Yes! The ATP World Tour Finals can’t start before the requisite Men in Suits photo session. Along with the British press, another overlooked benefit of hosting the ATP World Tour Finals in London is seeing Federer, Nadal and the rest of the top guys in bespoke tailoring (at least I’ll pretend it is.) Here are some photos from Class Picture Day – I mean ATP World Tour Media Day at the County Hall Marriot Hotel.

These school assemblies are always so boring. . .

AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth via Daylife

Really, how lucky are we to have three ATP Top Models in the final 8?  Federer, Djokovic and Verdasco are obviously engaged in a heated pose-off in the photo below. While I love Roger’s masculine bearing, Nole takes it with his casual Gene Kelly elegance. Verdasco gets points for coaching del Po and Soderling has an honorable mention for his Swedish Sears catalogue look. Davydenko is obviously in character for the starving P.O.W. role he’s playing next week in the West End.

How the heck did Andy Murray get Dr. Ivo’s pants?

Who will be head of the class?

Nice trophy, right? It was made in England by expert silversmiths. You can check out the video on the ATP website.

Some year book photos:

Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images via Daylife

Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images via Daylife

Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images via Daylife

Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images via Daylife

AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth via Daylife

Candids! This one’s begging for a caption:

And thanks to “Tem” for passing along the Bryan Bro’s snapshot:

I’m a little concerned about Rafa’s hair:

I think Roger is, too:

Yes, Roger is deep in thought about it.

CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

Rafa’s like “awkward!”

CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

What ho! Is that Halley’s Comet or ATP CEO Adam Helfant? The players record this momentous occasion:

Andy Murray and the Bryan Brothers took part in the draw ceremony for the ATP World Tour Finals on Wednesday in a pod of the London Eye Ferris wheel. Here are the round robin groups for the singles and doubles competitions, which run from November 22 – 29:

2009 ATP World Tour Finals Singles Draw:

Group A
Roger Federer
Andy Murray
Juan Martin del Potro
Fernando Verdasco

Group B
Rafael Nadal
Novak Djokovic
Nikolay Davydenko
Robin Soderling

Group A: Based on head-to-heads, Murray rules Group A. He holds a winning record over everyone else, for a combined win-loss tally of 17-5.  Roger has a 12-7 win-loss record over Group A, with 6 of those 7 losses coming to Andy Murray. All the players in this group have struggled with injury since the US Open, with Murray winning the group’s only title a couple weeks ago in Valencia. Based on the head-to-heads, recent form, and home-crowd advantage, Murray’s a shoe-in for the semis. And Roger Federer (apart from being Roger Federer) has the extra motivation of playing for the year-end No. 1. Group A matches up badly for Verdasco and del Potro is likely too gimpy to get through. But you never know – the tournament can’t be called the WTF for nothin’.

Your predictions:

Group B: This is where the Mojo’s at! Based on their form, Nole and Kolya (the 2008 WTF finalists) are the guys to beat – not only in the Group but in the entire tournament. Nole, the defending champ, has been on a tear this fall, winning 3 titles: over Cilic in Beijing, Roger Federer in Basel and Gael Monfils in Paris (where he also took out Rafael Nadal in straights in the semis.) His only loss in the past months has been to Nikolay Davydenko in the semis of the Shanghai Masters. Kolya went on to win the title, beating Rafael Nadal in straight sets in the finals. Speaking of Rafa – he’s lost to all of the Group B players in their most recent meetings. The most painful loss was to Robin Soderling in the round of 16 at the French. Besides the possibility of retaking the no. 1 ranking from Roger, revenge may be the major motivator as the Spaniard progresses through Group B.

Your predictions:

2009 ATP World Tour Finals Doubles Draw – Nestor and Zimonjic and the Bryan Bros are battling for the year-end No. 1 ranking.

Group A
Daniel Nestor – Nenad Zimonjic
Mahesh Bhupathi – Mark Knowles
Frantisek Cermak – Michal Mertinak
Mariusz Fyrstenberg – Marcin Matkowski

Group B
Bob Bryan – Mike Bryan
Lukas Dlouhy – Leander Paes
Lukasz Kubot – Oliver Marach
Max Mirnyi – Andy Ram

Are the top seeds staging a walk-out at the Shanghai Masters? Fourth-seeded Andy Roddick retired yesterday with a mysterious knee injury during his second round match against Stan Wawrinka. The 3rd and 7th seeds followed today, as Juan Martin del Potro retired with a wrist injury against Jurgen Melzer, and Ivan Ljubicic defeated Fernando Verdasco in straight sets. (And a moment of silence for Marat.)

