Mailbag (cont.)

Serena Williams is comfortable on clay despite her Compton roots on asphalt. Bob Martin/SI Jon Wertheim's Mailbag Jon Wertheim will answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag every Wednesday. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Jon Wertheim on Twitter

All we ever hear about the Williams sisters is how they grew up in the poorest part of Los Angeles (Compton) and that their dad taught them everything they know about tennis. If that is the case, how can you explain this recent French Open quote from Serena: "I grew up on the clay a lot. I'm totally fine on the clay. My results haven't been where I wanted them to be, but from, like, 9 to 14, I played nothing but clay-court tennis. I actually love it, and it's really one of my favorite surfaces because I love to slide."
-- JJ, Rockford, Ill.

• The clay court -- I suspect it was Har-Tru -- was at the "compound" in Florida. Chalk this up to another of Richard Williams' strokes of inspiration. He knew his daughters would need to master clay.

Forty-four paragraphs on the French Open and not one word about Sorana Cirstea? She defeated three seeds, (two in the top 10), fighting off Jelena Jankovic just when you'd think the Grand Slam pressure would hit a 19-year-old.
-- Roger Timpson, Baltimore

• Fair point.

Will you EVER consider my long lost twins that I have submitted 3 times: Justine Henin and Greta Van Susteren? Or are you afraid of taking on Fox News?
-- Alice Eaton, Easthampton, Mass.

• It's a good look-alike, but we've done this before. Nevertheless, we stop at nothing to show we're not afraid of Fox News. Since you brought up Henin, I thought there was something off-putting about her remarks at the French Open. She shows up mid-tournament (great), dispels comeback speculation (whatever makes you happy), discusses her charitable work as well as a music show she'll be hosting (OK, that's fair) ... and then proceeds to lament the absence of a reliable winner. ("I think the tour needs someone, a leader," Henin said.) Our next guest: Former Lehman Brothers chairman Dick Fuld will join us to decry the state of the global economy.

Shots, miscellany

• Federer gets his Sports Illustrated cover! And here's a typically excellent write-up from my colleague Scott Price.

• Thanks to Mark Flannery of Fullerton, Calif., for this: Kurt Streeter just flattened me (and others) with this piece.

• Favor: Can we please stop the nonsense about Federer's French Open title being cheapened because he didn't have to face Nadal? It wasn't like Nadal wasn't in the draw, a la Tiger Woods missing a major because he was rehabbing from knee surgery. Sometimes you win directly; sometimes you win indirectly.

• Here are Martina Navratilova's top 10 changes for tennis:

1. No lets on serves
2. No more than five bounces of the ball before a serve
3. No more false tosses
4. Stop the grunting
5. Faster courts
6. Small rackets
7. A time clock rule
8. Standarized tennis balls
9. Standarized hard-court surfaces
10. Why impose rules on the size of logos and patches?

• The streak of top men's seeds failing to win in Paris continues.

• Would one of you familiar with the world of Federer message boards (is there a vamosbrigade equivalent?) kindly contact me?

• Patrick Preston of Lexington, Ky.: "I personally take credit for getting the Tennis Channel here in Lexington. My tennis friends in Louisville had it and they have the same cable company as I do, so I started hanging up signs and getting EVERYONE I know to call the local cable company and request it. It just didn't make sense -- or seem fair -- that LOU should have it and not LEX, when we're 60 minutes away. By the end of the summer, we had Tennis Channel. I guess there's no way to "prove" it, but it's going down on my "internal" résumé!"

• Big props to Ryler DeHeart, who won the Yuba (Calif.) challenger last week.

• If I'm the agent for Taylor Dent and my client -- last of the serve-and-volleyers, once a top 25 player, recent fourth-rounder at the Key Biscayne Masters Series event -- didn't get a main draw wild card, I ain't happy.

• From Slate's Dear Prudence column on June 8:

Nose tw, Ind.: Hi Prudy, I know this is a bit out of left field, but I don't know who else to ask. Is there a term for when somebody has the exact same nose as you do?

If you have the same parents, you're siblings. And if you have the same job, you're coworkers. If you play basketball together: you're teammates. Same nationality: compatriots. Same house: roommates. But what's the term when you have the same nose? I ask because I have the exact same nose as Roger Federer.

Emily Yoffe: If you had the same swing as Roger Federer, then the resemblance might be worth talking about. I think this is one of those things that's best being your little secret.

• To my friends in the pool hustling world: Check out Jay Helfert's Pool Wars.

• Catwalk C. of Taipei, Taiwan, submits this week's long-lost siblings: Dinara Safina and Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain.

Have a great week, everyone!

To order a copy of Jon Wertheim's' new book, Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played, click here.