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You have probably heard of “the Mozart of table tennis,” Jan Ove Waldner, the Swedish superstar who took this celebrated of sports into an all-time high level. And that might have set you thinking if he could do it, why can’t you? If playing is not your cup of tea but just an avid enthusiast, you might be thinking how you can be able to watch the heroics of such men and women. Whichever category of the above two you are in, you have nothing to worry about as the answer lies in getting yourself a table tennis DVD.

Table tennis may not be as popular as soccer and other mainstream sports but it has a loyal following. Die-hard fans will risk anything to watch two contenders attack each other in that vicious way that is unique to table tennis. Audio-visual companies have made it easy for everyone who loves the sport to enjoy watching it anywhere, anytime. They are releasing table tennis videos into the market, targeting both fans and players. These are in different formats but the most convenient is the table tennis DVD format because one copy provides a lot of data and footage, albeit compressed at a bargain. You can purchase at any of the outlets specializing in selling them or get them online at designated sites.

No matter your requirements, whether you need tips on how to perfect your skills or the need to acquire a collection of your hero’s collective matches, they are all readily available. These DVDs are packaged in such a manner to help you understand the basics to the sport and the tricks that will see you hold on to the top spot.

Then there are those compilations of past matches in championships like the Olympics. Mainly produced with the express permission of the world’s governing body of the sport or championship organizers, these are a real insight into the most explosive table tennis duels in modern history. You get to re-live the moments just like you were there, soaking in every backhand or shot.

This DVD is a treasure for everyone who wants to see table tennis as it was back in the day. It is highly entertaining and you can watch for long hours without getting bored.

This is when a suspension is not a suspension, a major fine is not a major fine.

It took months to figure this out, how to word it perfectly, but on Monday, the International Tennis Federation did it.

It gave Serena Williams a punishment that wasn’t a punishment.

The $175,000 fine and three-year suspended ban from the U.S. Open and probationary period for her f-bomb laced, threatening tirade at a tiny U.S. Open line judge do sound like big words, don’t they?

They aren’t. Break it down, and Williams will end up paying just $82,500. She recently referred to $50,000 as the furniture budget in her home remodeling.

If she doesn’t have another major outburst, the fine is cut to that number, and the suspension thrown out. She will not miss a tournament. Her debt will be paid.

Look, the fine means nothing to Williams. She won’t feel it. But the ITF can say that it’s a record size.

OK, Serena? Is this OK with you?

I can only imagine ITF officials pleading with her to please, please let them appear to be an actual governing body.

You remember what happened. The line judge called footfault on Williams, who then waved her racquet in the judge’s face and threatened to take the “(f-ing) ball” and shove it down her “(f-ing) throat.”

That led to a point penalty on match point. So the match was over.

Let’s be honest: Race is an issue. It always is with tennis and the Williams sisters. Some people will think Williams was given a record fine because she’s black. Others will think she was given a pass because she’s black.

Some people think she was the bully, some think she was victim of a bad call.

The ITF doesn’t really care what’s right. That was never an issue. The only issue was this: How do you give a penalty that looks big but isn’t?

The point isn’t that she was punished too much or too little, but rather that it was a non-justice based on non-truths, when true leadership was crying out because people’s real feelings were involved about the game, Williams, race, and sportsmanship.

The feelings are so real that some people insist the video evidence proves she never footfaulted. Others demand the video evidence proved she did.

Here’s the truth: There is no camera shot, video or still, that can determine anything.

There are lots of truths missing here, a mess that has made tennis look uglier than ever. Williams’ smokescreen reasons for her tantrum, her “punishment,” the ITF’s naked self-interest, John McEnroe’s irresponsibility.

The ITF let this thing drag on so long that hard feelings only grew. It became a social debate lining up mostly along racial lines.

So the ITF points out that this is the biggest fine ever at a major. Jeff Tarango got about half as much for storming off at Wimbledon and calling a chair ump corrupt. His wife later slapped the judge, too.

Of course, the ITF doesn’t mention that Tarango was also banned from two majors. McEnroe was once suspended for two months.

