John Farley Spotlight: Odds and Ends Before Wimbledon

As probably most writers do, I have a computer file full of little notes (some undecipherable for their original intent), post ideas, parody possibilities, and, well, just stuff. I decided I didn't want to look at them anymore, get rid of them, so I stuck them together and this is what came out:

Did You Ever Notice?

•  That during on-court coaching sit-downs, players seem to be more interested in watching the kiss cam on the stadium screen than listening to their coaches. Sam: "Garbine are you listening to me?" Garbine: "Sam, look, that's so sweet."
•  That a kind of commentatorese has developed among many match commentators that flips sentence structure. In English we are used to reading or hearing sentences that have the usual sequence: subject, verb, and predicate. Many commentators flip the structure in such a way that we get commentary like: "One of her more entertaining facial expressions, Ostapenko." or "Not the same player who got bageled in the first set, Petkovic." or "That's a run of four straight games, amazing for her, Giorgi." or "Cute little jump backhand, Krunic." or "Well, that racquet's had it, Vandeweghe." 

I'll Bet You Didn't Know:

• The International Tennis Federation (ITF) defines the official diameter of a tennis ball as 6.54-6.86 cm (2.57-2.70 inches). Balls must have masses in the range of 56.0-59.6 g (1.98-2.10 ounces).
• A ball is tested for bounce by dropping it from a height of 254 cm (100 inches) onto concrete. A bounce between 135 and 147 cm (53 and 58 inches) is acceptable if taking place at sea level at 20 degrees C (68 F) with relative humidity of 60%. No kidding. Of course at 95% humidity on grass you'll get a ball that hits and then just skims along the grass while you embarrassingly swing and miss.
• A "short" ball, that you've heard so much about, is one defined by The World Tennis Ball Monitoring Agency (WTBMA) as between 1.0 and 2.50 inches in diameter. These are the balls players look to tee off on. Under the regulations, a ball under 1 inch in diameter is too short and usually taken out of play. If, during play, the chair umpire suspects a ball has gotten too short, he/she will direct a ball kid to get a ruler and check the ball's diameter. If the ball measures under 1 inch, it is deemed unplayable and the previous point is replayed with a new ball, unless each player is under 5'3," in which case play may continue with the short ball.

Why Do You Players...?

• Hit your shoes with your racquets on grass and hard courts as if you're still playing on clay?
• Blow on your hands between points?  The players that immediately come to mind are Siegemund and Radwanska, although many other players are blowing too.
• Play points with a ball on your hip tucked up under your underpants? So, if the first serve is in play, then you have to run around the court the rest of the point with a ball sloshing around in your underpants. I don't get it. This non-aerodynamic bulge on your hip is doing nothing for your flow around the court. I've noticed the Williams sisters don't do this. Ditch the hip ball. The ball kid is very happy to deliver quickly to you another ball after a blown first serve, and unless you have a Kontaesque serving routine, you will not be hearing from the chair umpire about a time violation.
• Hit overheads, easy volleys, and real short balls so often right back to your opponent instead of to the open court, often getting passed? This drives all couch observers crazy requiring a second round of munchies and a double of the house libation.
• Eat bananas at sit-downs? Potassium aside, bananas are heavy and hard to digest and may make you sluggish on court. I never noticed Chiquita to be a big sponsor of tennis. Why not mangoes (napkins available from ball kids), watermelons, maybe a fruit salad? And what is that stuff you're sucking out of those thin plastic packages?

