An Interesting Weekend Of Tennis!

There were two big tournaments over the past week, ATP 500 events in Basel, Switzerland and Valencia, Spain.

Valencia marked the first piece of ATP action World #4 and British #1 Andy Murray has seen since his 4th round exit at the US Open in August (excluding his participation in Britain's loss to Poland in the Davis Cup – which is a non-ATP event ) after injury forced him to miss two scheduled Asian Tournaments (including the Shanghai Masters). After a 6 week lay-off from competition Murrays victory at Valencia was never a particular surety to me, despite his status as top seed at the event. Nevertheless Murray prevailed, and although his form wasn’t quite 100% throughout the tournament he battled through a tough SF against home crowd favourite Fernando Verdasco en route to a relatively easy looking final against unexpected (and unseeded) finalist Mikhail Youzhny (who himself battled past compatriot and Shanghai Masters champ Nikolay Davydenko in his SF). In the end Murray took the title 6-3, 6-2 in the final, his 6th of the season and 13th ATP level career title.

Over in Basel the field was slightly stiffer with both World #1 Roger Federer (a Basel native) and #3 Novak Djokovic competing. Seeded first and second respectively both made it to the finals in a rematch of their recent clash at the Cincinnati Masters prior to the US Open which Federer won in a comfortable two sets. I had personally thought this would be Federers for the taking – I was to be surprised. The Basel final began 45 mins prior to Valencia, I fully expected it to be over by the end of the first set in Valencia, this was not to be the case as Djokovic took the first set 6-4 before Federer bit back taking the second 6-4, but it proved to be a mere delaying action as Djokovic managed a double break in the decider taking the set and the championship 6-2. A shame for Federer who was looking for his 4th successive title in front of his home crowd.

Djokovic actually had to save 3 match points in his SF against Radek Stepanek on Saturday, so for him to have come back and taken the title in the end is rather impressive.

This coming week sees the final open-entry tournament on the ATP calendar for 2009, the ATP 100 Masters in Paris. With 1000 juicy points on offer this is the last chance the guys in the top 12 have to advance their rankings into the 7 and 8 slots (currently occupied by Nikolay Davydenko and Fernando Verdasco) and qualify for the Tour Finals in London in two weeks time. The field is tough however as Paris is one of the 8 (of 9) Masters tournaments the top 30 players in the world are required to play (except in case of injury), and those players aiming to qualify for London not currently in a position to do so will need to reach at least the final in Paris to stand a chance – this means potentially that they would have to defeat two top 4 players in the process – no easy task.

Incidentally, if you’re as nuts about Tennis as me then this might interest you for the 2010 season: http://challenge.atpworldtour.com/

It’s an interesting competition, you attempt to guess the entire draw for a variety of ATP tour and Grand Slam events, each correct pick nets you points that contribute to a leader board. After a year of events the player at the top of the leader board wins a VIP trip to the tour finals. There are also prizes for a couple of runners-up and additional prizes in the unlikely event that someone makes a 100% perfect draw for any of the events during the year.

Unfortunately as I only found out about this on Saturday my chances of winning anything this year are pretty much nil, but I gave Paris a go. So far I’ve made 6 correct picks out of 11 matches, that ranks me 6984th out of 10065 btw .

Hopefully they’ll run it again next year and I’ll have a chance at winning some tickets for the 2010 finals. As for this year, Helen already won us tickets to London

freedoms_stain, still going to LONDON BABY!, out.

Must Talk More Tennis!

You know, I think the last time I mentioned Tennis on here was way back before the final in Montreal, which was? August? Something like that (I could find out in like 3 seconds but I’m not going to). So Murray won that, which was cool. The very next week he had to defend his Masters title in Cincinnati, unfortunately losing in the SF to Federer, which basically resulted in no net gain of points over last year since he just swapped his results for the two competitions.

Next up was the US Open, big hopes for Murray there, runner up there last year, expect him to reach the final… Crashes out in the 4th round to Marin Cilic. Pretty disappointing result there, though it did turn out that he had developed a wrist injury which has caused him to pull out of the Asian tournaments he was due to play this week and next – so I suppose we can forgive him.

