Wimby 2 -

After 3 days of Wimbledon....the following has all happened.

1. Jamie and I have still not played a match. We are scheduled for the 5th match on court 2 today, I'd say the odds of us actually playing fall between "slim" and "none."

2. We have managed to do about 100 interviews over the past 3 days. It's definitely fun being a star, but the questions revolve around the same couple q's.
a. Is it great to be playing in London with all the support? Yes.
b. Due to your success, is this a partnership for the future? Yes.
c. What is the status of Andy's wrist? We don't really know.

3. I was approached by Justin Gimblestob who didn't really care for what he called few "backhanded compliments," which I wrote in a previous article. I didn't think players actually read anything I wrote. Have to start being a little more careful.

4. I tried to get a locker in the changing room and was told my name wasn't on the list. I quickly rushed to my bag to shove my player's badge in the locker room attendant's face to prove that I was a player, when he pointed out that I had special credentials to be in the locker room reserved for former champions, singles seeds and davis cup players. Apparently playing with a Davis Cup member is good enough (thanks Jamie). I finally found my name sandwiched between Henman and Ljubicic...pretty much right where I belong (Yeah, right).

5. Spent some time yesterday with one of my best friends Chris Varga who travels with Boyd Tinsley (violinist for Dave Matthews Band). Boyd, besides being extremely genuine and kind individual, is a huge tennis fan and they are over here for the week. Today we got out on the grass and played a set of doubles. After we went back to his suite at the Ritz to chill for a bit and grabbed some food at a great little Mediterranean restaurant. I swear I didn't sign up for stuff like this when I started playing tennis. It just keeps getting better and better!

6. This morning I am off to warm-up Henman for his match with Lopez. Since I'm a big lefty, I'm hoping to groove his return for the match. I think I'm actually more nervous for my warm-up hit with Tim than I am for my actual match. I feel like I have a direct influence on a match the entire country will be following. I hope I can pull him through.

C'mon Tim!

- Booty

Wimbledon 1 -

Rainy Days in London....

....what else is new


Luckily, I have the greatest doubles partner in the world when it comes to practice in London. When you play doubles with a "Brit," you are pretty much given "carte blanc" to do as you please around all the training facilities in London.

Today, instead of waiting around all day on-site at Wimby, we went straight to the National Training Center in Roehampton to have our practice indoors and then head straight to the state of the art gym. I decided to pass on having a massage from one of the many on-site physios and figured it was best to not push my luck. I hung out with my Mom and Dad for most of the morning waiting for our court at 2pm. Then it was time for an intense doubles training session with my coach Louis Cayer.


In the afternoon we played an exhibition match in finance district, somewhere in London. I don't really know where they took us, just that it was quite a long drive from the courts. Also apparently long enough the our opponents, Knowles-Nestor were stuck in traffic and were 30 minutes late.

Once they arrived and we exchanged our greetings, we were complimented on our fine play with a title last week in Nottingham, we also complimented them on their fine play with a title the week before at Queens. I figured it was worth mentioning that (to the #2 ranked doubles team in the world) that makes 3 titles (San Jose, Memphis, Nottingham) for us on the year, to their 2 (Queens and some tourney called the French Open). Then they announced our bios and Knowles has won 47 career ATP titles....he was like "How many is that for you Booty?, Oh 3?" Don't know why I started that debate.

We played a set of tennis on a rain-soaked miniature court in front of some passing by London workers on their way home and enjoyed ourselves a bit before heading back to Wimbledon to meet up with my Dad who was anxiously trying to soak up every minute of tennis action.

The day finished meeting up with a couple friends in the Wimby village for some good chat and a fairly early night to sleep for what will likely be a rain-soaked Day 2.

- Booty

Nottingham 3 -

Nottingham wrap-up


Jamie and I picked up our 3rd title of the year today by winning Nottingham.

Obviously we are quite excited to win another tour event and this does great things for our ranking. It was a bit anti-climactic as after we won the tournament less than an hour later we were both headed back to London separately.