But McEnroe had been a brat for years, and that could have been a career-achievement punishment. Serena has not behaved bad nearly as often, though she did threaten a player who cheated her at this year’s French Open. In fact, one tennis official told the New York Times, “We’re not talking about a John McEnroe type character here.”

Here was the telling quote, a bit of truth, from ITF president Francesco Ricci Bitti a few weeks ago:

“I don’t think (an Australian Open ban) would make much sense, because it would penalize the people handing out the punishment. For the grand slam committee to exclude her from a grand slam doesn’t seem likely.

“A significant financial penalty makes more sense. But it has to be significant enough for the fans.”

They didn’t want to kick her out of a major tournament because that would hurt the tournament. How is that’s a concern to a governing body?

And they wanted a fine big enough to look like justice, not to serve it.

Let’s go back over what really happened, over the truth.

Williams was in the semifinals of the U.S. Open playing Kim Clijsters in a tight match. Williams had been spouting off all year about how she was the real No. 1, not No. 1 ranked Dinara Safina. That had racial overtones. So did the sudden popularity of teenager Melanie Oudin, a white girl from the South, at the Open. How much of her appeal was that she was the great white hope?

So that was the setting. And Clijsters, just back from a 2 1/2-year break, was beating Williams. Williams was two points from losing when she was called for footfault on her second serve.

Did she footfault? Yes. Absolutely.

I was sitting just behind the line judge, several rows back. Other media members were sitting there too. She clearly stepped way out onto the thick baseline.

But that’s not really the point. With several chances, Williams could not bring herself to play the final point. Why?

Because to her, that was less embarrassing than losing to a woman just back from maternity leave.
Williams quit this match, not planning to get thrown out, but knowing at some level that she would.

Meanwhile, McEnroe, still the face of the game in many ways, was on TV ripping the line judge, saying he didn’t see a footfault and that a judge doesn’t make calls like that such in a crucial situation. Juan Martin del Potro, by the way, was called for a footfault in a crucial third-set tiebreaker last week during the ATP Finals.

But whatever, McEnroe, famous for being a jerk to officials, was irresponsibly and unwittingly fueling a racial debate even though there was this truth:

From where he was sitting, he could not have seen whether Williams had actually foot-faulted.

The next day, Williams issued a statement calling it an “unfair line call.” The day after that, with endorsers presumably upset, she issued a real apology.

She went on to win the tour championship, reclaim the No. 1 ranking, appear nude on the cover of ESPN the Magazine, pitch her new book, appear on Leno and every other show.

Did she get away with this? Obviously.

But was justice served? Well, that was never a consideration.

Email me at gregcouch09@aol.com

Tennis Deserves Fault for Serena’s Flawed Justice originally appeared on Tennis FanHouse on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NEW YORK — He fell flat on his back, stretched out his freakishly long wingspan, and the tallest man ever to win a major tennis championship started bawling like a little baby. He thought about his parents, his friends, his life, his dreams.

Certain things are impossible, are absolutes. The name of major title winners in tennis can be any off the following list:

Federer, Nadal.

But that big baby, who kept on crying and crying, was Juan Martin del Potro. He won the U.S. Open Monday, beating Roger Federer 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2.
“You know,” Federer said, “you can’t have them all.”

Since when? Federer, was going for his sixth straight U.S. Open title, his third straight major. The guy just keeps providing classic five-set major finals.

And the only thing more odd than seeing Federer holding the second-place trophy over his head was hearing him argue with the chair umpire during the match over how long del Potro was taking to decide to use the replay system.

“Do you have any rules in there,” Federer said. “Stop showing me the hand, OK? Don’t tell me to be quiet, OK? When I want to talk, I’ll talk. I don’t give a (deleted) what he said …”

Perfection disheveled. So this was the end of …

No, forget that. This is not the death of anything, but instead the birth of something. Tennis has a new star in del Potro, who is just 20.

He beat Rafael Nadal in the semis on Sunday, and said it was the greatest day of his life. He beat Federer on Monday, and how does this day compare to the last one?

