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. 

So, I've had some reformatting to do of my laptop, but while I was away Li Na won the French Open on Saturday making her the first Chinese woman to do so.  Li Na was this year's Aussie Open finalist and subsequently struggled to win any of her matches.  She beat last year's surprise winner Francesca Schiavone in straight sets and said it was 'dream come true' and has now risen to number four in the rankings.

 

And on Sunday, following the expected loss of Andy Murray to Rafa Nadal in the semi-final, and the surprising loss of Novak Djokovic (who injured his knee) to Roger Federer, Nadal and Federer fought for the men's title.  Although Fed took a set he's still no match for Nadal on clay.  Nadal won in four sets, and has now won 6 French Opens (10 Grand Slams in total) and is the second youngest man to do so (after Borg).  Nadal will now keep his number one ranking, although Novak is hot on his heels, until Wimbledon at least as Djokovic has pulled out of Queens Club.

The First Hurdle for the King

Nearly had a major upset to report- I mentioned in my last post that Rafael Nadal was in a tough 5 setter against John Isner, and boy was he- honestly at one point I thought Isner would definately win it.  But Nadal pushed through.  Rafa won the first set 6-4 but Isner has shown his mettle before (by winning that crazy long Wimbledon match against Mahut 70-68) and managed to stay with Nadal in the second and third sets.  They went to tie breaks and Isner walked them with his giant serve making Rafa look rather ordinary.  Into the fourth set it seemed that Isner had the momentum and all he would need would be to hang in there and get to another tie break.  The only other time Nadal had been 2-1 down at the French Open was when he lost to Soderling two years ago, and he had never played a 5 setter here before.   But Nadal came back hard in the fourth set and raced through to win it 6-2, and he broke Isner early in the fifth- but Isner had broken Nadal back before in the match to level the score and never gave up fighting.  It wasn't over until Nadal won the very last point 6-4 7-6 7-6 6-2 6-4. 

No other major upsets or almost upsets to report yet but Djokovic up to 41 winning streak plays del Potro in the next round, Murray is up against Bolelli but should win it, Tipsaravic against Federer might be interesting as Tipsy can play super well sometimes, Jankovic plays Mattek-Sands who became the highest ranked American with her recent win, Shuai Peng plays Schiavone, Vania King who has a nice singing voice plays Elena Baltacha, and Heather Watson who is now in the top 100 plays Kaia Kanepi. And Jamie Murray won his first round Mens Doubles match with Chris Guccione against Clement and Chardy.  So we'll see what happens...

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...

Finals

Well, I stayed up last night until around midnight watching the score updates of the mens semi-finals (and about an hour later 'getting ready for bed', am starting to think that staying up til 1am, and getting up at 11am may not be great for my skin if nothing else) and today I watched the hightlights on the ole TV.  But I decided not to watch the live score for the womens final and wait entirely for the tv highlights (it is a final afterall), which meant I had to occupy myself until 6:15pm for the highlights programme to start.  I did go into town and bought a newspaper, and agonised over whether to read the sports section for a sillyly long amount of time, since we all know I have no will power and so I read it.

Erm, this is how they prepare for a final, US style.

But was saved by the fact that all the newspapers had gone to sleep before the womens final too, it was a sign that I should keep waiting and I defo did not want the result ruined by turning on my iGoogle page and having the score flashing up.  And so (understanding my lack of will power) I havent turned my laptop on all day, possibly the first time since I bought it, apart from the several times it was broken.   And was the match worth it, erm no, predictably not.  Clijsters beat Zvonarava 6-2 6-1 ouch, poor Zvon who lost the wimbledon final too and is starting to become the new Safina (playing great, getting to a final, then crumbling under nerves).  But as Clijster's herself put it, it took her '7 or 8' finals before she won her first.

Moving on then to the mens semis, Nadal up first againts Youzhny and I dont have any pictures.  Nadal has boring hair and shirts now and Youzhny was creamed 6-2 6-3 6-3 or something.  Nadal has not dropped a set yet, been a little lucky with the draw, but still looking ominous for his final opponent.  But who would that be?

Federer against Djokovic in the second semi was gonna be the big one- Fed with the winning record against Djo (his shirt says Nole and apparently thats his nickname but without a good understanding of Serbian language or culture I'm gonna work the surname, okay?), but Djokovic has won 3 of the last 6 (which to me doesnt sound that impressive but whatevs).  It was a super close first set, both having break points in the first three games, it stayed on serve though until 5-5 when Djo was broken and Federer took the first set.  But the man previously known as the Djoker, and with a record for inconsistency was being far more balanced and mature than Captain boring (Federer). And once Novak was on top in the second set Feds faded away, 1-6.  Then they decided to do it all again and the next two sets went 7-5, 2-6.

And so it would come down to a crucial 5th set, which again was super close. Until about 3-3 when Djoko had a few chances on Feds serve but he held him off, then at 5-4 up (I think Fed served first in every set lucky ducky) Federer had two match points on Djo's serve.  But he saves them masterfully.  Mature and brave, if you wanted to sum it up.  It goes to deuce a few times but Novak holds.  And Federer...doesn't!!! Djokovic breaks fairly comfortably.  And Djo serves for the match. And Fed has a break back point.  And misses.  And now Djo has a match point.  And wins.
And for the first time since 2003 Federer will not be in a US Open final, which just seems a crazy thing (that he has been in 6 finals, and won fve, I just looked it up to check).

Roger Federer's father wears an RF outfit, Novak's follow the theme to a rather more insane degree.

And so to the men's final.
Well, after a fashion, a rainy fashion not a sartorial one as Federer was remarkably absent so was Anna Wintour, who on examination appears to have been at everyone of his matches, you would think she has more to do?   Anyway, the rain stopped play before the final on Sunday and it was postponed to Monday, where it interrupted the match at the end of the second set, which is when I went to bed.   In fact the spectators were told to leave the stadium as thunder and lightning was expected.  Nadal had just won the first set 6-4 (broke Novak in the first game of the match), and Novak had been 4-1 up in the second but had been broken back to 4-4.   By good fortune I saw the final in unscheduled highlights today whilst flicking around as my mother strove to find a film to watch on her day off sick.  (We settled on a Miss Marple once the tennis had finished)  Novak did take the second set with some lovely tennis, 7-5.  But Nadal broke early in the third and took it 6-4, and in the fourth erm Nadal took it 6-2 but Novak had a chance to break back at 4-1 but didnt quite happen for him.  And Nadal has now won all four of the grand slams, the seventh man to do so, which is impressive. And he's won three of the four of this years.