FanHouse Tennis

Tennis has long been an afterthought for most fans. It has a small but loyal following, but the reality is that it's a niche sport. Part of that has to do with the dearth of dominant players. Gone are the days of the transcendent stars; John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Chris Evert, Navratilova -- all distant memories.

Which is why selling the sport to a new generation of fans makes perfect sense: if the on-court product doesn't sell itself, commence with the marketing. And what better spokesperson for an international, high-brow sport than a countrified Jenna Maroney singing "Tennis Night in America."

Moving pictures ridiculousness after the jump.

If there is one truth about outrageous behavior it is that the only people who really wind up paying for it are companies seeing an opportunity to cash in, like Volkswagen with a screaming Bob Knight or American Express with an apologetic John McEnroe or, fresh off Madison Avenue, a ballistic Serena Williams firing away at Mother Nature.

But why stop at just a few athletes gone wild? There are a lot of other stars of our games whose personalities would do wonders for some other hawkers of products and ideas.

He was shrinking into someone else, wilting and cracking and melting down. Try as he did, he couldn't generate sufficient torque and let his first serve turn wilder than a podunk mayor throwing out a first pitch. He lost tiebreakers, which rarely happens, and he committed 15 unforced errors in the fifth set to merely four for a 20-year-old foe in his maiden Grand Slam final experience. Worse still, Roger Federer did something unbefitting a dignified, placid champion who speaks elegantly, wears stylish sweaters and counts Vogue editor Anna Wintour among his friends.

A gentleman lost his famed equlibrium, crashing for the shocked masses to see after Juan Martin del Potro challenged a shot via the electronic line-calling system -- which, by the way, Federer loathes. "No, no, no. I wasn't allowed to challenge after two seconds. The guy takes, like, 10. Every time. You can't allow that stuff to happen. Do you have any rules in there, or what?" he barked at chair unpire Jake Garner. When he was basically told to shut up, Federer responed with the latest obscenity in an expletive-filled tournament that should have been called the U.S. Bleeping Open.

We've witnessed self-proclaimed concerned Americans drown out public debates over healthcare reform with vitriol. We saw a member of Congress heckle the president during an address by the commander-in-chief in the well of the House.

And shortly after Serena Williams belittled a tennis lineswoman in an embarrassing tirade, and then struggled mightily to muster the courtesy of an apology, a music producer extraordinaire selfishly and embarrassingly rained on an honoree's nationally televised parade with his uncontainable ego.

Incivility. It's the new black. Everyone's bearing it: Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), rap mogul Kanye West -- again -- and the world's best women's tennis player.

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Turns out the angel has fangs. Can we ever look at her the same way again? With one malicious, threatening, swaggering, finger-pointing, racket-waving, f-bombing tantrum, Serena Williams took a sword to her legacy and did irretrievable damage. Just when we were starting to project her place in history -- her 11 Grand Slam singles titles, the perseverance of the Williams sisters as they became black champions in a largely white sport -- Serena deflected our eyes from her prominence to her startling petulance.

Such vitriol is going around, of course. Whether it's Kanye West dissing poor Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Awards or Joe Wilson shouting "You Lie!" at Barack Obama on the floor of the House of Representives, America is filled with angry bursts as the first decade of the 21st century ends. But Williams was supposed to be beyond such ill behavior, a credit to her sport and race and country. And when she took a stab at a mea culpa Monday, issuing a third apology after two cheap attempts, even that came across as too little, too late.

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NEW YORK -- Does the word "Believe" scripted on Melanie Oudin's shoes carry any less weight now that she has been knocked out of the U.S. Open? Should she scratch madly at those seven letters, pretend they were conceived out of nothing more than a childish whim?

Of course not, because to do so would suggest Oudin never really possessed the sort of inner faith many of us could only hope to achieve in a lifetime of attempts and failures and do-overs. She is 17 years old, and when Oudin wakes today she'll believe more than ever.

It is the conceit of teenagers to think they can do anything at anytime. They are invincible, indestructible. In the next breath, they are a bundle of angst and insecurities. And teenage girls? Their moods fluctuate as often as the wind. Anyone who has ever been a teenage girl or raised one or been around one when the malls open understands this irrefutable truth: these creatures are usually a broken fingernail away from coming unhinged.

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NEW YORK – So here is Venus Williams, with an aura that is just about as dazzling as her fuchsia dress. She has every right to be ornery, bummed, and short on answers. She has just meticulously unwrapped the god-awful thick contraption from her left knee, and now her skin itched with phantom crawlies, and as she went through the motion of sitting to standing, there was the unmistakable creak of bone-on-bone.

"It's been a pretty good day," she said cheerily, to a couple of young girls who were patiently waiting for the older Williams sister to sign their tennis balls. "Did you enjoy the match?"

Of course they did, they said through a spasm of giggles. As I observed this small snapshot of Venus' day from a few feet away, I couldn't help but think: So here is a mighty fine prototype of the modern female athlete.

He dropped to his knees on the clay, the dreaded clay, and released years of agonizing pressure with a scream. Then came the tears, the long hugs and the lofting of a trophy toward the sky, all performed with a finality that puzzled me. Yes, Roger Federer at last had seized the French Open, the one crater on his Grand Slam resume. But he'd done so only after Rafael Nadal, his injured nemesis, was bounced in a fourth-round loss that ended his 31-match winning streak at Roland Garros.

This is akin to having a tryst with Angelina Jolie while Brad Pitt is in a coma. It's a bit misleading, wouldn't you say?

Anna Kournikova isn't great at tennis. She was very good at being very attractive and thus very good at garnering attention from the media and endorsers, but never very good at tennis. Unfortunately for Jimmy Fallon, she's pretty decent at beer pong, as he found out last night. Or at least better than Fallon anyway. If it were anyone else, I would bite on "sandbagging," but not with Fallon. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my 400-count sheets (pantsless, natch) waiting for Conan to come back.

Courage is in the eye of the beholder. Rational folks will agree that Andy Roddick has it coursing through his veins, after he became the only player to do the right thing by refusing to play in the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships because of the tournament's reprehensible discriminatory policy.

Venus Williams took a swig from the courage chalice, too, when, upon receiving the Dubai championship trophy Saturday, she spoke about Shahar Peer, the Israeli player who was refused entry by the United Arab Emirates on the eve of one of the world's most lucrative tournaments. In front of the Dubai crowd, Williams referenced Peer's plight, and later expounded on her decision to speak publicly about sport's political hot potato, when a simple curtsy and "thank you" would have made for a safer exit.