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WILL ROGER FEDERER OVERCOME THE BRITISH CROWD TO BEAT ANDY MURRAY?

July 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Home hope Andy Murray will play six-time champion Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final as both made tennis history Friday.

Murray became the first British man to reach the final in 74 years after seeing off Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 in the second semifinal.

Bunny Austin was the last home player to achieve the feat in 1938.

Earlier Friday, Federer beat top seed and defending champion Novak Djokovic in four sets to reach a record eighth final.

If Federer claims the title Sunday he will equal the record of seven for the Open Era, held by American great Pete Sampras and extend his grand slam tally to 17.

Victory for fourth seed Murray would give Britain its first male grand slam winner since the legendary Fred Perry in 1936.

He had to battle for nearly three hours on Centre Court before ending the brave challenge of fifth seed Tsonga, who mounted a sterling recovery after trailing by two sets.

But the 25-year-old Murray finally worked two match points as he led 6-5 in the fourth set and dramatically took his chance.

A forehand winner was initially called out, but Murray challenged the decision and was proved to be right, sealing his victory.

There’s a bit of relief, excitement. It’s tough to explain, it was such a close match Andy Murray

An emotional Murray hugged Tsonga before moving into the middle of the court to give his trademark “fingers-in-the-air” gesture, the tearful Scot looking to the sky.

“There’s a bit of relief, excitement. It’s tough to explain, it was such a close match,” Murray told BBC Sport.

“Both of us had chances, I was up a break, he came back, then he had break points at 4-4 in the fourth and I managed to hang tough enough,” he added.

Federer had rolled back the years to dispatch world number one Djokovic 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in just two hours 19 minutes.

“Obviously I’m ecstatic, it was a great match and I was able to play some fantastic tennis,” Federer told BBC Sport after his victory.

The 30-year-old Federer had never lost a semifinal at Wimbledon and maintained that streak with a peerless performance against the Serbian, who has dominated the men’s game since the start of last year.

Obviously I’m ecstatic, it was a great match and I was able to play some fantastic tennis Roger Federer

After the opening two sets were shared, the third set proved pivotal with both men having chances to break their opponent’s service.

At 4-5 down, Djokovic allowed Federer a set point which he took after a thrilling exchange to take a two sets to one lead.

“The first two sets went really quickly and the third was key to the match.

“I was able to step it up and get a bit lucky maybe,” Federer added.

A single break in the fourth set was enough to leave the third seed to serve for his place in the final and he completed victory on his first match point.

Federer has not won a grand slam title for two and a half years since his 2010 Australian Open success where he beat Murray in the final.

If he beats the Scot again Sunday he will also return to the top spot in the world rankings.

From CNN.com

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ROGER FEDERER ESCAPES DISASTER IN WIMBLEDON 2nd ROUND WIN

June 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

WIMBLEDON, England — The aftershocks of Rafael Nadal’s upset loss were still being felt around Wimbledon on Friday afternoon, when Roger Federer opened his third-round match with a heavenly one-handed backhand winner that skidded past the French veteran Julien Benneteau.

Nadal’s defeat to someone named Lukas Rosol under the same Centre Court roof almost precisely 19 hours earlier had assured Federer the No. 2 ranking he had ceded last month, and provided an unmistakable boost for a deposed champion who had entered Wimbledon as an afterthought — at least as much an afterthought as someone who’s won the tournament a half-dozen times can possibly be.

No one then could have expected the 30-year-old Swiss would find himself two points from elimination after dropping the first two sets, not after Federer had lost just nine games total in his first two matches to equal his best-ever start at the All England Club. Yet there he was, the 16-time Grand Slam champion, precipitously close to his first exit from a major tournament before the quarterfinal stage in more than eight years.

By the end Federer had showed a fighter’s grit in rallying for a 4-6, 6-7(3), 6-2, 7-6(6), 6-1 triumph over a game Julien Benneteau, whose concentration and fitness conspired against him down the stretch. It marked the eighth time Federer won from two sets down in his career, a comeback he attributed to his deep well of experience. “Probably having been there so often, down two sets to love, knowing how to handle the situation, not to panic,” he explained, “knowing that once I broke the beginning of the third set that this match is completely open, and I’m only going to get stronger for here.”

