Tennis-X Notes: Women’s Injuries, Tennis Magazine Thinning

TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS

I GRUNT, YOU MISS — A tennis study by Canadian and American researchers said tests showed “extraneous sound interfered with participants’ performance, making their responses both slower and less accurate.” The Public Library of Science ONE journal published the study, involving 33 students at the University of British Columbia in western Canada, showing that opponents were thrown off in multiple ways by loud grunts. Report author Scott Sinnett told the BBC, “The findings were unequivocal. Basically, when the video clips did have a grunt, the participants were not only slower to react but they had lower accuracy levels. So they were basically slower and could actually be wrong-footed, if you could extend that to a real-world tennis court.”
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MISC
Kim Clijsters pulled out of last week’s China Open, citing a need for more recovery for her surgically-repaired right foot…Caroline Wozniacki, Kim Clijsters, Serena Williams and the doubles team of Kveta Peschke/Katarina Srebotnik have qualified for the season-ending WTA Championships-Doha…42-year-old former No. 1 Thomas Muster is continuing his comeback on the Challenger circuit and has cracked the Top 1,000 rankings. He has a 1-5 win-loss record in five Challenger tournaments, and has been offered a wildcard at the ATP-level BA Tennis Trophy in Vienna, Austria…American Robby Ginepri broke his arm in a biking accident and is out for the rest of the season…Former US Open champion Juan Martin del Porto lost his comeback match against Olivier Rochus in the first round of the ATP Thailand Open in Bangkok last week. “I don’t know how long it will take for me to get back to where I was,” del Potro said. “I have to work very hard to get back to the Top 10 again because there are many good players who are coming up.”…If the U.S. can get by Chile in the first round of the 2011 Davis Cup, they will be looking at hosting Rafael Nadal and Spain in the second round…Last month, ATP New Haven/Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament Director Anne Worcester said they had nine potential sponsors lining up. This week, SportsBusinessJournal’s DanKaplan reported that the ATP World Tour has bought back the tournament’s calendar spot, and will likely stick a different tournament there. Ouch…The official magazine of the USTA, Tennis Magazine, has reportedly let go of at least four full-time staffers. One, TennisWire.org Photo Editor David Rosenberg, says he was “canned” and that the magazine will now be mainly out-sourced to 10TenMedia.com, which was started by a couple FHM magazine staffers after that publication folded…Serbia has chosen hardcourt to host France on for the Davis Cup final in December…Anna Kournikova will appear on the Oct. 5 episode of “The Biggest Loser” as the contestants go through the paces in a Cardio Tennis workout…Venus Williams pulled from the China Open with a knee injury…Vera Zvonareva has qualified for the year-end championships for the third year in a row…From tennis writer Charlie Bricker: “What has the country of Kazakhstan got to show for all the money it has spent paying players — mostly Russian — to fly their flag on tour? Not much. Andrey Golubev is at No. 41, Mikhail Kukushkin at 83 and Evgeny Korolev at 91. On the women’s side, just one rent-a-Russian — Yaroslava Shvedova at No. 39. Sesil Karatantcheva, who is really Bulgarian, is at No. 139. All these players list Kazakhstan as their country — an insult to the place where they were born.” — What does Kazakhstan have? Besides a first-ever spot in the Davis Cup World Group in 2011 after upsetting Switzerland?…The China Open lost three Top 5 players due to injury, ouch…