Ht: 6-0 Wt: 192

DOB: November 7, 1988 In: Kiev, Ukraine

First Tennis Memory: “Probably traveling with (Andrei) Medvedev when my father (Oleksandr) coached him, being on court and having fun. We were friends. I was always there, he was winning some tournaments, I was there. When I took the balls and the racquet I was small, sitting there watching him play. I don’t remember the cities. One tournament, I got lost at the tennis courts. I remember I was surrounded one time. I couldn’t really write – I was just writing my name as a signature, because they know I was always on the court with him. I was really a popular kid then. Because all the players played with me. And I was having some fun.”

Tennis Inspirations: “Thats’s a tough one. I just enjoy the game. I want to be the best – one time – in the world. So I’m just going to that goal and having fun on the court. We have some small goals with records, but not any in particular, win any tournaments. I just go out and try to show the best game and beat the guys in the game.”

Nicknames: “Some players call me Dolgo.”

Hobbies/Leisure Activities: “I really like to drive my car. I like racing – not professional – we have some tournaments, they’re like drag racing. I have a Subaru. So I like to do that. Just hang out with my friends, but I don’t have much time to do that. I come back for a week maximum. Just rest, go to movies, meet my friends, that’s it.”

Last Book Read: “Was a Russian book.”

Favorite Movies: “I actually like all the movies. I watch all kinds of stuff. When I’m at home, every two days I go to the cinema. So I like to watch movies. I don’t have a movie that I like the best, I have a lot of them.”

Musical Tastes: “I listen to all sorts of music in my life, now I’m into club music, dancing music, something like that.”

Pre-Match Feeling: “Just happy to go on the court. Think about the player I’m going to play. I think about how I’m going to play him. It’s all different, depends on the player I play.”

Favorite Meal: “That’s a tough one. Probably spaghetti and Russian meat.”

Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: “Coffee.”

Current Car: “Subaru Impreza WRX STI (black).”

Greatest Sports Moment: “Well, probably that’s the first point in the ATP (age 16 or 17). I remember I was really happy to do that. That happened in Ukraine, I got a wildcard. I got my first ATP point. That was a big moment. Now, I haven’t won some big events. Probably, as well, I remember winning a Challenger, winning my first ATP title. That was pretty big. Every moment I got was special but the first ATP point was pretty big. I mean, I didn’t win a Grand Slam yet. Or any Masters Series, so I can’t say anything about big wins. So that was probably the biggest moment I remember now. And I’m getting higher now, so it’ll come.”

Most Painful Moment: “Losing final qualies Australian Open when I was 18. From a triple match point and four match points in the match, with 5-4, love-40, his serve, third set, and lost (vs. Sam Warburg).”

Favorite Tournament: “Well, for now, I like the clay. Roland Garros would be my favorite.”

Closest Tennis Friends: “All the USSR countries, all the Russian guys. But I’m really well with everyone. I know most of the players. I’m not preferring the Russian guys because I speak the language better, I mean, I’m friends with everyone. Everyone is nice on the Tour. There’s not like guys who are not nice off the court, so.”

Funniest Players Encountered: “That’s a tough one. Daniel Koellerer on the court, is really doing some stupid **** on the court [smiles]. There’s a lot of players you can see doing fun stuff.”

Toughest Competitors: “I had a lot of tough matches. Last year, probably the toughest matches were Tsonga and Clement. I had five sets with them. That was the toughest matches I had. I played Nadal in Madrid. That was really tough to play him, clay court especially.”

Strangest Match: “Nothing in particular.”

Funny Tennis Memory: “I remember in a practice I was running for a drop shot and I was sliding on the clay courts. Then I couldn’t get my balance and I just fell over the net [smiles] and that was the funniest.”

Embarrassing Tennis Memory: “Losing from four match points – that was embarrassing for me. But nothing I would want to change or anything.”

