Visitors to Disneyland Paris today had a big surprise when they saw Mickey Mouse playing a game of doubles with invited children against professional tennis players Gael Monfils and Stansilas Wawrinka.
The court itself was a little short and had quasi-official dimensions, but that didn’t matter when the children had such a great event.
Disneyland Paris invited 200 children from the French “Fête le Mur” association, founded by Yannick Noah, to participate in this more than unusual exchange.
The Fête le Mur association is set up in the heart of 25 under-privileged Urban Zones, allows the children of those neighborhoods to practice tennis, to train and perfect themselves, and some of them to later find a professional opening.
Marin Cilic is a young player from Croatia who currently finds himself at number 14 in the world singles rankings. Marin has had a very quick rise to the top. He was playing junior tennis up until 2006 in which he then received his highest ranking of the world number one junior. While at the same time as holding this junior ranking Marin was also trying to build up a senior career and as many points as possible.
After moving away from junior tennis in 2006 Marin focused on building up as many points as possible on the ATP and ITF tours so that he could really make a living from tennis and live up to his potential. Within his first season on the ITF tour he finished 2006 ranked 173 in the world. This season really pushed his career and pretty much put him where he is today. At the start of 2006 Marin was receiving a lot of wildcards into major tournaments in which he would not have received unless he was the top junior in the world, and he made the most of it. Following in 2007 Marin continued his rise to finish the year at 71 and to now be on the ATP tour fulltime. Finally the growth continued even further to finish 2008 at number 22 and top be now a top player who everyone else wants to beat.
It is amazing how Marin Cilic has risen in the world of tennis and this has really been a steady growth from the age of 16. Marin is now a top 20 player in the world who no matter what tournament he plays is seeded. Im a firm believer that when a player progresses from juniors to seniors they deserve a few wildcards in major tournaments to help them get experience and raise their rankings fast at the same time. However, at the same time the player needs to keep his eye on the ball and actually get strong results on the ITF tours, cause that is really where you learn as a player to fight for every point and every match.
According to the SportsBusiness Journal, the ATP is developing a new TV show hosted by Justin Gimelstob: “The ATP is developing a TV series titled “ATP World Tour Uncovered,” offering a behind-the-scenes look at the circuit. The show is being produced by British Telecom and IMG and will be sold by Pitch International, a British sales agency with soccer and rugby experience.”
Im not too sure however that providing more details about the tour is really going to help the profile of the sport. However, im keen to see how this develops and it would also be great to see a show about professional players on the lower level tennis tours.
New world number three Andy Murray hit back at number four Novak Djokovic on Thursday after the Serb said the current rankings system was cruel. Djokovic was leapfrogged by Murray in the rankings on Monday despite landing a second title of the year in Belgrade at the weekend and reaching the last three Masters Series finals.
“There always seem to be problems and now it’s obviously the rankings,” Murray told a news conference after beating Tommy Robredo in the third round of the Madrid Open. It’s great that Novak’s done well the last few weeks but the first three or four months of the year I played a lot better than him so I think the rankings reflect very well how the guys are playing. Until this week I’ve never heard anyone complain. I think maybe only in the last week it’s become a problem for Novak.”
Players on the ATP tour have to defend the points they earned during the same week a year earlier, so the reigning champion at an event can only maintain his points tally, not improve it. “Playing three Masters Series finals in a row and winning a 250 event is incredible success and even then you are dropping a spot down in the rankings,” Djokovic said on Wednesday. “That shows how cruel the ranking system is in this sport.”
The ATP has released a new live screensaver. The screensaver is completely free and it provides some of the latest photos and videos from the Tour. With updates made automatically to the Screensaver, tuning into the ATP World Tour has never been so easy.
The screensaver runs on Windows 2000, XP and Vista only and it requires a minimum 1024×768 pixel resolution.
Some of the worlds top players including Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, all played exhibition matches at the Rome Masters last weekend to remember and raise money for Fedelux. Fedelux is a leukemia foundation established in the memory of former player Federico Luzzi, who died of the disease last year aged 28 last year.
Most of the players wore shirts of the event which had the image of Luzzi on the front. Other players who participated were Tommy Robredo, Marat Safin, Potito Starace, Andreas Seppi, Simone Bolelli and Filippo Volandri.
It was great to see that the players pulled together for a great charity event.
This is just Novak Djokovic all over. It is good to see that tennis commercials are actually a little fun. I really think they should be a little more like Australia beer commercials, because they are just so well done. However I really want to hear everyone’s thoughts on this commercial.
Have you ever wondered what some of the worlds best tennis players looked like when they were younger. Well over at the Tennis Warehouse forum they have come up with some brilliant pics.
Pictures include Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilander, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and more.
It has been reported that Lleyton Hewitt is in a bit of a court battle with his former management company Octagon. Octagon are taking Hewitt to court for breach of contract and then Hewitt is now fighting back with a countersuit, citing incompetence and deception on the part of the agency.
In 2005 and 2006, Hewitt earned $6.75 million net in endorsements and appearance guarantees — including $3.5 mil from Nike and $2.3 mil from Yonex. He also received $340,000 in appearance fees for Sydney, Adelaide, and Queen’s Club.
As every year at the end of January the tennis world focuses on Down Under, where the year’s first out of four Grand Slam is taking place. But what to expect of this year’s Australian Open?
A surprise and a close battle for the title! As every year, at least one of the finalists will be a newcomer, as in recent years Marcos Baghdatis or last year’s finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. One of those “newcomers” might this year be the British Andy Murray, who from last year’s second half of the season gradually improved his game and was rewarded with a US Open Final and a Masters Cup Semi Final. As if it were not enough he also defeated the Swiss Roger Federer in their last three confrontations. Lucky for Federer Express that number 4 seated Murray finds himself at this year’s Aussie Open in the upper part of the draw which means Nadal will have to deal with him. Murray with his recent victory in Doha is ready to rumble, but what about the other Top Ten players?
Nadal after a forced break of two months due to his knee problems seems too lack some preparation and practice, but still appears to be confident as he says: “My type of game needs rhythm. But I feel good, I trained hard. I just need some match practice to know where exactly I stand.” After the first week of the tournament he is most likely to be on top of his game again.
Djokovic arrives with two weights: His two defeats in a row at the beginning of this season and of course he needs to defend his title at the Australian Open in order to not lose any points. The fact he changed his racket might also cause him some adaptation problems, but with his self-confidence he should be able to overcome those difficulties and show us a few hours of beautiful tennis during the next two weeks.
Federer, still trying to beat Sampras’ all time record of 14 Grand Slam titles, lost gradually his feeling of invincibility during the last season. Nadal is now not his only opponent anymore, which was recently proven by Andy Murray, but Federer lost from what he benefited so much before: the fear and respect the other players had when it came to play him. He became Human again, but his talent remains and he is still capable of becoming untouchable if he has one of his magic days. On the Australian Open’s pre-tournament press conference on Sunday a cool and fit Federer said: “I want to do well, not only this year but [in] many more years to come. So I don’t feel this is my last chance …”. He also warned to not rule him out of winning this year’s Australian Open.
Let’s also not underestimate Gilles Simon who preferred to delay the start of his season in order to work on his game. With a good second half year he surprised at last year’s Masters Cup with victories against Federer and Stepanek after which he lost in the Semi Final in three sets against Djokovic, who went on to win the tourney. Same counts for recently injured Tsonga who just declared that he will be able to defend his points in Melbourne this year. He declared the day before Melbourne Park opened its doors for two weeks of world class tennis that he felt better and that he was impatient to start. Tsonga enjoys huge popularity in Down Under which is probably why he was helped by tournament’s organizers who moved his opening match to Tuesday evening so as to give him one extra day of preparation. Tsonga’s reaction to this favor: “They gave me the opportunity to play as late as possible and I am very thankful. I hope I will be able to honor this favor.”
Anyways, great two weeks of tennis can be expected and a tournament where the battle for the title hasn’t been that close for a few years…
Visitors to Disneyland Paris today had a big surprise when they saw Mickey Mouse playing a game of doubles with invited children against professional tennis players Gael Monfils and Stansilas Wawrinka.
Marin Cilic is a young player from Croatia who currently finds himself at number 14 in the world singles rankings. Marin has had a very quick rise to the top. He was playing junior tennis up until 2006 in which he then received his highest ranking of the world number one junior. While at the same time as holding this junior ranking Marin was also trying to build up a senior career and as many points as possible.
The ATP has released a new live screensaver. The screensaver is completely free and it provides some of the latest photos and videos from the Tour. With updates made automatically to the Screensaver, tuning into the ATP World Tour has never been so easy.
