The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Tuesday, August 14

Hi, everyone!

I accidentally published this two and a half hours early. I’m sure this bothers no one.

Ramble of the Day

Last week, I went on about some ugly trophies, but I will change my tune a bit for today’s ramble. In my research for poorly designed trophies, I stumbled across many from the world of tennis, which reminded me that I should ramble about the wild world of tennis trophies outside of the grand slams.

Tennis players play around a million tournaments a year to keep themselves occupied in the months between the four grand slam tournaments in Australia, France, England, and the United States. To stand out a bit, many of these smaller events have some very unique trophies.

Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images,

Juan Martin Del Potro, the most recent winner of the men’s singles competition at the Mexican Open, is pictured with a trophy that is shaped like a pear and gets to wear a giant sombrero as an additional prize.

Photo by Matt Roberts/Getty Images

Those in charge of the Pan Pacific Open, held in Tokyo, have taken a different approach with their winners’ prize. Held by reigning women’s singles champion Caroline Wozniacki, the trophy is something more easily displayed in a home, which might be a fun thing for someone who wins a large number of titles to do. (Then again, the Mexican Open trophy above might be fun to work into home decor, also.)

Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

At the Madrid Masters, winners get some interesting pieces of modern art. Above, we have reigning men’s singles champions Alexander Zverev holding a weird gold screw...

Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

...while the women’s singles champion, this year Petra Kvitova, gets...I don’t know what that is. It kind of looks like a hologram. I cannot make out what it is even made of, or how it’s even standing. I also cannot decide which one is better. They both have their obvious negatives, but the men’s singles trophy is much more easily displayed. The women’s singles trophy is just...weird. I do appreciate the effort, though.

Photo by Tom Dulat/Getty Images

If you get to win the men’s singles title at the Dubai Tennis Championships, which Roberto Bautista Agut most recently did, you get...a ship. A silver ship, to be exact. How this did not make my list of ugly trophies from last week, I do not know.

Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

Things are much better if you win the Sydney International men’s singles tournament, where they give you a very deep and very fancy serving bowl. I don’t own anything that is that fancy or could even compare, but I feel like it might be good for serving popcorn. I’m just guessing.

Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Finally, we have the Paris Masters trophy, most recently won by men’s singles champion Jack Sock. I feel like finding a place to kiss this trophy was probably a difficult thing to do, and I wonder if there was even enough surface area to give a good kiss to the trophy. He looks happy, though, so I suppose it all went well for Sock.

I really do hope tennis players take the opportunity and display their trophies like they are art, or furniture.

tl;dr: Tennis is cool because of the weird trophies they give winners.

Links of the Day

Fox Sports will have an all-female team covering the MLS match between D.C. United and the New England Revolution on Sunday. The coverage will be the first of its kind in the United States for a men’s professional sporting match on a national network in the English language.

David Silva has retired from the Spanish national team after a 12-year career.

Facebook has obtained La Liga rights for the next three seasons in Southern Asia.

Transfer roundup: Keita Baldé has joined Inter Milan on a season-long loan from Monaco

Today’s longer read: a Vice double feature, with words and a video about the church dedicated to Diego Maradona in Rosario, Argentina