bringing you the best in tennis fashion, lifestyle, and business -- both on and off the court.
Esteemed fashion magazine Vogue treats us with the ultimate luxury accessories for the summer of 2014.
Whether you run, swim, ride or surf, your summer sport of choice has designer accessories to go with it. Look to the ultimate luxury, as you stay toned all summer long with our favorite spots for seasonal sport.
The beautiful Lacoste tennis racquet is a limited edition and made of wood. The price is available upon request.
The Andy Roddick Foundation has finished its moved to Austin, Texas, now that the American’s hung up his racquet for good. One of the final things to make the trek from Boca Raton was Andy’s likeness as a Chinese terra cotta warrior, made up as a promotional campaign for the ATP Tennis Masters Cup Shanghai back in 2007. But secretly we want to know what happened to the warrior they made up for Nikolay Davydenko.
(Flashback: TSF’s interview with artist Laury Dizengremel about creating the warriors.)
Save the Date: The ARF will host its 2013 ARF Celebrity Golf Classic April 14-15, 2013, including a Bogey Down Dinner (get it?) “with Andy & Friends.”
Homepages: Not much going in the world of homepages this week, though we are into the country club cuteness of the banner for the U.S. National Indoor Championship — a combined tournament in Memphis. We also wished that their results pages was a little more dynamic. We had to scroll through a lot to find the draws for the various titles being contested.
More: The landing pages for Open 13 (ATP, Marseille), Copa Claro (ATP, Buenos Aires), Dubai Duty Free Championships (WTA, Dubai), and the Copa Claro Colsanitas (WTA, Bogota) —
The 2013 Arthur Ashe Essay Contest, run by the USTA and their National Junior Tennis and Learning (NJTL) arm, is now under way. Contest participants are asked to answer the following question: “If you could follow in Arthur Ashe’s footsteps and ‘give back’ to tennis, what would you do to give back to the game, and how would it impact others?” The winners will receive a trip to New York City around the time of the U.S. Open.
Details: 2013 Arthur Ashe Essay Contest
(Photo Credit: Ashe Wikipedia)
Talkin Dirty: DDFTC ambassador Ana Ivanovic starred in a video highlighting the Jumeirah Creekside Hotel, a sponsor for the tennis event, being held this week in Dubai. Those red sofas in that photo above, she points out, are designed by Zaha Hadid. (Nothing gets us going like a tennis star run-in with a starchitect!) Ana is also asked by the hotel to create a piece of tennis-themed art that will be displayed in the property’s gallery. It was reminiscent of the canvases painted by the ATPers who qualified for the Barclay’s ATP World Tour Finals in 2010. (Watch: Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships Feature – Ana Ivanovic)
Draw: Ivanovic beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-3, 7-6(5) in the first round of the tournament and will next face sixth seed Petra Kvitova. They share that bottom half of the singles draw with Serena Williams and Agnieszka Radwanska. The top half of the draw is up for grabs after top seed Victoria Azarenka withdrew from the event because of a foot injury.
(Photo Credit: image via emirates247.com)
Sao Paolo: My, what a big banner you have! That stuff poking out at the bottom of our screengrab — that’s the slider for their content, pretty much below the fold. Again, we get the point of showcasing your star attractions (including Rafael Nadal in his second tourney back!), but the rest of the event is also giving you newsworthy bits, including Ricardo Mello‘s retirement from professional tennis and, you know, actual matches. (Along with Rafa, the top four seeds are Almagro, Monaco, and Chardy.) Props: Their photo gallery is pretty varied, navigable, and has good pictures. Bonus: The tournament has a smartphone app (for Google, Windows, and iPhones).
Rotterdam: This is how you tell your fans who’s showing up to a tournament. It might even be downplaying the event’s ATP Tour 500 level cache; along with Roger Federer, Juan Martin del Potro, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, you have players like Monfils, Dimitrov, Tomic, Klizan, Janowicz, and Davydenko — all of whom can produce some great matches this week. Feedback: could you keep the seeding/wildcard/qualifier notations in the draw sheets?
The other thing to note about Rotterdam is how hard they push the business/hospitality end of their tournament. The event’s main page, www.abnamrowtt.com, gives much real estate to wooing sponsors and getting businesses to scoop up packages and suites for the tournament. We know these deals are what grease the wheels, but we’d prefer the solicitations for event sponsorship to get toned down the week of the tournament, if only to give their current clients a chance to enjoy their investment and letting the fans experience the tennis.
Doha (WTA): The Qatar Total Open 2013‘s pages live within the Qatar Tennis Federation website. Everything’s housed in the same place, but it probably couldn’t hurt to get a separate URL for the tournament. Fingers crossed: No action yet, but we’re hoping to see lots of images come through via Instagram.
