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French Open 2012: Maria Sharapova times it right

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Last hope: Elena Baltacha could yet get a wildcard entry to the Olympics

While not quite on the same scale of injustice as Taekwondo athlete Aaron Cook, there would be few sadder stories of Olympic omission than the eventuality of Britain’s Elena Baltacha missing out on a place at London 2012.

It went largely unnoticed last week that 28 year-old Baltacha could be excluded from the Games because of the untimely dip in her ranking that occurred on Monday morning, the all-important entry date for the historic tournament at the All England Club.

To briefly recap, having been British No 1 for 132 weeks since December 2009 Baltacha has fallen to No 2 behind Anne Keothavong, who will now be given the one wildcard that is automatically handed out for the host nation.

For most of the past two years the Ipswich-based player has been within the qualifying zone, but recently dropped below the threshold after a year in which she has been making alterations to her game.

So now she is relying on charity, and the Lawn Tennis Association, urged on by Judy Murray, is rightly making representations to the relevant Olympic committee that she is a worthy recipient of one of the six wildcards available to themin addition to Keothavong.

There is real pathos in this story in that Baltacha’s mother Olga, a high class Pentathlete, also missed out on an Olympic berth at Moscow 1980 because at the time her son Sergei was a baby and there was nobody available to look after him. Her father, also Sergei, played football at the same Games and won a bronze medal for Russia.

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His daughter may not emulate him, but there is a strong case for her being given a privileged entry nonetheless.

In the country that hosts Wimbledon, Baltacha has been a rare stalwart of tennis, sometimes ploughing a lone furrow in Grand Slams and carving out a good career despite having to manage a severe liver condition on a daily basis.

She has represented GB in Fed Cup 43 times, always answered the call, and was largely responsible for the country nearly making the World Group this year.

In Ipswich she runs a tennis programme aimed at getting girls from disadvantaged backgrounds into the game. That is typical of her hard working, generous nature – off the court at least – which has been a credit to the sport she represents.

So let’s hope that, when they meet during Wimbledon, the Olympic committee can be persuaded to reward fittingly one of the lesser sung characters in British sport.

Feeling blue at dinner

Dinner during the second week of Roland Garros with Ion Tiriac is a long standing and happy tradition enjoyed by the British writing fraternity, and a chance to chew the cud with the moustachioed Romanian who owns the Madrid Masters, and its tournament director Gerard Tsobanian.

Tiriac, the former player turned tycoon who first guided Boris Becker to superstardom, is that rare thing in tennis, a genuine leader and innovator, but it has been a chastening couple of months for him with all the ballyhoo over the blue clay courts used at his tournament.

He admits that there were problems with the court being slippy although that was to do with installation more than colour.  The courts were also an issue in Monte Carlo and seem to have been slightly less pristine than usual at Roland Garros.

But the blue, which some players objected to even before playing on them, was a worthy idea and it is obvious to anyone watching in the past four weeks that the ball was much easier to track for television viewers than, say, at the Italian Open.

Feeling Blue: Ion Tiriac was the man behind the controversial blue courts

Now Madrid must wait for the judgement of ATP Chief Executive Brad Drewett, who is going to rule in the next month or so whether they can stick with blue or will have to revert to traditional red.

Tiriac has offered to stage a blue clay Challenger event later in the year to help iron out any issues with the surface in advance.

The top players usually get what they want in tennis, so with Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic having led the complaints there must be every chance of a reversion to traditional red.

The wider point is that it shows again how difficult it is to innovate in tennis when the players are so conservative and resistant to change.

Tennis has to evolve to keep up in the ultra-competitive sports market, especially when it comes to television, which is not exactly queueing up to pay big bucks for coverage rights at most times of year. The lack of interest from American TV in some large events, for instance, tells a story.

You wonder what chance there is of spectator-friendly innovations, such cutting out the amount of dead time in matches, coming to pass if one week’s change of colour causes such a firestorm of complaints.

Fed and buried

After Roger Federer lost on Friday evening at Roland Garros the interview room was predictably packed and I had no option but to sit in the front row, which in Paris is so close up you are right under the nose of the interviewee.

What struck me, having sat in on more Roger press conferences than I care to remember, was how sanguine the great man was after losing such a big match. Usually he can be slightly prickly on such occasions, but there was an almost good-humoured acceptance at times of his fate.

