tennis – Page 2 – Daleisphere

June 29, 2008February 28, 2017

Wimbledon 2008 – First Week

Official Wimbledon Site | Men’s Draw | Ladies’ Draw |
The first week of a grand slam usually offers terrific tennis. This week was no exception. There were some major upsets and terrific matches. See my "Wimbledon 2008 Begins" post for my Monday observations.

There was a touching moment (depicted in the picture above – click for larger view) this week when Richard Williams went over and shook the hand of Mr. Keothavong after Richard’s daughter Venus beat his daughter Anne 7-6, 6-2 in the 2nd round. Mr. Keothavong was clearly impressed.

Tuesday – Davenport Injury

It was difficult to watch my all-time favourite woman’s player, Davenport’s, struggle with an ‘aggravated’ knee (an MRI after the match revealed inflammation behind the knee cap – not a permanent injury). Davenport’s career is near and end. It was sad to see her bow out on Thursday. But in an interview on Thursday she said she’ll be ready for the Beijing Olympics in a few weeks.

Wednesday’s Matches

Two of Wednesday’s matches are prime examples of why watching early round grand slam matches can be so fulfilling:

Nathalie Dechy and Ana Ivanovic played three nail-biting sets. As much as I like Ivanovic I was cheering for Dechy all the way. What terrific play. But for an Ivanovic shot that barely dribbled over the net on match point in the 2nd, 97th ranked Dechy would have won the match against the current world’s number 1. Below Ana is kissing the part of the net where the ball hit the net chord.

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June 23, 2008February 28, 2017

Wimbledon 2008 Begins

Official Wimbledon Site | Wimbledon Live | Men’s Draw | Ladies’ Draw |

With the exception of Nalbandian (7), all the major seeds advanced to the second round including: Federer (1), Djokovic (3), Hewitt (20), Safin, Gonzalez (15), Baghdatis (10), Ivanovic (1), Kuznetsova (4), S. Williams (6) and Mauresmo (20).

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we’ll see the first round matches of: Nadal (2), Davydenko (4), Roddick (6), Blake (9), Murray (12), Fish, Tipsarevic, Jankovic (2), Sharapova (3), Dementieva (5), V. Williams (7), Safina (9) and, my favourite, Davenport (25).

The Canadians

Canadian Frank Dancevic made it through to the second round. Stephanie Dubois lost in the first. Aleksandra Wozniak plays her first match tomorrow.

Can Roger Win It?

Ever since Nadal wiped the floor with Federer in the French, the press has been a-buzz with talk about whether Roger can win Wimbledon again. I say, of course he can. He’s won 5 straight Wimbledons. Why not another? Every great player goes through lean times. He had no problem knocking out his buddy Hrbaty in straight sets today. My money is still on Federer to take a 6th straight victory.

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June 21, 2008February 28, 2017

Wimbledon Live – Stream or Download Wimbledon 2008 Matches

Wimbledon 2008 starts this Monday June 23 and runs to July 6. I just discovered (ironically through an adsense ad on The Daleisphere) that Wimbledon provides a two week ‘Wimbledon Live‘ service where, for a flat fee of $24.99 (approx. £12.65) you can stream live matches to your PC or download up to 250 matches in .wmv format after the match is complete.

2008 matches will be available until May 1, 2009. Day passes are will be available but so far I have not found pricing details.

As usual, my TiVos are queued to record as many matches as TSN and NBC air. But, all too often, matches that I want to watch are not broadcast. Or, too frequently, certain channels have exclusive rights to particular high profile matches with the result that they are not shown on the channels that my cable provider, Rogers, makes available to me!

Formats and Quality

All video is in 384 x 288 format with a 4:3 aspect ratio. I took a quick look at the free streaming demo of the 2005 Federer vs. Roddick Wimbledon Final. The quality wasn’t great (see pic above) but it wasn’t bad either. Because the service works with Windows Media Player only, the service is not available to Apple users and, presumably, not available through AppleTV.

Note: In addition to the free streaming demo, I tried downloading the free downloadable version but it would not play without my having to first sign up and give them my credit card. This kind-of defeats the “free” part of the ‘Download (FREE)’ offer :).