I celebrated with a friend and a couple of "Aussies" on the train back by opening up my laptop for some tunes and passing around the bottle of champagne that I had won.

I wish I had more time to write but we are now back in London and have to start getting ready for Wimby tomorrow!

Also....as promised....I attached my good friend Ashley Fisher's suggested rule changes for the tennis tour. Let me know what you think, also send me any other ideas that you think should be changed with tennis...I'll post again with some of your responses....you can email me on my site at www.bootyandstretch.com

The greatest issue in tennis is dwindling fan interest. The core fan can't maintain interest for 11 months and the casual fan can't understand the structure. The season starts the day after Christmas, ends in the middle of November and has no structure by region or surface. For example, as we lead into Indian Wells next week we have one hard-court lead up event in Las Vegas and one in Acapulco on clay. As commissioner of tennis I would scrap the entire tennis calendar and start again.

Since the USTA has had great success with the US Open series, I would emulate this structure with the other Grand Slams to create 4 mini seasons with distinct surfaces and regions. In the six weeks prior to each of the Slams, all ATP and Sony Ericsson WTA Tour events would be played on the same surface and in the same region as the approaching slam. Fans could get behind the mini season in their region or they follow the entire season since it will only be 8 months long.

The new season would start in February in Asia with hard court events in India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia and other Pacific Rim countries. The events will be promoted as the lead up to the Australian Open and appropriate bonuses and incentives would be awarded to generate additional excitement. In the early spring, the clay court season would begin throughout Europe and South America leading up to Roland Garros. Late spring would lead into the six week grass court season since anyone who has ever been to Queens and Wimbledon knows the British are fanatical that time of year. Simply put, we need to give them more tennis. The US swing would remain very similar to the US Open series. The calendar would end at the US Open providing players with an off season to spend at home with their families. During this time events such as World Team Tennis, Bundesliga and other exhibitions could take place.

Obviously, this is a very drastic measure that involves reducing the number of events, however fewer tournaments will draw stronger fields and allow tournaments to better market their stars. Injuries and player withdrawals, the bain and vulnerability of tournaments, will become less of problem and fans will gain confidence in the product again.. In addition to Grand Slams and Tour events, we have Davis Cup competing for limited fan interest and limited player availability. The Davis Cup needs to become an event similar to World Cup Soccer held every four years. Davis Cup should be one of the most watched events in tennis and right now it does not garner the attention it deserves because it doesn't showcase the top stars. For example, the greatest player of all time, Roger Federer doesn't represent Switzerland so the fans don't know it is an important event. The Cup should rotate to North America, Asia, South America and Europe and be played over a two week period at which point all the marketing focus from the Tours will be applied to creating a world-stopping interest.

- Booty

Nottingham 2 -

Jamie and I are rolling on in Nottingham. Nothing too exciting has happened, which has led to a lack of blogs. When you spend the past month in Paris and London, then head up to the Midlands' city of Nottingham, things sure seem quite quiet.

The other day I watched Justin Gimelstob break a racket on a return, then make about 20 different faces (the guy is notorious for having great facial expressions), couldn't decide whether to keep playing with it, really give it a good smash in the ground or politely set it down.... and then finally settled on chucking it into the crowd to a kid sitting in the front row. It was a sweet gesture at a time when I would have bet my life that it was going to be shattered into pieces on the ground next to his bag.


....which brings me to my next point. Has anyone seen the new T.V. show with Philippoussis? I heard about it, still haven't seen the first episode, but apparently Gimelstob was one of the final candidates for the show. After hearing this, I don't know if I can watch Mark. Sure "Phlip" is a better looking guy, but he doesn't have 1/100 of the intelligence of Justin and nowhere near the personality. Gimelstob (while being absolutely insane at times) is also one of the funniest people I know. He said that he went into the interview and said, "Just have a camera follow me around, doing anything, the show will be a hit." He couldn't be more true....to see him chat with the different women on the show would have been priceless. I'm so disappointed.

