**UPDATE*** WHOA! Someone’s sensitive! Sorry, guys, looks like the Justin Gimelstob USTA “bootlegs” have been confiscated. . .If anyone finds another source, let me know. Otherwise, these may become the stuff of legend! (I can hear the rumors now – Serena the Dominatrix teaches Justin a lesson in her retrofitted dungeon. . .)
At least we still have the one with Roger (for now). Check it out below.
As we wait for this year’s U.S. Open Series to heat up (hello, Stanford!), I thought I’d post these funny “bootlegged” videos from last year’s botched USTA media campaign. As you may remember, Justin Gimelstob was canned after insulting Anna Kournikova, and the oh-so-PC (not!) John McEnroe was brought in as a last minute replacement.
Even if you loathe Gimelstob, I think you’ll find these videos much funnier than the ones that actually aired (click here). Thanks to a savvy Twitter-friend and GTT reader for sharing the links!
Roger Federer gets a challenge right! This one really cracks me up:
Serena Williams fulfills a Gimel-hater’s fantasy:
Okay, this one with Rafael Nadal didn’t change too much, except that Justin’s grunting is way creepier than McEnroe’s:
The way the players treat Gimelstob in these spots, I’m surprised the USTA didn’t let them run:
This week’s U.S. Open Series stops include the WTA’s star-studded Bank of the West Classic event in Stanford and the ATP’s less glitzy L.A. Tennis Open tournament. Click here for my U.S. Open Series preview and here for the U.S. Open Series T.V. Schedule.
Tags: ATP, Federer, Gimelstob, Nadal, Serena, tennis, WTA
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LOVE the stealing-my-sandwich one! That one really cracks me up when Roger says “well I am gonna challenge that”^^ He is so adorable.
LOVE that stealing-my-sandwich bit! That one really cracks me up when Roger says “well I am gonna challenge that”^^ He is so adorable.
Thanks for posting these. The dates on all the videos show that they’ve been up for almost a year, I guess the production team was proud of the work they did. Justin is great because he’s so willing to be in on the joke and he plays it perfectly. My favorite was the world’s greatest tennis player mug commercial, which the Wall Street Journal had for a while. Too bad we can’t see that one again. Hopefully, the USTA will put Justin back to work, it’s obvious he’s learned his lesson in the last 12 months.
haha I loved that series last year. Better in general than this year’s set, I think. the sandwich one was funny, I loved Gimelstob’s little bobble away at the end of the challenge video, it’s so silly. That being said, I’m relatively new to tennis, and I know very little about Gimelstob….why is he so disliked?
Hi Nicole! Yeah, actually, Gimel was the MC during the Pete Sampras ceremony last night in L.A. and he definitely got some boos along with applause when he was introduced. So I guess he’s not out of the doghouse yet.
Basically, he went on a radio show last year and called Kournikova some bad names, talked about her sexually, called some other WTA players (by name) “sex pots” etc. You know, the kind of stuff bloggers talk about
Seriously though, his remarks were not received well by many people – Tennis Channel and WTT gave him some fines/suspensions and Sports Illustrated dropped him from its roster of tennis writers. I don’t think he can talk about women’s tennis on TC, but maybe I’m wrong about that.
Here’s some more info: http://tinyurl.com/lulhsl
Aiks… videos no longer exit.
Wow, guess those weren’t supposed to be posted! I thought I was joking when I called them “bootlegs!”