“Janko Tipsarevic Unplugged” says the ATP tour. Isn’t Janko Tipsarevic always unplugged?

Yes, he does say he hates Novak Djokovic – and says Rafael Nadal chokes. Watch the video and find out why.

Janko’s the guy you want to invite to your next dinner party, right?

And here’s a nice one of Tommy Robredo, his dad and his horses. Enjoy, Ignoramoose!

Oh, and here’s one with the Bryan Brothers and their new album. (no comment)

The ATP has been killing it with their videos lately. Good job, ATP!

I stumbled upon this intensely silly post from Blic, Serbia (English edition) and thought, heck, why not? It’s about the girlfriends who may be accompanying the tennis players to the Serbia Open, which starts this Saturday in Belgrade.

Notable facts that I’ve gleaned from this article: Arnaud Clement and Victor Troicki are dating out of their leagues, Radek Stepanek and Nicole Vaidisova really may be heading down the aisle, and Guillermo Canas was rumored to be gay until he started dating a Brazilian lingerie model.

See? Interesting stuff! Click here for the original article, by M. Mijatovic at Blick. Here are some excerpts:

Guillermo Canas and Brazilian Victoria’s Secret mannequin Fabiana Semprebon

“During his career, Canas has had to fight against numerous accusations, from those about doping which stopped his tennis career for some time, to those about his hidden homosexuality. When he publicly started dating his girlfriend, the Brazilian beauty Fabiana Semprebon, gossips stopped. Fabiana is a model of the prestigious brand ‘Victoria’s secret’.”

 

photos via celebslam.celebuzz.com

Viktor Troicki and fashion model Suncica Travica

“Viktor Troicki and Suncica Travica have been in a relationship for about a year and their romance has become public after their last year’s vacation in Montenegro. The couple met in Paris last year where Suncica did fashion shows and Viktor took part in Roland Garrros.”

 

photos via blick.rs

Arnaud Clement and chanteuse Nolwenn Leroy

“When asked about his favorite singer, not too famous French tennis player Arnaud Clement gave the same answer for two years- Nolwenn Leroy. His dream has come true- she has became his girlfriend. Arnaud Clement and Nolwenn Leroy started dating last spring, which was officially confirmed during the Wimbledon tournament where Nolwenn was his staunch supporter.”

 

photos via http://teemix.aufeminin.com/

Radek Stepanek and Nicole Vaidisova

“Radek Stepanek was in a long relationship with the former world tennis champion Martina Hingis with whom he was even engaged, but in 2007 they broke up. Soon after he appeared in public with his new girlfriend, a tennis player Nicole Vaidisova, who is eleven years younger than him. Radek and the attractive Czech tennis player often travel together to the tournaments and it is believed that they plan to get married soon.”

The article also profiles Serbian stars Janko Tipsarevic a.k.a.”the famous seducer” and his t.v. hostess girlfriend, Biljana Sesevic, as well as Serbia Open owner Novak Djokovic and long-time love and management student Jelena Ristic.

 

photos via zimbio.com

Click here for the Serbia Open website, which is pretty good for a start-up.

Besides the golfing, dance-offs and awards ceremonies, there is some tennis being played at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami! The top seeds join in second round action today, with Federer, Djokovic, Dementieva, Ivanovic, Roddick and Tsonga headlining (and Nadal playing doubles with Marc Lopez) but we’ve already had some first rounders worth mentioning.

Eight American men won their first round matches: Isner, Delic, Dent, Reynolds, Russell, Kendrick, Querrey and Kim (over an injured Llodra, he plays Federer next.) Also through: Monaco, Tipsarevic, Baghdatis (6-2,6-2 over Gulbis), Santoro, Youzhny and Hewitt.

I’m always shocked by Amer Delic’s uncanny resemblance to Roger Federer (click here):

The USA wasn’t so lucky on the women’s side, with Glatch the only first round winner. Mattek-Sands, Craybas, Vandeweghe and Oudin are all out. Notable first round winners include Na Li (over Urszula Radwanska), Dulko, Tanasugarn (over Dechy), Sprem (!!!), Peer, Krajicek, Safarova, Kirilenko, Vaidisova, Hantuchova and Dokic.

Shahar Peer’s win sets up a tasty second round against Venus Williams.

Looking forward to a great weekend of tennis! I hope those of us in the States will actually get to watch some of it on t.v.!

Delic photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

Peer photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

Yeah, taking photos hunky players at an ATP tournament is not a challenge. Talk about point and shoot! Make sure to check out the gallery to find your favorites. (And our apologies for not getting everyone!)

Hot Potito! Yeah, I was surprised, too. Potito Starache was until recently a UHO – Unidentified Hunky Object – until these photos pulled him out of obscurity. A GTT exclusive!

David Ferrer – modestly hot.

Gonzo – he looks sweet and hot! Like a freshly fried doughnut. Yum.

A hottie Hall of Famer.

 

Fellow bloggers: Thanks to everyone who asked to use our photos! Please feel free to use them – we would appreciate a link back to our post, if you do.