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June 8, 2008February 28, 2017

Nadal Crushes Federer to Win Fourth Consecutive French Open

For the third consecutive year Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal met at the French Open finals. I fully expected Nadal to win, but I did not expect a 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 blow-out.

With the exception of Federer’s reaching, but not capitalizing on, a break-point in the 2nd, the match was entirely Nadal’s – repeatedly breaking Federer’s serve. The Nadal-Djokovic semi-final was much more satisfying.

It was amusing to see Nadal inhibited by the opening ceremony restrictions. Normally after the pre-game photos and the coin-toss, Nadal charges from the net to the baseline to begin his warm-up. This time he had to wait (noticeably frustrated) until the huge opening ceremony flags were removed before he could make his trademark zig-zag run.

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June 7, 2008February 28, 2017

Ivanovic Wins the 2008 French Open

In a more competitive match than the 6-4, 6-3 score would suggest, Ana Ivanovic defeated the terrific Dinara Safina to win her first grand-slam title. Two days earlier she had become the world’s number 1 women’s tennis player after beating her fellow Serbian countrywoman Jelena Jankovic in the semi-finals.

Safina played well, but not well enough. Not unlike her brother, her emotions too often got in the way. In her round of 16 and quarterfinal matches against Dementieva and Kuznetsova, she had come back from being a set and match-point down to prevail. Ivanovic was too good for this to work a third time.

Ivanovic’s shots were strong and accurate. She played one of her best-ever matches, convincingly solid and steady throughout. She didn’t show any of the nervousness that kept her from winning the final against Sharapova at the 2008 Aussie Open and the final against Henin at the 2007 French Open. She’s come a long way from learning tennis in a war-torn Belgrade swimming pool.

This makes the seventh straight women’s French Open final that was won in straight sets. The last three-set women’s final was at the 2001 French Open – where Jennifer Capriati defeated Kim Clijsters.

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June 7, 2008February 28, 2017

Men’s Semi-Finals at the 2008 French Open

As Bjorn Borg looked on (see pic below), Nadal decisively defeated Novak Djokovic in the first men’s semi final of the 2008 French Open. Nadal is now within one match of tying Borg’s four-straight French Open win record.

I started watching, trying very hard not to root for either player. I wanted to revel in the sheer brilliance of their play alone. But I wasn’t able to do that for long. While Djokovic put up an admirable fight, the match was clearly Nadal’s from the beginning.

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June 7, 2008February 28, 2017

Rafael Nadal’s Designer Tennis Shoes

I get a kick out of Rafael Nadal’s tennis shoes. As you can see below (click for larger version), at the 2009 French Open they bear three numbered insignias along the side, one each for his prior French Open wins.

On the back of the left shoe he has his trademark logo of a bull (see above pic) and on the back of the right ‘RAFA” is embossed on it.

In the past the shoe used to to say “VAMOS” on the left and “RAFA” on the right.

A couple years back an unseeded challenger ranked around 150 came out to meet rafa with his own ‘designer’ shoes. The cameras zoomed in on the challenger’s shoes to reveal that he had used safety pins to attach patches on the back of his sneakers with saying “Vamos” on the left and the challenger’s name on the right – written in ink!. I wish I could remember who that was. It was quite funny.

June 4, 2008February 28, 2017

I’m Now Officially a Dinara Safina Fan

I’ve found a new women’s professional tennis player to love. With shade’s of her brother’s flare and fire, Dinara Safina took down Sharapova and Dementieva in two successive come-from-behind French Open victories. These two matches have been my favourites of the French Open 2008 so far.

After being a set and two breaks down, Safina fought her way back, won the second set and routed Dementieva 6-0 in the third set of their quarter finals match. With this win Safina reaches her first-ever grand slam semi where she’ll be playing Kuznetsova.

[June 5, 2008 Update: I was delighted to see Safina take out Kuznetsova quite easily. She’s now headed to her first grand-slam final.]

Ana Ivanovic will be playing Jankovic in the other women’s semi-final. I will, of course, be cheering for Ivanovic in that one but, if Ivanovic and Safina both make it to the final, I’ll be cheering for my new-found tennis star – Safina.

[June 5, 2008 Update: With Ivanovic beating Jankovic in the other semi, this should be one of the better women’s slam finals in a long time.]

