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Jordan Cox Gets Late Entry in U.S. Open Qualifying Bid

Joe Samuel Starnes — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:09:14 +0000

Last night I was wondering on the blog why Jordan Cox wasn’t in the qualifying draw, but today see that he went from practicing in Florida this morning to getting ready for a match in New York tomorrow. Glad to see the 17-year-old from Georgia get a bid. With his performance reaching the Wimbledon juniors final, he deserves it, even though he lost early — in the fifth round — of Kalamazoo. He plays Sebastien De Chaunac of France on Tuesday.

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Lukoil Open Battle of the Samuels: Years Are Against Me Despite My Indirect Wins Over Pete Sampras, McEnroe and Bjorn Borg

Joe Samuel Starnes — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:45:26 +0000

The draw is up for the Lukoil Open, and the years and statistics are against me. I play Samuel Sherrill from Southborough, Mass., a recent number one player for Roanoke College in Salem, Va., in the first round at 3 p.m. Friday. So I’m giving away about twenty years, but will give it a shot. He could always get stuck in traffic, or get lost on the way to the Green Valley Tennis Club. I know how to find my home courts with ease.

I also play against him in doubles. He’s teamed with Franklin Sherrill, whom I assume is his brother, who has played on the Futures tour. Franklin Sherrill last year was part of a team that won the USTA National Open Grass Court championship, so my buddy Jim Lewis and I might be in some trouble.

However, the Sherrills probably don’t know that Jim and I have some claim to fame that happened long before they were born. Jim and his mother reached the semifinals of the Charleston (W.Va.) Public Courts Mixed Doubles Championships circa 1977 despite Jim playing with a cast on an arm he broke while goofing around in the parking lot during a rain delay, a feat worthy of the front-page newspaper coverage he received.

That very same summer I beat Al Parker in a doubles match in Savannah, Ga., when he was eight and I was ten. Parker went on to win 25 junior national championships in singles and doubles, a record that will never be touched. Eight years after my win over him he beat none other than Pete Sampras in straight sets, giving me an indirect win over Sampras. Sampras beat McEnroe in the 1990 U.S. Open, giving me indirect wins over Borg, and just about any player in history if I chart it out far enough. So look out, Sammy Sherrill.

Check back Friday night to see if I was able to win any games or not, and you can follow the results on the tournament page.

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Live Davis Cup Scores and TV Schedule

Joe Samuel Starnes — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:52:36 +0000

Check out www.daviscup.com for live scores from all the matches, including the final day of the U.S.-Croatia quarterfinal featuring James Blake against Marin Cilic, and Mardy Fish against Ivo Karlovic.

The TV coverage starts at 10 a.m. Sunday, and full schedule can be found online at the Tennis Channel web site.

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The Greatest Match of All Time?

Joe Samuel Starnes — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:29:19 +0000

John McEnroe, Bud Collins, Tennis Magazine’s Peter Bodo and Sports Illustrated’s L. Jon Wertheim all have rated Sunday’s final as the greatest match of all time, or at least of the Open era. (Sports Illustrated even put a match photo as the lead story on this week’s cover — when was the last time the magazine featured men’s tennis?) I don’t know if I can disagree, but I’m still sentimentally partial to the Borg-McEnroe final in 1980 where the fourth set tiebreaker went 18-16 and in spite of losing that tiebreaker and seven match points, Borg gathered himself and came back to win the fifth set 8-6 to take his fifth Wimbledon in a row. I remember that match well because I was 13 at the time and on that same day my dad and I went to Atlanta and he bought a ball machine I hoped would improve my backhand. We watched the Borg-McEnroe fourth set tiebreaker on a bank of televisions in the Ellman’s department store. Even with the ball machine, I still never resolved my weak backhand. (You can find much of the 1980 match in Youtube, and full coverage of that match is available on DVD through Netflix or Amazon.) Of course, I’ll always remember this year’s final because I saw the fourth set and the end of the fifth while in between going out and playing two sets with my friend Marcelo Pascale until rain brought us inside to watch it on the TV at the Green Valley Tennis Club in Haddon Township, N.J. I beat Marcelo, a transplanted Argentine, in two sets on clay, and anytime you beat an Argentine on clay you have done something special (I should probably reveal he is recovering from knee surgery). The tennis on the TV looked far better than we did. I’m still trying to decide if Wimbledon final of 1980 or 2008 is the best match ever. Fortunately, I have the 2008 match on tape and will watch again.

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