Wawrinka retains his Aircel Trophy in Chennai; and Ferrer wins the Qatar ExxonMobil cup in Doha!
Printable View
Wawrinka retains his Aircel Trophy in Chennai; and Ferrer wins the Qatar ExxonMobil cup in Doha!
Australian Open 2015 - Seeded Players:
1 Novak Djokovic
2 Roger Federer
3 Rafael Nadal
4 Stan Wawrinka
5 Kei Nishikori
6 Andy Murray
7 Tomas Berdych
8 Milos Raonic
9 David Ferrer
10 Grigor Dimitrov
11 Ernests Gulbis
12 Feliciano Lopez
13 Roberto Bautista Agut
14 Kevin Anderson
15 Tommy Robredo
16 Fabio Fognini
http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/players/index.html
...and the draw:
http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/scores/draws/ms/index.html
AO Draw......
Djokovic:
1R - Qualifier
2R - Kuznetsov
3R - Verdasco
4R - Isner
QF - Raonic
SF - Wawrinka/Nishi
F - Nadal / Fed
Federer:
1R - Lu
2R - Monaco
3R - Chardy
4R - Karlovic/Robredo
QF - Murray / Dmitrov
SF - Nadal/Berdych
F - Novak/Wawrinka
Nadal:
1R - Youzhny
2R - Saville
3R - Rosol
4R - Anderson/Gasquet
QF - Berdych/Gulbis
SF - Fed/Murray
F - Nole/Waw
Nadal has a relatively easier draw than Fed and Djoko, though it's tricky for all three with potential upsets lurking.
^ Federer's got the toughest of the three though. Faces Jeremy Chardy (a guy who's beaten him once and has taken him to three sets in all his matches) in the 2nd and Karlovic/Robredo in the third. They've all beaten him alright. Robredo's done in it even in a grandslam 4R. So I am sure its not a path full of roses to traverse to get to the finals.
Federer and Sharapova already stretched. Nadal pushed to the brink.
^ I would rather put it like - Federer stretched. Nadal and Sharapova pushed to the brink. Federer found his footing after the first set and a half
I somehow had the hunch Sharapova was winning (she just lost the second as I was leaving for work). Because it's happened so many times that she fights back from a set down and clinches the decider, so unless it's one of the top 5 players, I'd bet on her seeing it through. While Nadal has lately been losing a lot to unheralded players.
Andreas Seppi beats Roger Federer 6-4, 7-6, 4-6, 7-6.
Andreas Seppi was very clutch throughout the match up. Incredible winner at MP. And Roger was so unclutch. Had chances in 2nd and the 4th in the tie breakers. Failed to take them both. And it was a pain to watch Federer become an unforced error machine. And his serve deserted him when it was needed. Well done Seppi, the better player in the match
Seppi played a great match and deserved it. Roger looked like was rushing way too much the first two sets. Things settled down a bit in the 3rd but couldn't stop the unforced errors. He should have taken the 4th set tiebreaker but his serve deserted him when he needed the most. Time to take an extended break...
We've seen this movie before. Won Cincy and then never looked convincing at USO (though he went all the way to the semis). Looked solid in Brisbane but ran out of steam at the big one, and pretty early on in the tournament too. Oldererer indeed. Can't be helped.
Baghdatis-Dimitrov seems to have been an epic one. Baghdatis was unbelievably good (given how long he has been out of form) and Dimitrov was brilliant at the net.
"I Couldn't Really Get The Whole Game Flowing"
From ATP News; January 23, 2015
http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Ten...-Reaction.aspx
Leander Paes, Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza crash out in Australian Open doubles
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/s...w/45989227.cms
Madison Keys played a pretty amazing match to upset Kvitova. Her game is pretty advanced, forehand technique similar to the men. Great serving under pressure too, notwithstanding double faults.
Routine win for Djoko, Ferrer made to limp, literally, en route to beating Simon.
Tomas Berdych defeats Bernard Tomac 6-2, 7-6, 6-2.
Kevin Anderson loses to Rafa Nadal 5-7, 1-6, 4-6.
Nadal gets the opportunity to play his favourite punching bag Berdych (er, at least excluding Federer ;) ) and with it a chance to play a third straight AO semi (he was absent in 2013).
Nadal is “whipped” by his second most favourite “punching bag”; 2-6, 0-6, 6-7!
Ha ha, Berd bagelled Nadal. Guess it's the Rosol effect. Everybody wants to just have a swing against Nadal and see how it goes, even guys like Berdych who used to lose all the time to him.
