Andy Murray Wins the US Open

Posted by Jeff in Sports, Tennis

Andy Murray wins the 2012 US Open tennis championship & becomes the first British male in 76 years todo so.

Murray 7-6 (12-10) 7-5 2-6 3-6 6-2 Djokovic

In an epic contest between in form Andy Murray and Novac Djokovic that lasted almost 5 hours, Murray came out on top on the final set.

In the year that London held the Olympics and on the day British Olympians paraded through London, it somehow seems appropriate that this should be the year that Murray finally achieved his dream and lived up to his potential by winning a Grand Slam.

Andy Murray got off to a flying start when he grabbed the first two sets 7-6 & 7-5. This was followed by a resurgence by Djokovic who managed to break in the 3rd set and maintain momentum to control the 4th.

So it went to the 5th set and Andy Murray regained his composure to start playing the best tennis of the match, possibly helped by a light injury to Djokovic’s thigh. In the end he was the comfortable winner, seeing the match out 6-2.

At the end Djokovic was his usual graceful self,

“It wasn’t to be but I want to congratulate Andy for his first Grand Slam, he absolutely deserves it,” said Novak Djokovic

The new US Open Champion Andy Murray summed up the match by saying,

“They were incredibly tricky conditions. After the third and fourth sets it was tough mentally, Novak is so strong. He fights until the end of every match & I don’t know how I managed to come through in the end.

Murray also joked about the iceman that is Ivan Lendl,

“That was almost a smile [from Ivan Lendl]. He’s one of greatest players ever to play, here he made eight consecutive finals. Having him here supporting me has helped in the tough moments, but not only him, everyone else too. They’ve been there since the start. Thanks very much.”

Photo: Karlnorling

Year in Review 2011 (Part 1): Massive Change, Inspiration & Heartache

Posted by Jeff in Opinion

Year in review 2011 (part 1): We saw incredible change sweep across the political landscape, Osama Bin Laden killed & Amy Winehouse pass away. What else happened in 2011, a momentous year?

Year in Review 2011: January

In sport we saw the transfer of Fernando Torres to Chelsea FC from Liverpool FC as Kenny Dalglish took over.

In tennis Novak Djokovic brushed aside all-comers in the Australian Open.

Apple announced it had passed 10 billion downloads from its app store and that Apple had made profits of $6 billion as Steve Jobs announced he would take medical leave.

In entertainment Ricky Gervais kicked up a storm at the Golden Globes (they have still invited him back for 2012 though!). Colin Firth & Natalie Portman started to win all the film awards available for ‘The Kings Speech’ & ‘Black Swan’. Meanwhile Oprah was launching her own TV channel.

Actor Pete Postlethwaite passed away as did singer Gerry Rafferty.

Arnold Schwarzenegger bowed out of politics and a tragic shooting occurred in Arizona that left 6 people dead and Gabrielle Giffords with brain damage.

Year in Review 2011: February

In Egypt the President, Hosni Mubarak, started to realise that he was in trouble and that the protesters were not going away. Mubarak finally left on Feb. 11th after defiantly stating he was going nowhere. We presume the army changed his mind.

The Arab uprisings also gathered pace in other countries, Bahrain & Libya in particular.

In sport the Green Bay Packers triumphed over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV. The F1 driver Robert Kubica had to have 7 hours of surgery after a horrific crash in Italy. The Olympic schedule was also published for the 2012 games in London. We are not far away now.

In music Adele stunned everyone with her performance at the Brits and went on to become the artist of 2011. Radiohead released a new album and the Glastonbury headliners were announced including Beyonce and Coldplay.

A new Enid Blyton book was uncovered and tragedy struck in New Zealand as a 6.3 earthquake hit Christchurch at the busiest time of day.

Year in Review 2011: March

Steve Jobs made his last major product launch as he unveiled the iPad 2, Adele conquered the charts, Richard Branson started to recruit astronauts, Microsoft launch IE9 while Nintendo go all 3D on us, over 1 billion people watch a cricket match and Sabastian Vettel shows the form that will let him dominate the F1 season.

Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor passed away as did the not quite so well known Knut the polar bear.

The big story of the month however was the devastating 8.9 earthquake and subsequent Tsunami that struck Japan triggering a nuclear incident and destroying countless lives.

Also destroying lives was the Libyan leader Col. Gaddafi as he plunged his country into what was effectively a civil war. The UN enforced a no fly zone and entered into action against Col. Gaddafi forces.

Read more in Year in Review 2011 (Part 2) here.

