Serbian Novak Djokovic made a guest appearance yesterday on Jay Leno’s Tonight show. If you missed it, still can check it out on youtube.

Masters Cup, Shanghai - Andy Roddick to Novak Djokovic about his tendency to bounce the ball numerous times before serving.

“I could make like eight phone calls and order a pizza by the time you hit a service.”

Another great win by Argentine David Nalbandian. The 25-year-old unseeded Nalbandian outclassed world No 3 Novak Djokovic with a 6-4 7-6 victory to reach his first final of the year. As I said in my previous post, the guy can beat anyone on any surface IF he is in the zone. This week has been his “Zone” week.

Nalbandian’s main weakness has been his inability to close matches and win on important points. He has always been underestimated by the media and experts. He is not media favorite because he doesn’t have typical marketable personality and doesn’t like talking to them after he loses matches (his press conferences are just awful). Since I am a biased Nalbandian fan, I attribute it to the language and cultural barrier he has with English-speaking crowd:-) Otherwise he is quite nice and friendly when he speaks Spanish:-) Still I think David needs a PR consultant to better market his image.

Peter Bodo’s blog reveals a nice secret about David. His full name is … (are you ready for this?) Gervasio Esteban David Ezequiel Nalbandian.

Gervasio Esteban David Ezequiel Nalbandian will face world number one Roger Federer in Sunday’s final.

 Well, apparently Novak Djokovic is not only good at playing tennis in an empty swimming pool.

There have been many media reports about how Novak Djokovic, world No. 3 tennis player, along with his childhood friend Ana Ivanovic, currently ranked No 6, practiced in an empty swimming pool while growing up in Belgrad. A sports club official drained an Olympic-size swimming pool in the winter and put down a green carpet and net.

Ana Ivanovic is the first Serbian woman to reach a Grand Slam final at Roland Garros since Monica Seles. The 20-year-old Djokovic is ranked No. 3 after winning four titles this year and reaching the U.S. Open final only to lose the top-ranked Roger Federer.

Don’t we love those Cinderella stories?

(Photo source: wtatour.ru)

Oh well.. . Federer loses his Grand Slam virginity….NOOOT! The Swiss maestro (as many media commentators call him) has won his 12th Grand Slam title.

I wonder how he still manages to pretend that he is sooo shocked by the victory. Yes, he is a great player, loves speaking about how it is important to promote the sport, but the mere fact that he keeps winning non-stop makes those slams so boring. Good for him, but boring for many tennis fans. I wonder if his fans still get excited and thrilled by his victories.

After Federer’s win, I have been following the discussions going around in the tennis blogosphere. Apparently there are many out there that don’t like Djokovic’s djocks, his constant not-really-justified medical time-outs, and the media hype:-)

I think the problem here is not Djokovic but the way American media work. If there was no Djokovic, there would have been somebody else (remember Marcos Baghdatis hype?). Whoever gives them a good meat to chew on, they will make him/her the media darling. Djokovic is smart enough to realize it and how he can benefit from it. It is a win-win situation. If the player doesn’t have media-likable-marketable personality, (regardless of how good their game is) he/she is very likely to be ignored by the American media. Davydenko and Nalbandian (when he was in top 5) are perfect examples of it.