Passing Thoughts: Jumping Ships

1. It’s official, Andy Murray has left Fred Perry for adidas.

It’s a pity, he had spent all those years wearing whatever potato sac Fred Perry gave him, and just when the designs got better this year, Mandy’s leaving.

In an official statement, adidas confirmed that Andy will wear the Competition line and the Barricade.

 

adidas VP Global Sports Marketing, Jocelyn Robiot says, “We are delighted to welcome Andy Murray in to the adidas tennis family.  Andy is a young, dynamic player that embodies adidas’ pure performer qualities.  He is a very driven and dedicated athlete and we look forward to working with him on developing our Barricade products and helping him achieve his Impossible in 2010.”

 

2. It’s “hello goodbye” for Adidas this week, as Sam Qurrey jumped ship for K-Swiss, the sponsor of Tommy Haas, Mardy Fish, and Jim Courier. 

 

“We are very pleased to have Sam join the K-Swiss family,” commented John Tobias, BEST Tennis President.  “It’s a company we are very familiar with and have done a couple of other deals with for top players Mardy Fish, Vera Zvonareva and Alona & Kateryna Bondarenko.  We feel this is a perfect fit for Sam, and he is very excited about this new partnership with K-Swiss.”

 

3. Is Novak leaving Adidas or not? Is he joining K-Swiss, Head, or perhaps … a certain Chinese brand?

 

4. On actual tennis, Marco Chiudinelli has found a streak of good form lately. He ousted 8th seed Kolhschreiber in Basel, to the delight of the home crowd. 

Oh, and he lost his doubles match with that other Swiss guy too. But how about a picspam? How about it huh?! 

It’s double the trouble, double the drool, and double the fun! Oh my knickers! 

 

 

 

 

5. In other matches, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray both progressed safely through their first round matches in Basel and Valencia. 

 

6. It’s an ironic thing. We read tabloids. We follow celebrities’ lives. We giggle over Roger Federer’s diaper-changing techniques. We might secretly wish for him to do a live demonstration via satellite and post the video on facebook. 

Well, I do. 

My point is, despite our celebrity obsession, when a player literally bares his entire life, warts and all, for us to judge, we put up our hands and say “enough! Too much information, dude.” 

Dear Andre,

We didn’t want to know about your meth use. We didn’t like that the fact that you may have taken speed as well, and we certainly don’t like the idea that your fabulous ‘do was just a wig to cover up your insecurities. All these factoids are strictly filed under the “TMI” category.

But then, we rush out and buy his autobiography anyway. Get over it folks, the tennis world has more to worry about than what happened back when Bill Clinton was president. 

 

7. Sharapova’s new boy: Sasha Vujacic. Apparently. 

 

 

Ebersol no more? I kinda liked the whole nerdy and rich thing.

 

8. Oh Tommy, you pig.

The “oh-of-course” news of the day is that Tommy Haas has swine flu. The Wimbledon semifinalist pulled out Stockholm last week after feeling ill. He first thought it was normal flu but decided to get tested.

 

“I did a test because I suspected that I had swine flu. The test was positive,” Haas said in Tuesday’s Bild newspaper. “Of course, it was a shock for me.”

“I’ve calmed down now because although swine flu is a very strong form of flu, you can quickly overcome it when you’re in good physical condition like I am,” Haas said.

Source: AP

 

During the grass season, I joked to a friend that Haas’ good form is unlikely to last, “things just happen to him,” I said, “the guy has the worst luck in the world. I fully expect a grand piano to fell out of the sky and hit him on the head mid-match. But he’ll probably contract swine flu or something before then.”

We sniggered. But you know if a player were to contract swine flu, it would be Tommy Haas. Shit like that just happens to him. 

Haas has pulled out of Basel and is unlikely to play Bercy next week. 

The moral of the story? when you see a swine-flu infested Bernard Tomic, walk the other way.

 

9. The French Tennis Association is threatening to pull “Roland Garros” out of Roland Garros. 

Lemme put it this way: Melbourne has a better chance of losing the Australian Open to Sydney than Roland Garros has of losing the French Open to Switzerland Disneyland.

10. Happy Wednesday folks. You’re halfway there! 

xx doots

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