One thing about Wimbledon is that five of the semi-finalists from last year are already out, including both women's finalist.

Ten years ago Williams went out of Wimbledon to Jill Craybas, now she's totally dominant into her mid 30s which is unprecedented in tennis history. I wonder how she does it?

Urgh another frustrating Wimbledon...hoping Radwankska can outfox Muguruza and the winner of Serena/Sharapova...Aga deserves a slam...

Tonight on ABC, BBC and CBC, we present to you the WTA's favored soap opera....The Silent Scream....featuring Victoria Azarenka. Presented with limited commercial interruption by Pimm's....Centre Court's favorite potent potable!

Can you believe this whiny sniveler? The town drunks in the seats upset you with their impressions? Poor baby! That has to be why she is now 3-18 vs. Serena, spiced by two straight Grand Slam eliminations after winning the first set. (I will refrain from calling this or any of her other defeats to S. Williams as gag jobs, because of how much I loathe people saying things like that about Dani. But I won't stop anyone else from saying it!) When Serena first sees the draw at a major, how long does it take her to stop laughing if Azarenka and/or Sharapova are in her half or potentially a finals opponent?)

By the way, Vika, real smart to complain in public about this with the US Open less than 2 months away. Think the fans were bad today? You just threw down the gauntlet to the tennis fans of New York. Good luck.

Williams has also got Wozniacki as her BFF now, Wozniacki used to be Azarenka's BFF and that Sasha guy has switched sides so there's that as well.

I remember at last year's US Open that Azarenka tried to get the crowd to sing Happy Birthday to Gael Monfils during one of her on-court interviews. "It's Gael's birthday today, wish him a happy Birthday" which got no response so she started singing Happy Birthday and trying to gee up the crowd for a response, but she was dying out there as they ignored her efforts as she was the world's worst MC trying to get a reaction from a totally unresponsive and distinctly unimpressed audience, that's probably what she's got to look forward to in New York. At least she tried. I don't know if Gael thanked her or not.
Azarenka's kicked off at the crowd at Roland Garros in the past, back and forth in aggro incitement, they boo her and she boos back.

Most American tennis commentating seems to be of the "America, Fuck Yeah!" variety at least when an American's involved. I can remember getting American commentary on Daniela v. Vania King at the 2009 US Open and Daniela was thrashing king but the commentators were saying with Daniela a set and 5-2 up "Vania's still in this, she's mentally tougher, she's hanging in great, she's going to turn this around", total nonsense and so biased and in complete contrast to what was happening on court. Daniela won the final game and they were "Unlucky, Vania, Hantuchova just got hot today." It wasn't much better when Daniela played Riske two years ago as that Mary Carillo was screaming "Come On" whenever Riske won a point, was orgasmic when Riske won the second set but was somewhat more subdued when Daniela won the match. Carillo was dreadful but she's somehow one of the top commentators in America. Maybe TV executives feel they have to appeal to the America, Fuck Yeah! demographic.


Daniela did some commentary at the Australian Open last year and by all accounts she was excellent.

When NBC Sports had the rights to Wimbledon, their promos were surreal hype of American players. Especially for matches on July 4. "It's an All-American Fourth at Wimbledon!...Connors....McEnroe....Sampras...Evert...Shriver " It was sickening. And the announcers, even normally excellent in other sports Dick Enberg, played right along. So I know all about this.
And I have often said that if I can help it, Daniela's TV matches are watched with the sound off. Even if I might not think the commentators are biased and rooting for the opponent, it's still the same broken record.
In a sort of similar vein, with the world's sport actually becoming popular in the USA, one of the reasons why was ESPN's decision in recent years, including last year's World Cup, to use British announcers, particularly Ian Darke, who I think is great. So naturally, ESPN loses the rights to Fox and it regresses to more yahoo-like coverage. Better than that, though, is how last year and this with the Women's Cup, the writers, bloggers, broadcasters et al suddenly went from explaining what's offside and what words like pitch and nil meant to trying to show they know the sport just as much as Europeans. In other words, they went bombs away on Klinsman and Jill Ellis; wrong formations, wrong lineup choices, the whole bit. After the group rounds this year, these gurus had made the answer to Groucho Marx's famous question of who is buried in Grant' s Tomb the US Women's team. Just wait til they face Germany, they said over and over and over. Well, all knowledgeables, it was worth the wait! Go back to commenting on a sport you actually do understand. Like MMA.