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I am not going to call Andy Roddick unpatriotic. I think associating patriotism with your country during the Olympics lost its flair with the fall of Communism and subsequent raping of the “amateur” event by sponsors. Now, watching the Olympics means you have more allegiance to NBC and PowerAde than your home country.

That being said, I am disappointed to hear that Roddick will not be representing our fine nation in Beijing in this summer. His reason for missing this year is the conflict the Olympics have with the Legg Mason Tennis Classic. Both take place over the same week in August.

Andy, I understand this is the only event you consistently win (titles in 2001, 2005, and 2007). And I understand you are preparing for the U.S. Open (the only Grand Slam title you have ever won… way back in 2003). But you, the best American tennis player right now, are really going to skip Beijing for a tournament in D.C. which will feature absolutely no one of significance? Your warm up for the U.S. Open is going to beat up on a dismal group of American tennis players? There is only one person you need to worry about, and that is the man who has won the last 4 U.S. Opens (that would be Roger Federer).

I think the Summer Olympics is overrated for a myriad of reasons. The loss of the amateur aspect. The over bearing sponsorship. The plethora of sports no one even knew existed. But another reason why the Olympic Games are not what it used to be (at least from an American perspective) is the lack of participation by our feature athletes. And when they do participate, in the case of basketball, it is now embarrassing. So Andy, I do not think you are unpatriotic: maybe just a little apathetic to your country’s desire.

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On Tuesday an Australian Open match had to be temporarily suspended while police subdued a group of rowdy spectators with pepper spray. In the end, five fans were thrown out of the stadium. Just another ho-hum day a the Open.

Now here’ the interesting part.

Police said those thrown out will be not be allowed to re-enter Melbourne Park for 24 hours.

Twenty-four hours? That’s it? These people create such a disturbance that the marquee sporting event of the country has to be stopped, bringing shame and ridicule on the great land of Australia, and they’re going to be allowed back into the stadium in 24 hours?

Attention hooligans around the world. Australia is the place to go. If the Pacers-Pistons brawl had happened there the guy who threw the beer at Artest would have been back in his seat for tip-off of the next game.

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Chris Moneymaker, Gregg Raymer, Daniel Negreanu, and…..Boris Becker?

Yeah that’s right.

With his tennis days behind him the three-time Wimbledon champion has become the newest member of team PokerStars. Becker will begin playing in major European tournaments and he will appear in PokerStars commercials. Overall, he sounds really doggone excited about the whole thing.

“When I was still playing professional tennis, I started learning to play poker casually in-between games because it helped me to improve my concentration,” said Becker: “Now I want to develop my poker skills and challenge myself to become really competitive at the highest levels in poker.”

Becker and poker may sound like a strange match, but let’s face it, at this point the only thing keeping tennis going is heavy gambling on matches fixed by the mob. Well, that and Rafael Nadal’s nubile deltoids. The point is, gambling and tennis go together like Svetlana Kuznetsova and Anna Chakvetadze. Besides, it’s possible that Becker needs some cash, and being paid to sit for long stretches of time is a fine way to earn some. Just ask Jerome James.

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It’s hard to be a tennis player these days. With Roger Federer monopolizing the hearts of tennis fans and Mark Phillippoussis monopolizing the hearts of reality TV fans, there’s not a whole lot a guy can do to stand out. Nevertheless, Marat Safin has managed to find something. The former U.S. and Australian Open Champion is taking a 4-6 week break from tennis in order to climb Cho Oyu, the 6th highest peak in the world.

This seems like a curios choice for Safin, especially since he doesn’t appear to have any special reason to make the climb and his only training is being in good shape.

“This is an interesting climb but he has (had) very good physical exercise,” Ang Tshering Sherpa, chief of the Nepal Mountaineering Association said on Thursday.

Expedition leader Alexander Abramov said a successful attempt would add to the stature of the two-time grand slam winner.

“Hopefully to his many victories in tennis, Marat will add one more victory on the sixth highest mountain in the world,” Abramov was quoted as saying on a mountaineering Web site.

It seems that Safin just wants to do it, and that’s as good a reason as any. American basketball players want to make hip hop albums, Russian tennis players want to climb mountains. If Safin does make it to the top, his reward will be a rare opportunity to brag that he’s better than Roger Federer at something.

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(Every week there are a number of stories slip through the cracks here at ShakedownSports. These are just a few of them.)

Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway will reportedly take a job as his son’s quarterbacks coach at Cherry Creek High School. Elway was actually under contract to coach football at a different Denver public school, but he forced a transfer by threatening to leave and go coach baseball in New York.

Matt Beech, the pitcher who suffered a broken finger when Jose Offerman attacked him with a bat, has been suspended three games for his role in the altercation. Beech is lucky he wasn’t knocked unconscious—if that happened he might have been suspended for a month.

Donald Young, the future of American tennis, finally won his first career ATP match this week. Despite winning the Wimbledon junior Championship this year, the 18 year-old Young had gone 0-11 against the grown men on the ATP Tour. That was until Sunday, when he came from behind to defeat Amer Delic in the first round of the Pilot Pen Classic. Young’s victory means we can officially, beyond any doubt, declare Michelle Wie the most disappointing overhyped loser phenom in all of sports.

Harrah’s has announced that it will partner with AEG to build a 20,000 seat arena in Las Vegas capable of housing an NBA or NHL team. Although there are many concerns about gambling scandals if a professional sports team were to play in Vegas, Harrah’s had assured they will take care of that by putting a small sign at the entrance of the referee locker room that reads “It is illegal for referees to bet on games they are officiating.”

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Just one week after beating Roger Federer in the French Open and creating the inkling of a possibility that he could give Federer some trouble at Wimbledon, Rafael Nadal fell back to earth. In a grass court tuneup last weekend Nadal lost in straight sets to the 106th ranked player in the world. With Nadal’s loss, Andy Roddick now appears to be Federer’s stiffest competition.  That means the hardest part of Wimbledon for Federer will be waking up in he morning and finding a way to get to the stadium.

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