short balls: california girls (and boys)

TSF takes over the West Coast this week as I made the drive from Cottonwood, Idaho, (yeah, it exists) to San Francisco yesterday for a little R&R and a day at the Bank of the West Classic tomorrow in Palo Alto, at Stanford. Meanwhile, Erwin is holding court in LA for the Farmers Classic, making sure that the boys adhere to the warm weather shining on SoCal and going shirtless on the practice courts.

This week’s version of short balls comes on Tuesday, a little earlier than usual. Enjoy!

I’ll make the drive down to Palo Alto tomorrow for a day at the 40th annual Bank of the West Classic, now the longest-running women’s event on tour. Bank of the West has been the title sponsor since 1992 at this event, something that is unheard of in the days of fast-moving money. (Remember the Lipton Championships? Or the Kraft WTA Tour? Seems like centuries ago… ) The Bank of the West has been at Stanford’s Taube Tennis Pavilion since 1997, and just this year announced partnership with Rebounces, a green company that runs a tennis-ball recycling program nationwide. Balls brought in by members of the public (and those used in the tournament) will be collected and recycled by Rebounces, with the help of FedEx to get them shipped and donated to a local youth tennis program. Thumbs up to that!

There’s always plenty of tennis action on the pages of Twitter, and this week a few more tennis names added themselves to the never-ending world of Tweets. Janko Tipsarevic asked his followers to “bare” with his bad English (gladly, Janko, gladly). WTAers Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Alisa Kleybanova have also joined the Twitter ranks. Anastasia is playing in Istanbul this week, whiles Kleybs was already dismissed from Stanford by a studious Ana Ivanovic. Before she was bounced outta the Bay Area, Kleybs sat down with Chris Oddo for an interview featured on On The Baseline.

The USTA announced yesterday that it is partnering with longtime supporter American Express for a program called Fresh Courts. The program will invest money in 17 different tennis courts in three urban centers, including Los Angeles, DC and New York. In NYC, the benefactors will be our friends over at McCarren Park in Brooklyn. The USTA will head up the fixing up of the courts themselves, as it oversees around 700 refurbishing projects each year.

For a little bit of a fashion fix, I’m digging this Lacoste v-neck (and the model!) I ran across yesterday. $40 online. Meanwhile, Serena might be questionable for the US Open itself, but that’s not keeping Nike from prepping itself for her outfit at said tourney. The Control Court dress (seen here via TennisConnected) is $85 and might – just might – be made famous by ReRe if she’s able to show at Flushing Meadows come late August. This is the black version of her Wimbledon get up, which helped her to her 13th slam title.

short(er) balls are happening after the cut.

short(er) balls: (ot) James Franco gets profiled in NY Mag and comes out of it looking cute, weird and well, mostly how you’d expect him to look. We wonder: how/when does he sleep?! | Andy Murray has parted ways with coach Miles Maclagan. We’re a little surprised (and disappointed). What about you? | The Atlanta Tennis Championships, just back to the ATP Tour this year, is uncertain about its future. 2011 might mean a scheduling conflict with a PGA golf event. | The gals over at Strawberries and Scream are officially Bryan Brothers Band groupies after posting a photo gallery from their show at Molly Malone’s in LA. | Ladies Day in Cincy? Brunch, fashion, Saks Fifth Avenue and – oh yeah! – tennis.

And in case you’re not sure of the California connected to our lead picture, here’s Katy Perry’s video for “California Gurls” featuring Snoop Dogg.

(photo by ari michaelson via katy.perry flickr feed; screen grab via youtube.com)

Tags: Alisa Kleybanova, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Bank of the West Classic, Brooklyn, Chris Oddo, farmers classic, mccarren tennis, Rebounces, Stanford, Twitter