Running French Open thread

No Andy, no Tsongas, no Davenport and no foul, evil creature.

I'm watching anyway, taped delayed and switching between this and the 500.

Serena looks really good. Best shape she's been in in years.

 

Vamos Guga!

 

Nice to see James Blake give the U.S. contingent a win.

 

The U.S. men were going to better this year. There were two of them playing each other -- Ginepri and some guy I've never heard of.

It is nice to see Blake get a win.

 

You've never heard of Donald Young? He's been one of the bigger stories in American tennis for quite a few years because he basically turned pro when he was about 15.

 

Wait, was he the one who won a junior slam (or came close)?

I don't know all the younglings on the men's side.

 

He won junior Wimbledon last year and reached the third round of the U.S. Open.

 

Good story about Young last year in PLAY Magazine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/magazine/24young-t.html

 

You know entirely too much about Olympic sports, and I mean that in the most flattering way possible, given that most of the sports I really like fall into that niche.

Nice article.

 

Ashley Harkleroad is so proud of the shape she's in that she'll appear in Playboy's August issue: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iu29aIeKLfb73qad9sH8rO7-vqaA

 

That's interesting, both from a dirty male mind POV and from a tennis fan POV. I think Ashley has more or less decided that she's never going to develop into an elite player, so why not cash in now? Posing nekkid isn't really something you do when you're trying make the leap. I've always thought she was much prettier than Sharapova, she just didn't have the game to match. What's weird about her is she's 22 and she's already been married and divorced to some Russian singles player, and now she's engaged to her coach, who is like 37.

Ms. Harkleroad, for all the uninformed:

 

I'd do her.