Harry, I have been looking on MTF to find a livestream but can't at this point unfortunately. It looks like it could shape up to be a Federer/Nadal final and if that happens- I will be very disappointed if I can't find a stream, although Eurposport may have it on radio.

I can't believe Jimmy Arias is a commentator on TTC. Has he been on there for long or is this new? He's pretty terrible, IMO. Last night, the play by play guy asked him about decision-making in doubles and Arias said, "Oh, well I didn't really play doubles, so I don't really know." That was useful.

But I am really loving live tennis on the station. They even had some live stuff from Dubai during last week's tourney, but not the Hingis matches I wanted to see! Grrrrr. I had to download them after the fact as bit torrent files.

Eurosport carries the live-audio and scores.

Thanks to all of you trying to provide info on how the hell to watch the upcoming Federer-Nadal Thunder Final. Argh!!

Chesty, what is this MTF of which you speak? It sounds like something I'd like to know about.

And unless I'm having very, very, VERY bizarre dreams, I'm sure I saw part of the Henman-Stepanik match from the early rounds of the Dubai tournament ... somewhere. Argh 2.0!!

And how does one find a live stream? Google "Live Stream Dubai Tennis final"? Or something more specific?

Thanks again, everyone.

It is Mens Tennis Forums and can be found here. There can be some great discussions on there- but at the same time there are some very trollish posters. To connect it TWOP, one thing that is very interesting to me as a US viewer is to read the frustrations of some of the posters who get angry at Sky Sports or Europsport (which is covering Dubai). It sounds like both of them sometimes cut off matches in the middle of a set, and it can be very frustrating. I guess there are problems with tennis coverage all over. :)

BTW- there is a Chesty LaRue that posts on there...but that is not me (I guess they liked the same Simpsons episode. ;)

I have a feeling that if the Rafa/Roger final does come to pass- I will have to listen to it on audio while using my exercise bike. I wish they were showing it on one of the Asian channels like Star Sports because you can almost always get a live stream of their coverage.

ETA- It seems like there will be a link from an Asian station with the semis and final of Dubai. Here is some info.

Live coverage of Dubai: Nadal vs Rainer S.
http://planet.nana.co.il/livetv/GDTV.html

Amelie Mauresmo has been on fire right now. She won 3 more tournaments and is reaching for a fourth.

Borg auctioning off his Wimbledon trophies.

Wow, I remember watching the Borg/McEnroe matches when I was a kid. What a shame. The BBC News site said he had a L40 million fortune at one point. I just don't get how someone can piss away that kind of money. Put enough aside to ensure long-term cash flow and play with the rest. Why is that so hard?

Whoa. Borg. I know he moved to Monaco to avoid paying taxes, and his name brand line was a business failure not because it was initially unsuccessful but because he expanded too quickly and the center collapsed. I'd like to hear more about this. They gave Roscoe Tanner a profile re: his financial woes. Wonder who else is hurtin'.

That news about Borg is very sad. Is it too much to hope that some kind-hearted person will buy them and turn around and give them back to him? I saw Borg/Mac play in a charity tournament about 20 years ago and it still ranks as the best experience I've ever had at a sporting event.

I just read on MTF (thanks, Chesty!) that TTC will show the Federer-Nadal Dubai final Saturday, 10am. I think they said live too, but now I forget. The last time I checked TTC website they weren't showing it, so I don't know where the poster on the MTF got the info, but ... well, there you go.

ETA: It's now 10am, and, lo and behold, the match is on. Live! Yipee.

Yea! Thanks for the notice Harry. I wonder if they decided at the last minute (since it is not listed in Tivo) because it is Roger/Rafa.

I'm sure that's why they decided to broadcast it at the last minute, Chesty. It wasn't listed anywhere, even after the source on the MTF said it was going to be broadcast. As I said above, even TTC's website didn't list it then.

I hope some of you guys are watching it because the tennis is awesome!

Don't rub it in, Harry! Why Chicago comcast can't get us TTC is beyond me.