San Jose: Nothing much to note re: the final installment of this Bay Area ATP stop. The SAP Open website is pretty straightforward, and includes video content and a daily blog featuring different players entered in the tournament. (Monday’s blog entry was by Tim Smyczek.)
PBZ Zagreb Indoors – Zagreb, Croatia
Going home: TSF’s screengrabs of tennis tournament homepages and websites.
Nothing of note to report from the sites of the three ATP events running this week (while the women take a break for Fed Cup play): the Open Sud de France (Montpellier, France) has a solid photo gallery and video section. We are dying to know what’s going on with this segment on tennis-themed art. Alas, it’s only in French, so we can’t take advantage; we suggest adding subtitles for next year’s videos.
The VTR Open (Vina del Mar, Chile) is pretty much letting Rafael Nadal‘s return to the ATP Tour do all the talking; the Chileans are keeping a straightforward web presence.
The PBZ Zagreb Indoors, with its genius square root logo, mixes it up with some bright colors and a fun, throwaway memory game based a tournament ad.
VTR Open – Vina del Mar, Chile
Open Sud de France – Montpellier, France
Great shot! The WTA has found the perfect mix between its “Strong is Beautiful” campaign and the ATP‘s creative sportraits for the year-end championships. It’s paintball. Yep, paintball! Here Sorana Cirstea and Bethanie Mattek-Sands take out some London frustration on two willing fellas in a back alley. Sure, there are a couple close ups we could do without, but the paint and music and fun of it makes it a great watch. The targets are Matthew Pritchard and Lee Dainton, two parts of a British comedy group (think of the Jackass boys) known as Dirty Sanchez. And yes, they get a little dirty here, too.
(WTA video)
Dear Anonymous (Guerilla) Artist,
We are obsessed with the fact that you concocted these illustrated posters — with the country’s most well-known pols dressed up in tennis whites — and hung them all over Moscow. Can you come and do that to Dubya and Obama, too?
We heart you like Beyonce loves the First Lady. Wanna come work for TSF? We pay nothing, but get rewarded with shirtless fellas and dramatic ladies. Please submit headshot, too. Seriously — you’re brilliant! And the Russian government called you out?! That’s so … Johnny Mac bad ass.
Xoxo,
TSF East
(Image by Monolog.tv)
What’s good design without good people: Designer James Huniford, Iman and GMA‘s Lara Spencer. (Getty)
For the few fervent TSF readers we have out there (what, are there a couple dozen of you?), you’ll know that our TSF East team (that would be me, Nick) worked at Housing Works for two years in SoHo. The AIDS non-profit has a different way of doing things with their social entreprenuerial outlets and also hosts one heck of a party, which is where I found myself on Thursday night.
The Design on a Dime event happens every spring and brings together interior designers from across the industry. Nate Berkus was a host this year (he’s shorter in person than you would think, but the hair doesn’t disappoint!) and brought together a few dozen designers to put together rooms (bathrooms, kitchens, living and bed rooms) that are then for sale — that’s right, every item in each room, from each lamp to table to painting to rug — is for sale. And all the money goes back to Housing Works’ AIDS programming.
As I volunteered on Thursday night, I got to tour around with Bravo’s Andy Cohen and go through a couple rooms with him. We debated on a couple chairs that he was eyeing, and when I saw him later he whispered “I got that chair!” with a little bit of hesitation in his voice. I approve, Andy. The piece he bought was a striped deck chair with gorgeous, 70s-inspired dark wood in the arms and legs. A picture? Don’t have one. But my fave item of the whole night (I think it was retailing for $1,000) was a Cohen-influenced piece of art: the original six from The Real Housewives of New York City. Knock a zero off that price and I’m there!!!
Ramona and Alex made (late) appearance at the event, and though we couldn’t get the gals to go pose by their own portraits, you can bet that they were making the party rounds. More drama: If you haven’t been following the Sampras-Agassi blow up recently, it’s reached the level of Real Housewives dramatics. Jeez! These boys could even tire out the Countess!
For New Yorkers: The Free Public Sale goes on today through 6 PM
More shopping: NYMag‘s full line-up of New York sales this weekend
Tennis, too: It’s been a good year for Blake Strode. Last year, the now-23-year-old looked bound for (Harvard!) law school before entering the USTA’s first ever national play-in for a spot at the U.S. Open qualifying draw. He won nine matches to claim his spot in the qualies, where he won his first round match before bowing out. Not bad, eh? Well the journeyman is still at it in 2011, making a second go around at the playoff starting next weekend at Yale, the site of the New England Sectional. Plus: Blake’s ATP page
(Painting image by TSF)