Showered but not stirred...

Rain has interrupted and stopped play the past few days, but the roof on centre court has allowed a few matches to continue. 

Mixed fortunes for the British players- all the men went out in the first round apart from Andy Murray, Elena Baltacha, Anne Kepthothong, and Laura Robson all won their first round matches though.   Unfortunately for Heather Watson she hurt her elbow in the middle of her first round match, a real shame since she had been winning comfortably, but lost rather uncomfortably 6-2 4-6 4-6.  And Anne Keothothong has lost her second round against Kvitova, but Murray of course is through to the third round.  Laura Robson's match against Maria Sharapova was postponed due to rain until tomorrow when Baltacha will also play against Shuai Peng.  Jamie Murray also won her first round match in the men's doubles (which was reduced to best of three sets to get this damn grand slam back on schedule).

In other news there was a mega match between Lleyton Hewitt against Soderling, with Soderling winning 6-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-4., followed by a cracker between this years French Open champ Li Na and German star Lisicki.  The young German got the quarter finals in 2009 but didn't play last and had dropped out of the top 200 with a bad ankle injury.  She's now up to number 62 and rising as she knocked out Li Na in a nail biter 3-6, 6-4, 8-6.  This was followed by a short regulation win for Federer against French Mannarino in straight sets. 




And a round up of other results:
John Isner (who beat Mahut in three sets this time around) lost to Almagro in the second round, Ivanovic won her match easily, as did Djokovic, and Nadal, Serena on the other hand needed another three sets to get through her match against Simona Halep, Schiavone won in two though, and Azarenka won 6-0, 6-3, Juan Martin Del Potro continued his come back with a four sets win over Olivier Rochus although the match was held over from last night and after Rochus had won the first set- Del Pot responded by taking off his shoes and throwing them into the crowd, which was odd, Fish, Gasquet, Roddick, and Berdych all won in three, but Stanislav Wawrinka isn't having a great grass season as he lost to Bolelli 6-7, 3-6, 6-7, big shock when Jelena Jankovic lost her first round match, and Zvonareva beat her doubles partner Vesnina in straight sets. 

New Year

What have you been up to ya lazy lot, we're already a week into the tennis new year (and erm the regular new year, in the West) but it's all going on at the moment.

Andy Murray winning his matches in the Hopman Cup (some kind of Davis and Fed combined, with one lady singles match, one manly singles, and one mixed doubles, against other countries.  Only this is Dav-Fed lite as it all happens within a week not the whole year) but his partner Laura Robson (the young one that won junior Wimbledon when she was 6 or something, and she's pretty and unnervingly at ease with herself in the public eye so she's held up as the future of British tennis despite the rather quieter and better progress of compatriot Heather Watson, more on her later) lost all hers, and they lost most of their mixed doubles, and then Laura hurt herself so they're not gonna win.  It would have been US vs Serbia, with Djokovic (magnificant hair grown back in super fast time, since post Davis Cup win head shave in December) and Ivanovic but she hurt herself too, so they had to pull out and Belgium took their spot. 

Heather Watson (who won junior US Open just after LaRo won Wimby but no one seemed to care that much) won 5 matches at the WTA Tournament in Auckland, 3 qualifying and two real rounds getting into the quarter finals beating the 9th seed along the way.  She broke top 200 last year, is around 170 now, and will be top 150 by Monday as a result. Deserves a good pat on the back imo.  Top seed Maria Sharapova got a couple of wins in before been beated by Greta Arn, who's about 30 but said beating Shazza was like a little girls dream.  She sounds slightly annoying.  Poor Ole Dinara Safina, former number one, now ranked around 60 after terrible back injury last year, lost in the first round to the second seed Yania Wickmayer.


On the Mens tour, Andy Roddick has cruised through to the semis in Brisbane, and will play South African Kevin Anderson  While Soderling plays Stepanek in the other semi.  But in Doha Rafa Nadal, suffering from a fever poor lamby, lost in the semis today to Davydenko (who has been playing well all week), but Federer beat Tsonga in the other semi.  Hope Davy can bring it tomorrow. 
And how was your week?