I was really saddened by the recent Borg news - and this after watching PBS's Billie Jean King special, which was also kind of sad. How she didn't ever get the financial rewards for being such an important character in the tennis drama. And now to hear of Borg's financial difficulties....

Go Roger! I know it's not looking good at the moment....

Wow---what a match! Great stuff. I think after the way Roger was playing in the first set about any other player would have rolled over and Roger would have won in sets. Boy, gotta admire Rafa's mental toughness- loved how not only did he not get down, but he changed his tactics.

If I had any bone to pick with TTC in their coverage- it would be that they showed commercials instead of the beginning of Rafa's comments about the match - which had praise about Rogelio- which is Rafa's nickname for Federer. And we also missed Nadal sobbing into his towel.

Roger was so gracious in defeat and I loved the shots of the two of them chatting together. They really do seem to really like one another - I practically wanted to draw a heart around the two of them on my TV screen. I love how much I love the two of them.

I also really liked how they had they had the doubles finalists out there during the trophy presentation.

What's this about? Is Billie Jean in some kind of financial troubles, too? That would completely suck.

The Nadal-Federer match today was superb and I loved the announcers. At one point in the third set, when Roger hit an amazing shot, I started laughing because the shot was so good....and how cool was it that one of the announcers did, too? I can't believe the result, frankly, but them's the breaks.

Oh and the Spanish fans make American fans/Brazilian fans/Argentine fans look like they are on sedatives. Chill already. It's not the Davis Cup.

The awards ceremony was endless. I don't know how I managed to tough it out--ha!--especially when we had to wait for the Dubai royalty to come down to the court. Puh-leeeeeze.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about instant replay but Nasdaq will have it in just a couple of weeks. Read about it here.

I love how since this is an ATP site all the quotes from players are praising the idea. Judging by how it is going to be implemented, I guess TPTB are NFL fans.

They used Shot Spot at the Hopman Cup and it seemed to work well. I'm not sure how exactly they implemented it, though.

Coverage of Indian Wells starts on Sunday on ESPN2. I can't wait! The draw kind of sucks but hopefully my favorites will do well.

Here's an update on the story about Bjorn Borg's trophies.

On an unrelated note, I'm pissed that ESPN preempted their broadcast of Indian Wells with that World Baseball classic. I was thrilled to find that out after I'd waited for 4:00 to come around yesterday. What with their previosly scheduled coverage that continued right afterwards, there must have been like 6-7 hours of baseball yesterday. Could it kill them to stick to there schedule? Is that baseball tournament really that much in demand?

Not to put to fine a point on it, but the article said that the trophies and racquets are expected to go for roughly a half million dollars. Why does Agassi need to put together a consortium for that? Can't he and Steffi pool enough funds to purchase the items and, I don't know, donate them to the tennis Hall of Fame?

I don't mean to sound crass or to tell Agassi what he should do with his money, but I doubt that amount would strap him or Steffi, and if it is that important to him for the trophies to stay out of the hands of some greedy rich person who just wants an artifact, why not just buy them himself and donate them? Since that's what he plans to do with this mysterious consortium anyway.

On a lighter note, Pete was at Indian Wells today, hanging with Paul and watching Henman play. He looked good, too. I hope Patty Mac convinced him to go into the booth for the evening session. It's nice to see Pete stepping out of his retirement and taking baby steps back into the game. I'd like to hear him do some color commentary, since I always found him a slyly entertaining interview as well as a pretty sharp observer.

I see where you're coming from, but Agassi is known for being very generous to charitable causes. While $500,000 certainly wouldn't break them by any stretch of the imagination, it's still a lot of money to put into something that's a nice idea, but that won't really do anyone any concrete good. I don't see anything wrong with him trying to bring in others who have just as much, if not more money than him, and who have a greater interest (eg. Wimbledon, ATP) in keeping those trophies from being bought up and socked away in some private collection.

Maybe it's just me, but whenever ESPN uses the Shot Spot, it always seems to be used whenever an American player (named Agassi or Roddick) is contesting a call or the ball looked like it was close. When the Shot Spot is used, it always seems to show that, whatdoyaknow, Andy and Andre were right and they should have gotten that point. While if the Shot Spot is used for a foreign player, that player is always shown to be wrong. Sometimes it's like P. McEnroe is tweaking the computer himself.