Of course, the underlying theme this week has been the length of the ATP’s season and the toll it (supposedly?) takes on the top players. Roddick expressed his displeasure before his match – providing fodder for walk-out conspiracy theorists everywhere:

I don’t think it’s coincidental that you see, you know, Murray and Roger a little bit hurt now or Rafa missing four months in the middle of the year, maybe some odd results from Del Potro and myself last week. You know, I don’t think that’s all of one big coincidence, and I think — you know, I just hope that the short-sightedness doesn’t affect the length of careers, you know. I think in tennis you definitely want your stars around as long as possible.

Rafael Nadal chimed-in, too:

Is impossible to play 1st of January and finish 5th of December. No one sport can do it, and you can play — well, you play shorter career. Is impossible to be here playing like what I did last five years, playing a lot of matches and being all the time 100% without problems. For last five years, if you see I am No. 1 or No. 2 on matches played on court, and I was okay, I have a few problems in this five years, but not a lot, but sooner or later, finally is impossible, I think. No, I think everybody is working hard to try to change that. . .But I don’t know the solution, but that’s must — my opinion, that’s must be changed and soon.

As I type, Nadal, Tsonga  Djokovic et al. have yet to complete their matches. Let’s hope a few top seeds still remain after today!

James Martin of tennis.com thinks the stars should stop bellyaching about the length of the season.

On the miraculous Abu Dhabi cure:

What’s been especially disappointing this week, in the middle of the Shanghai bitch fest, is that the players seem more clueless than ever. Take Nadal. While he said “it’s impossible to play 1st of January and finish 5th of December,” he has also announced that he’ll be competing in the Abu Dhabi exhibition at the beginning of next year before the Australian Open. (Roger Federer is also scheduled to compete there.) It’s not required that Rafa sign up for this event, though one can only guess that the folks at Abu Dhabi are offering up sizeable appearance fees that will probably go a long way in making a tired mind and body feel rejuvenated.

On the gruelling 25 week season:

On the ATP tour, the pros are supposed to play eight of the nine Masters Series events (Monte Carlo is the exception) and four 500-level events (Monte Carlo can count toward this quota) throughout the year, with only one required to be after the U.S. Open. The Top 8-ranked players are also required to show up for the year-end World Tour Finals. Add to that the Grand Slams, at two weeks each, and the Davis Cup (4 times per season for teams that reach the final) and you’ve got a maximum tournament requirement of 25 weeks. Don’t know about you, but I’d fancy a work schedule like that. And this, of course, assumes that these players are getting deep into the second week of majors and going far in Davis Cup, which only a select few actually do.

Click here to read the whole piece – there’s lots more fuel for the fire.

I still maintain that the season is too long – not for the players but for the fans. We can only stay up past our bedtimes and watch crappy live streaming for so long before it starts messing with our minds. . .

Gael Monfils, Juan Martin Del Potro, Lleyton Hewitt and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga cracked some sake barrels at the Japan Open’s welcome reception on Tuesday. It was a konnichiwa/sayonara moment del Potro, who was booted out of the tournament in the first round.

What is Tsonga so giddy about? And where are Lleyton Hewitt’s arms?

Hair twins! Just like Rafa and Roger:

Please clue me in on Monfils’s tee:

I prefer Tsonga’s white jeans and wrinkly shirt look to Hewitt’s tired Ed Hardy tee.

Lleyton’s angling for a lucrative sake campaign:

Awww. . .big man, little cup! Love it.

This is Juan Martin’s: “Whatever, I just won the US Open” face:

Good times:

Click here to visit the very uninformative (at least in English) Rakuten Japan Open website.

And since we’re already playing fashion police, what do you think of Rafael Nadal’s China Open outfit? (He beat Marcos Baghdatis in the second round on Tuesday: 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.)

It took me a few minutes, but I think I like it:

Click here for Rafa’s post match presser from Beijing.

I just wanted to post about this because I’m so sick of doing the “another top seed on the WTA tour loses early!” posts. (You’ll notice I skipped the Safina/Venus lament yesterday.)

Juan Martin del Potro, world No. 5 and Tokyo’s top seed, lost to world No. 189 Edouard Roger-Vasselin in the first round of the Japan Open on Tuesday: 4-6, 4-6. It was the French qualifier’s first match win on the ATP tour since July of 2008.

