June 2nd, 2016

Friday Tennis Blog: Live Stream from USTA Florida Lake Nona Groundbreaking; Serena Keeps Winning

LIVE STREAM TODAY FOR USTA FLORIDA ORLANDO HEADQUARTERS CEREMONIAL GROUNDBREAKING

Video from today’s event:

RODDICK JOINS USTA NATIONAL CAMPUS MOVEMENT AT UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA

Andy Roddick likes to occasionally cheer on his brother John’s college team, which could bring the former No. 1 to Orlando in the near future now that John has left the University of Oklahoma to take the director of tennis and head men’s coach position at the University of Central Florida. How is the non-Top 25 UCF program attracting one of the biggest names in college coaching? It could be their new $100 million training and match facility, otherwise known as the USTA National Campus currently being built in the Lake Nona area of Orlando, where UCF will host its home matches. “We’re thrilled to bring a coach the caliber of John Roddick to UCF,” said UCF Athletic Director Danny White. “This hire is another step toward our goal of becoming a Top 25 athletic program.” Roddick’s OSU teams had a 153-44 record over seven years, and reached the NCAA men’s finals the last three years, falling to Virginia in the 2016 final. The UCF men this year were 9-13, losing in the quarterfinals of their year-end conference tournament. Roddick said that record will be changing for the better.

MISCELLANY

With approximately two months to go, the tennis site at the Rio Olympics remains behind schedule to the dismay of the ITF…Rafael Nadal, who withdrew mid-tournament from the French Open with a wrist injury, has also pulled out of the grasscourt Queen’s Club event, but hopes to be fit in time for Wimbledon…Opposite personalities John McEnroe and Milos Raonic will join forces in a coaching arrangement, McEnroe’s first official coaching stint outside of U.S. Davis Cup captain since he retired from the tour…American Shelby Rogers had her breakthrough tournament at this year’s French Open with a quarterfinal result, and with her emotional outpourings she has become a media darling…No roofed courts has been an issue at this year’s rainy French Open, in addition to few available practice courts…Controversy at the Indian Wells tournament continues as Raymond Moore, who stepped down as tournament director after saying the women’s players should get down on their knees and thank Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer for carrying pro tennis, has not exited the event but is staying on as the Indian Wells CEO…How do you attract young Millennials to a tournament renowned for elderly people drinking tea and eating crumpets and strawberries and cream? Wimbledon just signed a deal with SnapChat…Fake grunting can earn you a penalty in a match…North Palm Beach’s Jeff Burnett will represent the U.S. at the upcoming ITF Senior World Team Championships…The Miami Open will stay in Key Biscayne for 2017, but after that it’s up in the air.

Serena Fights Way to Friday French Open Semifinals

Top seed and defending champ Serena Williams survived a scare on Thursday at the French Open, in the quarterfinals coming from a set down to defeat unseeded Kazakh Yulia Putintseva 5-7, 6-4, 6-1.

“I just kept hitting balls out,” said Williams, the last American woman or man standing in singles at Roland Garros. “I just wasn’t firing the way I wanted to. I definitely knew I needed to do something different if I was going to stay in the tournament. I always try to have a plan B and C and go from there.”

The 21-year-old Putintseva was appearing in her first Grand Slam quarterfinal, and hit 18 winners to only 16 unforced errors.

Serena in the semifinals will meet another unseeded opponent, Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands who upset No. 8 seed Timea Bacsinszky. The other semifinal on Friday will see Spaniard Garbine Muguruza against former runner-up Sam Stosur.

They Said It

“Boris [Becker] asked me to work with him between Wimbledon and the US Open in 1993, and it’s a long story and pretty humorous, but basically, he didn’t listen to a word I said. I was going through a divorce; he was going through this fight with [his agent Ion] Tiriac.”
— John McEnroe speaking to the New York Times on some of his former part-time coaching stints

“The women are just off in their own little cliques. They’ve got to get together and voice their opinion if they want changes. In our era, the top players always got their way.”
— Chris Evert on the WTA tour not “protecting” veteran players and allowing them to play less events the way the ATP World Tour does, speaking to tennis writer Doug Robson

“Lake Nona will become the most digitally-accessible facility in the world and the USTA, along with American tennis, will leap past other sports with the tools that will be available for all on-site coaches, players, and anybody who passes through Lake Nona to play a match.”
— Yuval Bar Yosef, general manager, PlaySight court technologies