Or maybe I have been blinded by irrational disdain for both players and residual ill will from the US stealing that baseball game from Japan.

Just you. At least during tonight's Haas/Agassi match since they showed a badly blown call on a Haas serve that took the game to deuce. They also showed Roddick getting all pissy about a shot of his that got called out that he was CERTAIN was good and, lo and behold, it was clearly out.

The 4 pm coverage was on ESPN2 yesterday. I watched part of the Henman match. It is so frustrating seeing him unable to close out a set, much less a match. He was up a break in the first and serving for the set and he had opportunities to break his opponent to win the first set. It's hard to love Tim.

As for the Borg trophies, if they are auctioning them off they really don't know how much they will go for. If you have ever watched Cash in the Attic, things often go for 10x the expected amount. I think it is great of Agassi to bring up the idea, but I don't think it should be completely up to him to bail out Borg, Wimbledon, and the game of tennis. There are plenty of people with a stake in the situation.

Actually It was ESPN2's scheduled coverage on Sunday that got preempted, but I'm feeling better now having seen the coverage yesterday (Monday). It's great to see Safin back. It seems like he's playng well considering he's only been back for a short time.

Wow...Hingis beat Davenport. It was a good match to watch, even though it was more like Davenport unraveling more than Hingis outplaying her. But its nice to see her get a big win and it would be nice to see her go deep in this tourney-I think she can now.

To be fair, Ms. Hingis destroyed Sharapova in Tokyo only about a month ago, I think 3 and 1, and that IMO is maybe as big as beatig Davenport on what is essentially her home turf. But maybe not. She has had a problem, though, putting together an effective match after she gets a big win (after the Sharapova defeat, she lost to Dementieva in the final, I think).

Unlike you, I thought it was a pretty terrible match to watch. They took turns fucking up and, if Ms. Hingis hadn't won the first game of the third set, I think she would have been a goner. She had her serve broken at love and 15 so many times in the second set, I thought she might revert to the underhand serve she used in the French final against Ms. Graf lo those many years ago.

I kept waiting for Mary Jo to show her favoritism toward her husband's client, but she was actually quite fair. It made it less fun for me because I wanted to rail against her here. I suppose she was torn between her husband's interests and the narrative in which the WTA seems so invested.

In terms of quality, yeah sure, it sucked. Not every match can be the match of the year. But I was just referring to enjoying seeing Hingis be the underdog and win.

There is a more updated article that includes the US Open that I can't seem to locate, but what is the consensus about this? It's about time and now we won't have to deal with the computer illustrations, right?

Damn, crazy upsets

And I am so happy.

Srichaphan defeats Nalbandian 6-7 6-3 6-2

Andreev beats Roddick 6-4 6-7 6-1

Y'all I think James Blake is gonna win this tournament if he can win tonight. He might be on track to having the hottest year on tour, woo go James!

I can't wait to see instant replay in play next week and am excited that the US Open is the first Slam to implement it. The less a match hinges on a bad call at an inopportune time the better. I thought it was funny that the article brought up how there would be fewer embarrassing McEnroe-like tirades on the court, but the majority of outbursts are not call related. So we'll still get the players talking to themselves and head-butting balls and what not. Just not having a player totally lose his or her shit because of a bad call that didn't get overruled and not competing well.

Plus, if the whole thing can be settled in under 10 seconds, that's often less time than the umpire allows a player to vent so it won't slow the game down much.

As for Blake? I'd LOVE for him to win. As much as I love Federer and hate watching him lose a set let alone a tournament, I could get behind a Blake win. Even if it's at Fed's expense. But the hottest year on tour? There's a lot of the year left and there are a couple of guys who don't like to lose and don't lose often. Blake would do well just to get into the top 8 and make the year-end championships. That would be a great accomplishment for him.

Yay!

Paradorn vs Federer! That's going to be an awesome match. Glad to see Paradorn doing so well.

