Weekly Tennis Trail: No cowing down Federer, business as usual for Serena and more

Roger moo’d by his welcome at Gstaad

Roger Federer at the Hamburg event last week with the new all black prototype racquet

Roger Federer seems quite desperate to get back to winning ways. The World No.5 chose to make a late entry into the Gstaad Open in his native Switzerland. Well, if you have not been winning much, I guess you take every opportunity that comes your way.

RFed has only won 1 tournament this year (yes, only one), at Halle. He followed that up though with an ignominious exit in the 2nd round at Wimbledon, his earliest Grand Slam exit since 2003.

Federer recently claimed that he intends to put this season’s bad results behind him and rebound swiftly from them, promising to not be cowed down in anyway. The organizers at Gstaad obviously had other ideas though, as they presented the Swiss maestro with a nice looking, healthy cow, to thank him for deciding to play at the clay court event.

The shocks continue for Roger both on and off the courts!

The Swiss ace though has revealed that he intends to continue using his new, slightly larger Wilson wand to weave his magic. Federer has been using a new 98-square-inch prototype racquet, instead of the 90-square-inch model which he has used for most of his career – “I’ll play Gstaad with it and then we can look ahead. The plan for now is to continue with this racquet.”

I personally think the shanking has got to do with his fickle concentration these days as compared to the equipment. Of course, that and his on-court movement, which with the mileage on board has slackened.

Diet tips from the Djoker

The ‘Djoker’ entertains guests at the Novak Djokovic Foundation Gala Dinner at London

There’s some very juicy and nutritious information being served down from the Novak Djokovic camp.

The men’s World No.1 is all set to release a “nutrition-based performance guide” called ‘Serve to Win’ that is to be published next month before the US Open.

‘Nole’ will be devolving details and tips pertaining to his “performance-focussed”, gluten-free diet that he adopted late in 2010. That’s a lot of in quotes technical terminology. It will be a Random House publication. (That’s the actual name of the publishing house people!)

Another tournament, another crown for Serena

Serena Williams uncorks the champagne after her Swedish Open triumph

Don’t let Serena’s smiling and jovial demeanour off the court fool you. Not winning hurts, and hurts big for the top ranked player in women’s tennis.

Every time she steps on the court, you are tempted to say, “It’s clobberin’ time”, ala Ben Grimm/The Thing from the Fantastic Four. She did not lose more than 5 games in a single match en route to winning the Bastad Open in Sweden (No, you shall not make fun of that name).

Serena has only lost 3 times this year and each time she has come back with a vengeance. So, while one of her peers was stripping down for photoshoots, Serena was giving her opponents on the court a dressing down.

“It’s never a good feeling to lose,” she said quietly. “When you lose you need to be quiet, and I always think, ‘OK, what can I do better?’ I think of the reasons as to why I lost and once I figure it out, I fix it,” she added. Ladies of the WTA Tour, you have been served a serenely deadly notice!