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by Craig Thomas One of the most popular innovations at the Australian Open in recent years has been the IBM Fast Serve. Running for several years now, fans can test their service speed against that recorded by the top players by firing their best shot and have it measured by a radar gun. The daily and tournament best are displayed on a board for men, women, and both boys and girls ten years and under. As of today the fastest recorded fan serves for each category, in kph (mph in brackets) were 205 (128), 168 (105), 143 (89) and 118 (74) respectively. Not bad! Yesterday, Centre Court fans were treated to the sight of Pat Rafter making a fool of himself. First, some background. It has become a bit of a tradition for eccentric Australian Andrew Ilie to rip his shirt in two, straight down the front, on court, in an exuberant victory celebration after her registers a win. Well, after defeating Tim Henman in straight sets yesterday, Rafter tried the same thing (later explaining it as "a one-off thing for Andrew"). After desperately struggling for some time, and only managing to produce a tear about half way down the shirt, he tried to generate more leverage for himself by stretching it to the ground where he stood on it and tried to rip the remainder that way. This was also unsuccessful, and eventually Rafter surrendered and removed the albeit distressed shirt in the traditional way, over his head. A cruel person may have been inclined to observe that the shirt had put up more of a fight than Henman did. The saga of Anna Kournikova and Barbara Schett continues. Today there was a minor security scare on Court One during their doubles match against Shinobu Asagoe and Yuka Yoshida. Late in the first set a spectator threw a lighted flare onto the court during a point, which spewed out a cloud of bright orange smoke. The flare was removed, the damaged portion of court repainted, the offender detained, and after twelve minutes the match resumed. When asked in the post match press conference if anything like that had ever happened to them before, Barbara answered no, but Anna said "Yeah, a streaker," a reference to the guy who run onto the court during one of her doubles matches at last year's Wimbledon. Barbara commented "Not to me. Too bad." And for all the "Seinfeld" fans out there, you may be interested to know that there is a ball boy working at the Open by the name of Cosmo Kramer. The ten-year-old has created quite a stir, receiving interview requests and has been asked for his autograph (to which he has obliged like a true pro). As several journalists have reported, there has yet been no mention as to whether he will be assigned to any matches featuring Monica Seles. |