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Episode 3
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We hit a new time length record! 29 wonderful minutes of sports shenanigans! We think we’re getting better at this but we’re new and open to comments and feedback etc. Let us know!
Episode 3 Show Notes
- The Blake Griffin Dunk
- NBA Quarter Season Review
- Has Men’s Tennis Ever Been Better?
- Ray Lewis and his Pep Talks
- Super Bowl Predictions
- Who Tweeted It?!
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What’cha gonna do when the largest arms in the tennis world run wild….on YOU! (Hulkster voice)
Here’s a spectacular slow motion montage from the Australian Open set to some really sad music.
It looks as though this whole breakup with Drake has Serena Williams pretty bummed out. This is what Serena had to say after winning her first match of 2012 at the Brisbane International.
“I don’t love tennis today. I’ve actually never liked sports, and I never understood how I became an athlete. I don’t like working out; I don’t like anything that has to do with working physically.”
Good luck this year, Serena.
Forever Young
Imagine my shock when I researched Anna Kournikova this week and found out that she just turned 30. In many ways, that kind of sums her up. None of the numbers associated with her matter much, long as she’s looking the way she is in the picture above.
The former tennis pro last played in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tour in 2003, and is probably most famous for having never won a singles tournament her entire career.
This stat baffles me. It did before, it does now. For a professional tennis player of her skills to never win one tournament, just any tournament, says a lot about what she wasn’t as an athlete.
But then again, Kournikova’s whole narrative has always been more aesthetic than athletic. She brought many new fans to the sport. To follow her tennis career was just an excuse to watch a beautiful girl swing a racket. You just felt less guilty and sexist.
Kournikova was a sensation, despite the lack of a winning record, she made millions of endorsements usually reserved for you know, successful athletes. No matter though, her ascension via physical appearance is rivaled by few, if any. One time, a towel boy at the Australian Open was offered $63 for a sweat-soaked Kournikova towel. The most ridiculous part of the story is that the towel boy said no.
But it wouldn’t be fair to say that Kournikova was just another athlete. She was one of a kind in many ways. No other female athlete took their popularity and made a career on the sheer power of attraction. Kournikova changed the dynamic of what it meant to be a successful athlete. You didn’t need to be good at your sport, you just needed to brand yourself appropriately.
Asked about her shortcomings as a tennis player, Kournikova expressed no regrets: “In a perfect world, would I have won a tournament? Yes. But I wasn’t able to string those matches together. Sometimes I got unlucky, and sometimes I just lost. Regrets? Not a thing. Except to be a little stronger physically. Come on, regrets? I grew up a little girl in the Soviet Union playing at a small sports club. Tennis gave me my life.”
Kournikova is very aware of who she is and who she isn’t. Does she deserve such popularity and wealth? I’m not sure why being a lesser player would make you less deserving of either. Is it unfair? I don’t feel like it’s entirely unfair. These are questions that I’m sure everyone has their own answers to.
Anna Kournikova may have never won a tournament as a tennis player, just don’t say she’s never accomplished anything.
Follow @steven_lebron on twitter.
Awkward photo of the day: Yao Ming poses with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Zhang Ze at the 2011 China Open in Beijing.
New athlete power couple nickname alert: Caroline Wozniacki + Rory McIlroy = “Wozzilroy”
Thought this was the U.S. Open not Medieval Times. What’s with the goblet? Oh and yeah, Tommy Lee Jones is looking well.
Still in a rain delay at the U.S. Open… While we wait, here’s a look back at Jimmy Connors’ remarkable run at the 1991 U.S. Open at the age of 39. Love that neon racket.
Pretty cool shot of the Roger Federer Nike poster that was seen on TV during Federer’s midnight beat down session of Jaun Monaco.
Current status at the U.S. Open.
The New York Times has really been steppin’ up their funny game lately. Here’s a slideshow of Andy Samberg re-enacting iconic men’s tennis champions: McEnroe, Agassi, Borg, Connors, and Sampras. (Photo illustration by Walter Iooss Jr. Digital composite by Picturehouse.)
If anyone needs us over the next three days we’ll be pretending we’re in Xuhui, Shanghai, China for the Nike Festival of Sports.
“Considered to be the most comprehensive sporting event in China since the 2008 Summer Olympic in Beijing, the Nike Festival of Sports is the embodiment of tenet set by Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman, “If you have a body, you are an athlete”. In this celebration of athletes and athleticism across the board, spectators are asked to participate in a number of venues, each sponsored by divisions like Nike Soccer, Nike Running, Nike Women, Nike Tennis, and even Nike Mixed Martial Arts. And for those not wanting to break a sweat, they can become audience members to see star athletes like LeBron James, Amare Stoudemire, Kyrie Irving, along with players from both Duke and Georgetown Universities, and local U19, U22, U25 basketball teams in action…”
![Drake was in the hizhouse Thursday night at the Rogers Cup cheering on Serena Williams, and by cheering on we mean they’re a couple? Worst case scenario, ‘They say all rappers want to be tennis players, [and] all tennis players want to be rappers.’ True story.](http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/thetickr/8808222315/1/tumblr_lpsql5WSvO1qaepje)
Drake was in the hizhouse Thursday night at the Rogers Cup cheering on Serena Williams, and by cheering on we mean they’re a couple? Worst case scenario, ‘They say all rappers want to be tennis players, [and] all tennis players want to be rappers.’ True story.