“Much better,” he said. “Everything is perfect. I can’t believe.”

You wonder what tomorrow can hold.

Just imagine what happened: A young man in his first major final played at Ashe Stadium against maybe the greatest player ever. He was two points from losing.

But he wouldn’t let Federer close him out.

“It’s too early to explain,” said del Potro, who’s from Argentina. “Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week I will be believing this. But now, I don’t know. I don’t understand nothing.”

Del Potro showed the ultimate respect for Federer afterward, telling him, and the crowd, that he actually had two dreams, to win the U.S. Open and to be like Federer.

Welcome to the club, Juan Martin. He is going to be a superstar, but who knew it would come this soon? Now, he stands at the top of the game, on the same platform with the two legends.

Of course, Federer has a record 15 major titles. Del Potro has one. But when you see something like this arriving so early … well here’s how Federer put it.

“Rafa, we’ve had some epic ones, sure, great ones over the years. Who knows, maybe del Potro is going to join that as well.”

Listen, this is not just Federer being gracious. He does not allow membership to the club easily. A few weeks ago I asked him about this amazing next generation of men’s players — a generation I believe will be the greatest ever — and Federer wouldn’t have any of it.

He said the young players emerging have been around for a while, and not reached the mountaintop.

“I mean,” he said, “del Potro, I played him the first time three, four years ago.”

Meanwhile, I asked del Potro during the Open about coming along in the Nadal-Federer generation. He said those guys were two or three steps ahead of him. But he’s young, he said, and “they’re going to retire and I’m going to be much better, so …”

See? Del Potro is developing before our eyes.

Last year, the same pressure got to Andy Murray, another leader of tennis’ next generation. Murray folded under Federer’s pressure. There’s supposed to be a learning curve.

And in the first set Monday, del Potro was awful, too.

“The beginning of the match, I was so nervous,” he said. “I can’t sleep last night. I don’t take a breakfast today.”

So frozen, he couldn’t even move his legs.

But by the middle of the second set, del Potro just simply started to improve, got his big serve in, got aggressive on his forehand. His legs started to move.

He got nervous late in the third set, though, and lost it on consecutive double-faults. Del Potro was ready to smash his racquet, but instead decided not to. “I don’t do that because maybe when I feel nervous, I saw Roger and he’s a gentleman player.

“We have to learn many things about him. Many times I do that today.”

See? Del Potro was using the big moment to learn from the best. So instead of falling apart, he thought about fighting to the end.

Late in the fourth set, del Potro was two points from losing on his serve. Federer had stepped up his level, and it was probably an acceptable time for a 20-year old to give in.

Instead, he crushed two big serves and a forehand to hold. He had found toughness.

And in the fifth set, all about mental edge, Federer, so pressured by del Potro’s forehand, lost his nerve on serve and on his backhand.

So what does this do to Federer’s legacy? Not much, really. He’s going to win plenty more majors. This year, he lost two major finals, won two, got married and had twins.

“It’s been an amazing year,” he said. “Don’t know how much more I want.”

For del Potro, he finds himself on top of a mountain even he didn’t know he was ready to scale. You might not have heard of him before yesterday, but there can be no better introduction, beating Nadal and then Federer.

Those two are still the absolutes, still the impossible. Turns out, there’s room on the mountaintop for three.

Email me at gregcouch09@aol.com

Del Potro Arrives — And Plans to Stay originally appeared on Tennis FanHouse on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:30:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NEW YORK — So now John McEnroe has become the judge and jury over the debate about Serena Williams and the line judge who had the nerve to call foot fault.

Think about that. John McEnroe’s trademark, equal to his great tennis, is that he spent his career being a jerk to linespeople. Next up, you can go to Michael Vick for advice on proper pet care or Brett Favre on the right time to retire.

This is the absurd, but it isn’t funny. McEnroe is fueling a debate that has grown to something much bigger than tennis, tantrums and foot faults. This thing has exploded into a social fight that’s lining up in large part, but not entirely, along racial lines.

