tsf interview: melanie oudin on peaches, school and her fave tunes

Fresh peach: Melanie Oudin. (Images courtesy of Wilson)

Though 2011 has been a rough go for 2009 US Open quarterfinalist Oudin, the Georgia peach remains a sparkly and upbeat personality on the WTA. The former adidas-clad (remember those shoes?) is now sporting Wilson, and she makes her way toward the Open with a larger question mark looming over her head: Will she have personalized shoes again?! TSF got the chance to shoot over Mel a few Qs. Here’s what she had to say:

TSF: OK Georgia girl: Fresh peaches, dried peaches or Peach Ring candies?
Melanie Oudin: Fresh peaches.

TSF: Would you rather: spend a summer at the Wilson HQs in Chicago with no AC? Or spend a winter at the Wilson HQs in Chicago with no heat?
MO: Spend a summer in the Wilson HQ’s with no AC.

TSF: What are you doing for school these days? Online classes?

MO: Right now nothing cause I’m finished with high school, but will prob sign up for some online classes next year.

TSF: The first thing you do in the morning is?
MO: Brush my teeth.

TSF Vault: Melanie Oudin | Wilson

TSF: What’s your favorite thing to wear from the Wilson clothing line collection?

MO: The capri tight pants and the Wilson dresses for matches.

TSF: You’re currently rocking out to _________ on your iPod.
MO: I’m currently rocking out to “Lose Control” by Keri Hilson on my iPod and other pop songs.

TSF: What’s one random/weird/strange/you-tell-your-friends-back-home thing that has happened to you while traveling abroad?

MO: There are a ton of weird/random things that have happened to me while traveling around the world that there’s too many to choose one.

TSF: You couldn’t vote in 2008. Who gets your ballot check in 2012? Obama? Palin? Trump?!

MO: Palin.

TSF: Say you could ask Monica Seles one thing. What would it be?
MO: Was it just a complete life-changing experience after you got stabbed? How did you recover from that? Also, how was it for you to deal with lots of pressure on the tour and ups and down?

What’s she wearing? Top: La Divine tank with built-in sports bra. Buy: On Tennis Warehouse for $34. Bottom: Garden LS pull-over zip. Buy: On TW for $25.

behind the scenes: jelena and nole’s photoshoot

Move over, cameraman. The ATP Uncovered video series has this great behind-the-scenes look at Novak Djokovic and Jelena Ristic doing a photo shoot for Hello! magazine in July. Our fave part? GF Jelena speaks her mind on being pampered, Nole’s dream and living it up — together. Watch above. 

TSF Vault: Novak Djokovic | Jelena Ristic

In Montreal: Novak’s the no. 1 seed, but has Nikolay Davydenko in the second round, a potential third round clash with Juan Martin del Potro and Gael Monfils, Victor Troicki and Roger Federer all looming should he make a run to the weekend. | Draw

sorana straps on her dancing shoes

The Sorana two-step? No, we’re not huge fans of the ill-advised headband that Sorana Cirstea is rocking in the latest Xperia Hot Shots video, but once we got past that, we were completely digging the latest video installment from the behind-the-scenes series. Rosero McCoy, a choreographer most recently known for his work on America’s Best Dance Crew teaches the Romanian a few moves of her own in a two-part video sequence. The next vid, yet to be released, will feature Sorana in a Katy Perry-inspired get up with a crew of back-up dancers strutting her stuff. But does she have the (dance) game? “Tennis, it’s easier, to be honest,” Sorana says during rehearsal at one point. Bring your A-game, SC!

TSF Vault: Our one-on-one interview with Sorana (2009)

trophy watch: winners, coast-to-coast

How are these for awkward? If last week was the week of the amazingly awkward trophies, this week it’s the humans who take their turn at awkwardness. We love the trio above, as finalist Gael Monfils and winner Radek Stepanek pose with a parks official after their Legg Mason Classic title match. Stepanek upset Monfils, the top seed, 6-4 6-4. Meanwhile, below, Agnieszka Radwanska and Vera Zvonareva look o-v-e-r it in San Diego following Radwanska’s 6-3 6-4 win over Vera at the Mercury Insurance Open. Are these two friends? We can’t tell. But oy! Isn’t Aggie’s bandage an ugly sight?

Oops! He did it again. Stepanek celebrates another US Open Series title with “The Worm”

(Images via Getty)

sunday survey: punishable offense?

Over and out: Just a day before main draw play was set to get started at the Rogers Cup in Toronto, Venus Williams pulled out of the WTA event. While the tournament suffers — as has San Diego and other events this year — Venus doesn’t take much of a hit on her pull out. Sure, there might be an appearance fee that goes unpaid, but is that much to Miss V? Not really. So that has us curious: Should players owe more than just their apologies when pulling out of tournaments last minute?

Weigh in on this question in the comments section.

(Image via Getty)

sightings in the stands: pam and sam

Sam and Pam: Do you really need us to explain this awesomeness? Pam Shriver sat down with Sam Querrey on Sunday afternoon at the Farmers Classic in LA for a little chatski on air for the ESPN broadcast. We were pretty shocked how long the two sat there chit-chatting (perhaps almost a half hour?), though we couldn’t ear out anything they were actually saying. Querrey was the two-time defending champ at UCLA, but is out indefinitely with an elbow injury. Below: Pam shows off her pearls before heading back courtside.