Berdych waited this long to break the losing streak. And the bright future is waiting for him to march toward. On the other side, Nadal's future looks very dark with this pathetic loss. When we witnessed Nadal in past without winning a single game in a set? Right from first serve of the match, Berdych looked so composed and his first serve was lethal. Gutsy play.
Wawrinka v/s Djoko for the third straight year at the AO. Murray v/s Berdych. Pretty tough semis...on paper, anyway.
Oh! AO is still going on? I thought it was all over and done with! :)
Madison Keys may have lost but was sensational even in defeat. Move over Bouchard, Keys is the next big thing of women's tennis and she sure hits a pretty big groundie. The aces she fired facing match points, and knowing full well Serena would serve out the match comfortably in the next game, were amazing. After a long time there is an exciting new player on the WTA.
Comeon Stan....Unleash those killer/destructive backhands....
Another five set epic and this time Djoko prevails.
^ Epicaa....The quality was way down when in comparison to their last two bouts....The better UE machine lost.
It was but nevertheless the match of the tournament. Djoko is clearly disconcerted by Stan's backhand. This match made it clear that Stan loses matches more in his head. He can beat just about anybody on the ATP when he's on. I can understand the power of the stroke but the sheer variety of angles he creates is astounding. He converted even out of court positions into DTL winners yesterday!
Brain Game: Djokovic's Mental Resilience
-By Craig O'Shannessy (of braingametennis.com); From ATP News, January 30, 2015
"Novak Djokovic employed a boxer’s mentality of jabbing, weaving and enduring to defeat Stan Wawrinka in five sets in their Australian Open semi-final on Friday night." "Like a classic 'Rocky' theme, Djokovic absorbed countless groundstroke punches from Wawrinka, making the Swiss take one more swing, until there was no gas left in his mental tank. It was not a classic encounter like the last two years at Melbourne Park, but style points were of no concern to the Serb."
http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Ten...-Wawrinka.aspx
Murray could pip Djoko at the post this time. As in the 2013 Wimb final, Djoko might just be rather drained after a long drawn out semi and struggle to slug it out against Murray. Murray has shown more aggressive intent than usual, esp against Berdych. If he carries that into the final, Djoko could have his work cut out.
Congratulations to Novak Djokovic for winning his 8th Grand Slam! He deserved this win, as he is the best player currently on the ATP tour.
http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Ten...ic-Murray.aspx
India'd Leander Paes wins his 15th Grand Slam Trophy
http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Ten...les-Final.aspx
This was probably the most attacking, entertaining of their recent GS encounters say from the 2011 AO final onwards. Which may not be saying much but still it was good to see both guys try to take the net away. Makes sense since both are evenly matched from the baseline so neither holds the ace from the back court. That probably also caught Murray a bit off guard and his usual reliance on attritional tennis was ultimately not nearly enough to beat Djoko.
Djoko draws level with Connors and Agassi with this win. The double digit club beckons.
Nadal's Risky Wardrobe Manoeuvre
Source: ATP News; February 20, 2015 & Youtube
http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Ten...al-Shorts.aspx
www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Rt-GzP7qc
Nasal lost to Foggini in Rio semi final.
Well... As you say, "Nasal lost to Foggini in the Rio semi final"! Remember; "Nasal" played his quarterfinal match until 3:18 a.m. (the game started at 2:00 am on Saturday night), and he had to play his semifinal against "Foggini" at 7:00 pm on the same day (Saturday)! If this was the fate of the player that some people call the "G.O.A.T", you and ¾ of the world would have cried out that it was a "conspiracy" by and between the tournament organizers, the ATP, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Damodardas Modi, Sonya Gandhi and of course Kim Jong Un! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by VinodKumar's
Shabba nasal was a typo ...i thought it was an upset and worth news to share here ...can't help if u expected it already !!!
I agree. This kind of scheduling is unacceptable. Even if Nadal is only complaining because he was at the receiving end, it's still a legitimate point to make. I do not know of too many other games where players are repeatedly forced to bear the brunt of scheduling going wrong. And let's not blame players for playing out long matches and thus indirectly stretching schedules. Back in the day when Wimbledon was fast, there was no retractable roof and matches would get held up and then restarted whenever possible. Can't imagine players gaining any kind of rhythm in such circumstances.
Roger Federer apologizes for the picture of him admiring the blue shirt of World Cup India (Cricket) team
"It was more of a Nike thing to be quite honest," said the Swiss star on the eve of the Dubai Open. "It was a Nike campaign they had because I met some of the Indian players and I had just spent some time in India so they presented the shirt to me." "I support South Africa, and everybody knows that."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/s...w/46343638.cms