This is a bad loss, but still not as bad as Dinara Safina’s defeat to No. 226 Shuai Zhang in the second round of Beiijing on Monday – the worst ever loss by a reigning WTA No. 1 in terms of ranking.

Here’s what Del Potro said afterwards (via the BBC):

“I didn’t feel 100 per cent. Everybody could see that. I had a little bit of jet-lag and a stomach ache but that’s not the reason I lost.”

That’s what we call a “here’s-my-excuse-but-it’s-not-really-an-excuse-so-don’t-say-I-make-excuses-excuse.”

The Japan Open is more like the French Open – of the top 8 seeds, 3 are French (Monfils, Tsonga, Simon) with Roger-Vasselin, Richard Gasquet and Fabrice Santoro rounding out the 32-man draw.

Steve Tignor wrote an interesting viewpoint piece at tennis.com with the title “Excessive civility muting the men’s game?”

Have you read it already? If not, click here. If you have, can you please explain it to me? Here’s what I’ve figured so far. . .

Tignor begins by comparing two US Open semifinal handshakes – this year’s touchy-feely one between Novak (Hug Slut) Djokovic and Roger Federer and the reluctant, chilly exchange between John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors in 1980.  Tignor says that both reflect the “code of camraderie” of their respective eras, and that he misses the competitive venom of the bad old/good old days.

I agree that psychological tension on the court makes things exciting. It’s fun when it gets personal out there. I’m not ashamed to admit that watching Nole vs. Roddick, Rafa vs. Soderling, or Serena vs. Safina is my version of tuning into NASCAR and hoping for a wreck. I think everyone should take a cue from Venus and stop apologizing for net cords. Hugs should be saved for five set epics and not routine 3rd round victories. And when a reporter asks a player to evaluate his next opponent, how about some brutal honesty every now and then? From a blogging perspective, it would make my life much easier!

But Tignor loses me when he leaves the Jerry Springer studios and veers East to Roland Garros.:

“(W)hy did I enjoy watching two guys who were never mistaken for gentlemen, Connors and McEnroe, so much, even while Federer’s victory at the French Open this spring, a triumphantly sentimental march through Roland Garros, leave me with a faint taste of sap?”

By Federer’s “triumphantly sentimental march” I’m assuming Tignor means “Federer’s Two Weeks of Hell with a Few Good Hours at the End”? As I remember, Roger Federer scraped his way out of two five setters that he should have lost, and was taken to four sets by both Paul-Henri Mathieu, a Frenchman playing in front of his home crowd, and Argentine dirtballer Jose Acasuso. He also endured the added pressure of becoming the heavy favorite as soon as Rafa lost early, with fans, media and even Parisian cabdrivers reminding him that the French Open was his to lose.

I don’t see how you can favorably compare a single handshake from 1980 to Roger Federer’s entire 2009 Roland Garros tournament, but Tignor tries:

Seeing player after player — Gael Monfils, Juan Martin del Potro, Robin Soderling — lose to Federer at Roland Garros and then embrace him with a smile, I found myself wishing for a little of the old, crude Jimbo ’tude, for a little of the gut-wrenching disappointment and even resentment that typically comes from losing a tennis match. But these young guys didn’t show any of it. They had taken camaraderie too far; it was as if they didn’t want to challenge their benign monarch or interfere with his long-awaited first French title.

Okay, I’m willing to be convinced. Is Tignor just wishing that someone had given Fed the cold fish at the net like Soderling gave Rafa after beating him in the fourth round? Or is he saying that the young guys, by being overly respectful towards Roger, didn’t compete to their utmost abilities against him? If it’s the latter, I cry foul! (Or bullsh*t! if that makes things more exciting for you.)

And here’s the final head-scratcher for me:

At a moment when professional athletes across the board are presumed to be frauds, the current generation of ATP tour players, taking their lead from Federer, has elevated tennis with stylish play and gentlemanly behavior. They apologize to each other after net cords, mishits, and even, now and then, when their opponent slips on the court; they congratulate each other with smiles and hugs; they sing each other’s praises in press conferences. At the same time, taking their lead from Rafael Nadal, the men have updated the game’s manners for a more expressive era. Theatrical chest thumps and fist pumps are no longer seen as gauche or unduly aggressive. They’re accepted as part of what it takes to play your best.

