Sometimes it amazes me what stupid ideas the ATP and WTA can come up with. Here is the latest example! It is a contest to challenge some of the WTAs best players, by mixing a video of you playing tennis against the star. Head to challengeyouhero.com.
Here we are in the second week of the US Open and getting down to the big money rounds. There has been so much happening at the US Open im not even too sure where to start. However, here is the wrap up from the tournament.
In the men’s draw they are down to the last two quarterfinal matches in which we will see Roger Federer take on unseeded Gilles Muller from Luxembourg. While in the other quarterfinal left it will see Americas last hope for the men’s title Andy Roddick, take on Novak Djokovic. The two players who have already won their quarterfinal matches and will meeting the first semifinal will be top see Raphael Nadal and he will play young Brit Andy Murray. Murray has produced some great performances in the tournament so far and he has never been this deep into a Grand Slam, so will be interesting to see how he fares against Rafa.
While on the Women’s side of the draw they have made their way to the semifinals. The first semi will see Dinara Safina head off against Serena Williams (who only just beat her sister in the previous round). While Elena Dementieva will play Jelana Jankovic in the other semi. While I’m not surprised to have seen Ana Ivanovic lose in the second round, it is just poor to think that it took her a really long time to get to the top and when she has been there she just hasn’t performed at all in the Grand Slams. I can’t see Ivanovic staying in the top 5 for too long if she continues to play the way she is playing, maybe too much promotional work is getting to her.
Overall there has been a lot happening on and off court at the US Open, which is normally the case cause it is heading towards the end of season. The more I see the US Open, I really just think they are losing touch with the other 3 Grand Slams. Australian Open is the players favourite, French Open is the one the Europeans want to win, Wimbledon is the big one, US Open just has the most money!
Australian tennis has been going through a very hard patch lately with only Lleyton Hewitt in the top 50 in the world a lot of people have been asking major questions about Australian tennis. Currently, Hewitt is still some how in the top 30 even though he now concetrates a lot more on his personal life. Australias second best player Chris Guccione is sitting at about 70 in the world. A huge difference from what Australian tennis used to be like.
Tennis Australia have long been criticised for doing not much for the development of tennis in Australia and this seems to still continue. This year in the Wimbledon boys singles however there are 3 Australian players already in the Quarterfinals. Is this because of the effort Tennis Australia is putting in, I doubt it!
Im going to say that tennis in Australia is again on the rise and it will be back to its former glory in 2012. Players such as 15 year old Bernard Tomic, Brydan Klein, Dane Propoggia, Andrew Thomas, Jared Easton, Nick Lindahl and Andrew Coehlo. I really do believe that 2 of these players will be in the top 20 in the world when 2012 comes around.
Today I was looking at the Wimbledon website and noticed that some of the players in the main draw still dont have a picture of themselves on the site. Wimbledon is the worlds most well known tennis tournament and to think that they cant even get a picture of all 400+ athletes on their website for the tournament is a bit of a disgrace. These pictures are obviously passed down from the ATP or WTA and they dont seem to be updated very often (every decade or so), so how is this a big deal to get done!
Tennis organisations currently seems to lack a lot of effort. Officials are always talking about trying to make tennis more appealing to the broader public, however how can I even support a player if I dont even know what he looks like. From a players point of view it just seem like the fact that you work your ass of to get to Wimbledon main draw and the lazy people cant even get a picture of me on their website. Poor!
