Play Tennis

Kids AskWho inspired Martina Hingis to play tennis?Candace C., 12Sandy, UtahMartina's mom, Melanie, played pro tennis from 1970 to 1979. Melanie named Martina after tennis legend Martina Navratilova.Melanie started teaching her daughter to play tennis when Martina was 3. Martina played her first tournament at age 5!"I loved tennis right from the beginning," says Martina.Mystery AthleteThe Clues:This Mystery Athlete is a shot-blocking machine. Using the clues below, can you figure out who he is?

McDonogh won the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association team title last week, and the Eagles found even more success in the conference's tournament for individual players, which concluded yesterday. The tournament was originally scheduled to finish last Thursday, but last week's rain and problems with scheduling forced most of it to end last Friday with the final part ending yesterday at McDonogh. The Eagles got A Conference championships from Alexander Centenari and Alex Sidney in singles plus the team of Jake Lazer and Tommy Sinnott in doubles.

BOYS PLAYER OF THE YEAR Gary Simonette Calvert Hall For the past four seasons, Simonette's reputation has been that he's a good player with a lot of potential. This year, he finally realized it. The senior missed half of the year with a back injury, but came back at just the right time to win the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association's A Conference title. Simonette beat the tournament's No. 2 seed in Gilman's Chris Mason, the fourth best player in Mount St. Joseph's George Martin and the top seed and 2003 All-Metro Player of the Year in McDonogh's Mark Gober to win the title.

WASHINGTON -- Andre Agassi sat in a comfortable chair inside a white tent at the William H.G. Fitzgerald Tennis Center yesterday afternoon with sweat sliding down the side of his face. The white-hot sun combined with the bright lights of a dozen television cameras made the setting less than comfortable for the sport's veteran star, who is retiring after the coming U.S. Open. But Agassi, his clean-shaven head glistening, showed no sign that he even noticed, as he patiently answered questions about his career and his last appearance at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, a tournament he has won five times in 16 previous appearances.

He's the No. 3-ranked tennis player in the world, and he's from Baltimore County.No, Lendl, Becker and Co. have not taken up local residence. This is Kevin Whalen, who lives in Woodlawn, and you might not have heard of him.Whalen, 33, has been a quadriplegic since a 1984 swimming accident. A former collegiate player, he took up wheelchair tennis seriously only three years ago.He has made such progress that not only is he up to No. 3, but he also will be bidding to improve on that status in this week's U.S. Open championships in Irvine, Calif.

If Paris Hilton can earn a series for her misadventures, why can't television's beloved old stars share their colorful lives in a show? After all, they've provided years of entertainment, a feat beyond Hilton's grasp. We won't always have this Paris. The cable channel TV Land is giving veteran actors their close-ups in the reality series Living in TV Land. The Wednesday premiere focuses on Dick Van Patten, who's zanier than the father he played on Eight Is Enough from 1977 to 1981. Van Patten is such a dynamic, competitive figure at 75 that he launches Living in TV Land with gusto.

Robert Wittig has played some sensational tennis matches in his lifetime. But ask the former tennis instructor about his most memorable moment on the courts and he'll tell an unusual tale -- one free of aces, smash volleys or shots down the line. It all began one evening last November when Robert asked Kimberly "Kim" Diamond, his girlfriend of five years, to play tennis with him after work. Both residents of Manhattan, the couple often met on the courts at New York University for tennis dates.

Memorial Stadium fans recognize what a bright spot in an otherwise bleak year looks like: Chito Martinez."Chito-Chito-Chito," they sometimes chant when the rookie right fielder comes to bat -- especially on one of the multihit days he's piling up.As he lopes out to take his position, rowdy cheers rise from the right-field grandstand.It's part of the phenomenon of Chito -- a Belize-born right fielder who once wanted to play tennis but has proved in seven short weeks in the big leagues that he can bat .321 and knock the ball out of the park.

In our collective consciousness, most of the smaller acts of defiance and protest in the civil rights movement have been overshadowed by the waves of humanity that have taken to the streets to demand change. The movement is symbolized by marches.But as crucial as the marches were, it would be foolish to construe them as the sole catalyst for change. Equally foolish would be to dismiss the significance of the smaller acts.One of those acts involved 24 black and white protesters who walked onto the segregated clay tennis courts at Druid Hill Park 44 years ago and proceeded to play tennis -- together.

I was learning how to play tennis for about the 15th time in my life. After several sweaty minutes of chasing down elusive tennis balls, of trying to keep my racket back, of trying to keep my wrist loose and my eyes on the ball, I took a break. It was hot. It was humid. The air was so heavy it actually hurt to breathe deeply. It was summer in Maryland.Everybody else in my tennis class had brought along plastic bottles, the kind that professional athletes sip from to restore their precious bodily fluids and to renew their inner strength.