I think Tignor’s saying that the game is so dang “muted” nowadays that even excessive fist pumping can’t rile up any animosity between opponents. And you can blame Roger Federer for that because he’s brainwashed the entire ATP tour into being pleasant, chest thumping, hug sluts who can’t stand to beat him!

This is my main problem with the article – it seems less about the differences between eras and more about how Roger Federer single-handedly invented niceness and in the process made tennis boring by winning too much.

Put up your dukes, Tignor!

Would my photo service lie to me? Honestly, I don’t know. But photos of someone it’s calling Juan Martin del Potro’s girlfriend have just popped up, along with this caption:

“Tennis player Juan Martin del Potro’s girlfriend Yanina Screpante. Yanina is on the cover of most Argentine newspaper reports as the local model who has been dating del Potro for the last two months. Juan Martin del Potro recently won the 2009 Tennis US Open.”

From what I gleaned browsing a few websites (here, here and here), Yanina Screpante is 25 years old. She met del Potro for the first time about a year ago in a Buenos Aires nightclub, but they’ve only been dating semi-seriously for the past few months.  Given the brief nature of their (alleged) relationship, the two are trying to keep a low profile and have yet to be photographed together by the media. Good luck with that, kids!

All I can say is that she certainly looks like someone who would date an Argentine tennis player!

My apologies to my serious-minded readers. I don’t know if it’s LA’s crazy Santa Ana winds or just this lull in the season, but I’m in a tabloidy mood, lately!

Photo credit should read DANIEL GARCIA/AFP/Getty Images

Juan Martin Mania is the real deal!

Thousands of Juan Martin del Potro’s closest friends showed up to greet him as he returned to his hometown of Tandil, Argentina, on Thursday afternoon.

Via the ATP: “With an Argentine flag draped across his back, the 20 year old climbed on top of a fire truck and began his procession through the Tandil streets, passing through the city center, by the Club Independente where he once trained, and ending at City Hall, where he was named a Distinguished Citizen by mayor Miguel Lunghi.”

Everybody was thrilled:

DANIEL GARCIA/AFP/Getty Images

Juan Martin’s Beatles Moment:

DANIEL GARCIA/AFP/Getty Images

Del Potro was also given the keys to the city and spoke to his townsfolk from a balcony: “I owe this to Tandil. Hopefully we can enjoy all this. This city would not change any of the world and my heart is always here.”

A representative from the Tourism Office of Tandil, Ernesto Palacios, was pleased by the spectacle, saying  that with del Potro’s victory,  people “now not only know us by the famous salami.”

Here’s Juan doing the waving from the balcony thingy:

The standing on top of a firetruck with a cape thing:

The man on the street view.

(Poor Juan Martin looks quite overwhelmed, no? He probably just wants to go home and go to sleep.)

Check out the lead car – the people riding on top are doing the “we’re not worthy” thing towards Juan Martin:

Wow!

Juan Martin del Potro was interviewed by Charlie Rose after his big US Open victory against Roger Federer on Monday:

Del Potro’s whirlwind media tour continued when he returned home to Argentina on Wednesday, where he was given a hero’s welcome, complete with security, flags, babies, collectibles and a press conference.

Some footage from Argentina:

And photos (which need no translation):

JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images

JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images

REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci (ARGENTINA SPORT TENNIS)

Photo: AP Photo/Pablo Aneli

JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images

JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images

Juan Martin del Potro made a media splash after beating Roger Federer in the US Open final

Here’s Juan Martin doing his best Roger Federer impression at the US Open champion photo shoot.

Sorry, I know it’s not always about Roger. Except that it is:

Here’s a little wrap of the men’s final featuring some new post-match presser footage of both Roger and Juan Martin. I don’t know why, but I always love a good dueling microphones shot:

Footage of the trophy ceremony – or should I say the big check and free car ceremony. Not available en Español:

Forget Serena-gate, Dick Enberg’s gag order was the real outrage of the US Open. Here’s Juan Martin giving an (uninterrupted) message to fans via Sports Illustrated. No one tells Juan Martin to be quiet, okay!

Juan Martin was also on the Today Show, where Regis and Kelly did most of the talking for him. Click here to watch. (Thanks, Lorrie, for the link!)

Here’s the vid:

BTW: I’d love to do a Kim Clijsters Film Festival, but there’s not too much available. I think she flew back to Belgium to do the milk and cookies thing. Here’s the best I got:

But Kim and family did take some lovely parting shots:

This is making the Christmas card, for sure:

Bye bye US OPEN!