Rob McLean - Can Barack Obama rescue US tennis
Last week it was Boris Yeltsin, the one-time saviour of Russian tennis, now it could be Barack Obama, the US president who could single-handedly inspire a new generation of male players in the United States.
They certainly need it. Andy Roddick is the only American in the top 20 and in 2003 was the last US player to win a Grand Slam - at Flushing Meadows.
Pete Sampras won there the year before and, incidentally, gave another reminder of those halcyon days on Sunday when he beat his great rival and compatriot Andre Agassi in an exhibition in Macau, Hong Kong.
Obama's love of the sport came to light, at least for me, when his wife revealed on the Jay Leno talk show recently that the most annoying thing about her husband was the fact that he beats her at tennis.
In fact, the more I delve, there seems a bit of a trend with world leaders.
George Bush senior was a keen player and Bill Clinton did an interview on Centre Court which, I think, stopped Cliff Richard singing again during a rain break. Great result.
Even our own beleaguered Gordon Brown, not shy when it comes to political publicity stunts (phoning up Britain's Got Talent Susan Boyle and covering his bases by saying he wished both Scotland and England football teams well) once got in on the act with a serve for the benefit of the cameras.
For someone who only has one good eye it actually looked very professional.On further investigation, it turns out that he did play tennis for Edinburgh University.
Whether this photo opportunity was a spot of one-upmanship on Tony Blair is unclear, although Blair had got in there first with a pro-am event with Tim Henman at Queen's Club.
Congratulations to Marcos Baghdatis, the popular Cypriot and former Australian Open finalist who won the Stockholm Open yesterday (report here).
Baghdatis has had something of a dip in his career but is back in the groove after beating Olivier Rochus of Belgium.
The tournament had a lot of publicity, mainly for the allegations that two players had solicited prostitutes at a hotel. One of the players, Latvian Ernests Gulbis, was named by a couple of websites.
His off-court activities might explain his limp display against Andy Murray at Wimbledon this year. Once regarded as one of the rising stars of the game, it appears he hasn't had his mind on the job, so to speak. New balls please!
Brit Watch: The Davis Cup final is in December and Great Britain are off the radar, no surprise there. But despite our position in what amounts to the GM Vauxhall Conference of the competition, the future could be bright with Colin Fleming and Ken Skupski looking like thay have solved the doubles problem. They won a title in Metz in September and have now won again in France at Orleans. It goes without saying, it will all amount to nothing if Andy Murray opts out of singles play.
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Date published :
27 Oct 2009 - 10:24:13