Favorite Players To Watch: “Well, it used to be Marcelo Rios. He was really fun to watch. He was really improvising on the court. Now, I don’t know, tennis has gotten more monotone and everything. Running and physical. Because everyone is hitting so fast, you can’t really play that style. I mean, Roger’s got some of that still in him. He still does that playing style – volleys and drop shots, slices. I like to watch his game the most probably. (Did you meet Rios?) I met him when I was small. Not really in person, that I remember. The second time my father was with Medvedev was in 1998, that time when Rios won in a row Indian Wells and Miami. I was at the tournaments and I was always killing my parents to go to the matches. He was always playing night matches and I was, Let’s go watch him. Let’s go watch him [smiles]. I really like to watch his matches. I was crazy about him that time. The style of his game was incredible. He could pull out any of the shots in any moment. It was really fun. You don’t know what the guy can do. He wasn’t playing the same game all the time. He was really variative, tough to play, I think.”

People Qualities Most Admired: “Well, for me, it’s most important, it’s people are honest. Say what they think about you. I don’t like people who come and go, depending on your successes. So, I mean, the people who are with me from the small age or people who don’t care how I do, are the best people that I really want them with me.”

Check out Scoop’s tennis site www.tennis-prose.com

Once you cross the bridge you have to traverse various paths, steps and foot bridges down and around, through a forest of trees, fallen leaves, squirrels hunting for nuts, and other curious sights and scents of nature, eventually after about a 15-minute trek you will find the courts which are situated between the Hudson River and Amtrak train tracks. Then you look up and there’s the grand, towering, silver structure of the George Washington Bridge looking down at you.

The courts have a sign that warns you about needing a permit but there is no person here to do that job. There’s ten courts here, and just one is being used at the moment, by a young female and male who are having some good baseline rallies.

Ryan Arguelles is a USTA Eastern legend. He is so in-demand, especially as a doubles player, that he has competed for ten different USTA teams this year. The “Zen Master” – as he is called – has amassed an overall record of 41-6 this year, playing for teams from Manhattan, Queens, Westchester and Northern Connecticut.

I first played Arguelles three years ago in a USTA money tournament at Cunningham Park and won the SF of a 35s event 75 64 to win the $125 finalist check (I got smoked in the final by the three-time year-end #1 Adrian Chrici). We became friends. I like his game which reminds me of a right-handed Marcelo Rios. I played for his Vaders team earlier this year as a 4.0 and helped win a key playoff match before getting DQed before Sectionals and Nationals. Guess I should have thrown some more games in matches during the season. But all four of my singles matches were tough battles and I don’t play like that. No problem, that’s USTA League Tennis. There are several players better than me, and even more out in Tucson. (I played 4.0 Nationals four years ago and went 1-2 in singles out there, getting crushed twice. I didn’t lose a match all year that year in Eastern.)

So we start playing and I come out firing. Aces. Serve and volleys. Running forehands. Backhand passes. This is about as good as I can play. The court is quick and a little slippery but everything is working today. The Zen Master is about 15-20 pounds overweight and in singles the extra mass hurts his first step quickness and movement to far balls and drop shots. I make a lot of picturesque winners which I wish could have been videotaped, to take the set 6-0.

But the Zen Master is a crafty player with a lot of experience. He changes tactics and plays more patiently. He directs almost every serve to your backhand, deep in the box corner with a weird, knuckleballing spin that slides the ball away from you. Once the point is under way, his backhand is his better wing, he can take the ball on the rise and control it to where he needs to put it. I let off the gas pedal a tad and push my returns back a little too passively. This allows him to take command on the points and move me wide to my one-handed backhand which opens the court for him. He takes advantage of these options and patterns and in a flash, suddenly I’m down 0-3 in the second. Then I go down 15-30 on my serve. But I am able to dig deep and win that game and the next two.

The set becomes a battle. We get to 4-4, and I break him. Then I try to serve it out and we battle through about six deuces with some full speed tennis and excellent shotmaking from all over the court. I finally win it but we are both playing very good tennis.

