My Google alerts must be messed up, because normally my women’s tennis exhibition match news is the first thing that greets me each morning. But in a recent exhibition doubles match*, Kim Clijsters decided to have a little fun with one of her opponents, Yanina Wickmayer. Sadly, it involved neither pillows nor pudding.

Clijsters took the microphone from the chair umpire in the middle of the match and addressed the crowd in her zany Belgium language – Dutch? German? Swahili? – telling the mannen of the crowd that the first one to rush the court and kiss Wickmayer would win a white car that was parked next to the court. Needless to say, a few guys jumped the barriers and ran at Wickmayer at full speed, which is hilarious because a female tennis player was once stabbed that way. Did I say hilarious? I meant pants-crapping.

Read the rest of this entry »

We already knew that Rafael Nadal is one of the greatest professional tennis players of all time. That’s as obvious as air. But little did many of us know, Nadal is an aspiring two sport star. The Spaniard apparently has one hell of a golf game. I mean, it’s not enough that he’s a world class athlete dominating his sport, but last week he played in the pro-am before the Castello Masters Costa Azahar at the Club de Campo del Mediterraneo, which is certainly a mouthful of a name for a golf tournament, in Borriol, Spain.

I don’t know how well he played, and I don’t really care. I’m sure he shot all aces and eagles and women cheered and tossed their panties at him. After all, he’s also a Nike spokesman and he replaced Cristiano Ronaldo as Armani’s underwear model. That’s a mighty large banana sling to fill.

But it turns out that Nadal is so much more than a tennis champion moonlighting as a golf player while he shoves his junk in your sister’s face. He’s a multi-multi sport superstar, as I found out after some exclusive investigating. Nobody has ever viewed these photos of Nadal playing in various sports before, and I assure you that they are 100% legit. Even the terrible ones.

Read the rest of this entry »

Serena Williams was out and about in West Hollywood the other night, and there’s really nothing else to report. I mean, I sure wish that something awesome happened like she single-handedly kicked the crap out of a group of terrorists who were hellbent on destroying Lindsay Lohan’s cocaine supply. Allegedly. Did I do that right?

Regardless, I was going through my arsenal of random sports photos and I realized a theme that I know other people have talked about, but since I’m a dude I’ve always drowned it out, usually with the Golden Girls theme song. Williams is quite the fashionista when she’s not on the tennis court, and even when she is playing she tends to be a bit more unique and daring. But I thought we’d spend today’s slow news day – screw you, Game 2 – exploring Serena’s status as an American – nay, global! – fashion icon.

Read the rest of this entry »

Your first thought when looking at that picture should be, “Wow, how is it that muscular, 5-foot-9, 150-pound Serena Williams is a sports millionaire and still buys her clothes at the Baby Gap?” Then your eyes should sorta slowly rise to meet that weird patch on top of her head, and you ask, “Wait, does Serena Williams have a bald spot?”

That’s the issue of the day on The Young, Black and Fabulous. I can’t say I know a hell of a lot about African-American hairstyles, considering I’m a white guy who was born with hair like Linus from Peanuts, but the consensus of the comments section there is that either 1) it’s a bald spot on the lace front of her wig and that sports blogs and black culture sites only post the pictures to demean Serena, because what else could they do, or 2) an average person who is not a sports millionaire would not go out in public in a wig with a big hole in the front, especially not if they’re going out to a Celebrity Paparazzi Dinner with Kim Kardashian also-ran Brittny Gastineau.

What do you think? Is it evidence that killing your hair makes it die, or just Haters who are gonna hate?

Check out video of the weirdly-invasive paparazzi run-in after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

It feels like the U.S. Open has turned into the NBA Playoffs, what with rain causing the tennis tournament to last the better part of a month, but we’ve definitely seen our fair shares of excitement. For instance, did you catch that semifinals match between Roger Federer (3) and Novak Djokovic (1) on Saturday? Hoo boy, that was some tennis excitement. Djokovic’s come-from-behind win in the 5th set was far and away the highlight of this year’s Open, but today’s Finals matchup between Djokovic and Rafael Nadal (2), who defeated Andy Murray with much less excitement in the semifinals, will probably be the stuff of legends as well.

On the women’s side, 9th-ranked Samantha Stosur defeated Serena Williams 6-2 and 6-3 to win the Women’s Championship, and of course Williams blamed it on the officiating. Williams yelled, “Come on” during a rally and umpire Eva Asderaki docked her a point for a code violation. That’s when Williams became a little miffed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Andy Roddick has taken some time out from being America’s death rattle of men’s tennis success to openly voice his opinion on some matters that are near and dear to his heart. For starters, when you’re a guy who isn’t as good as people once expected you to be, you’re going to often be aggravated and wish to vent your frustration how you see fit. Roddick’s solution is that he thinks that tennis players should be allowed to behave like professional wrestlers and just break anything they want. In theory, he’s right. A throwback to John McEnroe would be great.

But there’s a better solution out there – it’s called not sucking. But look at me being all critical. That’s another thing that Roddick hates. In an interview with ESPN’s Chris Fowler, Roddick talked about his future as an analyst.

Read the rest of this entry »