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PHIL AGIUS |
Weblog: Sports editor's view
Hats off to tennis comeback queen Kim
WELL if you didn't enjoy Sunday night's big story in New York you have a heart of stone.
How impressive was it that Kim Clijsters, just weeks after returning to the tour after taking a break to become a mother, showed up the game's current top stars with her US Open victory?
Sure a lot of people wanted her to win - there aren't exactly a lot of characters in the women's game at present and she was clearly the biggest story in town - but few can have really thought she'd see them all off.
Until she started cruising through the early rounds, of course. Maybe the overall standard really has dropped since Kim packed up the game at the advanced age of, erm, 24.
Contrast the joy on the Belgian's face as she celebrated with daughter Jada with the scowling features of beaten semi-finalist Serena Williams, outrageous that a line judge had seen fit to call a foot fault on her of all people.
We even had a call at RPSPORT from a punter who thought he should have had his stakes refunded on Serena as the match 'didn't go it's full distance'.
Nice try, but of course it did - Serena wasn't red-carded - she merely had a penalty point given against her, which just happened to be match point.
Don't read this, Luca
It still makes me chortle to think of the comments last week from Luca Badoer after he was replaced by Giancarlo Fisichella at Ferrari following two laughably poor grand prix drives in Valencia and Spa.
Now I'm a little reluctant to pass comment on how well he did, given that Badoer has decided that it was the press's fault that he got dropped.
Presumably for reporting that he qualified last. In a Ferrari. Twice.
Or that he finished last of all the cars that were still circulating at the end. Twice.
Or that he did that in the same model of car the Kimi Raikkonen steered to third in Valencia and won the race in Spa.
But no, it wasn't that which persuaded Ferrari to look elsewhere, it was the press...
Actually, what Badoer's painful efforts have achieved is to usefully dispell the saloon-bar myth that "F1 is all about the car - the driver doesn't make any difference."
Those who think that they might fancy themselves to finish third in a McLaren if Lewis Hamilton was their team-mate and won the race might have to think again after seeing the hapless Italian's embarrassing efforts.
There was some respite for Badoer when Fisichella, fresh from finding himself unable to catch Raikkonen in a Force India at Spa, found himself even further away from the Finn in the sister Ferrari at Monza. Having said, that a ninth-placed finish was still a fair distance better than the ageing test driver had managed after a long spell out of the sport.
Maybe Badoer should take up tennis.
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