Bud's 2007 Rome Masters Diary - Day 14 - May 20 , 2007
JELLY'S DELICIOUS WIN -- DIALING WRONG NUMBER FOR KUZNETSOVA

They are pals - but adversaries.

"Yeah, Svetlana is a really cool girl. She's one of the most outgoing in the locker room," Jelena (Jelly) Jankovic is saying about the sturdy Russian, Svetlana Kuznetsova, the U.S. Open champ of three years ago.

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Bud's 2007 Rome Masters Diary - Day 13 - May 19 , 2007
"JELLY" RETURNS TO ROME SWEETLY WHERE HER CAREER HAD COME SOURLY TO PERISH

One year ago she came to Rome to die. Not a bad place for it. Did she book a location in the Catacombs? Or the lovely Protestant Cemetery where the poets Keats and Shelley are planted?

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Bud's 2007 Rome Masters Diary - Day 12 - May 18 , 2007
A LETDOWN FOR SERENA, SURPRISING LOSING A CLOSE ONE, SO SHE'S OFF TO THE FRENCH, STILL CONFIDENT

Next stop, Paris, for Serena who was stopped 2 points away from the semifinals of the Italian Open. At 5-points all in the decisive tie-breaker, this was the kind of tense match that Serena thrives on.

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Bud's 2007 Rome Masters Diary - Day 11 - May 17 , 2007
SERENA RISING -- SHE'S THE GREAT LONE HOPE FOR AMERICA ON TREACHEROUS EUROPEAN CLAY

Here she is, Miss America -- in a game called tennis anyway.

It's Serena of course, turning up in Rome.

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Bud's 2007 Rome Masters Diary - Day 7 - May 13 , 2007
ROME SWEET ROME FOR RAFA WHO CONSIDERS IT HOME FOR HIS TRIPLE

When the dictator Mussolini built the tennis parlor called Il Foro Italico in 1935, he directed that the place be decorated with huge statues of athletes, robust and in the buff, as examplars of Italian manhood.

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Bud's 2007 Rome Masters Diary - Day 6 - May 12 , 2007
THE STREAK GOES ON FOR DUKE OF DIRT NADAL BUT DAVYDENKO ALMOST BENDS IT OUT OF SHAPE

The spirit of 76 was not pumping very well inside of Rafa Nadal, the durable young man who owns the clay tennis courts of this world. And the Spirit of '07 -- while intoxicating for almost a week-- was about to drain from Filippo Volandri, the local boy who made good far longer than anybody could have divined.

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Bud's 2007 Rome Masters Diary - Day 4 - May 10 , 2007
FEDERER NOT GETTING BETTERER, BUT DELIGHTS ITALY BY LOSING TO HOMEBOY NO. 53 VOLANDRI

ROME -- It was an afternoon that made you think of a Puccini love song, "Un Bel Di." A beautiful day with the sun toasting Il Foro Italico, Italy's beloved tennis pen, and a regiment of Respighi's "Pines of Rome" surrounding the scene.

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Bud's 2007 Rome Masters Diary - Intro - May , 2007
A FORTNIGHT IN ROME MAKES ITALIAN OPEN TOUGH TO BEAT

Hometown of one of the greatest doubles teams in history - Romulus and Remus - Rome is ever a marvelous destination for tennis addicts. This is my 35th Italian Open; I never tire of it. For one thing, it means that winter is over for us Bostonians.

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