I had dinner last night with Ashley Fisher, one of my best friends on tour, at Pizza Express. Having dinner with Ash is great chat, but also quite funny, cause he really doesn't like any food other than a cheese pizza. So, Pizza Express is a safe bet. We started talking about the ATP and got off into a half hour discussion on how the ATP needs to change so many things about how it operates. He said he wrote an amazing essay on the necessary rule changes and I said that I'd print it in my blog sometime soon. Keep an eye out for that one.

Other than that...nothing too exciting from Nottingham. We play in the semis this afternoon.

Nottigham 1 - First rd win -

Well, if you didn't see or didn't realize from my lack of a blog, Jamie and I were bounced out in the quarterfinals of Queen's on Friday.

I did the typical losing routine....sulk for a while, go to dinner with some friends who gradually brought me out of it, then hit the town! Some friends took me to a place called "Fifty" which was quite exclusive (judging by the security process just to get into the club, even though we were ON the list!). Was a great time.

Saturday was my day off. Well, not totally off as I hit the gym at about 10am for a hard workout, which could have been harder if my head wasn't absolutely pounding (see previous paragraph)...but I got through it by about noon. Spent the afternoon in the city with a friend and actually went and checked out the Tate Modern Museum. Yes, I know, a little culture in my life! I loved the first few exhibits, but the section of paintings where a huge red square or pictures that looked like something a 1st grader did really tested my patience.


We got up to Nottingham last night to prepare for this tourney and we probably should got here a little earlier as we were first on this morning.

We were able to pull through though, 6-4, 7-6 (7) against Auckland and Huss.

That's the news from here....

- Booty (also known over here as "Jamie Murray's doubles partner")

Queens Day 3 -

Queens Day 3

We played our round of 16 match this afternoon against Fisher/Phillips. You know those days where you walk out on the court and everything just clicks. You serve is hitting the spots you want, you see the return as if it's going in slow motion and every single bounce seems to go your way? Well, that's my best description for what happened today.

We next take on Hanley/Ulyett, the number 3 team in the world in the quarters on Friday. Can't wait for it.

A couple of upsets today at the Queen's tourney. Jo Wilfred-Tsonga took down Hewitt. This big Frenchman is on an absolute tear right now. He's won about 5 challengers this year and won last week in Surbiton. He was very impressive.

Yesterday, Henman went down as well...never happy to see him lose. My favorite quote I read this morning in one of the papers was, "Will Henman win another tennis match, ever?" I thought that was just a little harsh. Leave it to the Brits though, the press over here is so tough! Had lunch with Tim today and luckily he can just shake it off. I guess enough years of that nonsense and it really doesn't even bother you anymore.

Tags: tennis

Queens - Centre Court -

Queen's....

On a match day things seem to just fly by. You wake up at 830 and by the time you finish your post-match activities, it's 630 in the evening.

Here's my account of the day....

8:30am - Rise and shine, when you wake up on a match day it's quite a different feeling than any other. Especially when you're playing center court and the entire country of England will be watching you on BBC2.

10am - started our morning out with a quick Yoga workout at the training center in Roehampton, which more than a couple people managed to mention, "wow, booty, you really aren't too flexible." Yep, that's right. I blame genetics. Don't think my dad's ever been able to touch his toes, doubt I ever will either.

Noon - Finished our morning hit around...of to Queen's.

2pm - Back on court for a practice at Queen's. Seeing the ball like its a football (soccer ball for the American readers).

3:15 - Practice over, 2 minute shower as we see Boggo (Alex Boganovic, another British player) is rolling through and about to serve it out on Center Court. Nerves are starting to kick in!

3:30 - Match time. Walking onto the Center Court at Queen's was quite a surreal experience. It's quite accepted that it's the greatest grass court in the world. With the red backdrop and the stadium pretty much filled to capacity, this was the point where I was debating whether I should run to the bathroom for probably the 10th time in the past hour. I think every player gets a bit nervous before you walk on a court like that. If not, I bet they're lying.