The Towel

• Like Linus of Peanuts fame, players once on court carry their towels around like security blankets and part with them only when they actually have to play or argue with the chair umpire. Provided by the tournament organizers and well-adorned with the tournament logo, the "towel" has come to be a major on-court weapon on the level of an infuriating service routine or distracting Mattek-Sands type attire. To mess with the rhythm of their opponents, players may go to it between each point, indicating their towel need by a swirl-type motion in front of the face, a gesture for which every ball kid is on alert. Once the towel is in hand the player wipes her face, the back of her neck, her arms, both legs, her racquet handle, and anything else within a 50 yard radius that has sweat. Having tossed the towel then back to the ball kid and waited for her/him to drop three balls on her racquet, she returns to the serving line only 8 minutes and 40 seconds over the 20-second serving time limit. The chair umpire is awakened and play resumes.
• Let's consider for a moment the condition of the towel after a three-set match, 6-4, 6-7, 7-6. of 3 hours and 27 minutes. According to the World Towel Sweat Assessment Association (WTSAA), in a match of 36 games like this one, the towel would have undergone, on average, a minimum of 216 swiping episodes. One can only recoil at the thought of the level of disgusting yuckiness of the towel, which, after the completion of the match, is tossed to an imploring, adoring fan who, thrilled that she has in hand a memento from her favorite WTA star after fighting off other adoring fans for it, returns home to proudly display it on the living room mantle next to the picture of her grandmother and grandfather or something. Yuck! The player has given up her security blanket, yes, but only for another one waiting for her in the shower area, which hopefully is not slippery from some cleansing agent.
•  I was thinking, "why is it we only see the towel in the sport of tennis?" Suppose the towel were used in other sports. Let's look at baseball. Here's the scene: It's the bottom of the ninth inning in a game between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston. The score is 4-3 Yankees. Jackie Bradley, Jr is on second base after hitting an opposite field rope off the Green Monster in left field. With two outs Mookie Betts hits a shot into the gap in left center field for a double scoring Bradley Jr. with the tying run. Cut to the radio announcer: "Betts on second with the winning run. He's calling for the towel folks. Time has been called. The drama is escalating. A bat boy is running out with the towel now. Betts towels down as the Yankee pitcher, Chapman, circles the mound impatiently. The bat boy is running back with the towel, stumbles, but he's alright. A win here would put the Sox only one game behind the Yanks. Pedroia steps to the plate."  I'll leave the rest of the game to your imagination. Visually, I think it would be hilarious. Imagine also a center fielder on a hot August afternoon making a long run to snag a fly ball with a diving catch at the warning track. He calls for the towel. The bat boy runs out to center field, waits for the player to towel down, and then runs back to the dugout. What's baseball waiting for?  How about soccer/world football? Imagine the teams are tied after the 5 penalty kicks and it's down to sudden death between Real Madrid and Bayem Munich. Cristiano Ronaldo is about to approach the ball and Manual Neuer, the goalkeeper, calls for the towel. Eh...I don't think so. Soccer fans are too riot-prone for a move like that. 

Types of Matches:

• Most Boring:

1. The Unforced Error Match - seemingly no strategy, no discernible tactics, each waiting for the other to miss, balls flying long, into the net, into the tramlines, and almost no winners. I saw a first-round match in Miami this year during which there was not one winner between the players in the first four games.
2. The Power Match - match principally characterized by aces, unreturnables, and short replies with quick put-aways by two big hitters. Yawn.

• Fun to Watch:

1. Rally Match - characterized by long rallies, inventive shot-making by "non-power" players who move quickly and gracefully around the court.
2. Kyrgios-Style Obvious Tank Match - no elaboration required.

• Commentary/No Commentary:

1. Commentary - Here you have the opportunity to hear somebody describe to you what you're already watching. If you're watching it on a computer screen with headphones which I often do (especially these days with no WTA Media Platform available - hey Steve get on it will you), it's kind of a cozy experience. You feel like you're sharing the experience with someone but you don't get to talk, and most times you actually find a high degree of similarity between what they're describing and what you're seeing. The commentators have often come to my rescue by identifying celebrities in the court side boxes the camera pans who I recognize but just can't come up with the name.  At one of the majors recently the camera couldn't take it's eye off of, oh, what's her name, Million Dollar Baby? "And there's Hilary Swank taking in the match." Thank you. It was right on the tip of my tongue.
2. No Commentary - It's the first round of a tournament, Court 631, only a 10 minute train ride from the main stadium, and apparently not worth spending the money to pay a commentator. Perhaps a few of the players' friends and maybe family in the seats if that. You hear the balls being hit, grunts from the players, the chair umpire yelling "time," the "fault" calls from the lines judges, and some background noises of cows mooing in a nearby field. The void created by no commentary is both kind of spooky and peaceful. Sometimes I find myself doing the commentary in my head. "Wonder why she doesn't where a hat? They both have the same outfits. That's a lot of physio tape. What's that chair umpire's name?. That looked in to me. That was a loud plane. How does she play with that ponytail flopping around?" Well, needless to say the WTA has not called me about doing commentary, but it did ask me if I wanted to help them get up their media platform. We are negotiating a salary.

If I've "wrong-footed" you with some of the above stuff, I apologize. Next time, maybe I'll deliver it right into your wheelhouse of expectations, but probably not.


Anyway, that's how I see it.