The big shock at the US Open was of course the defeat of Roger Federer in his attempt for a 6th straight US Open title by new boy Juan Martin Del Potro. Excellent result for Del Potro, and interestingly his first and only title higher than the ATP 500 series. So good for him, 5 set matches against the greatest player of all time have got to be gruelling,  and Del Potro really pulled out some fantastic Tennis after a shaky start.

So, following the US Open we come to the Asian season, unfortunately Federer pulled out of the whole season with exhaustion, hopefully he’ll be fit for the Tour Finals in London next month. Similarly Andy Murray ended up pulling out of both the tournaments he was scheduled to play in Asia, including the Shanghai Masters which starts next week and is worth a cool 1000 ranking points to the winner – points Murray could really use after losing a rather large whack of points at the US Open by failing to meet or exceed last years result.

The Davis Cup… Britain has won The Davis Cup 9 times. Last time? 1936. The Davis Cup is split into tiers, Britain has been competing in the 2nd tier for the last year – poorly. So poorly in fact that we had to face and beat Poland to avoid relegation to the 3rd tier. We did not beat Poland. Davis Cup ties are a best of 5 affair, 4 singles matches and a doubles. As our only Top 10, Top 20, Top 100, or even Top 190 men's player Andy Murray was of course asked to play, which he did, injured wrist and all. Murray competed in two singles rubbers and the doubles, winning both the singles and losing the doubles (with Ross Hutchins). Unfortunately Dan Evans was unable to muster the single win required to keep us afloat in the 2nd tier and down to the 3rd we go. Britain can’t keep riding Andy Murray to keep the Davis Cup team afloat, hopefully the next year in the 3rd tier will give the other British players on the team the experience necessary to compete at that level, while Murray gets on with his singles career.

It’s not all doom and gloom for British Tennis though, Elena Baltacha finally broke the women's top 100, as did Katie O’Brien, and one of our men's doubles teams picked up their first ATP title which saw them break into the top 100 doubles rankings – unfortunately their names escape me for the moment :s

Nadal is back in action in Asia, looks like the abdominal injuries he was suffering from in the run-up to and during the US Open series are healed up, he has been ploughing through in Beijing, an ATP 500 event, and as the top player left in the draw looks poised to take the Beijing title and become hot favourite at Shanghai – Nadal in fact has an unbeaten streak for events in Shanghai (including his Olympic Gold last year).

Del Potro suffered a slightly embarrassing first round loss at the ATP 500 in Tokyo, not a good return to the game after your first Grand Slam win, hopefully he’ll be back on form for Shanghai, give Nadal someone to be afraid of – after all Del Potro eliminated Nadal at both Montreal and the US Open this year – albeit an injured Nadal.

Last of all for now there is the matter of the Tour finals, Federer, Nadal, Murray, Djokovic and Del Potro have all qualified, but there are still three more spots left in the draw. It rather looks like Andy Roddick will be taking the 6th spot due to his >1000 point cushion over the rest of the field below him in the rankings, but the guys sitting from 7 to around 12 in the rankings are packed pretty tightly together, and the 1500 points available in Tokyo/Beijing and Shanghai could be crucial to those guys.

Of course there may be additional spots available if either or both of Federer and Murray are unfit to play – Federer will probably be fine, he just needs rest, Murray on the other hand has a fucked up wrist which leaves a question mark hovering over whether it’ll be healed in time – fingers crossed. Murray had an impressive run at the finals last year winning all 3 of his round-robin matches (including against Federer) before being ousted in the Semis – hopefully this year he can make the final.

freedoms_stain, Tennis’d out, out.

COME ON MY SON!

With Rafael Nadal's defeat to Juan Martin Del Potro on Friday in the Quarter Finals of the Rogers Cup ATP 1000 Montreal Masters and thus loss of his title and the subsequent progression of Andy Murray to the final of the tournament for the first time in his career the British number one will move to the world number two spot.

Fuck Yeah!

