News and Notes

The list keeps growing for top players withdrawing from next weeks French Open.  Here is the short list as of Monday:

1. Juan Martin Del Potro (wrist)
2. Kim Clijsters (ankle)
3. Nikolay Davydenko (wrist)
4. James Blake (lips from sucking so much, actually I think its a knee problem)
5. Gilles Simon (knee)
6. David Nalbandian (hamstring)

The list will probably continue to grow.

Update on Martina Navratilova:  In a recent interview Martina Navratilova has announced she is "cancer free", after having surgery 6 weeks ago.  "I'm doing well, I just started radiation last week."

The queen will make an appearance at Wimbledon this year.  Her last visit was in 1977 for the womens final.  The queen planned on making it to last years mens final had Andy Murray made the final.  Unfortunately he lost in the semifinals to Andy Roddick.

Reports say The Queen and her husband Prince Phillip will be attending the matches on June 24.

Ernests Gulbis thinks soliciting Swedish prostitutes and spending the night in jail is fun.

Ernests Gulbis, speaking somewhat sarcastically to ABC.es about being fined and kept in jail overnight in Stockholm last fall on a charge of soliciting a prostitute: "It was great, a lot of fun. I'm never going back to Sweden in my life. When I meet a girl I don't ask her her profession, it doesn't matter to me if she's a hairdresser or anything else. All of a sudden in jail for no reason. Everyone should spend a night in jail. I was there for six of seven hours and then paid the bail. The next day was a tournament, or I would have stayed longer."

Gael Monfils has a new hobby that may or may not be interfering with his tennis.  His new off the court passion is poker, and he will not stop playing even if he gets criticized for it hindering his tennis game. 

Pokerstars has already started sponsoring him, because he plays so often.  Recently Monfils also played in a high stakes game at a Monte Carlo casino.

Monfils had this to say about being criticized over his love of poker:  "Since no one knew about it, no one was breaking my balls. And now suddenly I hear some journalists and other negative people trying to make me feel guilty.


"If poker is a passion of mine, I don’t see why people should give me a hard time. In fact it makes me laugh more than anything else," said the 23-year-old.

"I can do whatever I want with my free time. Some people stay hours watching DVDs to relax, I spend hours playing poker. This doesn’t prevent me from taking my tennis career seriously."