I love to watch tennis. I used to play 5 times a week, now I have 2 artificial hips that make it difficult, but I love the game. LOVE IT.
That said, I have a few questions for Doper fans and players alike.
Why do the announcers phrase things so strangely - “She seems to be playing better and better, Sharapova”. OK, I know that announcing the score may go something like that (“First set goes 6-2, Federer”) but putting the person’s name after you have made your comments seems odd. Commentators most likely to do this are Mary Carillo and Patrick McEnroe.
Stop with the pre-serve ball bouncing, please. I counted each time Djokovic was preparing to serve, and occasionally he bounced the ball more than 20 times.
Is this a new type of psych out thing, so that your opponent never knows when you are going to serve? Or is it just a rhythm thing. Or an obnoxious habit. He was chastised several times during this past Australian Open, and I think even the crowd started to dislike him because of it. Oh well, he must be good if he won the whole tournament, Djokovic. :smack:
Djokovic’s pre-serve bouncing is absolutely his unique quirk; nobody else does it with such OCD-like fervor. He used to be much worse, if you can imagine. One match I saw a couple years ago, Patrick McEnroe was ready to jump on the court and throttle him. They started counting the bounces, and for the rest of the match the fewest bounces he did was seventeen! Nowadays it’s not unusual for him to get by with as few as five, so count yourself lucky. He only seems to string them out when he’s stressed.
I’ve grown less and less fond of Sharapova’s pre-serve ritual. It’s always exactly the same no matter what. First serve, second serve, break point, match point; doesn’t matter:
Brush back hair
brush back hair
stare at opponent
raise ball
bounce once
bounce twice
lean back
toss up
SHHRIIIIEEEEEKKKKKK
Every single step is very long and drawn out. It’s at its most annoying on a second serve, when most normal humans just toss the damn ball up and swing away.
I think it’s ironic that Djokovic got so much attention for his impression of Sharapova’s serve motion when their pre-serve motions are equally annoying.
I’ve heard it in football coverage. I think it’s just that the announcer starts to talk about a player and then realizes midway that the audience might not know who they’re referring to, so they add the name.
It’s hard to find fault. You try announcing a match without saying things oddly.
Maybe they should install a large timer clock on each end of the court like they do in football. You need to get your serve off before the timer hits 00 or bzzzt… fault!
Man, you guys are spoiled. In baseball, the pitcher will often clean the rubber with his foot, rub some more dirt on it with his other foot, scratch his ass, pick his nose, look at his grandma out in the left field bleachers, look for the sign, shake it off, scratch his ass again, then step off the rubber. Then he steps on the rubber, scratches his ass, squints as he tries to imagine Christina Aguilera rising out of the mound with a chocolate bunny in her mouth, then gets ready to pitch, only to watch the batter call time out to adjust his batting gloves, elbow protector, and make eyebeam love with the third base coach. And then the manager walks out to the mound to talk about how in his day, pin-up girls were classy, not like the hoochie-mamas you see out on the street these days. Then he waves to the bullpen, and some semi-retired middle reliever walks and smells the flowers on his way to the mound. Then we go to a commercial break and commit seppuku.
Agree, not a quirk to tennis or announcing, just a clarification after using an amobigouous pronoun.
I wondered what it was that made the crowd not care for Djokovic- I guess it could have been the ball bouncing. He seems to me like a perfect fan favorite- fun, funny, etc. I know crowds love underdogs, but its not like Djokovic had won a big title before either.
During the tournament, he suddenly became kind of a prick. In both the semis and the final, he bitched at the crowd a little for rooting for his opponent. I don’t think they hated him, they just liked Federer and were excited by Tsonga, who played with a very exciting style. If Djokovic keeps that behavior up he’ll quickly become one of my least favorite players, I know that much.
Moderator agrees with Ellis Dee and glee: this is thread-shitting. It’s a comment that would be fine in a thread about “Why play tennis” but it’s out of place in this thread. If you’re not interested in tennis coverage, then keep away from the thread.
To be fair, I think he’s just a funny guy and is more than willing to send himself up too; there was nothing malicious in his impressions. His Goran was excellent.
As for pre-serve rituals, while they can certainly be irritating at times, by all accounts they can also help a lot in achieving what is a pretty complicated action that needs to be made highly repeatable. Muscle memory is a weird thing, and if they feel that going through the same set of movements before serving helps them nail the same motion each time, then they’re going to do that. Sure, some nervous tics are likely to get wrapped up in it too, but messing with your serve routine for the sake of TV viewers is going to be a pretty low priority for players at the very top of their game.
The goal is a focused, accurate, repeatable movement which will guarantee the desired result… compare Jonny Wilkinson’s kicking technique in rugy union for a similarly odd-looking and protracted shot.
In tennis, your first-serve percentage is directly linked to your success rate.
For example:
Federer beat Nadal (Nov 07): Federer’s first serve at c.84%
Federer lost to Volandri (May 07): Federer’s first serve at c.40%
Players will therefore do whatever they need to get the required focus - if that has the side-effect of unsettling their opponent, so much the better, but the primary goal is to get that first serve in the court.
She drives me batshit insane. And did anyone read how her father got into trouble for his behavior after Sharapova’s win over Henin? He had this camoflague jacket on and he pulled the hood up over his head. Then he made a slicing motion across his throat, a “cut her throat” kind of image. It very disturbing and very inappropriate.
I, too, was a bit puzzled by the crowd’s reaction to Djokovic, who i think is cute as a button. I wonder if there’s a large French component in Australia…
A guy will say “he’s using that right jab effectively”. He knows who he means, but I suspect the producer gets in his ear halfway through and goes, “who?”
So, he tacks the name on at the end.
I think in boxing and tennis, it’s clear to the speaker who he is referencing, and perhaps was even tying the statement to an action (“she’s drilling the ball”) but it doesn’t necessarily come across to a spectator the same way.