Year in Review 2011 (Part 3): A New Country, A New Social Network & New Womens Rights

Posted by Jeff in Opinion

Year in Review 2011 (part 3): The third quarter of 2011 saw some surprises, more scandal and the continuing success of social networks.

Year in Review 2011: July

Petra Kvitova upset the Wimbledon odds to beat Maria Sharapova who is still trying to get back to her best after injury. Djokovic again signalled his dominance with a victory in the mens Wimbledon final.

The phone hacking scandal exploded in the UK and is still being investigated today. The incident caused the closure of the News of the World, one of the oldest & most successful newspapers.

Facebook teamed up with Skype to offer video chat while Google once again entered the social networking market with Google+.

The world got a new country as South Sudan split form the north in a peaceful separation and David & Victoria Beckham celebrated the birth of their baby girl, Harper Beckham.

Dallas returned to our TV screens and the Spotify streaming music service launched in the US while Harry Potter cast a spell over the box office.

Japan won the Womens World Cup final in Germany after beating the USA on penalties and there was another Royal wedding as Zara Phillips married the Rugby player Mike Tindall. On the other side of that particular coin we saw Jennifer Lopez calling time on her marriage to Marc Anthony.

The USA came close to defaulting on its own debt when politicians decided to play brinkmanship with the economy. Doing slightly better were both Apple and Google who both posted record profits. The US also suffered a oppressive heatwave and saw the last flight of the space shuttle Atlantis.

Norway hit the headlines for the worst reasons when a huge explosion rocked the capital, Oslo and a gunman went on the rampage.

The world lost one of the greatest singers of the last twenty years. Amy Winehouse joined other famous singers who died prematurely, the so called 27 club.

Year in Review 2011: August

The financial markets never seemed to be out of the headlines and this month saw S&P push the US down its credit score scale thanks to its enormous deficit.

Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to take social media sites offline in a somewhat knee jerk reaction to rioting in London. This came from a man who had only a few months earlier been praising social media sites for their influence in the Arab uprisings. That’s politics for you.

The Arab uprising continued with Syria becoming a focal point as the international community called for Assad to leave office. Protesters in Syria are still facing the same challenges at the end of 2011. Meanwhile the pressure was mounting on Col. Gaddafi as the rebel army advanced on the capital Tripoli.

The Kings of Leon sparked rumors about their future by cancelling their tour and taking a break.

Steve Jobs officially announced that he would be stepping down as CEO of Apple as his health deteriorated and Beyonce announced that she was pregnant in a not so subtle dress.

Year in Review 2011: September

As Italian politics leaped from one crisis to another the little town of Filettino decided that it would go its own way and declare independence from Italy.

We saw the 10 year anniversary of the tragic 9/11 events as the redevelopment of the twin towers site nears completion.

There was growing rumor and gossip surrounding the imminent release of a new iPhone, many people were betting on it being an iPhone 5.

The financial markets once again hit the headlines as a UBS trader managed to lose $2 billion on the markets.

REM announced that they were to split after 31 years together and Google became a teenager.

A couple of stories emerged that we never thought that we would see, the speed of light had apparently been broken and women in Saudi Arabia were given the right to vote.

Read more in Year in Review 2011 (Part 4) here.

Djokovic Wins Mens Wimbledon 2011 Title

Posted by James in Sports, Tennis

Novak Djokovic celebrated winning his first men’s Wimbledon title by eating the centre court grass. He beat Rafael Nadal in 4 sets, 6-4,6-1,1-6,6-3.

Novak Djokovic really confirmed his imminent world no. 1 status today as he out-played, and yes, out-muscled Rafael Nadal in a pulsating Wimbledon final on the famous Centre Court.

Djokovic’s defence was at times astonishing and Nadal must have been wondering what on earth he would have todo to win a point.

It was a tight first set, but the fact that Djokovic was always able to get just one more ball back over the net forced Nadal into making a few uncharacteristic errors. A Nadal shot into the net gave the Serbian the first set.

Nadal knew he had to hit the corners to try and win the points which increased the risks of missing. Ironically, it is exactly what Nadal usually does to his opponents, today the shoe was on the other foot.

In the second set Djokovic was really in the zone, winners were zipping off his racket at an alarming rate and the set flew past Nadal in much the same way as one of Djokovic’s passing shots.

The arrival of the third set at least enabled Nadal to get his breath back, regroup and refocus. As the defending champion and winner of 10 Grand Slams he wasn’t going to let go of the Wimbledon trophy that easily.

