SMASH Column, Ojai Edition

Last week's action at Ojai makes up the bulk of this week's Smash column but college tennis also gets it due. Somehow the current issue of SMASH magazine has a story on the top college tennis programs and fails to mention Kalamazoo College among the prominent Division III schools, so I'm delighted that Peter Dopkin, my editor, chose to feature K's logo for my column's visual.


A couple of world juniors made news today. I always perk up when I see a pro tennis story that contains the headline "teenage wildcard" because I've usually seen any player that would be so-titled, and they've probably done something pretty spectacular. Today it was 2005 Wimbledon girls champion Agnieszka Radwanska who got the press, when she beat Anastasia Myskina in her first ever tour-level match. The WTA website has the details.

Fifteen-year-old Gastao Elias wasn't quite as successful as Radwanska in his ATP debut. As a lucky loser (he did win two rounds of qualifying), the the Portugese phenom drew fifth seed Dmitry Tursunov and bowed out 6-2, 6-1. But if Elias is like the rest of us, he'll be at his computer first thing tomorrow morning to read Tursunov's account of it in his ATP player blog. Until Tursunov came along these blogs were pretty tame stuff, but he's laugh-out-loud hilarious. The last time I read something this funny it was written by Dave Barry or David Sedaris. I know tennis pays well, but right now he's wasting his real talent. I guess it will still be there when he's 30.