Archive for the ‘Tennis News’ Category
Early Upsets At Indian Wells
The men’s and women’s events have both kicked off at Indian Wells in California, and while in the early rounds the men have performed as their rankings would suggest they should, two big name losses on the women’s side, combined with the absence of both Williams sisters have left this tournament wide open for the taking.
The Women
Coming into the tournament both Serena and Venus Williams had continued their boycott of the event, leaving a fairly even field with four women in particular rated as having the greatest chance. Two of those women – Elena Dementieva and Jelena Jankovic have been bundled out in the first round, leaving Dinara Safina as a slight favourite ahead of Vera Zvonareva.
While Jankovic has struggled to find form early in the year, the loss of Dementieva was much more surprising, having been one of the form players at some of the big events played earlier in the year. Her form has dipped slightly in the past month and she fought hard for the first two sets here but ran out of steam and lost the third 6-1 against Petra Cetkovska from the Czech Republic.
The Russian has had a very busy start to the year with back to back wins in the Southern Hemisphere followed by a narrow semi-final defeat at the Australian Open.
“I think I should not have come here” she said “because I did not have enough time to recover after playing so many matches at the beginning of the year. I needed a much longer break to get ready to play at my more »
Indian Wells Masters Gets Underway
The Indian Wells Masters is underway in sunny California, and it’s a tournament like this that just shows how times have changed. For starters, when this tournament took place last year Roger Federer was at the top of his game. Now he’s lost his No. 1 spot and has been out for a number of weeks with a back injury. He’s certainly impressive by anyone’s standards, but questions have been asked. You may have heard of a one ‘Rafael Nadal’ over this past year too; he has risen to take the World Number One spot from his sporting rival Federer in spectacular fashion, as well as winning a Grand Slam on a surface he has always found particularly tricky two months ago. And Andy Murray has shot to prominence as the new British Wonder, despite having a recent rocky patch with his health.
On the girls side, it puts a smile to fan’s faces to see Maria Sharapova back. She has been out for a significant amount of time with a shoulder injury, missing the first Grand slam of the year (the Australian Open).
But disappointingly, not much has changed from one Indian Wells tournament to the next for Ve more »
Davis Cup Upsets & Cleansweeps
The Davis Cup for 2009 is underway and has seen some great tennis action from all parts of the globe. The theme of the weekend seemed to be a mixture of destructive tennis and surprising upsets.
The Upsets
Czech Republic defeated France 3-2
French men’s tennis is currently bursting with talent – just getting on the team is an achievement at the moment. Along with Spain they have more players in the world’s top 25 than any other nation and were rated as one of the favourites to win the title this year
But over the weekend their top ranked player, Gilles Simon went 0-2 in his singles matches which left his team mates too much work to do. “You should never forget a weekend like the one I just had,” said Simon, struggling unsuccessfully to hold back tears after the loss. “You need to ask yourself the right questions, in order to be ready when facing a similar situation in the future.”
France will now be forced to re-qualify for the world group for the first time in almost a decade.
Israel defeated Sweden 3-2
In one of the least atmospheric Davis Cup ties imaginable, Sweden went down to massive underdogs Israel in front of just 300 invited guests, with anti-Israel more »
British Davis Cup Hopes
I’ve had a hunch for years that British sport is cursed. We won the rugby world cup in 2003 and things were looking great until our star player Jonny Wilkinson’s limbs basically started to drop off. We won the Ashes tournament in 2005 and have gone to a below average performance in test matches and been embroiled in some captain and coach troubles. And don’t even get me started on football. When it comes to tennis, the trend has continued. For long period of time, the media built up Tim Henman as a true Wimbledon hope, then the hopes were shattered every year. It didn’t really have much to do with Tim Henman the player; he was a good player, but proved to be just not good enough compared to others when it came to winning Wimbledon.
Recently there’s been a period of relief of this curse with regards to tennis. Andy Murray has become the new British prodigy. I was suspicious; the media was telling us how amazing he is but they often aren’t a great judge of talent. But, so far, he’s delivered very well. Unfortunately, the British Sports Curse reared its ugly head again: Murray is unlikely to be able to play in the first match of the Davis Cup against Ukraine in Glasgow next week. Uh-oh, here we go again.
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Djokovic The Last Man Standing
Novak Dkokovic has landed his first tournament win of the season with a straight sets vistory over Spaniard David Ferrer in Dubai. And while a win is a win, the lack of top five ranked opposition leaves some doubt as to whether or not Djokovic is back to his best yet after his controversial decision to switch racquet manufacturers just weeks before the Australian Open earlier this year.
Before the tournament began Federer and Nadal had both been ruled out through injuries, which many thought would leave Murray and Djokovic to fight it out for the title. In another twist to the tale, Andy Murray was forced to withdraw from the tournament before his quarter final, to head home and have tests done on a mystery virus that has been hampering his performances all year.
“I got it the first time in Australia,” Murray said of the illness. “I woke up in the middle of the night sweating. I got antibiotics from the doctor yesterday evening after the match and they obviously didn’t help that much.
“I got up, had some breakfast and then slept again for three hours and then the guys woke me up and I wasn’t feeling good.”
Which left only Djokovic of the Big 4, and while victory was his he had to work hard in his semi-final to come from a set down against fast improving Frenchman Gilles Simon. I’m sure he’s is happy to claim the title but he is probably at the stage where he’d like to know exactly where his game is right now in comaprison to the players who have shown strong form more »
