short balls: safin’s sex face, virtual fashion mess, night tennis hangs on, etc.

Sex face: Apparently, Marat Safin‘s sex face is satisfying, and Roddick‘s is intense. (Jezebel)

Player blogs: Nothing worthwhile in Marcos Baghdatis‘ ATP blog from this week. We were hoping for insight, perhaps, into that whole mess with Turkey?

Russian ritual: The Age hosted a column for Ana Ivanovic. On Svetlana Kuznetsova — “you always know she’s in [the locker room] when you hear loud dance music.” On her current life — it’s not that glam. On court coaching — do it all the time or don’t do it at all.

Props: ESPN’s Bonnie D. Ford sums up the off-court scandals clouding the game of Sania Mirza. And of the folks who took the Dostoevsky angle when writing up that epic Federer–Tipsarevic match, she wrote it up best.

Second-life DOA: IBM decided to promote its sponsorship of the Australian Open with a quickie virtual fashion contest. The winner of “Couture on the Court” wins the SL equivalent of $927. I can only hope many of the entries were better than this Bethanie Mattek knock-off.

Consider our hearts broken: One of the better folks to rock the Nike standard issue, Feliciano Lopez, has jumped ship to Spanish sportswear company Joma Sport. See their website here. (DTL)

Night tennis of the living dead: This event just. won’t. die. (HS)