The final will take place tonight and Murray's oppopnent will be none other than Nadals conqueror, Del Potro himself. Murray has the edge in the head-to-head (3-1) although Del Potro does have the most recent victory. Murray has been displaying the best form of his career this past week, so you've really got to like his chances - yet to drop a set this tournament and only two games against his serve - pretty impressive performance (except that 1st serve percentage). It'd be foolish to count Del Potro out though, he's an extremely talented player with plenty of titles in his future. A win tonight would see Del Potro take the no 5 spot from Andy Roddick - mixed feelings on that, Roddick has been playing really well lately and sliding backwards in the rankings won't feel great for him, but Del Potro really deserves to go up... we'll just have to see what happens.

The final is due to start at 6.30pm British time, I suggest you find somewhere to watch.

freedoms_stain, Tennis head, out.

Wimbledon!

Wimbledon has hit its second week with no comment from me!

It'll be mens Quarter Finals tomorrow (or later today since it has scraped past midnight) and we should have some damned interesting matches on the cards. Lleyton Hewitt has reached the Quarters for the first time in donkeys years and will face the USA's sixth seed Andy Roddick. I actually think this'll be one of the most interesting matches of the day because the calibre of these two players is extremely high and with the quality of tennis Hewitt has displayed up until this point it could be a bit of an epic.

The other three Quarters feature the top 3 seeds Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic in separate matches all of whom I pretty much expect to make it into the Semis. I will of course be rooting Andy on as a win today will see him into the Semis of Wimbledon for the first time ever which means a boost in ranking points and a great chance of making it into the final. We'll have to see though as he'll be playing the winner of the Hewitt/Roddick match if he makes it that far, and I certainly hope he will given that his opponent is Juan Carlos Ferrero - a man he beat in straight sets only a few weeks ago at the Aegon Championships at Queens Club.

Murray had a bit of a struggle on against his mate Stanislas Wawrinka in their fourth round match which went to five sets. I must admit that after the 6-2 first set that went Wawrinka's way I thought Murray would fall just shy of the finals. He really didn't appear to be in top form at all, and his serve which had been showing great improvement since the French Open plummeted in quality which gave Wawrinka plenty of opportunities to attack. Fortunately Murray managed to buck up his ideas and battle his way to a five set victory, but I definitely felt it was a sub-par performance, and if he doesn't improve it then Ferrero will stand a good chance of winning whatever the result at Queens was.

But we know by now that Murray is capable of raising his game, and furthermore that he's capable of beating every player left in the draw, after all he out-ranks all but one of them, and the one that remains, Roger Federer, Murray has a 6-2 winning record over.   

I'm not in the habit of counting my chickens, but I think Andy Murray will stand on Centre Court this Sunday and play for the Championship. He might not win it this time round, but he's a young man with years of professional Tennis ahead of him. As the analysts keep saying - it's pretty much a matter of time...

As for my own Tennis development I am now capable of a very weak-ass, but very much "in" serve and I even beat Helen once last weekend. I know she takes it easy on me, but it's a good sign that things are getting better. I think I need to do some research on proper grips, I get the impression I'm not quite doing them right. That's about it for now,

freedoms_stain, out.

TennisTennisTennisTennis

I'm afraid I have cruelly neglected the fair sport of Tennis in the last few weeks - and so much has happened! The French Open took place a few weeks ago, with some fairly shocking moments and upsets. Defending Champ and World No.1 Rafael Nadal was knocked out in the early stages by Swede Robin Soderling - ranked somewhere in the mid-20's at the time. Shame for Nadal, but amazing for Soderling who made it all the way to the final where he was defeated by Roger Federer (more on that in a tick). Our man Murray also put on his best performance ever at the French managing to hang on to the Quarter Finals - that might not sound like a particularly great place for the World No.3 and 3rd seed to finish up, but due to the way the ATP ranking system works Murray will in fact gain over 200 ranking points from the performance over last years result (3rd round).

Roger Federer came out Champ this year making him only the sixth ever man to pick up the "Career Slam" - winning all four grand slams at least once in his career. This win also puts Federer on equal footing with Pete Sampras for most grand slam championship wins at 14. Federer is only 27 though and still has several years ahead of him in which to beat that record. Federers current record already places him as the best player of all time for many people (and it'd be pretty hard for anyone to argue against it), so it'll be interesting to see how much more success he can heap on top of what he already has and to see if anyone will ever be able to beat it.