A cathartic and deserved victory, to be sure, though it’s clear Federer will need to raise his level if he expects to capture a seventh Wimbledon title to match the tournament record held jointly by Pete Sampras and William Renshaw.

Benneteau had defeated Federer the last time they’d met, rallying from a set down in the second round of the 2009 Paris Masters. It was easily the biggest victory of his career and he wept openly afterward, but that match had taken place before a partisan crowd on Benneteau’s native soil. Federer may be Swiss, but Centre Court is his spiritual home, and most in attendance Friday regarded the Frenchman as a mere speed bump on the former champion’s route to a fourth-round date with unseeded Xavier Malisse — whose earlier victory over Fernando Verdasco cleared yet another seed from a quarter that’s looking more and more favorable for Federer by the day.

Yet Benneteau controlled the rallies early on, while Federer was uncharacteristically sloppy, connecting on just 44 percent of his first serves in the opening set. After closing out a second-set tiebreak to stake an improbable two-sets-to-none lead, the 30-year-old Frenchman had struck 37 winners against 17 unforced errors, compared to 16 winners and 18 misfires for Federer.

“I tried to stay calm,” Federer recalled. “And I was.”

A turning point came in the first game of the third, when a wrong-footed Benneteau fell on his surgically repaired wrist. Clearly shaken, he quickly went down two breaks as Federer capitalized on a series of momentary lapses. “If your level is a bit lower, right here, right now he takes the opportunity,” Benneteau lamented. “At the beginning of the third set I was a little bit not as good as I was during the first two sets, and in five minutes it’s 4-0.”

By the time Federer closed out the fourth-set breaker to push the match to a fifth and deciding set, Henman Hill was packed as spectators bunkered in for a thrilling finish. It never came, however, due to the severe cramping that compromised Benneteau’s serve and gave Federer all the opportunity he needed to ruthlessly close the show in 26 minutes.

“Mentally he’s a rock, you know. He’s two sets down and he doesn’t show anything,” Benneteau said. “He has a capacity to improve his game during the match. He was more aggressive right after I serve the first shot of the rally, he tried to hit the all stronger and to be more aggressive, and you feel it when you are on the other side.”

No one doubts Federer is capable of summoning the sublime tennis that made him the sport’s consummate stylist in addition to its all-time Grand Slam champion — no sane observer can — but whether he can do it on the pressure points in the biggest matches is the singular doubt hanging over his quest to become the first men’s player to win a major past his 30th birthday since Andre Agassi at the 2003 Australian Open.

He passed the test Friday as day turned to night at the All England Club, the hallowed venue where his legend was forged and later immortalized, yet whether Federer can sharpen his consistency and elevate his game for the sterner challenges at the business end of this year’s tournament remains to be seen.

From Sports Illustrated

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RAFAEL NADAL GOES DOWN IN SECOND ROUND OF WIMBLEDON 2012

June 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

WIMBLEDON, England — Rafael Nadal suffered his worst defeat at a Grand Slam in seven years on Thursday, losing to Lukas Rosol, 6-7 (9), 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 in the second round of Wimbledon. And yes, everyone in Southwest London (and all around the world) is still trying to understand what just happened.

If men’s tennis over the last five years has taught us anything, it’s that players ranked No. 100 in the world aren’t supposed to do this. For so long we have grown accustomed to seeing the Big Three of Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer make it not only to the second week of majors but also into the final weekend. If they’re going to lose, it’s to each other or a very small handful of players who have already proved they have the talent to pull it together for five sets on a big stage.

But they don’t lose to players ranked No. 100 in the world. Not until now.

Nadal took to Centre Court one minute after 6 p.m. local time for a seemingly routine match against Rosol, a guy who even the most dedicated of tennis cognoscenti would have to confess to not knowing much about (and Nadal actually had to ask reporters how old he was after the match). The 26-year-old Czech made his Wimbledon main draw debut this year after losing in the first round of qualifying the last five years. At 6-foot-5, Rosol has a stereotypically big game for a man his size: a booming cannon of a serve and a big forehand that he likes to hit with reckless abandon. I’ve seen Rosol play before, and though the power does wow you, his consistency leaves you shaking your head. After all, there’s a reason he’s ranked No. 100. He grips, he rips and, generally speaking, he misses more than he makes.

