Annoyed at bumbling players and fashion queens Listening to coaching from the stands

Paulo Maria/Lagos sports
Flavia Pennetta's coach, Garbriel Urpi, was shouting specific instructions to his player during her loss to Maria Sharapova.

For those of you who read my 16 picks, 13 were on the mark, but I did misread the ebbs and flow of a few of the contests.

For example, when I went out to Court 2 to watch Maria Sharapova face Flavia Pennetta, I never expected that I would sit through a set and half where Pennetta's tutor Gabriel Urpi, would loudly coach her every few points. No, I'm not talking about "Vamos Flavia." I'm talking about "Serve more down the middle," "Play more low balls down the middle,” "Move in closer on your return," "Toss the ball higher on your serve."

But that's not really coaching, right? It's just encouragement.

I couldn't hear what Yuri Sharapov was yelling at Maria, because he was too far away from me, so I can't say whether or not he was engaging in coaching this time. But this whole coaching from the sidelines thing has become a joke, because it's constantly happening and if, for example, someone like Yuri is sitting across the court from the chair umpire, who likely doesn't speak Italian or Spanish, there is no way that she is going to be able hear what he's saying and admonish the player.

The tours and the Slams either have to legalize coaching, or instruct the chair umpire to heavily clamp down on the coaches. If they feel it's impossible to monitor shouts in various languages, then they should move their seats way off the court.

You can read more of my account on Sharpova's 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-3 victory on foxpsorts.com, but suffice to say that Pennetta really pushed her and had she not played a loose game early on the third set, Maria may have been sent packing. But over the years, the Russian has displayed a remarkable ability to focus late in matches and tends to play much, much better when the chips are on the line and when she's not tired (her meltdown to Dinara Safina in Paris aside).

Speaking of meltdowns how about Russian-Californian Dmitry Tursunov trying to pull chair umpire Fergus Murphy's thumb off after he went down 7-5, 6-4, 6-7(2), 6-7(6), 9-7 to Jarkko Nieminen? He sort of shook his hand and then pulled his thumb and nearly pulled Murphy off his chair. A big fine and suspension should come. Tursunov is a likeable guy, but that was totally uncalled for.

After he lost the fifteenth game of the fifth set to give the Fin an 8-7 lead, Tursunov hit a ball in anger at the umpire's chair and the official ruled that Tursunov had deliberately tried to hit him and gave him a point penalty. Tursunov said he wasn't aiming at him, but Murphy said that pro players aim and fire with greater accuracy.

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