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Notebook Navratilova still struggles to deal with losingPosted: Tuesday September 03, 2002 8:04 PMUpdated: Wednesday September 04, 2002 3:24 AM NEW YORK (AP) -- Martina Navratilova still gets angry when she loses a match -- even doubles -- and is even angrier when she's the one who misses the last point. Navratilova and partner Leander Paes of India beat top-seeded Rennae Stubbs and Todd Woodbridge of Australia in the first round of mixed doubles at the U.S. Open. But they were beaten in Tuesday's second round 7-6 (5), 6-4 by Els Callens of Belgium and Robbie Koenig of South Africa. On match point, Navratilova hit a return well beyond the baseline and then angrily threw her racket at the sideline.
Look ma, no sleevesTommy Haas shook up the USTA by showing up wearing a sleeveless tennis shirt for his first match at the U.S. Open. He was forced to change into something more sedate. Lindsay Davenport's sleeveless look did not disturb officials on Tuesday. Davenport seemed surprised when she was asked about it following her 3-6, 6-0, 6-2 victory over Elena Bovina. "I don't know what's wrong with my shirt," she said. "It's just a normal shirt. It's a shirt I wear all the time."
Rockin' MoroccanDelayed by a daylong rain, Wayne Ferreira and Younes El Aynaoui finally got on court at the National Tennis Center on Monday at 11 p.m., the latest a singles match has ever started in this Grand Slam. By the time El Aynaoui completed his 3-6, 7-5, 7-5, 7-6 (3) victory, it was 2:14 a.m., 12 minutes short of the record for the latest conclusion of a U.S. Open match. In 1993, Mats Wilander defeated Mikael Pernfors in a five-setter that ended at 2:26 a.m. "I would have loved to have won the latest match ever at the U.S. Open," said El Aynaoui, the first Moroccan to reach the U.S. Open quarterfinals. "If I had known, I would have slowed down a bit."
Poker faceWin or lose the point, the game or the set, U.S. Open quarterfinalist Sjeng Schalken tries not to express a lot of emotion. "It was my weakest point until three years ago," Schalken said. "That's why I was always around No. 50 [in the rankings]. I worked really hard on that because I'm very emotional inside, but I'm not going to show it anymore because I lost so many matches with it. "It was a big mental problem. I wanted to work on it. I think we started seven years ago. It took me four years to settle down. You get a little older, you get a little more relaxed. You have seen everything." Schalken said his anger cost him matches early in his career. "If you get angry, you don't see what you have to do to win," he said. "You cannot think about tactics anymore. That's why I lose. That's why I'm really quiet."
SnapshotsWielding a borrowed professional camera with a giant 500-mm lens, Richard Williams roamed the seats at Arthur Ashe Stadium, taking photos of his daughter, Venus, and Chanda Rubin."I'm just a ghetto guy having fun," Williams said. "I don't know what kind of lens it is. I got it from Canon. If I carried this around the ghetto, they'd think I got a bazooka." From the second tier of seats, Williams rested the camera on a monopod, trained the lens on Venus and said with amazement, "You can see the pores on her skin." Williams has several of his own cameras and said he's taken thousands of photographs of Venus and Serena. "I don't put them on the wall," he said, "I keep everything on disks."
Missed opportunityFollowing her second knee surgery, Chanda Rubin came into the U.S. Open on a summer high with wins at Eastbourne and Los Angeles, where she beat Serena Williams and Lindsay Davenport. She seemed ready to challenge Serena and Venus Williams, the top two players in the rankings."I beat Serena a few weeks ago, No. 1 in the world, she's been playing great," Rubin said. "I felt like the other player who was on form was Venus. I feel like I can play with her and beat her. "If you look at the players who are going to be vying for the title, those are the players I've played with or beaten recently. So I definitely felt going into this tournament that I had a shot, that it was just as much possible for me as anyone else." Rubin had to be even more encouraged after taking the second set of her fourth-round match from Venus Williams, the first set lost by a top four seeded player in the tournament. The third set, however, and the quarterfinal berth went to Williams 6-2, 4-6, 7-5.
A different gameMonica Seles has been around the professional tennis scene since 1989. She has seen the sport change around her."The game went through a very stagnant period from 1993 to 1996, I think. In 1997, the girls started to get bigger, stronger, faster. You see the girls now are 6 feet tall. Everyone has a 100-mph serve. That's the lowest. It's changing. It's so much more now." Seles advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Martina Hingis of Switzerland.
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