“In my opinion, you can’t call a foot fault there,” McEnroe said to ESPN.com. “Just out of the question. Can’t do it. It was so close, not as if it was an obvious foot fault. It was miniscule.

“I’ve seen Serena come back from that position a dozen times against top-flight opponents. The match was not over.”

These are the statements the Serena-was-screwed people are using as evidence.

Close? Not obvious? Miniscule? Let me say this:

John McEnroe has no idea whether Serena Williams foot faulted. None.

The TV booth, where announcers sit, is behind the court. You couldn’t see it from there. And the camera angle we have gotten from CBS is from behind Serena, low and on her right. McEnroe knows as well as anyone that you can’t see from that angle whether the left side of Serena’s left foot had crossed onto the line.

Yet he seems to have no problem validating Williams’ anger.

And his irresponsibility is bleeding out of his sport and into a societal argument that so often accompanies the subject of the Williams sisters. He is spurring on hard feelings based on what he observed from angles he knows were impossible.

In his role as commentator for ESPN and for CBS, he keeps saying that he cannot defend the indefensible. Presumably, he’s talking about Williams telling the linesperson she would take the (bleeping) ball and stuff it down her (bleeping) throat.

But think about this. Why is McEnroe even on TV? Because he is The Show. It’s a smart move, and he’s usually good. But he became The Show by mistreating linespeople.

He has been celebrated for it, treated like a folk hero for it, and now is being paid for it, rewarded for it. And he is in the position on TV, where most people turn for their tennis coverage.

So if McEnroe is paid for it, then why should Williams be heavily penalized for it?

Come to think of it, my examples of Favre and Vick are wrong. They aren’t looked to for their expertise on animals and retirement. McEnroe is for his opinions on anything tennis.

His presence itself, elevated to spokesman for the game, is defense of Williams’ actions, and his suggestion that she didn’t foot fault at all is defense of her anger.

Here is the truth, by the way. Williams foot faulted. It was not close. I was sitting just behind the line judge, maybe 10 rows up, right on the line. During the match, the guy next to me and I were actually talking about why Kim Clijsters and Williams get so close to the line to serve. Weren’t they worried about foot-faulting?

So I started watching the line and the feet on every serve. When Williams moved that left foot forward, and at least an inch onto that thick baseline, I pointed, and so did the guy next to me, before the call was made.

Well, McEnroe seems to say that you can’t make that call anyway, even if Williams did foot fault. I keep hearing this argument, comparing tennis and basketball.

But in basketball, there are fouls on every play. Officials can’t stop it, so they try to judge which fouls are affecting play.

That’s subjective. Tennis is objective. There’s a line and a foot. If the foot is on the line, it’s a fault. Simple.

If Kobe Bryant put his feet over the free throw line at the end of a tight game, would that be OK? How about bowling? If it comes down to the final frame of a major championship, and one bowler needs a strike, if he slides over the line an inch and knocks down all 10 pins, would we argue just to give it to him? No big deal?

Just because John McEnroe has decided to re-up his career being a jerk to linespeople, and maybe to try in some odd way to defend his own actions from years ago, that’s no reason to ignore the rules.

McEnroe, though, from his impossible-to-see position and impossible-to-conclude TV camera angle, has decided that the line judge sitting there on the line with one function and only one, was wrong.

And he was right.

Now, Williams did come back Monday, with an apology, finally. She amended her statement from a day earlier when she kept fighting, saying she had been overly passionate over an “unfair line call.”

Still, she said Monday that the call was wrong, and disingenuously said that she’d like to give the line judge a “big ol’ hug.”

Her tantrum was the worst I’ve seen in tennis, and you can’t just let threats to officials go. But we’ve seen athletes drop f-bombs, seen plenty of tennis players berate lines people. So let’s not go overboard with the punishment.

Of course, no one defends her actions. Luckily for the Serena-was-screwed people, they have McEnroe, the cool-headed arbiter, there building a case.

Email me at gregcouch09@aol.com

McEnroe’s Defense Out of Bounds originally appeared on Tennis FanHouse on Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:02:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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