April 24th, 2015

Friday Tennis Blog: Bid on Venus; Brengle Shocks Kvitova

Bid to Go One on One with Venus

Venus Williams has proven herself off the court in architectural design and fashion through her V Starr Interiors and EleVen by Venus clothing line. Now the elder Williams sister will give back by auctioning herself off to benefit the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship in May in the Miami Design District. Guests will have the opportunity to bid on top entrepreneurs, including Williams who will donate an hour of her time to meet with a winning bidder to discuss start-up plans and business goals. The auction went live April 21 and ends May 5. The public can visit www.charitybuzz.com/support/NFTE to place bids on participant entrepreneurs. All proceeds will support more than 3,500 young entrepreneurs throughout Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.

Bryans Rock On, Off Court

Father Wayne Bryan will tell you Bob and Mike Bryan are from California, but since the two now reside in Florida, the Sunshine State is claiming them as their own. The twins have rocked on and off the court in the past couple weeks, adding more trophies to the case and providing fans with some hot guitar licks on the way. Last Saturday the Bryans won the Monte Carlo title, their second Masters-level title after Indian Wells. Along the way the accomplished musicians and their Bryan Brothers Band played for 5,000 fans in Indian Wells (featured by CNN), and also at the ATP Houston event in following week. The Monte Carlo title was No. 106 for their career, and they remain the only doubles team in history to have won every major title — all four Grand Slams, Olympic Gold, all nine Masters series titles, the ATP year-end Championships and the Davis Cup. “We’re playing healthy,” said the 36-year-old Bob. “We’re going to go home for a couple weeks, freshen up, come back to Madrid and hopefully play another good tournament.”

Miscellany

En vogue now is apparently getting married during Rafael Nadal matches…TENNIS magazine says the positives outweigh the negatives in the Big 12 Conference’s experiment in letting tennis fans go crazy during matches, with not-so-positive responses from others…The BBC gives an inside look at an individual busted for “courtsiding” — sitting in the stands live at a pro match and sending data back to gambling sites…An uplifting profile of IMG tennis student Nisha Rajamohan, who has a prosthetic limb, as she prepares to play college tennis…Rafael Nadal’s claycourt season continued to go off the rails in Barcelona on Thursday when he was upset by Italian Fabio Fognini 6-4, 7-6(6). The eight-time Barcelona champ Nadal is now 0-2 for titles in clay tournaments this year after losing in the semifinals at Monte Carlo.

American Brengle Battles to Stuttgart Quarters

No American men remain in the mix at ATP events in Barcelona and Bucharest this week, but an American woman made a big noise in Stuttgart on Thursday.

Madison Brengle (photo: USTA)

Madison Brengle toppled No.3 seed Petra Kvitova 6-3, 7-6(2) in the second round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, taking advantage of the Czech skipping the Indian Wells and Miami events after citing exhaustion.

“I think that Madison played a solid match. She didn’t miss much and it was really difficult for me because when I had the opportunity for winners I missed,” Kvitova said. “The confidence wasn’t really high then and I didn’t feel physically there as well. I mean I was still tired probably from the Fed Cup. And on the clay you need to be physically ready for it.”

Brengle in the Friday quarterfinals will meet French rising star Caroline Garcia.

They Said It

“A player can’t make the rules according to what interests them. What’s next, we’ll turn all the traffic lights from red to green?”
— Italian Fed Cup Captain Corrado Barazzutti on Serena Williams voicing interest in a change in the Fed Cup format

“There’s a zillion guys who hit the ball well, who move well, John [Isner] can do things other players can’t do. Also, if he plays the wrong way, he can lose to anyone. If he plays the right way, I truly believe he can beat anyone. And that’s exciting.”
— Coach Justin Gimelstob on his charge John Isner, speaking to The Guardian

“Our crowd was probably as bad as it’s ever been, and I’m certainly not happy about that. I’ll kind of speak to some of our people as far as making sure that we don’t have it like that, as far as some of the comments that were made.”
— UCLA Coach Billy Martin, who scolded UCLA fans in the middle of the match, on the new Big 12 Conference rule that allows tennis fans to yell and heckle during points, after a match against USC, speaking to the Daily Bruin