Bird's Eye View: Washington Quarterfinals

Found this gem by James7 over at Talk About Tennis:

So yesterday I missed the first QF but got there just before the second.

No one was on the practice courts, but I saw ESPN had set up a little tented booth area. There was a little crowd gathered to be behind the two people at the desk. I don't know the name of the one guy, but the other was Gimmie-Slob, sitting with a little hand held mirror and fiddling with something at his left ear for several minutes. Either hair or earpiece.

Slobs companion recorded a voiceover to a Verdasco/Baghdatis promo or lead-in montage. The first take flubbed a little and they repeated it. I decided thatit probably wasn't worth it to try to be in the background of any footage they would take and headed off.

Right next door on court 2 I saw very few people in the stands and someone on the court so I headed over and sat down. There I was treated to Stan the Man who I had managed to miss this week! He was fooling around with someone I didn't recognize (probably from his team?). Exercising, I'm sure, but it looked like he was having fun. They were kicking this ball around and passing it without hands back and forth. I was trying to understand the rules of the game they were playing, but didn't get it. Got some video and good pictures where it FINALLY dawned on me to use the action setting of my camera. I was a little pissed now that I realized all of those earlier trashed photos probably could have been saved and non-blurry all week.

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Roddick: Hard Work Equals Longevity

Ricky Carioti-The Washington Post

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A rather nice article. Like him or not, Andy Roddick has worked as hard as any player to remain fit, focused, and hungry for major tennis success.

Legg Mason Tennis Classic: Hard work has kept Andy Roddick around

Andy Roddick returns to the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center in search of his fourth title at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic.

By Liz Clarke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 2, 2010

Even before last year's loss to Roger Federer in the longest, most soul-sapping singles final in Wimbledon history, Andy Roddick wondered if his best had passed him by.

The only way to find out, he decided at a particularly low point in the summer of 2008, was to keep working.

And that may well prove the legacy of Roddick's career, remembered as the player who poured as much effort into slogging away at the daily drudgery of professional tennis as he did reveling in its spoils.

At 27, Roddick is far from retirement, to be sure. But after a decade as a touring pro, the ethic of his career is well established.

If ever a millionaire athlete married to a Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover model could be mistaken for a working-class guy, Roddick is it.

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Jonathan Newton-The Washington Post