More: TSF’s Farmers coverage | Sightings in the stands

(TSF photos)

 

short balls: those who follow us

D.Y. has had a great week in D.C. No, really he has. A semifinalist, y’all! Men’s draw | Women in San Diego

Oh, forgetful us: Sometimes it slips our minds that people really are reading this blog. No, we’re not trying to pat our own backs. But if you’ve ever written your own blog or contributed to one, you’ll know that it’s less about the numbers and more about wanting to crank out good, entertaining and — maybe just in our case? — semi-naked content. That’s always been our goal at TSF, but as Trophy Watch this week reminded us that, yes, we’re just here to watch the trophies, we got reminded that we’re being watched/followed/read/paid attention to, as well. That would be by many of you, and by Tennis.com’s Steve Tignor, who wrote the following about our trophy wrap-up and his own opinions on the metal, plastic and glass we measure success with on the respective tours:

Tennis Served Fresh provides a “trophy watch,” which is always an entertaining, and often a head-scratching, activity in tennis. Check out Marcel Grannollers receiving his own personal mountain in Gstaad on Sunday; I guess it beats a cow. It reminds me of one of the better tennis lines from my new Brooklyn neighbor, Martin Amis. The Brit writer once described the sport’s fall indoor tournaments as, “greed fests where the first prize is something like a gold helicopter.”

He’s a cracker jack, y’all. TSF got to re-connect with the always-entertaining James LaRosa while we were hanging around the Farmers Classic last week. James’ musings on Tennis Channel‘s website — the Sweet Spot — are a must-read, especially his LA ride with eventual-winner Ernests Gulbis. Our fave moment from the car-ride between the two quick-lipped fellas?

James: You know those Lindsay Lohans aren’t doing too good these days.
Ernests: Who is Lindsay Lohan?

JL: Shut the **** up. 
EG: I don’t pay attention to American stars.

JL: She was in Mean Girls. Freaky Friday..?
EG: I’m not watching these movies.

Nole’s media blitz. It’s the summer of Novak Djokovic. We should all pretty much accept such a fact. First it was the cover of Serbian Hello! magazine with GF Jelena Ristic, then it was both The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Conan O’Brien Show. To watch him with Jay, click here. For Conan, click here.

Feeling Lacosted? Seems as though the French brand that we heart “Lacosted” the Hamptons over the weekend — and that’s the Wall Street Journal‘s verbage, not ours. Lacoste used its American mainstay Andy Roddick to push its look for the summer at a social gathering that included quite the smattering of fashion folk at the fancy-pants Bridgehampton Beach and Tennis Club. Brooklyn Decker was even there, wearing Lacoste. ”I don’t really play that much tennis. I leave it to Andy,” she told the Journal. | Browse: Lacoste’s men’s tennis wear

short(er) balls: Our friends over at Strawberries and Scream have stepped off the blogging stage for the time being. Even they said their retirement speech was more Henin (or Hingis?) than Agassi. | Polo Ralph Lauren has officially launched their 2011 US Open collection — expect much more from us on this soon. | The world is now a better place: Rafael Nadal has joined Twitter. Heres to epic broken-English tweets. “Paahsta y gambas!” | OUT magazine has an exceptional photo gallery (and articles) featuring straight athletes who have supported gay rights’ causes over the years. The batch includes Michael Irvin, Ben Cohen and our fave, Hudson Taylor. | Want to go to the US Open finals weekend this year? Panasonic will send you. Seriously, we don’t make this stuff up. | Probably one of the US Open’s best pre-tourney events, Taste of Tennis, is back this year and features a fine line-up: Roddick, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Victoria Azarenka among others. And we dig their logo. It’s a forquet. Or a racqork? | We really, really can’t wait for this Xperia Hot Shots vid. It’s looking like a Katy Perry meets Sorana Cirstea dance number. And we love!

(Donald Young image by lagosf via flickr)

trophy watch: watching the trophies

Back to the basics: It took this week on TSF for us to remember that Trophy Watch is just that: watching the trophies. The tour trots the globe and the globe is a creative, eccentric place. And where better does it come out than the trophies we get to see every weekend?! Sure, the clothes are great. The tournament sites are entertaining. But these trophies? There is nothing better.

Mountain mayhem: Spanish man Marcel Granollers climbed a big one this weekend, downing Fernando Verdasco in the Swiss Open at Gstaad, 6-4 3-6 6-3 to win his second career title and first since 2008.

Include us next time, please. On the creative process to come up with this gem. Alexandr Dolgopolov (and his head band) ruined the chances of hometown hero Marin Cilic in Umag, Croatia. Dolgopolov won 6-4 3-6 6-3.

Smile, Mr. Bear. Serena Williams and Marion Bartoli were smiling just fine for the camera, though that brown bear on the right looks rather bummed out that he, too, wasn’t awarded a crystal bowl. Next time, fuzzy buddy! Serena tore through the field at Stanford, beating Bartoli 7-5, 6-1 in the final.

Earnestly Ernests: He ernested that one, right? OK, we’ll stop. But is there a more fun name to say than Ernests Gulbis on the tour right now? The hard-hitting Latvian upstaged hometown boy Mardy Fish in the final, winning the Farmers Classic with a 5-7 6-4 6-4 win on Sunday at UCLA. | More: TSF’s LA coverage