It’s a really cool place to play here. Just a couple miles from Yankee Stadium, Harlem, The Apollo, midtown, Central Park, The John McEnroe Tennis Academy on Randall’s Island and Bergen County, NJ. Some quality players are next to us, and two more on the next courts north. One guy has an afro bigger than Oscar Gamble and he’s got some game too. All the while, there are joggers and cyclists passing by on the bike path, and few sailboats too. We play one more no-ad set before some Dominican food at the restaurant on 181st and Broadway.

Rice, beans, chicken and yucca with a Coke is as good as it gets after a tennis match. This isn’t tennis-related but I have to mention the tall blond, curly-haired Dominican young lady wearing tight blue jeans and a white shirt, who was working as the bartender at the small bar in the back. She is one of the prettiest women I’ve ever seen in my life. Not surprising is that there’s five guys sitting at the bar, apparently enamored with this beauty. They all look bored though and no one is talking much, they all seem helplessly magnetized and frozen by her striking attractiveness. As this article is written, I regret not taking her picture and asking her favorite tennis player just for the hell of it.

There are no symbols of tennis at this sports-oriented restaurant bar, it’s all baseball and football on the TV screens. Unfortunately, they are not showing what’s going on at the Masters Series event in Shanghai on The Tennis Channel. I am curious to see if Dolgopolov can make it to the third round by beating Chardy. But the food is excellent here. Three sets of quality tennis with a good friend, tasty morsels in a nice restaurant – that’s good enough. And, hey, that’s right, I had three aces today, no double faults…

Status: Winner of one ATP singles title – 2010 Delray Beach. Coached by Hernan Gumy since September 2009. Currently ranked ATP #28.

Ht: 6-3 Wt: 169

DOB: August 30, 1988 In: Riga, Latvia

First Tennis Memory: “I went with my grandmother. I was living a lot with my grandmother when I was a kid, because my father and mother were working. And my grandmother had tennis courts like a half an hour walking distance from her apartment. It was like a Soviet Union-type neighborhood – big buildings with eight, nine stories. And we went there. I practiced with my grandmother. She couldn’t play tennis but this was the first time when I took a racquet in my hand. So we went there. And immediately I could hit the ball over the net. Some coaches saw me and they said, Oh, this guy doesn’t need to clean the courts – he’s too good. So this is my first memory when I took a racquet (age 4).”

Tennis Inspirations/Heroes: “I don’t have. I wasn’t watching tennis a lot. I was real active young kid. I was playing against a wall. I was a fan of tennis but not watching it. I like to play. No matter how much I went to the courts, every time happy. But I didn’t have interest of watching other people.”

Hobbies/Leisure Activities: “I like to think [smiles]. No, I mean, just to think, read books, watch movies, to go out with my friends. Every normal thing for the young guy my age. Nothing special. Tennis is a profession, it’s like a job. The other things are like any other normal person would do. It’s just that I cannot hang out with my friends till 5 in the morning every day. But for the rest of the time it’s like normal things.”

Last Book Read: “Was a Russian writer. Macho Don’t Cry. It’s about the 90′s in Russia, basically it’s about a lot of drinking, a lot of going out and stuff like that. But in an interesting way, not like in a stupid kind of way. It’s really interesting.”

Favorite Movies: “I have a lot. Many. Actually, one of my favorites is David Lynch movie Mulholland Drive. I watched it maybe eight, ten times. I like David Lynch as a director. I saw some of his movies. Then I saw some Russian movies. I really liked – there’s a book in Russia, it’s like a Bible to Russians – it’s called Master & Margerita. And they made a TV series about that. It’s more than 10 series long. Like a TV thing, not a movie. That’s what I like. And many others. Those two came up first.”

