TENNIS in DEPTH.

Local favourite Robin Soderling eased into the semi-finals of the Swedish Open with a 6-3 6-4 victory over number eight seed Potito Starace. The top-seeded Swede lost just 10 points on serve all match, and will now face third-seed Tomas Berdych for a place in Sunday’s final. 2010 Wimbledon runner up Berdych enjoyed an equally-comfortable passage into the last four as he ousted Slovenia’s Blaz Kavcic 6-1 6-4.

World number six David Ferrer also advanced by beating Austria’s Andreas Haider-Maurer 6-1 6-1. The Spanish right-hander will meet compatriot Nicolas Almagro for a place in the final after he defeated Sweden’s Andreas Ryderstedt 6-4 7-6 (7-4). Defending champion Almagro and Ryderstedt both had to complete their second-round matches earlier on Friday after they were suspended because of rain. Ryderstedt beat Spain’s Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo 6-4 6-2 and Almagro defeated fellow Spaniard Guillermo Olaso 6-2 6-3.

Bookmark It

Hello everyone,

It’s my birthday today and I want to thank all of you for the wonderful messages. I haven’t written anything for a long time about why I haven’t been on tour, so that’s why I’m writing this today. It’s not an easy time for me right now. I’ve been a bit unlucky with my health. I have Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer. I’ve been having treatment in Italy and it has been going well, but it takes lots of patience and I’ve had to be really strong to go through this. The good news is after I do treatment for a few more months, if I feel well, there’s a chance I’ll be able to play tennis again. I really miss playing – I miss seeing fans and friends around the world, I miss hitting the ball, I miss everything. Tennis has been my life for the last 15 years.

There are a few reasons I’m undergoing treatment in Italy. First, I have a training base and many close friends here, so it’s like home. Second, they have a really great hospital here that specializes in this problem; I’ve been going there since the problem started, so the doctors know me well. It’s the best place for me to be – the surroundings help me stay strong. I am a strong person. I’ve shown it before. Obviously this is different than anything I’ve ever experienced, but after this is over my life will be even better than before. This is the toughest time in my life, and I hope it always stays the toughest time in my life. I’m sure I’ll be able to overcome this – it’s just a matter of patience and time. When this is over, everything will be even better than before.

Of course, even though I’m in treatment, I hope I’ll have a fun birthday today I’m really happy I have the best and most important people with me here today. My family and best friends are all here. They’re here all of these days and weeks helping me get through this.

Anyway, I wanted to write to you all because it has been a long time… I won’t be on tour for a little while, but I will see you all again soon

Alisa

Bookmark It

Maria attended the 2011 ESPY Awards at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles and presented the award for Best Upset alongside NBA player Amar’e Stoudemire and actress Rachel Nichols. Maria was wearing head to toe Alexander McQueen including a navy chiffon custom made dress.

The ESPY Awards is an accolade presented by the American cable television network ESPN to recognize individual and team athletic achievement and other sports-related performance during the calendar year.

Bookmark It

Juan Carlos Ferrero marched into the quarter-finals of the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart after coming from behind to knock out third seeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny. The 31-year-old Ferrero battled back after losing a first set tie-break to win 6-7 (6-8) 6-2 6-2 and earn a last eight meeting with Spain’s Marcel Granollers, who beat Frenchman Benoit Paire 6-4 7-5.

Local wild card Cedrik-Marcel Stebe reached his first tour quarter-final after a 7-6 (7-5) 6-4 win over Italy’s Fabio Fognini, ranked more than 150 places higher in the world rankings. Stebe will now play Spain’s Pablo Andujar. Qualifiers Pavol Cervenak and Federico Del Bonis will meet in the quarter-finals after pulling off surprise second round wins. Cervenak beat Romanian Victor Hanescu, who had dispatched top seed Gael Monfils in the first round, 6-3 7-6 (8-6), while Argentina’s Del Bonis was a 6-4 6-3 winner over Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky. Poland’s Lukasz Kubot continued his fine recent form with a 4-6 6-4 6-3 win over Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. Next for Kubot is Colombia’s Santiago Giraldo, a 1-6 7-5 6-4 winner over France’s Jeremy Chardy.

Bookmark It

An insulting gift of tennis balls offered to King Henry V, according to William Shakespeare, was the final straw that led to the re-igniting of the 100 years war. This is the bard’s reference to the insult, “When we have match’d our rackets to these balls, we will, in France, by God’s grace, play a set.”

Obviously Henry needed to have the ‘set’ sanctioned by the ITF for it to have counted for anything, but it is doubtful if the rebellious French would have accepted the ITF rules.

Each year 300 million tennis balls are produced in factories in Southeast Asia, and except for those which find their way onto towing hitches on SUV’s, or on to the bottom of the legs of institutional chairs, they wind up as a part of the 14,700 tons of non biodegradable waste dumped into land fills around the world. With one important exception! The good folks at Wimbledon collect all the used tennis balls and use them as field houses for the near extinct harvest mouse. Maybe we can induce the equally good folks at the Australian Open to collect their used balls and to use them as homes for baby Koala bears. Somewhere in the world there must be millions of kids who would love to have a used tennis ball to kick along the gutter, or to dribble along the street. Learning to play soccer with an old tennis ball is a part of growing up.