In other news Andy Murray one the Aegon Championship at Queens Club on Sunday for the first time. It isn't a particularly big tournament - in the grand scheme of things it's on the 5th from top tier of tournaments - worth 250 ranking points to the winner. If Murray manages five Finals or better from the 500 series tournaments then the victory at Queens Club won't even contribute to his ranking, but it is none-the-less a significant title for Murray for a couple of reasons. 1) it's his first title on grass - stands him in good stead for Wimbledon when it kicks off on Monday, 2) it's his first title on home soil - ok that isn't that significant but it's pretty cool, 3) it was his 1st No.1 seeding and he won it and 4) he's the first British man to take the title since the 1930's.

Wimbledon is the next big thing on the Tennis calendar, the only grass court slam on the tour. This could be an interesting year, the top seeds Nadal and Federer have both been fairly inactive since the French, Nadal is working in rehabilitating his knees which are a bit fucked while Federer pulled out of a grass court tournament he was due to play in Halle citing exhaustion post-French as the reason. There's still a question mark over whether Nadal will be fit to play at all, so it's fairly evident he won't have had much grass court practice. As for Federer he may not have been competing, but I'm sure he's been practising. Grass is notorious for the settling in period players usually require to get re-accustomed to the nuances of grass court play - Federer and Nadal having not competed in their respective pre-Wimbledon grass court tournaments may find themselves at a disadvantage, despite both their statuses as former and defending champions. This may place Murray and Djokovic who have played (and won) their pre-Wimbledon tournaments at a disadvantage. The BBC reports Murray is seeded 3rd after Nadal and Federer, no mention of Djokovic but I imagine he'll have taken 4th seed.

Wimbledon starts Monday, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that Murray will at least equal his QF result from last year. It'd be awesome if he could go all the way, and he's totally capable, but the competition is stiff. We'll have to wait and see...

I myself have taken up the sport recently. My girlfriend Helen has been playing for years and now she's teaching me to play. I'm getting there, and I'm committed to getting better. I've spent a significant amount of cash on appropriate gear so I'm pretty keen to make sure that cash hasn't been wasted. It's quite a complex game, more complex than I thought, there are all sorts of ways to hold and angle the racket for different shots, and ways to stand and move. It's quite hard to coordinate it all in my head - strike the ball at arms length, swing through the ball, stand side on, angle the head downwards, hold the grip with the flat against your palm - so much stuff. I suppose the trick is to get it all so it's more or less automatic. Sometimes it does feel quite automatic, other times not. My biggest problem appears to be my feet, I've a bad habit of trying to hit the ball too close to my body, which gives you no power or accuracy and Helen yells "Move your feet!" at me from across the court :p. My serve is pretty abysmal, but we only really worked on it on Sunday there. I'm starting to get them in, but they lack power. I'm not too worried abut serving right now anyway, it'll come with practice.

Oh yeah, and I've yet to win a game against her :s

freedoms_stain, losing Love-40 against a girl a foot shorter than him, out.

 

"Murray plays down Paris prospects"

The title of this post refers to this BBC report on Andy Murray Re: the French Open. The line that caught my attention was this: "The 22-year-old eased to a three-set win over Juan Ignacio Chela" because I watched that match and I don't think eased is a word I'd use. Truly 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 sounds like it was an easy match, but lets not forget that of the 5 games Murray lost 2 were service games - in fact almost every game in the first set and a decent number in the second were quite closely contested. Despite the fact that Murray ended up taking almost every game it doesn't mean they were easy - he definitely fought to win. I think this was largely down to low success rate for Murrays 1st serve - this is going to be a problem as he faces more challenging opponents as the contest progresses. Hopefully Murray has spent his time off today working on getting that 1st serve in more often or he might not make it past his 3rd round record.