But on Thursday, he gripped, he ripped and he hit winners. He hit a lot of them — 65, to be exact. And there wasn’t a darn thing the 11-time Grand Slam champion could do about it.

 

“I didn’t feel pain. I didn’t feel anything,” Rosol told reporters after undoubtedly the best match of his career. “I was in a trance a little bit. That’s [the] best. I had my adrenaline so high, so I was playing good.”

There were signs of Rosol’s fearlessness early in the first set, as he broke Nadal in the fifth game, only to see that advantage disappear immediately when the Spaniard broke back. Rosol continued to hold his nerve  – and his serve — en route to a first-set tiebreaker. They traded set points in the tiebreaker, but on Nadal’s fourth set point, Rosol fired a big serve that Nadal sliced back short in the middle of the court. Rosol, being the fearless hitter that he is, went for a huge forehand put-away winner that he smacked into the middle of the net. Nadal, just as he did in his first-round match against Thomaz Bellucci, had escaped to take the first set.

Those are the kinds of missed opportunities that can haunt these lower-ranked players when everything seems to be coming together for them to pull off a monumental upset. But Rosol was, surprisingly, unfazed. He came out and broke Nadal in the first game of the second set, the only break he needed. Behind his powerful serve (he won 83 percent of his first-serve points), he went on to take the second set and kept the momentum going to take the third. Surely this guy was going to realize he had no business playing at this level for a sustained amount of time, right?

Yes, Rosol blinked. He played sloppily in the sixth game of the fourth set and Nadal broke for a 4-2 lead, letting out one of his patented double-lawnmower fist pumps. Nadal broke again to win the set 6-2 and pull even in the match.

But any momentum Nadal had wrenched back with that brutal display of defense was wiped out by one thing he couldn’t control: light. It was 8:45 p.m. when the fifth set was ready to begin and the referee’s office had already announced that they intended to play the match to its conclusion. That meant closing the roof in order to provide adequate lighting to the court. Because of the state-of-the art cooling system that needs to kick into place when the roof is closed, the players left the court and resumed play 30 minutes later.

“I think I played a great fourth set,” Nadal said. “Sure, the stop this time didn’t help me. That’s the sport. That’s it.”

Back on the court for the fifth set, Rosol broke Nadal immediately for a 1-0 lead. The upset watch was on. With the way Rosol was serving and striking the ball, the issue was whether he could hold his nerve. But the guy just got better as the set wore on, hitting shots that had no reply and effectively taking the racket out of Nadal’s hands.

“That’s what happens when you play against a player who is able to hit the ball very hard, hit the ball without thinking and feeling the pressure,” Nadal said. “At the end, when the opponent wants to play like he wanted to play in the fifth, you are in his hands, no?”

Winner after winner, ace after ace (he bombed down 22), Rosol kept his foot on the gas pedal and never let up. Ace. Forehand winner. Ace. Forehand winner. Game. That was the pattern of Rosol’s service games as he tried to protect his lead. The tension seemed to make him hit the ball even harder with every swing until finally he had a chance to serve out the match. Ace. Forehand winner. Ace. Ace. The upset was complete.

Players ranked No. 100 in the world aren’t supposed to do this. But Lukas Rosol did. And we’re all left trying to pick our jaws up off the floor.

From SI.com

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WIMBLEDON 2012: ROGER FEDERER GOES FOR 7th TITLE AND FANS CAMP OUT TO WATCH

June 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

As Wimbledon 2012 sets to tip off at 6:30 am on June 25, Roger Federer has got his eyes on the prize. Roger Federer’s latest is a record equaling seventh Wimbledon title. His love affair with Wimbledon has lasted nearly a decade and it has got to the stage that one of the things he looks forward to most about the event is the chance to have a cup of tea with the chairman before the action begins.

“I cherish those moments,” Federer said. “When I can see the trophy, see the Centre Court with no people inside.

“Go see the chairman and have a relaxed chat, maybe some tea on the balcony, that for me is the favourite part of Wimbledon, next to obviously playing the big matches.”