3:35 - I manage to hold serve and my heart rate has dropped to about 195 beats per minute.

3:37 - Ljubicic hits an ace up the T at what felt like 187 mph. I challenge the call, and it's over-turned. (two completely unrelated facts to this story.... there were 4 challenges in this match and they all went our way.....Jamie is British.)

3:40 - Jamie smacks a return winner to break Ljubicic as we go up 2-0. Heart rate now down to 180.

3:50 - We take the first set 6-1 and the crowd is absolutely loving us. On the changeover, Jamie is discussing the Swedish girls sitting in the front row, I'm trying to plan out my next service game and somehow control my breathing.

4:05 - We can not break them in the 2nd. I even completely whiffed (or as the English say, "fresh-aired") a sitting forehand. I'm claiming bad bounce, even though in the past twenty years no has even complained of a bad bounce on that court.

4:30 - Game, Set, Match, Butorac/Murray. My favorite five words in tennis.

4:40 - On court BBC interview where Jamie was asked for the 37th time that day...."How's Andy's wrist?"

5:10 - Press Conference, where I was asked, "Do you have a British relative or is there any chance you'll marry an British girl before the Davis Cup match in September?" Answers were, Don't think so....and unlikely....but you never know!

6:30 - Fed, showered, relaxed, pretty much ready to call it a day....an emotional day for sure. Can't wait to do it again on Weds!

Queen's Blog -

Queen's Haven't written since I left the French a week ago. This week Jamie and I are playing in the famous Stella Artios Queen's Club Tournament. Walking into Queen's is one of the more impressive sights in tennis. Most players feel its the best kept grass courts in the world (yes it even plays better than Wimby!). We had a busy day starting off with a doubles exhibition in Surbiton against Goodall/Hutchins (another UK team) which we took down 3-6, 6-1 10-8. Before the breaker we asked them if they were up for playing the final breaker for 2 butts-ups shots each. (this is when the losing team bends over and stands on the baseline while the other team fires two serves at them (quite a common wager when playing a practice set). They agreed to do it. Then as we came back from 5-8 (them serving) to win 10-8, Goodall had his bag on his shoulder before we even shook hands. I think he was in 3rd gear cruising to his home before I even realized he was gone. Such poor form from him. Ross (Hutchins) offered to take all 4 for the team (which was a good effort although we didn't accept), but I would have preferred to send a rocket at Goodall. Oh well. After we had to do a quick photo shoot for Getty Images since Wimby is just around the corner. It was fun for a while, but then the shots kept getting crazier and crazier. He was like "Now, sit back to back and look over your shoulder at each other and smile."....ah, Ok. Then he came with, "Sit side-by-side and stare deep into each other's eyes." I was like, "Wait, what kind of photo shoot is this?" We're keeping all our clothes on, right? I'm not sure I want people seeing these shots! We got to Queen's in the afternoon just in time to get some lunch for the Rafa/Roger final that we've all been waiting for. You really know a match means a lot when you see the entire player's lounge tuning in for that one. At 3pm we had to do another press event on center court at Queen's. We were actually the only ones allowed to walk on the court all day. We played a tie-breaker with some local BBC and Times reporter, then did some interviews for the BBC morning show which should air Monday morning. It was cool, other than the fact that it was so staged. At one point, the reporter asked if I could hit a serve like 120mph inside out on the deuce court about an inch wide so he could then challenge the call. Hmm....haven't hit a serve in about 4 hours, shoulder feels so cold it's a joke....why not rip the first serve 120mph an inch wide. I'm a professional right? Then I hit it, and he challenges it and runs to the camera and the guy wasn't even filming! He hits a ball back to me and goes, "Take 2!" After that we hit the courts for another hour workout on the practice courts. We play 3rd match tomorrow on center court (and also on Eurosport), so we better be bringing our A-game against Ljubicic-Gulbis. Should be a fun match! I'll let you know how it goes!