Musical Tastes: “I like a lot listen to Russian music. But not Russian pop. I listen to Russian rock, Russian blues. I really like blues. I like the live instruments. I don’t like the technical stuff, when people push a button and the sound comes and everybody pumps up. I like good, interesting music where you listen to the words and there’s meaning to the song.”

Favorite Artists/Painters: “Favorite – no. I like some of the Latvian painters which are not really popular in the world. I mean, of course, if you go to the museum and watch the masterpieces of the top guys, you enjoy it a lot. I like to go to the museums and watch the operas but I don’t have a favorite.”

Greatest Sports Moment: “I think when I win in Delray Beach, my first tournament win. And when I made quarters in Paris, Roland Garros (2008). It’s my best result in a Slam.”

Most Painful Moment: “There’s a lot. Too much. I lost so many first and second round to guys who I shouldn’t lose when I didn’t feel good, when I play bad. Too many.”

Favorite Tournaments: “Of course, I like all the Grand Slams. All the Masters, because, you know, they’re a different feeling. I like tournaments which are in a nice city where there’s a lot to do, like Paris, New York, I like St. Petersburg, Moscow tournaments. Yeah, in nice cities. London.”

Funniest Players Encountered: “I don’t know, nowadays everybody is so professional. And they don’t – they’re not funny any more [smiles]. I don’t know. Yeah, that’s true. On court. No, on court, I don’t think somebody’s funny. I think everybody’s into winning. They don’t care about funny. But off court, I have really good relations with, really with everybody. But I’m talking more with Russian guys. Marat left tennis, he was a funny guy. I mean, really nice guy.”

Closest Tennis Friends: “I don’t know if you call it friends. Maybe you can call it your, I don’t know, partners. I don’t have a good name in English for it. Yeah, I have a close friendship with the Russian guys like Kunitsyn, Tursunov.”

Toughest Competitors Encountered: “All of them. Just some guys tanked against me when I was playing junior tournaments. Nobody’s tanking now, everybody’s tough.”

Embarrassing Tennis Memory: “Yes, sometimes I feel embarrassed with the way I play [smiles]. When I lose first round I feel really embarrassed. I don’t want to stay on court. So sometimes it’s like a fight between myself…I do want to be on court – I don’t want to be on court. I want to win – I want to lose. I want to go home – I want to do that. So it’s like all the time something in your brain. I’m trying to keep my brain stable.”

Funny Tennis Memory: “Never, no. It’s too serious a sport to laugh [smiles].”

Favorite Players To Watch: “I like to watch Federer. Because he’s playing just nice tennis.”

People Qualities Most Admired: “Honest. You’d rather say something to a person’s face then behind their back.”

You can read more about tennis at Scoop’s site www.tennis-prose.com

September 13, 1981, John McEnroe was on top of the world. He was the world’s #1 tennis player, having just won his third consecutive U.S. Open title in New York. Just three nights after his 46 62 64 63 KO win over Bjorn Borg, which sent the super Swede staggering into retirement at age 25, McEnroe would witness another sensational sporting event which was staged in an arena erected on the tennis courts of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

“I went to the Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns fight, the first one. And I had like these incredible seats,” recalls McEnroe. “My late, great friend Vitas Gerulaitis had set it up. We were in Vegas for a tournament. They put me in the first row, next to the Governor of Nevada and Larry Holmes (then the dominant WBC Heavyweight champ with 10 successful title defenses).”

“The Fight of the Century” as it was billed, had a profound effect on almost everyone who saw it, especially those sitting in the first row. “The intensity that I experienced just watching it – you could sense how some people were afraid and the emotion of what was going on, because I was so close the energy was so electric that, like, I was sort of wishing and hoping that tennis could even get close to that, in terms of the electricity that was there,” says the man who won three Wimbledon titles (81, 83, 84) and four U.S. Opens (79, 80, 81, 84). “But it was almost like you were almost – I felt almost afraid if one of the people – you’re so close – like Hearns was trying to hit Leonard – I thought he was gonna just knock him into smithereens or something. And how amazing it was to feel what was going on – I think that cemented my love of it.”