The kid's fun. That's the best way to put it. He is vibrant and passionate, savvy and skilled, well-versed and well-traveled, and all of it makes him fun to watch, fun to interview. Everywhere he has flair - in his hair, in his words, in the way he goes about his business on the court. He may be only 21 and best known as Florida's 6-foot-11 sophomore forward. But numbers and labels can't confine him, can't confine all that is Joakim Noah. "I am large, I contain multitudes," Walt Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass.

One of Wilde Lake freshman David Nguyen's favorite pastimes is reading. That's no surprise, because the tennis standout's mother, Valerie Gross, is director of the Howard County Library system. His favorite authors, Clive Cussler, J.K. Rowling, Robert Ludlum and Michael Crichton, reveal a lot about his personality. Those writers create characters who are strong, independent and intelligent, and are not afraid to tackle challenging odds. Prepared for the toughest of odds, Nguyen was supposed to play his first varsity match Monday against last year's freshman standout, Centennial's Ryan Lissner, who was 28-1, the county champ and the state runner-up who is ranked No. 33 nationally by the United States Tennis Association in the boys 16 singles class.

If Paris Hilton can earn a series for her misadventures, why can't television's beloved old stars share their colorful lives in a show? After all, they've provided years of entertainment, a feat beyond Hilton's grasp. We won't always have this Paris. The cable channel TV Land is giving veteran actors their close-ups in the reality series Living in TV Land. The Wednesday premiere focuses on Dick Van Patten, who's zanier than the father he played on Eight Is Enough from 1977 to 1981. Van Patten is such a dynamic, competitive figure at 75 that he launches Living in TV Land with gusto.

BOYS PLAYER OF THE YEAR Gary Simonette Calvert Hall For the past four seasons, Simonette's reputation has been that he's a good player with a lot of potential. This year, he finally realized it. The senior missed half of the year with a back injury, but came back at just the right time to win the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association's A Conference title. Simonette beat the tournament's No. 2 seed in Gilman's Chris Mason, the fourth best player in Mount St. Joseph's George Martin and the top seed and 2003 All-Metro Player of the Year in McDonogh's Mark Gober to win the title.

HERE ARE some things I did not do this summer: Straighten closets, write my play, organize my desk, turn my mattress, clean out the toy box/garage/basement/attic. I did not go through my linens, figure out how to use a bookmark on the Web, plant new perennials or play tennis. I didn't send my drapes to the cleaner, I didn't get my winter coats cleaned and mended, I still haven't gone through last year's handouts from the school. Frankly, I've done darn near nothing. I did not enrich, enhance, advance, promote or otherwise improve my children.

Robert Wittig has played some sensational tennis matches in his lifetime. But ask the former tennis instructor about his most memorable moment on the courts and he'll tell an unusual tale -- one free of aces, smash volleys or shots down the line. It all began one evening last November when Robert asked Kimberly "Kim" Diamond, his girlfriend of five years, to play tennis with him after work. Both residents of Manhattan, the couple often met on the courts at New York University for tennis dates.

BARCELONA, Spain -- Wimbledon, it's not.But what the tennis tournament at the Summer Olympics lacks in tradition, clout and drama, it makes up for in . . .That's the problem. No one has figured out how to turn what is essentially another stop on a world-wide serve-and-volley tour into a grand Olympic moment.This week, Barcelona. Next week, Indianapolis.Wimbledon champion Steffi Graf is here. So are American's Jim Courier, No. 1 in the world, and Michael Chang and Pete Sampras. And Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, the local heroine, will aim for a gold medal on red clay at the La Teixonera Municipal Tennis Club.

The kid's fun. That's the best way to put it. He is vibrant and passionate, savvy and skilled, well-versed and well-traveled, and all of it makes him fun to watch, fun to interview. Everywhere he has flair - in his hair, in his words, in the way he goes about his business on the court. He may be only 21 and best known as Florida's 6-foot-11 sophomore forward. But numbers and labels can't confine him, can't confine all that is Joakim Noah. "I am large, I contain multitudes," Walt Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass.

A LITTLE girl who wanted to play tennis is still stuck in Dennis Cochran's mind. With her mother, she stood outside a fence, watching Cochran play one day a couple of years ago. When the Columbia Association pro asked if he could help, the mother said her daughter really wanted to play tennis. "I asked if she had a racket, and immediately I knew I'd asked the wrong question," Cochran said. "She looked down and said no. So I said, 'Hey, I've got a lot of rackets. Why don't you come see me?

NEW YORK - She came. She played. And she was conquered. But Martina Naravatilova, 43, still can hold an audience. She packed each stadium she played during her women's doubles and mixed doubles matches at the U.S. Open and said the crowd's appreciation surprised her. "I mean, what I'm getting from the crowd I never got in my life, even the last couple years on the tour," she said, after she and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario lost their third-round match to...