and the questions can seem random and irrelevant. On TV, the players are selling themselves; with the press, they’re hiding themselves.
The result is that with Courier we glimpse very different people from the ones we think we know through the press. Andy Murray never smiles in the interview room, but he was happy to flash his choppers (albeit briefly) with Courier and make a joke about how his mom was out watching his brother’s doubles match instead of watching him. Federer was effusive in his praise of Simon when he was with Courier, happy to say he was lucky to win and happy to joke about everything that was going through his mind as the fifth set started—he may have been kidding, but he wasn’t making those thoughts up. It was a window into the seemingly wacky things that come into Federer's mind (like when he daydreamed during the fifth set of the 2009 Wimbledon final about playing until he and Roddick had long beards). They're a surprise coming from someone who seems calm on the outside.
Back in the press room, Federer was, not surprisingly, less expansive. And while he still praised Simon, he added the qualifier, “I think the conditions helped him.” That’s not something you’re going to say in front of a crowd of people after you’ve just won a match. But you will say it in front of a reporter who’s pestering you about whether you let your opponent back in by changing your tactics.
The situation was similar for Nadal after the Tomic match. He praised the kid on the court, then waited until he got to the interview room to say how badly he'd played himself.
Which is the real professional tennis player? The one who opens up with Courier on court, but who also wants to make the crowd laugh and like him? Or the one in the press room who puts the walls up, but who also isn’t selling himself to the world? Both, neither, something in between. What I do know, and which is a pity for someone who watches and goes to press conferences all day, is that the pros on the court are a lot more fun.
Sorry...If that was Immature but the bolded part made me laugh!