And so it proved, Djokovic had suddenly lost the momentum that he had in the 2nd set and Nadal dug deep to play a perfect set of his own winning a comfortable 6-1.

So, onto a fourth set. Could Nadal do what very few manage, come back from 2 sets down?

A very poor service game in the middle of the set by Nadal proved to be the turning point and gave Djokovic the chance to serve for the Wimbledon Championship.

One of the hardest things todo is to serve out a Wimbledon final under the spotlight of the world but Djokovic somehow managed to stay calm. Nadal seemed to sense that it wasn’t going to his year and looked uncomfortable has he stood waiting to receive after having just been broken.

A couple of Nadal errors enabled Djokovic to get to Championship point and after a return from Nadal, he hit a rasping shot into the corner that Nadal couldn’t get back into play.

Falling on his knees, where most players kiss the grass, Djokovic decided to go one better and actually eat some of the Wimbledon grass!

Who can blame him, if we had just won Wimbledon we would want to take the court home too.

Photo: Carine06

Nadal Beats Murray To Face Djokovic In Wimbledon Final

Posted by Clive in Sports, Tennis

Rafael Nadal dashed Andy Murray’s hopes of reaching his first Wimbledon final today, beating him 5-7, 6-2,6-2,6-4. Djokovic overcame Tsonga in the other semi-final setting up a mouthwatering Wimbledon final.

It all went to the form book today as the No.1 seed and defending champion, Rafael Nadal, put out the no. 4 seed Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, the no. 2 seed beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Andy Murray has now lost a semi-final at Wimbledon 3 times in succession and must be deeply disappointed that he couldn’t build on a first set lead.

Although nursing an injury that clearly bothered him at the start of the match, Murray made a flying start against the no.1 seed. Serving and returning well to clinch the first set 7-5 to great cheers from the home supporters.

The momentum stayed with Murray at the start of the second set and at 2-1 and 15-30, he had a great chance to get 2 break points on the Nadal serve, but he missed what can only be described as a ‘sitter’, bringing Nadal back to 30-30.

That point seemed to stick in Murray’s mind and incredibly lost the next 7 games in a row. For the rest of the match he never again reached the heights of  tennis he had previously been playing.

Murray’s serve, which had been so reliable suddenly wasn’t firing, the unforced errors rapidly grew while on the other side of the net, Nadal was getting better.

Fired up by Murray’s disintegrating game Nadal started pushing his serve percentage higher and kept his unforced errors remarkably low.

It all played out in four sets and it seems that if Murray wants to win a Grand Slam he will have to learn to have a Nadal like focus and iron will to win.

Technically, at the top of the mens game there is not very much in it, perhaps Federer is the most technically gifted and yet he was seeded 3rd and eventually knocked out by 12th seed Tsonga. Something else is obviously important and Nadal has it in spades.

Tsonga meanwhile played Djokovic in the earlier semi-final of the day.

It took Djokovic just over 3 hours to win the game 7-6 (7-4), 6-2, 6-7 (9-11), 6-3 after he played a much more consistent game than Tsonga.

Tsonga sometimes showed flashes of brilliance but it wasn’t consistent enough and he mixed it with too many errors.

Much like Murray, Tsonga’s game deserted him at times although he showed that he could mix it with the best if he manages to get some consistency.

Mr. Consistency himself, Djokovic, managed to maintain a high standard throughout and did enough to make sure that the match didn’t go to 5 sets.

He has now only lost 1 match in 50 over a period of 7 months and will take the World number 1 ranking away from Nadal on Monday no matter what happens in the Wimbledon Final on Sunday.

It should be a cracker of a game.

Photo: Corrine06

Nadal Wins French Open For 6th Time Against Federer

Posted by Jeff in Sports, Tennis

Rafael Nadal has beaten Roger Federer in the French Open to win a record equalling 6th French Open title.

It was not only the French Open title that was at stake for Nadal, it was also the no.1 spot in the world rankings and the possibility to equal Bjorn Borg’s 6 French Open titles.

It hadn’t started well for Nadal as Roger Federer continued his sparkling form from the semi-final against Djokovoc, reaching set point at 5-3 up only to see an attempted drop shot land just wide.

That miss was a turning point in the match. Nadal suddenly found an extra gear and Federer seemed to lose something.

Suddenly the tables had turned and it was Federer who faced set point as Nadal fought back to lead 6-5. Now the momentum had shifted so dramatically in Nadal’s favour it seemed inevitable that he would claim the first set, so it proved with a viscous forehand that sealed the set.

Federer was visibly ruing the lost first set and his unforced errors started to rise quickly, the second set started how the first set finished.

