April Aces, "Unstrung" Debuts, French Open Wild Card Playoffs
My April Aces for The Tennis Recruiting Network are primarily the champions from the two events I covered in California, but there are a half dozen others that I didn't have time to write about while I was busy at those tournaments.
The long-awaited broadcast debut of Unstrung, the Mike Tollin-Jim Courier-produced documentary which culminates in the 2005 championships here in Kalamazoo is Saturday on ESPN Classic. For more information about the film, visit the site--unstrungmovie.com. There also have been several reviews (mine, originally for The Tennis Recruiting Network, is here), some of which can be found in links from the blog category "Tennis Movies" on the left. Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated talked with Mike Tollin (pictured below during filming at Kalamazoo), and posted this Q & A today.
The USTA is holding their wild card tournaments for the French main draw berths, and today Wayne Odesnik earned the men's with a victory over Jesse Levine. The women's tournment, as for Australia, has twice the number of particpants, and won't finish until Saturday. The usta website posted this story on the results today.
5 comments:
The difference between Jim Courier and Monica Seles.
This was in the first year the Miami Heat joined the NBA.
Courier & Seles were in town for the pro tennis tourney.
Courier called while I was in the office of one of the owners.
He demanded 15 seats under the basket for him and his buddies-of course for free. The owner was hoping for some publicity at that new stage and asked Courier to wear a Miami Heat Hat. After much negotiations, The Heat paid Courier $10,000 to wear the Miami Hat.
He put it on backwards during the game- so the name was not shown.
Monica Seles purchased a ticket at the door and paid full price and as luck would have it -had an obstructed view in the nose bled section.
The camera spotted her and management offered her a seat down on the floor which she reluntantly accepted.
Courier and Seles were great tennis players- Seles is a much nicer person.
Courier as I mentioned 3 years ago should stick to tennis and leave the producing of movies to Speilberg, Lucas and Ron Howard - because he doesn't and didn't have a clue about Unstrung. It is a far drop from Unstrung being shown in mainstream movies to a one night stand on ESPN Classic.
The media paints pictures of sports heroes and politicians that are sometimes not true, both positive and negative.
It is in the small jestures that do not make the news that truly tell the complexion of the person.
Courier in my opinion has a long way to go - because it is how you act when the camera is not on you that really counts.
5:45 pm. Just was flipping thru the channels and saw that "Unstrung" is currently playing on the West coast on ESPN Classic. I missed the first 30 minutes and have TIVO'd it and will look for a reply. Wow, how wierd.
Unstrung is uneventful
sooo boring, sooo bad, sooo long
MITM, you dont like Courier much, do you? hahaha. Does anyone else have any opinions on it?
Austin,
Courier was an unbelievable tennis player with a work ethic that was off the chart. I like him for that.
after watching "UNSTRUNG - and I love tennis - that was a very painful 2 hours- and I really question his judgement as a producer and a business man.
Just because he can play tennis doesn't mean a thing concerning business or any other area - He totally missed and missed badly.
Concerning Courier as a person, I saw him when the cameras were not on him - It could have been just one instance - but he missed the boat-once again very badly.
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