This type of story is fairly typical of British media up-playing British interests in the sporting arena. Murray is a damn good Tennis player and he did have some extremely impressive moments yesterday on the way to his win - but it wasn't all great and I think British media has to accept that and reflect it in their reporting. All they're doing is increasing the heavy burden of expectation Murray has been facing since he replaced Tim Henman as British No.1. So far Murray has been doing a great job of meeting that expectation - maybe even exceeding it this season - but as he improves so does the expectation grow. Can't we just quietly trust in his skills? Good Luck man, freedoms_stain, out.

Murray out to Nadal at Monte Carlo

So Murray reaches his first ever semi-final on clay only to be put out by Raphael Nadal. Well, if you're going to go out of a competition might as well go out to the world No.1. Murray took a bit of a spanking in the 1st set losing it 6-2, the 2nd set was a bit more hard fought with Nadal eventually taking the set in a tie break 7-6 (7-4). It would've been nice to see it come down to a 3rd set but it wasn't to be unfortunately. It does show that Murray can give Nadal a match on one of his favourite surfaces, which bodes well for his growth as a player. Novak Djokovic came through his semi-final match against Stanislas Wawrinka and will face Nadal in the final. Making it a stage further than Murray helps Djokovic stretch his short lead on Murray for the No.3 ranking and a win tomorrow would stretch it further. I hope the final will be a close match, and so it should be as both men are at the top of their sport right now. May the best man win. freedoms_stain, out.

Introductions, Andy Murray and Mini Eggs...

Good day one and all, welcome to my brand spanking new blog, One Scots Thoughts. I am indeed from Scotland and on the web I'm known (or unknown as the case may be) as freedoms_stain (and variants thereof) so chances are if you've seen the handle elsewhere, same person here. I'm new to blogger but not to blogging, my previous blogging outlet was on ultimate-guitar.com, started out as a forum regular in "The Pit" moved on to being a fairly involved contributor to their profiles/community blogging endeavour, but with the increasingly "MySpaceness" of the profiles and general loss of interest in their overly spammy and ineptly moderated Pit forum (where I spent most of my time there) I decided to call it quits. However after a mere week I found myself missing the simple pleasures of firing my thoughts down and hurling them into the e-void for the scrutiny of faceless peers, so I sought another outlet, and that lead me here, Ta Da! So, to add some actual meat to this post, Tennis, or more specifically British No.1 (World No.4) Andy Murray (a fellow Scot no less). Recently beat World No.3 Novac Djokovic for the Indian Wells Masters and has made his way to the 3rd round of the Monte Carlo Masters (although I think he got a by through the 1st round). His third rpund match is suspended until tomorrow due to rain where he's ahead a set. And MAN what a 1st set, Murray loses the 1st 5 games, then pulls back the next 5 and takes it in the tie break. I swear British tennis players have some sort of genetically coded imperative to add drama to every competition they enter, one moment they'll be shitting form and the next they'll be shitting bricks (or vice versa as was the case today) The same thing happened with Djokovic, Shitting form on the 1st set, then bricks it in the middle of the 2nd set before pulling it out the bag again. Tim Henman put us through the same crap, except he spent more time bricking it, and usually towards the end of the match thus getting beaten all the time, whereas Murray tends to have his slips in the middle or at the beginning, regaining his form later on to clinch the victory. Still, it'd be nice to see a few more Federer (although not recently) or Nadal style cakewalks to victory here or there. A few pundits think this'll be Murrays year for a Grand Slam (ending the best part of a century of British Male singles Grand Slam shame), fingers crossed, the guy has shown he's got the chops to beat the best and the fitness issues that plagued his teenage years appears to have been exercised (lol pun) away. Last brain Fart for this entry: Oh yes, Cadburys mini eggs, the ultimate in egg shaped goodness. In Easters future I shall insist that my loved ones furnish me with mini eggs only, forgoing the traditional large hollow egg format. Why? Because mini eggs rule, you can't get em all year round, and that little crispy sugar coating adds a crunchy texture that makes the overall effect simply orgasmic. Mini eggs for everyone! I've been freedoms_stain, this has been my first blog on blogger (hopefully someone will read it :p) Look forward to firing out more thoughts and observations on here. Adieu