However he managed to hold on to the coat tails of Nadal as it reached 4-4 but he could never pull out any sort of advantage.

At 5-4 down and 40-40 Federer got a chance to re-group as the heavens opened and the expected rain delay came, albeit for only 10 minutes it allowed Federer a chance to re-focus.

Federer came out of the blocks faster and Nadal looked a little un-nerved causing the set to go into a tie break.

His comeback stuttered though with more unforced errors and Nadal steamed ahead and won out in the tie break 7-3 leaving Federer a seemingly impossible task.

Nadal is not called the King of clay for nothing having only been beaten once at the French Open in all the years he has been competing.

Nadal also started well in the third set stretching out a 4-2 lead but Federer suddenly re-discovered his form from the start of the match, fighting back to take the set to the excitement of the crowd.

However his exertions seemed to have taken their toll in the 4th set and he was, after all, playing the fittest man on the tour in Nadal.

Nadal powered to victory in the final set 6-1 to ensure another place in the history books, a 10th title and the no.1 ranking.

Next stop Wimbledon.

Photo: Frédéric de Villamil

Djokovic Beaten By Superb Federer in French Open Semi-Final

Posted by Jeff in Sports, Tennis

Novak Djokovic has been beaten by Roger Federer in the second French Open semi-final, 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 3-6 7-6 (7-5).

The defeat puts an end to the magnificent run of 43 unbeaten matches by Djokovic who would have taken the no.1 world ranking from Nadal if he had won today.

We mentioned in our French Open post that this match could go either way and so it proved as the first and fourth sets had to be settled on tie-breaks.

Federer just edged both of them meaning that he avoided having to come back tomorrow to play a fifth set, there would have been no way that they would have played the fifth set tonight as the darkness came creeping in.

Both players showed why they are amongst the best in the world, it wouldn’t have been out of place for this match to be the final with some ferocious ground shots raining in from both sides. The speed and depth of the shots seemed relentless.

Federer looked back to his best with his serve working well and it was his 18th ace of the match that sealed his victory in the forth set after Djokovic had saved two match points.

Now the final on sunday will be between Federer and Nadal, perhaps on current form Federer looks slightly stronger but Nadal is not ranked no.1 at the French Open for nothing. He has only ever lost one previous match here and has a habit of rising to the occasion. Another one that will be too close to call.

Photo: mbevis

French Open Tennis Reaches Semi-Final Stages

Posted by Jeff in Sports, Tennis

The French Open has now reached the semi-final stages with the top 4 seeds in the Mens draw making it through. Nadal will play Murray and Djokovic will play Federer.

Murray played the Argentinian Juan Ignacio Chela in a match that at times had some brutal hitting from the back of the court.

Murray had done some ligament damage to his ankle in an earlier match but with the help of pain killers and strapping he still had decent movement around the court.

Chela is one of the older players on the tour and in the end he didn’t quite have enough to challenge Murray on the big points when it really mattered.

Nadal defeated Robin Soderling in straight sets in a re-match of last years final. It took him 2 hours and 35 minutes as Soderling failed to make any meaningful inroads into Nadal’s game.

Djokovic got a by into the semi’s when his quarter final opponent pulled out for health reasons. It means that he has had more time for rest but this doesn’t always help when trying to win Grand Slams.

Djokovic seems to be the man to beat however as it seems likely that he will claim the No.1 spot from Nadal sometime this year after going on an unbeaten run stretching back to 2010.

He will play Federer in the semis in his biggest test so far, Federer has looked back to his imperious best in France and who will win is, quite frankly, anyone’s guess.

Photo: y.caradec

Novak Djokovic Closing in on the Tennis Number One Ranking

Posted by James in Sports, Tennis

Novak Djokovic is closing in on the Tennis number one ranking after the best start to a tennis season since Ivan Lendl in the 1986 season.

Rafael Nadal once again suffered defeat this weekend at the Sony Ericsson Open final in Miami, at the hands of Novak Djokovic, and believes that he is in serious danger of losing his number one status this summer.

He is currently 3170 points ahead of the number two Djokovic, but that total is based on his hugely successful season last year. The chances of him repeating those results are looking slimmer and slimmer as the Djokovic run continues, he is now unbeaten in 24 games this year and has beaten Nadal in the 2 finals they have contested in 2011.

Djokovic himself plays down the prospect saying “I think it’s a bit early to talk about getting that top spot in the rankings” and the Australian Open champion went on to say that he thought that Nadal was currently the best player in the world.

Photo: mbevis