Speeding Towards 2004



There's Something About Rainer... Articles

• Tennis-X preview of 2004, has this Rainer blurb... "The Australian hardcourt swing will be an early indicator of who is still struggling with injury and who will look to regain form. The early season will also be a measuring stick for top German Rainer Schuettler, whose simple, blue-collar game easily translates on any surface and to any continent."


• BBC Sport piece focusing on Henman


• Tyler, TX blurb on the year in sports for 2003, this is their sole tennis blurb... "In the tennis world, American Andy Roddick became No. 1 for the first time in his career. Roddick celebrated the feat with a loss to Rainer Schuettler less than a day after being guaranteed the top ranking at year's end."


• The Australian story on Andre


• Sportal Australia story on Andre, also has links about Kafelnikov not in Oz Open, Haas' comeback, Nalbandian's injury and other tennis stories


• Herald Sun (Australia) similar piece on Andre


• Sydney Morning Herald blurb on player entry additions for adidas International


• NineMSN (Aus) story on upcoming Aussie tennis events


• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has these two Schuettler mentions, in the intro... "New faces in German sports this year included Hannah Stockbauer, who won three individual golds at the World Championships in Barcelona, and tennis player Rainer Schuettler, who provided Germany with its only tennis spark by reaching the finals of the Australian Open and qualifying for the Masters Cup in Houston." and this paragraph... "Red lightning - German tennis player Rainer Schuettler came out of nowhere to earn the nickname "red lightning" for hustling his way with his trademark red Fila outfit into the final of the Australian Open, where he lost to Andre Agassi. Schuettler provided the one and only positive note for this once great tennis nation by winning tournaments in Japan and Lyon and qualifying for the Tennis Masters Cup in Houston, where he reached the semifinals but once again fell to Agassi. The 27-year-old ended by far his most successful season ranked No. 6 in the world."


• Rediff (India) slideshow of the year, this one is the Aussie Open page


• BBC Sport mini blurb on how Andre and Serena will defend their Australian Open titles


• Vanguard (Nigeria) piece on the 2003 season, "The Year of the Young Ones"


• SportingLife.com story on the year, has some good tennis links as well, including their take on the year's best men's matches


• Australian Broadcasting Corp story on Federer, JCF and Roddick as the stars of the game


• Straits Times (Singapore) had a story on Roddick, but you have to pay to read it, here was their Rainer line... "Roddick would lose his next match to Rainer Schuettler, the hard-working, hard-running German who was one of the pleasant surprises of the year."


• Daily Times (Pakistan) article on the Aussie events


• ESPN piece mainly on Roddick but has some year highlights (no Schuettler mention at all in this one... can we be surprised - it's ESPN)


• Sports Illustrated's piece on all the Aussie and NZ events (no Rainer here either)


• Tennis-X list of their 2004 Hopes

And here's a Rainer preview of the tourney post that'll come up in a couple days...

• Peninsula Qatar piece on players preparing for the tourney

Pre-Season is Here

2004 Action Just Days Away

Okay, I am working on one mini post that includes some pre-season links I've found in the past week (there's one Rainer bonus at the end of this post) for Saturday, and then on Sunday I hope to have up the usual tournament entry - don't know when exactly so I apologize to the European readers who are least five hours ahead of me.
I've tried changing the way the archives are listed (instead of weekly and scrolling down the margin and making the alignment of the posts all out of whack) by grouping them by month, but when I did that, it said there were no archives... I'll fool with it later. If I can condense them, I'll add links to the most referenced pages such as the 2003 photo page, US Open album, etc to the margin so those popular ones are easier to find.
Also, thanks to those of you who've added to the Heifer.org tally... and to those who've emailed me with questions - I have not forgotten about you, I hope to get back to you all soon.





Meanwhile, here are some unrelated Rainer shots that I thought were apropos...




There's Something About Rainer... Articles

• Yahoo Deutschland mini article on how Rainer helped a child also from Korbach who was injured in a car crash that killed his father. Schuettler gave him a gift when he was home for Christmas visiting his parents and I believe the area tennis center had raised 1000 euro for the 17 year old as well. (not positive on my translation)

Say Cheese! 2003 Revisited

The Year in Pictures
Okay, I've been a bad web hostess... I wanted to get these at least up but it's not perfect. I have a couple more to add, organize them a bit more, add some comments, blah blah... but here's what I have as my favorite Schuettler Shots of the year. Working on it at work made me lose my mind because the screen's proportions are all out of whack, so in the next few days I am going to do some adjusting. My chance to work on it Sunday evening was blown as I once again wrestled with a new printer. I am printer jinxed, there's no way getting around it. Normally I can't get a printer to be recognized, on my brand new great super printer it's recognized, but doesn't print in color. It photocopies and scans in color, but not off the web in color... some day...
These photos come from all sorts of places... some are from Getty Images, some Corbis, some from Yahoo sports, some from other fans I found online, some are my own pictures, etc.

Schuettler Shots... Photos








































Schuettler and the fans





You Cannot Be Serious?!




Professional shots and my shots





My own favorite Rainer shots of 2003