OMG, this is some good reading! On the subject of reading. And Janko Tipsarevic, Novak Djokovic’s Davis Cup teammate, who blames his recent tennis slump on READING TOO MUCH PHILOSOPHY! Yes, folks, Janko says reading too many smart-people books messed with his brain, leading to all sorts of troublesome questions like: “Am I happy?” “What’s the point of all this?” and “Who cares if Roger beats Pete’s record – it’s just a number!”

Maybe I’m reading a little too much into his comments -  the overall message is more like:  “Don’t read, kids, or you won’t play sports too good.”

Okay, then, read at your own risk, and thanks to Sebastien Fest at Monsters & Critics for this great story (click here for the original):

Tipsarevic, the tennis player who read “too much”

Tennis Features

By Sebastian Fest Mar 4, 2009, 15:33 GMT

With this new approach, Tipsarevic is set to stand by talented compatriot Novak Djokovic and others as Serbia face Spain in the Davis Cup later this week.

Benidorm, Spain – Reading a lot can be dangerous, and being too smart can lead a person to unhappiness: that is why Serb tennis player-cum-intellectual Janko Tipsarevic hit the brakes.

‘I realized that I was reading too much, starting to doubt myself, life, my profession and tennis. I stopped a bit,’ Tipsarevic told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in an interview ahead of the Davis Cup tie against Spain from Friday.

‘Beauty will save the world,’ says a tattoo on Tipsarevic’s left arm. The phrase from Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and a notable match that he lost 10-8 in the fifth set to Roger Federer in the 2008 Australian Open have made the Serb player famous.

However, Tipsarevic, 24, wants to stop, he wants to be considered as a tennis player, as a man who might surprise Rafael Nadal and his team-mates in the Davis Cup tie, and not as the sport’s ‘intellectual’ for reading philosophy books.

‘That was a time in my life in which I was really crazy over reading books. I still read many, but not quite that many. I think everything grew a lot as well because of the tattoo I have, which holds an attractive phrase and it’s a story that can sound good,’ he said in the eastern Spanish Mediterranean resort town of Benidorm.

‘But I don’t want to make a big fuss of this or say that I am so deep, or a philosopher. That is a part of my life, something I like doing, like others like Play Station.’

That is precisely the key. The world of sport is generally not that much into reading, and appears a lot more inclined to playing Play Station.

Argentine tennis legend Guillermo Vilas used to write poetry and songs in the 1970s. But decades later his compatriot Lionel Messi – arguably the best footballer in the world – admits to having read only one book in his life – Argentine football great Diego Maradona’s autobiography – and says he did not even finish that.

Tipsarevic is the antithesis of Messi, even if he does not like people talking about him as ‘intelligent.’

‘I am trying to avoid that, people think that I am intelligent,’ he says with a dreamy and yet tired smile.

Is he not?

‘No, no, no. I’m not saying I’m not, I’m pretty normal. But I don’t want to draw attention to myself for the rest of my life because I have a tattoo on my body.’

A fan of snowboarding and house music, Tipsarevic got into reading Friedrich Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant and other philosophers to follow the example of his mother, Vesna. The woman, a housewife, was left alone at home when her children grew up, while her husband continued to work all day.

‘She graduated in law, and there was not much to do at home, so she started to read these books, which end up driving you a little mad… Yes, she suffered a bit.’

‘Anyone who reads philosophy knows the word means ‘the search for truth.’ Many of those philosophers had painful and unpleasant lives because they searched for truth. And the truth, in most books, is nothing, it’s depressing.’

‘You start to wonder why you are doing this, why you pay 1,000 dollars for a plane ticket. Am I happy? All those questions.’

Tipsarevic is now sure that ‘thinking too much is not the answer.’

‘Of course I would not rather be stupid. But they say being stupid is a sort of blessing, because you don’t know anything else, you don’t want anything else and you don’t need anything else.’

But it is one thing to not be stupid and another to turn reading into an addiction.

‘What happened to me was that I would read the same book three, four times. I tried to read Kant, which is very difficult, and I did not understand a thing. So I read it again. And I still did not understand a thing. And I read it again, and again, and again. And I still did not understand.’

‘I was taking books too seriously,’ Tipsarevic explains.

‘Now I am a little bit older than I was then, and I understand that you should never, ever, no matter how right the author is, read a book and completely change your life. In my opinion, you should always take small things from a book to change life, and not let the book have a 100 per cent influence on your life.’

But seriously, how awesome is Janko Tipsarevic? Don’t you want to invite him over for a glass of wine at your next ladies’ book club meeting? Although “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” is probably a little, uh, lowbrow, for Janko “the Professor” Tipsarevic. Oh, and he’s only into Playstation now, anyway.

Photo: Getty Images via Tennis Served Fresh (a.k.a the official blog of Janko Tipsarevic shirtless!)

Half the fun of being a tennis fan is objectifying the players (or is it three-quarters?), so I couldn’t resist posting this super cute video blog of Janko Tipsarevic, who seems to be everyone’s favorite under-the-radar hottie. I never got his appeal, to be honest, until I watched this video. Those eyes! That voice! How do I get that girl’s job? OMG! Too bad he went out to Novak today in three sets. Next time, Janko, next time!