Modern tennis balls are made in two colours, white and yellow, the yellow colour was adopted after intensive research was performed to determine which colour ball was the easiest to distinguish on TV. These colours are the only ones approved by the USTA and the ITF. The standards under which tennis balls are manufactured are set by the ITF, and they cover diameter, weight and bounce. A ball must bounce back to 56% of the height from which it has been dropped onto a concrete slab, to comply. All balls lose their bounce as soon as they are released from their pressurized containers. Have you often wondered why they change balls after a specific number of games? It’s because the balls lose their bounce, and have the effect of becoming heavier. In fact the weight of the ball does not change, unless one considers the slight negligible loss of the weight of the felt cover through abrasion with the court surface. Roger Federer now changes his racket to coincide with the change of balls. The numbers stencilled onto the balls have no meaning to the game’s participants, they are only there to identify the balls in use. If Rafael Nadal hits a ball out of court, he wants to be sure that the people on the adjacent court send him back his correct ball. It’s a as simple as that. I don’t know about you, but I love the smell of tennis balls!

Bookmark It

When 2011 began, Novak Djokovic was simply the stepping stone in the continued, and much-storied rivalry at the top between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Six months on, he stands alone, one man at the top. For all those who continued to doubt his world No. 1 status following his semi-final win against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the championship winning performance against Rafael Nadal should lay all such doubts to rest. As of right now, Novak Djokovic is officially, and practically, the best tennis player in the world.

Having run up a 48-1 record in 2011 already, Djokovic is already in position to put history to the test in the last few months of the ATP season. The one loss on his report card for 2011 came thanks to an out-of-this-world performance on clay by Roger Federer, who served unbelievably in their semi-final at Roland Garros and probably played his best match on clay ever. Novak’s mother has put his ascent to the top down to the “fearless” nature of his play, and his belief that when he steps on court he feels he can take down anybody. Now that he has beaten Nadal on all playing surfaces this year, and that, too, without losing even one match in their five encounters (all finals by the way), there is likely to be no argument as to who is the better player right now.

Roger Federer must be feeling thankful for Novak’s sublime coronation as it probably keeps his Grand Slam haul of 16 titles out of Nadal’s reach for the time being. But then he must also be realizing that he is probably now that stepping stone at No. 3 in the world that Novak used to be up until the end of last year. The mental disintegration of Nadal has probably left Rafa and his coaching staff thinking they may have bitten off more than they can chew. Their man hasn’t beaten the new world No. 1 at all this year, and he was absolutely bullied at times in their Wimbledon final. In fact, the second set of the final was probably the best set of tennis that Djokovic has played all season (although it was followed up by a huge loss of concentration and energy in the third set). That point in the second game of the second set where he ended the point by playing the ball behind Nadal and breaking his serve left the crowd feeling they were witnessing something special… something with more than a touch of class. Nadal fans might begin pointing to “that foot injury,” which didn’t hamper Rafa against Del Potro or Murray, as an excuse for his loss to Djokovic. But losing to the same player twice on hard courts, twice on clay, and then once on grass courts, needs a pretty long list of alibis where there are none. To those who argue that Djokovic could do with a bit more humility… imagine being your country’s greatest-ever sportsman at the age of 24, with your country’s president cheering you on at the Wimbledon final. That should be more than enough to fire up any one. For the record, please note how many times during a match Novak applauds his opponents’ outstanding shot-making.

But after the Wimbledon final, it is impossible to argue against the ATP rankings. The tennis world has a No. 1 not named Federer or Nadal, and a Wimbledon champion not named Federer or Nadal.

Author: Khalid Siddiqui (Bleacherreport)

Bookmark It

Top seed and last year’s beaten finalist Gael Monfils wasted two match points before being knocked out of the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart in the first round by Romania’s Victor Hanescu. In a match which resumed with Monfils 4-2 up overnight, the world number 64 Hanescu survived a tight second set tie-break before turning the match in his favour and winning 2-6 7-6 (9-7) 6-4.

On another rain-affected day, Spain’s Marcel Granollers needed one hour and 10 minutes to defeat Italian seventh seed Andreas Seppi 6-3 3-6 6-1 in another delayed first round showdown.

Defending champion Albert Montanes was knocked out in the second round by fellow Spaniard Pablo Andujar, who progressed to the quarter-finals with a 2-6 6-4 6-3 success.

Bookmark It

Elena Dementeiva has been dating Maxim Afinogenov for quite some time now. He has made numerous appearances at Elena’s matches throughout her career. Afinogenov is a professional hockey player, and currently plays for the SKA St. Petersburg club. Dementieva racked up 16 singles titles before she ended of her career at the end of last year. She made it to two Grand Slam finals, and was often touted as the best player to have never won a Slam. The biggest win of her career came when she won the 2008 Gold Medal in Beijing.

There was some speculation that Elena decided to retire at the end of 2010 so she could move on with her life beyond tennis, and start a family.

Bookmark It