Interestingly, with her win in Berlin, Safina was the last player to play and beat Justine Henin before her retirement.

June 1, 2008February 28, 2017

French Open 2008 First Week

There’s not much to love about this year’s French Open – so far. There wasn’t one memorable match in the first week.

Two of my favourites, Davenport (not playing for ‘personal reasons’) and Roddick (out for a rotator cuff injury) are not participating. Three time French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten, one of my all-time favourites, formally retired from professional tennis this week after an early round loss (I’ll miss Guga). Clijsters’, Henin’s, & Agassi’s retirements have left big holes in the sport. Hingis was forced out of professional tennis due to a cocaine scandal. Baghdatis, Fish, Mauresmo, Safin, Blake, and V. Williams’ were all early round losers. Significant rain delays resulted in the poor already Super Signal coverage (see below) being even worse than usual.

On a happier note, it was a pleasure to see Hewitt go down to Ferrer and Serena Williams go down (once again with little grace or class) to Srebotnik. I was a Hewitt fan in his earlier years. But his success made him too cocky and arrogant for my tastes. Serena’s always been in my bad books with rarely a kind word for anyone.

Perhaps I was spoiled with the terrific first week of tennis at the 2008 Aussie Open. The early round Roddick-Kohlschreiber and Federer–Tipsarevic matches there were probably some of the best matches I have seen in years.

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May 14, 2008February 28, 2017

Justine Henin Retires!

Say it isn’t so. I was just starting to warm up to her.

Up to very recently, world number 1 Justine Henin had been one of my biggest tennis villianesses. Ironically, my multi-year distaste for Justine started with her refusal to replay a key point against Serena Williams at the 2003 French Open. The crowd turned against Williams as she rightly protested the point that the replay (unseen by the crowd) clearly showed went unfairly to Henin – and Henin knew it! I say this is ironic because Justine’s victim was Serena Williams, another woman’s tennis star I love to dislike.

Justine compounded my distaste for her when she bowed out, seemingly feigning illness, in the 2006 Australian final against Amelie Mauresmo. This was a key win for Mauresmo who had been ridiculed as the then ‘best woman’s tennis player never to have won a slam’. Justine’s early departure thus tainted Mauresmo’s claim to a true grand slam championship win. Happily Mauresmo won the following Wimbledon against Henin, sealing her reputation as a bona fide grand slam winner (and as we now know, preventing Henin from clinching all four slams).

As with politics and life in general, my respect for a person hinges to a large degree on their humility and sense of fair play – and Justine showed none of these qualities in those and other critical moments in her career – nor, until very recently, at almost any time thereafter.

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April 2, 2008February 28, 2017

Andy Roddick – Engaged!

andy roddick serving I was watching Andy Roddick play the unknown Ivo Minar (CZE) at the Sony Erricson/Key Biscayne Open tonight and I got this pleasant surprise! It appears Andy Roddick is newly engaged to a pretty model (of course) named Brooklyn Decker.

The cameramen were keen to pick her out of the crowd and focus in on the ring. I snapped these off the good-old TiVo.

Good-on-ya Roddick! Let’s hope this improves your game.

The engagement was officially announced on AndyRoddick.com on March 31. No date has been set.

March 24, 2008February 28, 2017

Mardy Fish – A Flash in the Pan or the Real Deal?

Prior to Easter dinner my brother-in-law casually mentioned how surprised he was that Mardy Fish beat Federer in the semi-finals at Indian Wells. My TiVo had been faithfully recording the matches and I was a couple days behind. I was so certain that this couldn’t have been accurate that I was willing to place a bet that it must have been someone else, perhaps Hass, that took out Federer.

After returning home and cranking up the TiVo, I was astonished to see that 98th ranked Mardy Fish had indeed beat Federer in straight sets at Indian Wells – with only a 37% first serve percentage match. Prior to Federer, he had beaten 4th ranked Davydenko (in the 3rd round), 24th ranked Hewitt (in the 4th) and 7th ranked Nalbandian (in the quarters).

Given Fish’s history, this run was arguably as remarkable as Djokovic’s successive Montreal 2007 victories over World Nos. 1, 2 and 3 (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick, respectively) on three consecutive days.

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