It was McEnroe’s first time attending a live boxing match. “To go to that as the first one was unbelievably nerve-racking in a way but it was really exciting. So that definitely made me want to go to a lot more. I haven’t been to as many as I’d like just because of my own schedule. I’ve been at a fair amount of fights at Madison Square Garden and in New York, but I could go to fights regularly, that would be a good way for me to spend a night. I hope that it still continues to happen in the future. The ones that I have been at, for the most part, have been tremendous.”

Before turning pro McEnroe spent one year at Stanford University in California and has a boxing memory from there. “I was taking an astronomy course, somehow I remember watching Ali-Spinks I in the astronomy at the huge dome that they have in Stanford. I remember being very depressed seeing Ali lose and he looked old and he just couldn’t do anything and then I thought, At least I was young. Now when I think about it, well, at least in tennis you don’t have to physically feel like you’re risking your life. You get laid out to bare, like, Okay, the guy’s over the hill, he should throw in the towel. People are always quick to say that but I’m glad I picked the safer sport.”

Now 50, McEnroe works as a TV analyst for all four grand slams and still competes in senior tennis, holding recent wins over . A few years ago when I last spoke with the former tennis bad boy, he credited another former heavyweight champion as a motivating influence. “When I looked at George Foreman and what he did in boxing, that always inspired me to dig a little deeper and train harder.”

McEnroe says the current state of boxing is somewhat in the same boat as tennis. “I follow boxing pretty much, but not as close as I used to. It seems like it’s close to tennis in that some of the personality – it seems to have lost some of that. And there’s other people taking away some of their market, whether it’s the Ultimate Fighters, just other sports in general. It reminds me that you have to continue to really promote and reach out. Like something we’re trying to do today (McEnroe hit balls with Billie Jean King on a court built on a floating barge on the Hudson River, to help hype the USTA’s “May Is Tennis Month.”)

“It could be ebbs and flows but nonetheless it seems like there’s not a lot going on, unless I’m missing something. It’s actually quite similar to tennis in the sense that one of the reasons why the heavyweights have sort of – you don’t hear much about it – it’s not only because of this situation when they talk about, Well who could match Ali’s personality? How ferocious Tyson was when he was young. But a lot of these guys are foreigners now. And in tennis we have the same issue. Americans have to get their act together. To have all these Russians and Eastern Europeans at the top would have been unheard of 20-30 years ago.”

Speaking of Tyson, McEnroe remembers the first time he met “The Baddest Man On The Planet”, which was before the Brooklyn marvel became champ. “The first time I ever met him he went like this – and he grabbed me by the chest. But he was like checking to see if I had any muscles. And I go, Tennis players don’t have any muscles there, we don’t need muscles there. We just need, like, big legs, were not supposed to have chest muscles. I kind of made an excuse for it,” he says with a smile. “Because he was checking to see how strong I was.” McEnroe also adds another first impression about Tyson – “he seemed very smart.”

Though not a physically explosive player like Federer and Nadal today, McEnroe reigned as the world’s best player from 1981-1984, because of his aggressive, attacking game, quick reflexes and deft touch at the net, and swooping placements from that jack-knife lefty serve. When asked which boxers remind him of himself, McEnroe pauses, then humbly replies, “I don’t think I could really. I would like to say a guy like Barry McGuigan, being Irish, with the huge crowd support.” And after another thoughtful pause, he offers another somewhat unexpected choice. “Hagler – because he was lefty. And later in my career I thought that I needed to change something. There was a lot more power coming into the game. (I thought) I’ve gotta do something to get stronger, whatever. But ultimately you can’t change what you do best. And remember when Hagler fought Leonard, he came out righty? And you were like, What is he doing? Right? And then he was probably trying to out-think him, that he could do that. But in truth, if he had just stayed with what like got him there, he probably would have intimidated him a lot more. And it reminded me of the end, where I started s