From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Subject: US Open - Thursday day coverage (spoilers)
Reply-To: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles C. Lin)
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 20:25:30 GMT

   They were out of the rain delay for a while.   Courier won
the third set and now leads two sets to one over Chesnokov.
Courier seems more or less content rallying with Chesnokov
and making the occasionally hard shot for the winner.  He
was up a break right before the delay, then went down
break point trying to consolidate the break after the delay,
but went to win the game.   Wheaton won the first set against
doubles partner Jared Palmer (also out of Stanford and the
1991 NCAA men's champion).  An interesting note is that
Palmer's father runs a tennis academy.   Those who look in
the back of Tennis magazine (in the US, anyway) may have seen
ads for this camp.   The first set score was 6-4, and they
had just begun play when it began to rain today.

   Graf won the two games (breaking Shriver, then holding)
after the rain delay.   This is her toughest match so far
(only two of them) and she won 7-5, 6-3.   This is a bit
surprising to me.  But Shriver plays better than I give
her credit for.   Both had shoulder problems, but Steffi
claims that she has been pain-free the last few days and
that wasn't the reason for a close match against Pam.

    I saw some bits and pieces of the Edberg-Mattar match
on a late night repeat.   Mattar, as you might guess,
is a baseliner.  He doesn't have the kind of power to
bother Edberg, so Edberg actually traded groundstrokes
with Mattar several times, and his groundies are good
enough to keep up with Mattar.  I think in the first two
sets (I didn't see this) that Edberg went down 4-2 both
times, but turned it around to win 7-5 both times, then
cruised to a 6-2 win in the third.   Afterwards, (correction
here), Edberg said that he thought he was striking the 
ball pretty well.  He started off slow because he was
feeling some pressure as the defending champion, but
I suppose that wore away.

    Also, they showed the entire tie-breaker between
Korda and Sanchez.   Korda double-faulted to start the
tiebreak.  Sanchez won both points on his serve to lead
3-0.  Then Korda won the next two on his serve, and then
it looked as if Sanchez would win the next one when 
Korda made a good desperation lob and a few followup
shots to make it 3-all.  Sanchez won the next point
to go up 4-3.  The next point, if I recall, was
perhaps the turning one as Korda made his way to the net,
and went for a volley that landed near the line and was
called out.  There may have been another point before this 
where Korda attempted to pass Sanchez at net, and blew a forehand
wide.  Sanchez close out the match with a first serve
that Korda failed to return.

Tennis tonight
--------------

    Agassi plays Roig tonight if weather permits.   USA
network has been covering the tennis at 11 am to 4 pm
and then from 7:30 to 11:00 but has run to 11:30 pm
the last few days.   I assume the hours are also live
to the West coast, as these are Eastern Standard time.

    As usual, they have pretty much ignored doubles action
as well as junior action.   I think they stopped showing
doubles in the US when McEnroe stopped playing doubles on
a regular basis.   The only reason doubles was shown at
Wimbledon was that McEnroe had made it to the finals.

Commercials
-----------

    USA has been showing several tennis related commercials.
The one that seems to show up the most is the Faberge Power
Stick, a solid deodorant, which Jimmy Connors is in.  He's
a "vain guy" who plays like an animal.   Andre Agassi
has shown up in a Golden Grahams commecial which is
a breakfast cereal (like corn flakes -- well maybe not).
The oft-repeated Egoiste ads from last year's US Open
(a men's cologne) seemed to have disappeared and have
been restricted to the CBS highlight show that shows
at 11:30 to 12am.  Jimmy Connors again shows up in an
ad with Chris Evert for Nuprin, a pain reliever made
from ibuprofen.  Connors semifinal showing and his
association with Nuprin must have sent Nuprin sales
way up (I admit to buying Nuprin as well).   Nike
repeats two ads, one with some scene of an empty court and
the chair where the chair umpire sits lit by some light,
and then spontaneously burning up.  Another shows
the Nike symbol on a black background, with holes being
punched (as if hit by a invisible tennis ball, presumably
Agassi since you hear his grunting) through, and ending with
a shoe spinning.

    I suspect Nike may pull out another ad.  While doing
a piece on David Wheaton, they showed a variation on a
Nike ad from last year, where Agassi is being shown on
a tv set which sits on the floor, and everytime he hits
the ball, the tv is suddenly moved as if the ball has hit the
tv, and it's eventually flipped over.  The new ad, which
I haven't seen televised, now features two tv's with
Wheaton in one tv, and Agassi in the other, and I assume
tv's are in motion (tv -- television).

Human interest stories
----------------------

   With all the rain coming down, USA showed some human
interest stories.  The first showed Wheaton, which included
home videos taken when he was young (somewhat skinny and tall
at that age) swimming, playing tennis, playing hockey.
His father said that David played a lot of other sports
so that even without tennis, he would still have plenty
of other things to do.  Wheaton said that at one point he
had to decide between tennis and hockey and at the time
since he didn't expect to be playing pro in either one,
he chose tennis, thinking that he might do a bit better
in that.   Of cours, it's turned out to be the case.
He hasn't played so well this year, and his rankings
have dropped into the 40's.

    The other story was rather interesting.  It concerned
Venus Williams, who is the 12 year old African American
girl that everyone seemed interested in last year here in the
US.  I think they were hoping she would be the next Capriati
who was hyped up quite a lot as well.   She used to live
in the poorer areas of L.A., but has since gone to a
tennis academy in Florida.

    Her father has very interesting views.  For a while,
he thought she could make him a bit of money playing tennis
but seems to have changed his mind.  He now thinks that there
is too much concern with money by the other tennis parents.
He has also seen kids burn out, and have nothing left.
He is afraid that his children may get to coddled and think
they belong or deserve the fame and money, so he preiodically
takes them to the ghettos (low income areas, typically
predominantly black) where he feels they will remember where
they came from and not try to think of themseleves as
special (Venus and her sister Serena).

   In fact, rather than choosing a brand name academy (say
Bollitieri's), he chose one that was as close to a ghetto
as he could find.   In addition, he places more emphasis
on education, because he thinks tennis could go away
anytime, but education will stay with his daughters.  He
says that is about the only thing he is strict about.
If they want to go to the beach rather than play tennis,
he will take them to the beach.  

-----------

    That's it from me.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu