Archive for: GRand Slam
Fresh off his first French Open title, Roger Federer considers himself the man to beat at Wimbledon.
A day after beating Robin Soderling in the final at Roland Garros, Federer says he’s looking forward to trying to claim a sixth championship at the All England Club from June 22-July 5.
“I do think I’m the favorite, actually, with all the success I’ve had,” Federer said Monday.
His run of five consecutive Wimbledon titles ended with a five-set loss to Rafael Nadal in last year’s final.
Nadal pulled out of this week’s grass-court tournament at Queen’s Club, citing knee problems.
Referring to Wimbledon, Nadal said: “I hope I can be ready to compete by then.”
Federer expects to see his nemesis at the All England Club.
“It seems like it’s not 100 percent serious, his knee injury. I only wish him the best and I hope it’s not true that he will miss Wimbledon. I think it’s a lot of speculation at the moment,” Federer said. “He wasn’t taping his knees here in Paris. He seemed fine, [from] what I saw, anyway. I’ve played him so many times, I can tell when he’s in pain and when he’s not.”
Federer said his back feels OK — he took a six-week break this year because it was bothering him — but he also said he was considering withdrawing from the grass-court tournament in Halle, Germany, that began Monday.
As for his game, Federer figures he can keep improving, particularly on grass and hard courts, “when I can go for my shots more.”
He already has won five championships at Wimbledon, five at the U.S. Open and three at the Australian Open. Now — after having lost to Nadal in the three previous French Open finals — Federer looks forward to being the defending champion at Roland Garros for the first time.
“I’m sure I’m going to enjoy Paris even more in the future,” he said, “because the pressure is off.”
Andre Agassi said that Rafael Nadal actually has a shot at winning the Grand Slam this year. The Grand Slam is winning all four majors in one calendar year and it is a feat accomplished by only two men, Don Budge and Rod Laver. Currently Nadal is the 2-7 favourite for the French Open title, while Roger Federer is at 6-1.
“Certainly you have to be good enough to win all four, but then you have to get lucky to win all four. I think this is the first time in a really long time that we’re going to see somebody maybe pull that off.” The Spaniard isn’t counting on it. “Thanks to Andre for his word, my goal now is to practice well to play well in Roland Garros,” he told reporters in Madrid.
The French Tennis Federation has chosen the architect for a new retractable roof over the Roland Garros centre court, which will be ready in 2011 to prevent any rain delays at the French Open.
The new roof at Roland Garros will cover the centre court. The courts in a planned extension not far away from the main stadium are also set to get roofs.
The federation unanimously chose Marc Mimram as the architect for the project in a vote today. Mimram is well known as the designer of the overpass that connects France and Germany across the Rhine River in Strasbourg.
Wimbledon is using a retractable roof on its centre court for the first time this year.
The wildcards for the 2009 French Open have been decided. There are a few suprises and it is great to see that the wildcards are going to up and coming talent as well as some older campaigners.
Mens Wildcards:
- Gaston Gaudio
- Bernard Tomic
- John Isner
- Adrian Mannarino
- Josselin Ouanna
- Laurent Recouderc
- Guillaume Rufin
- Alexandre Siderenko
Womens Wildcards:
- Lauren Embree
- Olivia Rogowska
- Claire Feuerstein
- Kinni Laisne
- Emilie Loit
- Kristina Mladenovic
- Irena Pavlovic
- Olivia Sanchez
Irving V. Glick, the U.S. Open tennis tournament doctor for more than 25 years, has died after a long illness. He was 92.
Glick died Friday at his home in Great Neck, N.Y., Haggard Funeral Home in Jefferson said.
He was buried Wednesday in the East Texas town of Jefferson, where his wife, Tommie, was born and kept close ties, the Longview News-Journal reported. Jefferson is about 165 miles east of Dallas.
Glick ran the medical department at the U.S. Open until 1991 and served as the International Tennis Federation’s medical representative to the Olympic Games in South Korea in 1988 and Spain in 1992.
Glick was team doctor for St. John’s men’s basketball for about 20 years, including the school’s 1985 Final Four team.
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…
As you might know there have been arguments about the tight schedule of the tennis player between the player representatives and the ATP for many years. One of the recent years’ complaints was for instance that the season lasts longer and longer, now until late November with the Masters Cup followed by the Davis Cup. This leaves the players not enough time to recover from a long season and of course cuts short the preparation time for the next season.
The latest complaint concerns the Australian Open: players like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal wouldn’t mind if the Australian Open was moved to February. Rafa argued: “Why play one of the most important tournaments one week after the beginning of the season?”
Andy Murray agreed with his rival Nadal and added another wish thinking of Wimbledon: according to him there is not enough time between the French Open and Wimbledon which makes it difficult to switch from clay court to lawn.
Let’s wait for the reaction of the ATP where recently some changes took place and Adam Helfant became new chairman and president…
Sweden’s Jonas Bjorkman has bowed out of professional tennis after a glittering 17 year career that earned him nine Grand Slam doubles titles.
Bjorkman, 36, was treated to a special ceremony at Qi Zhong Stadium after he and partner Kevin Ullyett were knocked out of the Tennis Masters Cup doubles.
“They reminded me a little bit that this is obviously maybe my last match,” said Bjorkman, who noticed preparations for the farewell ceremony during the match.
“You know, I was trying to do everything possible to stay alive one more day, or maybe two.”
Bjorkman won all four doubles Grand Slams as well as the 1998 Davis Cup with Sweden and also reached the 1997 US Open singles semi-final and the last four at Wimbledon just two years ago.
Bjorkman and Ullyett fell to Poland’s Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski as the Swede failed in his bid for a third year-end title.
“I still think it’s great to end my career in the biggest event of the year, even if I would have gone further. But you can’t have everything,” he said.
“I’ve been mentally prepared for this because I’m mentally very ready to retire. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to play for so long.”
Bjorkman, who will now concentrate on editing a Swedish tennis magazine, cited the 1997 US Open loss to Britain’s Greg Rusesdski as his biggest regret.
“Obviously losing to Greg Rusedski in the semi-final was a tough loss because I think that was a chance for me maybe to go all the way,” he said.
The reigning Australian Open junior champion is eligible to spend another two years bolstering his already impressive age record, if he wants to.
But, after mixing junior and senior events in roughly equal measure in 2008, the talented Gold Coast teenager would prefer to speed up his development by committing fully to the men’s circuit next year.
“I’ve started this year to play more and more (open) Futures and Challengers, but then again I’ve played also juniors,” German-born Tomic said.
“I think it’s time to put juniors away next year hopefully and just focus on Challenger level and Futures and getting my ranking up to where I want it to be.”
Tomic is the junior world No.3, with the two players ranked above him both about 18 months older.
In the senior rankings, he is 772.
While he hopes to steadily cut that number, he needs to rely on the generosity of officials if he is to play in ATP events or senior grand slams.
His chief aims for the coming summer are to make his ATP debut at the Brisbane International, starting January 4, and then play in the Australian Open later that month.
He will need wildcards for both, a prospect that remains uncertain, particularly given Tennis Australia’s recent emphasis on awarding wildcards on a merit basis, with Tomic only the 26th-ranked Australian man.
Congratulations Serena Williams on winning the 2008 US Open Womens Final. This win became Serenas 3rd US Open Win and ninth Grand Slam Title. Australian Open 2003, 2005, 2007. French Open 2002. Wimbledon 2002, 2003 and US Open 1999, 2002 and 2008.
Serena Williams from the USA defeated Jelana Jankovic from Serbia 6-4 7-5. This win also places Serena as the number 1 player in the world again (since 2003).
