Other players chose tracks that were unbelievably inappropriate. I can’t say who. I’m a massive Neil Young fan and I think the audience would be disgusted if I started playing that [particular song].”…

“I was down a set, and only the second set was I able to sort of get the ball into play, find my range, find my rhythm,” said Federer, who has been plagued by an erratic forehand during the end of 2009. “I got a little bit lucky maybe to get through in the second set. At the end in the third set I played great.”

Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon
Lyon, France
Surface: hard indoor

Seeds: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gilles Simon, Ivan Ljubicic, Juan Monaco, Julien Benneteau, Paul-Henri Mathieu, Benjamin Becker, Al Montanes
ADHEREL
Floaters: None
Notes: One Top 10er in Tsonga; wildcards to oldies Arnaud Clement, Sebastien Grosjean, Michael Llodra (are there no French up-and-comers?); Algeria’s Lamine Ouahab gets directly in; Stan Wawrinka pulled, was [...]

BLAKE AND BARKER BREAK — James Blake and his coach Brian Barker, who has coached him since his junior days, have mutually parted ways. Blake is finishing out the year with fellow Floridian Kelly Jones as his coach. Jones, a former No. 1-ranked doubles player on the ATP tour, has worked with other Floridians Mardy Fish and John Isner.

Notes: Weak, weak seeded line-up; tough openers include (1) Davydenko vs. Safin, (4) Andreev vs. Ginepri, (6) Tipsarevic vs. Crazi Dani, and (5) Cuevas vs. Lu (upset alert); Russians have won 13 titles in the 19 years of the event; unseeded Igor Kunitsyn is the defending champ, and is looking at a second-round meeting with the Davydenko-Safin winner; Davydenko looking for fourth Moscow title; Yevgeny Kafelnikov won the Moscow title five years in a row from 1997-2001.

“We were ready for a dog fight,” Bob Bryan said. “When you’ve got one of the best singles players of our era playing with one of the best doubles players of our era it’s going to make for a great match up. Mike and I came out focused and played one of the best matches we’ve played in a long time.”

Excluding the ill Ivanovic, 16 of the Top 16 players are in Beijing this week. Jankovic is the defending champ, and Serena Williams is projected to take over the No. 1 ranking if she can progress further in the draw than Safina.

Sestini does talk about one part of the US Open: scheduling block difficulty. Organizing matches is like arranging a concert tour from opening act to main performer — it needs to happen in the right order.

I think it is important to shed light on the effort that under girds these events and makes a sport we all enjoy possible. Tennis tournaments also provide an opportunity to appreciate the brilliant eccentricities of human behavior (I don’t just mean the guy juggling while walking on stilts at Cincinnati either).

“I think the special part [is] winning for the first time as a dad. It’s a great thing. Gets me going emotionally a little bit, because I know it’s been a wonderful summer,” Federer said. “I really had the feeling today I could mix it up the way I wanted to. That then gives me a lot of confidence. I was playing great from the beginning to the end.”