SERENA SANS CLOTHES — Serena Williams in her pre-tournament press conference Saturday dodged questions about posing nude in Jane magazine, with only a strategically-placed flower hiding her rear view. Finally asked later if she was embarrassed by the photo, she said “No, not at all. I thought it was a great photo. It was for a great cause. I thought it was simply divine personally. I’ve gotten a lot of great compliments on it.” Wearing skin-tight blue jeans on a frame looking a bit more ample than the Jane shoot (which went to charity), the younger Williams sister will be competing in her first match since Wimbledon where she sustained a thumb injury.

ANYONE HAVE A SHIRT I CAN WEAR — Look for a current Top 10 player, unbeknownst to him, to get dumped by his clothing company when his contract runs out at the end of the year.

SERBIAN TENNIS LEAPS FORWARD — Jelena Jankovic says it is on the move, and Novak Djokovic is mystified by it. Tennis in the formerly war-torn Serbia is exploding in popularity, driven by two women and one man in the Top 10. “Tennis has become very popular in Serbia,” Jankovic said at the US Open. “Nowadays it’s one of the most popular sports there. We were always successful in team sports. We didn’t have much success in individual sport. But now that has changed. A lot of young kids are starting to play.” Jankovic admits she is not close with contemporary Ana Ivanovic but refuses to let the media turn them into “rivals.” “I don’t really know her that well,” Jankovic says of Ivanovic. “I know more or less the boys, especially [Janko] Tipsarevic. When we were young, we played juniors at the same time. He’s just one year older than me. I also know Novak a little bit better as well. But Ana, I don’t know so well because we never played the same time, when we were younger. We just met when we are playing at the professional level.” Djokovic has no explanation for three Serbs in the Top 10. “It’s really strange how we managed to do that only in two years of time. Looking at the history of Serbian tennis, we never had somebody really at the top.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Ivanovic, Novak Djokovic, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.