Rafael vs James seems to be a pretty good match as well.

I'll sheepishly admit I clapped when Dementieva won that last point against Justine. She's such a fighter-I don't know how she does it.

And ESPN2 should be happy-two model-beautiful women in the final!

With his victory over Andreev, he jumps up to 10th place in the rankings. I think if he keeps playing like he is right now, he'll be there pretty quickly. I'm definitely rooting for him. I like everyone in the final four, if Blake wins, that'll push him up to #7.

The Dementieva/JHH match was great to watch. I didn't have anything against JHH winning, but Dementieva's such a fighter, it's always fun to watch her play.

All of the remaining matches should be great to watch.

Getting into the top 8 and staying there for the rest of the year are two different accomplishments. I think he can do it and I'll be cheering him on all along the way, but I'm just a little less feast or famine with my predictions. Right now I'm just really happy Blake is finally playing up to all of his potential and having his best year, ever. If he continues at this level for the whole year, perfect. I'm just not ready to say that the first 2 1/2 months is indicative of how the rest of the year will continue because rarely is the first few months indicative of how the year will end.

How true. I never understood why people always said that Pete Sampras was boring when I always thought that he had very dry wit. For evidence of this rarely seen Sampras wit check out this link to an interview with Medvedev that had me in stitches: Pete and Andrei

With Pete in all probability playing a couple of senior tournaments and Marcelo Rios gearing up to challenge Goran I don't understand why more channels don't carry the Senior tour.

Just to be clear, I wasn't making a prediction; merely stating his present position. Obviously we're very far from the end of the year, it's just good to see him doing so well. As I said, IF he keeps playing this well he'll have a good year.

And we both agree on that. I just have a knee jerk reaction, based solely upon my irrational hatred of all things Brad Gilbertian, to even a whiff of expectations based upon recent good performances. So I probably pounced a bit strongly.

As for that joint press conference between Medvedev and Sampras. Wow. I knew Medvedev was insane but I didn't realize just how big of a gaping asshole he was. Pete was hilarious, and I could just see how his every little jab at Medvedev would send the jerk further over the edge.

But a dry wit with sports reporters, especially when you're a high school dropout, probably just flies past them because they have to fit you into a box and with Pete his box was "didn't have the heart" until it became "boring, arrogant jerk" but neither were true. I remember the year (99? 2000?) when he won his 12th Slam and had that great summer. He was gearing up to win his 13th Slam at the US Open and there was all sorts of hoohaw going on around him until he hurt his back and the Open was scraping by for stories on him. They cobbled together a piece that was great. It started with a clip-job called "Which came first, the stupid question or the boring answer?" and showed Pete over the years answering variations on the "How do you think you played today/How did your opponent play/Why do you think you won?" question and his responses careened from thoughtful, to snarky, to downright surreal when he just wanted his food and was completely ignoring the reporter. You kinda got the feeling that if his answers were canned or boring it might not have been all, or mostly, his fault. But then came an interview he did with some faceless reporter that just showed how sly and smart he was. My favorite, favorite, favorite answer was when asked about why he's so boring in interviews he leaned forward with that toothy grin and said "Ask me a good question and I'll give you an answer that gets you a better job." Okay, it's blunt and a little mean, but in context it was HIGH-larious. The reporter admitted the "touche" and the two of them had a totally one-up jock-o-thon that Pete came out on top of. It was funny and engaging because it just let Pete fly.

Damn ESPN for showing the Blake/Nadal match on tape delay! Anyway, Federer/Blake is about as good as it gets for me. This should be an excellent match. Something tells me the switch to best-of-five sets eliminates any real hope of a Blake victory. Still, I can't wait!

BTW, PMac should just admit that Blake is currently the best American in the world. I don't see how he can sit someone this red hot. If they weren't playing the Davis Cup tie on grass, I'd drop Roddick. Since they are, he needs to bite the bullet and give Andre the Legend the weekend off.