On this sort of foundation, the romance is built to last but it has not always been this way for one of the game’s greatest ever players.

In fact, only after Federer had his name engraved on the honours board in 2003, did he really appreciate the tournament and its history. “I definitely felt different,” he said of the impact of his straight sets victory against Mark Philippoussis.

Thousands of tennis fans queued up this morning to watch the first day of play at Wimbledon.

Some camped out while others headed to SW19 at the crack of dawn to get tickets for the opening day of the 126th grand slam championships.

Britons will be hoping for a homegrown champion, especially after last night’s disappointment in Euro 2012.

The tournament is also a precursor to SW19′s Olympics appearance – the games’ tennis tournament will be held at the club just three weeks after Wimbledon finishes.

Thousands of people queued today, travelling from across the UK and as far afield as New Zealand and the United States.

Some camped out – Sue Callaghan arrived yesterday morning with a group of friends who come every year to watch the tennis.

The 59-year-old, from Bourton-on-the-Hill in Surrey, said: “We got here at about 10.30am yesterday morning, we managed to get our tents up before the rain.

“I’ve been coming for 39 years, I come every year. We all met here and now we come each year.

“We keep in touch, send Christmas cards, then all arrange to meet up here.”

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FLOYD “MONEY” MAYWEATHER: HIGHEST PAID ATHLETE ON EARTH BY FORBES LIST

June 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Floyd Mayweather has overtaken Tiger Woods at the top of Forbes magazine’s list of the 100 highest-paid sports personalities over the past year.

Boxer Mayweather, currently serving a three-month jail sentence for domestic assault, made $85m (£54.25m) – a figure bolstered by promoting his own fights.

Golfing legend Woods dropped to third having received $59.4m (£37.92m) with boxer Manny Pacquiao rising to second on earnings of $62m (£39.57m).

David Beckham is eighth on the list.

He is the highest paid footballer with earnings of $46m (£29.36m).

Forbes list of highest paid sports stars

1 Floyd Mayweather $85m (£54.25m)

2 Manny Pacquiao $62m (£39.57m)

3 Tiger Woods $59.4m (£37.92m)

4 LeBron James $53m (£33.84m)

5 Roger Federer $52.7m (£33.64)

6 Kobe Bryant $52.3m (£33.38m)

7 Phil Mickelson $47.8m (£30.51m)

8 David Beckham $46m (£29.36m)

9 Cristiano Ronaldo $42.5m (£27.10m)

10 Peyton Manning $42.4m (£27.06m)

 

Surprisingly, Olympic champion and world record-holding sprinter Usain Bolt, who is the most high-profile star of London 2012, was only 63rd with $20.3m (£12.96m) – just a quarter of Mayweather’s earnings.

He also brought in less than half of golfer Phil Mickelson’s $47.8m (£30.51m).

Woods had topped the Forbes list since 2001 but saw a drop in his earnings of $16m (£10.21m) from the previous year and was down by half from his peak in 2009.

He has suffered a tail off in endorsements since then as a result of being embroiled in a sex scandal.

Miami Heat star LeBron James ranks fourth at $53m (£33.84m), the highest of 13 basketball players and on the list. Swiss tennis star Roger Federer was fifth at $52.7m (£33.64m).

Real Madrid and Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo earned $42.5m (£27.10m) and can lay claim to the top annual salary of any athlete in any league at $20m (£12.75m).

Fernando Alonso comes in as Formula 1′s top earner at 19th with overall earnings of $29.4m (£18.7m).

MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi is 20th, seven-times F1 champion Michael Schumacher is 21st, while Lewis Hamilton is 24th after earning $17.8m (£11.3m), with $15.9m (£10.1m) of that in salary from McLaren.

Manchester United and England striker Wayne Rooney is at 37th with $15.5m (£9.8m), while Luke Donald, golf’s current world number one, is at 48th, earning $14.17m (£9m).

Only two women made it on to the list. Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova is 26th at $27.9m (£17.79m), while Li Na, China’s 2011 French Open champion Li Na, is 81st at $18.4m (£11.72m) after becoming the first Asian-born player to win a Grand Slam singles crown.

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