Asian leg

So to the last bit of the year- actually important tournaments, only for the super high rankers, but also no one quite cares because the last Grand Slam of the year (the US Open) has been and gone and everyones getting a bit tired of this tennis malarky.  Its all gone Asian though, which is nice cos the main tour doesn't seem to swing by this neck of the woods during the rest of the year, although shame to see that not many people in Tokyo seem to care as the large staduim is left mainly empty.  I know its hard to get people on a weekday daytime to come to tennis, and I do think its good for tournaments to be in Asia, but it should be the responsibility of the tournament to ensure a good crowd. 

It must be awfully demoralising for the players to play in front of so few people, especially as these tournaments are dominated by top players, it creates a lame ass atmosphere and looks pretty rubbish on the ole TV.  I feel this is more of a problem on the womens tour, I don't get to see the mens much so I may be wrong, but I don't trust tournament organisers to advertise 'women's tennis' (some different creature from regular tennis) as well as mens.  And if you're gonna have a tier one event (the biggest apart from grand slams) which top players are often required to play, then you should show you deserve it.

Woz after winning. Nice Plate imo.

Anyway, Wozniaki (blonde, Danish, millionaire, talented, and annoyingly pleasant, although she did say that her short US Open dress was good as it got her male fans which is obviously a dumb thing to say, not least because she was wearing what looked like a dress made out of a scuba suit, or perhaps rubber tubing) just won her 11th title by beating Dementiava in Tokyo.  Date Krumh excited home fans as the 40year old beat defending champ Sharapova and Hanuchova before falling to Schiavone.  And British child Laura Robson managed to qualify (winning three matches) before losing to Greta Arn (dunno).  So that's sort of a good result.  I was disappointed for Zvonerava who lost to Dementiava in the semis, after losing the US Open it was pleasing to see her play so well but after losing the first set 7-5 her form slipped and she started to look tired.  Another reason why no one likes this part of the year.

If Wozniaki gets to the quarter finals in Beijing next week shell be world number one.  Which will probably bring forth much talk of you-shouldn't-be-world-number-one-unless-won-major which is dumb.  Jankovic and Safina also both number ones without winning a major and Safina in particular had to deal with a lot of bollocks about it.  Safina btw went out in the first round of Tokyo, still plugging away trying to get back to the top following her back injury, shes about 49 now.  But welcome to the new breed of world number ones, they are not like Serena Williams (who is the current world number one) who wins majors and little else and is a tennis star rather than a tennis player, but they are extremely consistent at a very high level which, one assumes, is not that easy.  Wozniaki has won 5 titles this year, which aint bad.

Lopez

 On the mens side current world number one (and worry not fans, no one can catch up with him right now) Nadal just lost in the semi-final of the Thailand Open beaten by world number 53 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, I didn't see it so I don't know what went down but apparently Lopez (who has one career title to Nadals 42) played great ground shots in the second set and Nadal failed to take his chances in the third (only winning 2 of 26 break points).  He'll play Jarkko Nieminen in the final, and I struggle to care.  (See first para) Not sure what the rest of the men are up to, last years US Open winner Juan Del Potro lost in the first round but he hasn't played since February due to a bad wrist. 


Meanwhile various athletes are getting ready fot the Commonwealth games which start tomorrow, reports were flooding in about substandard accomodation including pictures of unsanitary rooms.  In fact Elena Baltacha (and others) has pulled out of the tournament due to health fears.  She has a liver condition and has been side lined with it in the past, and didn't want to risk anything when she's doing so well (got into the top 50 for the first time recently).  But here's a nice picture of Jamie Murray in a kilt to cheer us all up.

He needs to smile more in pictures imo, lights up his whole face. The games are being held in Delhi if you were wondering about the shirt Indian men next to him, although I can not explain the hats.
Until next time...