Well, yay for James Blake, that was an excellent win and I'm certainly pleased for him! I didn't see it, any comments? Nadal a little off, Blake on fire? The score was fairly decisive. However, I must say I was really hoping for a Nadal-Federer matchup (with Fed winning of course, I always want Roger to win.) Still, should be a fun match between Blake and Fed. Hmm, the final is best of 5? Interesting, and though Roger is certainly very fit and I do expect his overall excellence to prevail ... Blake is also at his best in long matches, he's tough and has a never-say-die attitude. Anyway, hoping for a good match, and expecting it will be.

ETA: Well, hardly a nail-biter but generally Nadal is the only player who makes me nervous for Fed. And I just so thoroughly enjoy watching Fed play, he's outrageously talented. Beautiful, beautiful shots. I've been watching tennis over 20 years, and I really can't recall any other man who has both the genius and the consistency he has. Others have dominated, but not in such a way that makes me think "what an artist." Blake is hardly a scrub, either - soaring up the rankings, fresh off a win over the clear #2 ranked player, and he has to be brimming with confidence. He played pretty well too, but no problem for Fed today. Heh, can you tell what an avid fan I am?

It was a very well commentated match by Cliffy and PMac. Basically, Blake dictated play the whole match. He kept Nadal on the defensive.

Oh I agree! TTC shows some senior events but I want to see more. I always seem to catch McEnroe matches. I would like do see a wider variety of players. Do either of the foxy Swedes - Edberg and Mats (who is still smokin') play many seniors events. I always welcome Goran on my screen, it's fun to see some what forgotten players like Krickstein, and Pete's return will be a hoot. But truth be told the player that I look most forward to seeing is Rios. I loved this little gifted left hander with talent that was beautiful but whose attitude and drive were the pits. I know he was a surly underachiever who could be an asshole, but I adored him. Plus- his looks reminded me of a cat x an Incan x a Monchici. I would really like to see him kick it all out on the senior tour and finally achieve a level equal to his talent.

Maybe Pete dipping his toe into the senior tour will entice TTC to show more seniors.

Chesty LaRue, I agree. Rios' playing is proof positive that a sport can be an art form. Even though during his era I automatically rooted against him (because I was an Enqvist fan, so help me), I couldn't deny the beauty of his game. So wonderful to watch. Probably even prettier than Fed's game, in my opinion, even though he was much less successful. People keep saying they would love to see peak Sampras vs. peak Federer, but I would also love to see a Rios-Fed match.

To get this post back to tennis coverage, Star Sports has been annoying me by denying me Indian Wells except for the Fed-Blake final. As far as I can tell, anyway. Bring on FO.

Does Rios have a one- or two-handed backhand? (To me, a two-handed backhand will always be aesthetically problematic.)

A two-hander, I believe.

Rios definitely uses two hands. While he was certainly pretty, I wouldn't say he looked as good as Federer does.

I'm just saying he did for me. He had this natural gift that was such a stark difference to the one-dimensional power-hitters of that era (of which my beloved Enqvist was one).

I agree that the one-handed backhand is a thing of beauty. Federer, Andrei Pavel and especially Henin.

So much for a Federer/Nadal final in the Nasdaq 100. Nadal lost to Moya today, 6-1 1-6 1-6 or something like that.

So long, Justine. Hope karma didn't bite you on the ass too hard for being such a spoilsport in Australia.

Also, I'm sure I'm the only one here who thinks this, but glad Nadal lost early, although I hope it's just because he got outplayed and not because his ankle is flaring up again. I'm not a Nadal fan, but I want him to be healthy during the clay court season so that when Federer beats him (a girl can dream) it will be against a healthy Nadal.

And count me as prefering the one-handed backhand, as well. Doesn't Mauresmo also have one? Fed's is probably the most technically sound, even if he can't hit a high one to save his life and Henin's is a little to "whippy" for my taste, like she started out with two-hands and is still clinging to the last vestiges of it and holding on to the racquet a moment too long, but any pro who makes the effort to learn a one-handed backhand gets some respect from me. Until she gets all whiney in a Slam final and quits rather than take the loss like a grown up. (Yes, I'm still miffed at Henin for punking out at the AO.)