Resigned: Roger Federer failed to show the sort of fighting spirit that made him a champion

It rather backed my feeling of watching the third  set against Novak Djokovic that he was unusually not bothered, and resigned to his fate after what had been a fairly nonchalant performance all round.

While I still expect his pride and technical brilliance to make him a factor at Wimbledon, this acceptance is slightly dangerous territory for someone who has won everything already and is coming up to 31. It is hard to imagine that a 23 year-old would have contemplated that it was all over after going two sets down.

One of the fascinating things about sport is watching the great champions trying to deal with ageing process, and they do not come much greater than Federer.

It must be difficult for him to see Nadal and Djokovic carving things up between them. I have always struggled to believe his line that he will still be competing hard at 35, and after Friday I believe it a little bit less.

More than sport

There were some fascinating and very serious pieces written last week about the England football team’s visit to Auschwitz and how it affected them. My only comparable experience was a trip to Dachau in Germany about fifteen years ago, an extremely sobering experience.

I mention this because one memory of the day is that I surprisingly  found there, off duty from the tennis event he was playing at, none other than Marcelo Rios, the so-called bad boy of the era.

Roland's ratings

After what has now turned into 16 days at the French Open you get a fair idea of the best and worst of the place.

The best single aspect of Roland Garros is its outside show courts, which are streets ahead of their rival Grand Slams. The majesty of Lenglen, the quirkiness of Two and Three and the best of the lot, the Bullring.

When it comes to outside courts, let us hope they do a more imaginative job when redeveloping Roland Garros than Wimbledon has done.

The worst is a close call, but probably beating the often  daft scheduling is the absence of spectators courtside on Phillipe Chatrier.

They desperately need to copy Wimbledon and get real fans down the front, pushing the troughing  corporates up into the stand, out of the TV picture and creating an atmosphere. As for the constantly empty acres in the Presidential Box, it is simply a disgrace and an embarrassment for French tennis.

Why timing is right for Maria

An interesting  little sideshow after the moment of  victory is to see  tennis players put on their sponsored watches immediately after matches.

Maria Sharapova gesticulated to her support team to get her a watch moments after  winning the French Open with a 6-3, 6-2 beating of  Italian Sara Errani.

Britain’s Andy Murray is expected to sign up to a watch company this week.

Watch out: Maria Sharapova was quick to accessorise after winning the French Open title and completing her own personal Slam

That's pants, Caroline

Given that former world No 1  Caroline Wozniacki’s ranking is tumbling and she made another unscheduled exit from a Grand Slam here, perhaps the timing was not great last week for her to announce her own underwear range.

Already facing questions about whether her romance with Rory McIlroy is distracting her, Wozniacki will launch the range with Danish  manufacturer JBS in September.

Back on yer bike, Ivan?

Ivan Lendl is back this week at Queen’s Club, to which he used to  cycle as a player.

Legendary groundsman David Kimpton used to  turn the tables on renowned practical joker Lendl by hiding his bike — and his son, Graham, who succeeded him, is threatening to bring his dad out of retirement for a day to mark Lendl’s return.

Belgians keep on coming

Belgium may have lost Justine Henin but they continue to punch above their weight in tennis.

Kimmer Coppejans, who beat Britain’s Kyle Edmund in the quarter-finals, won the junior boys’ singles on Sunday while steadily re-emerging women’s tennis superpower Germany produced the girls’ winner in Annika Beck.

Sweet like chocolate: Kimmer Coppejans won the boys singles final in France

Blue is the colour

One thing we have learned from this clay-court season is that, for all the complaints of the players, the  controversial blue surface in use at the Madrid Open does improve the visibility of the ball for television viewers.

ATP chief executive Brad Drewett will rule in the next month whether the colour of the clay  surfaces can stay blue or if they must revert to the  traditional red.

To Halle with the cost!

It has to be admitted that there is a decent field this week at the Gerry Weber Open in Halle, rival to the AEGON Championships at Queen’s.

Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Tomas Berdych and rising Canadian star Milos Raonic are all there, but that lot are probably costing the  Germans hosts around £1.5million in appearance money alone.

  More... World of Tennis: Why timing has to be just right for Maria at Roland Garros Murray claims his back is fine as he prepares to take on Queens Sharapova completes the Slam as world No 1 sweeps aside Errani to win French Open





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