Russell v Lawro - Week 2

Last week I challenged myself to see if I could compete with Mark Lawrenson in predicting the results of the weekend games of the Premiership.  After a poor performance in week one, with myself only getting 2 results right and no correct scores, getting nothing right on Saturday, compared to Lawro's 7 results right with two of them being correct scores,  I need do much better this week. Also here are the scores from last week.

The Ability Gulf

This morning, like many a tennis fan, I was sat in my office doing work but with half an eye on the live feed that the BBC provide for the Australian Open.  I watched and read Roger Federer ease into the third round with the anticipation of a good match between Laura Robson and Petra Kvitova, although I expected Robson to do well I thought she wouldn't have enough to beat the former Wimbledon champion.  Unexpectedly in the early hours of Friday morning the British number two beat the Czech eighth seed 2-6 6-3 11-9 in an error-strewn match with 92 errors and 30 double faults between them.  I have managed to see some highlights and to me Laura Robson should be very happy she met Kvitova when her serving was on holiday,

Kvitova served 18 aces which is impressive but not when you show that she also had 18 double faults.  Neither of those two stats are records for Grand Slams thou with Serena Williams hit 24 aces in one match at Wimbledon last year and pin up/tennis player, Anna Kournikova, hit 31 double faults in a match at Australian Open in 1999.  In searching for those statistics I came across two others which show the gulf in playing levels in the sport of Tennis.

1. In the last 9 years there have been only 7 different male winners of a grand slam, 4 of whom have only won one title.

2. In the first two rounds of the Australian Open Maria Sharapova hasn't lost a single game winning both matches 6-0, 6-0

And it made me wonder which gender has the biggest gap.The only fair comparison would be to look at those to stats but for the opposite gender and look at the differences and similarities

The Corner Conumdrum

First of apologies for no post since last Friday, a pub orientated weekend followed by a football orientated start to the the week meant I have hardly spent any time near my laptop in the last four days.  Last night I went to The Hawthorns for the chilling excitement of an FA Cup Third Round Replay match with high flying West Bromwich Albion playing host to bottom of the table Queens Park Rangers.  I was chilled to the bone but I wasn't excited at all and like most of the fans around me I was disappointed with both teams not wanting to be there, whose poor performances were only separated by a late headed goal from a corner.

This corner and others during the match made me quite angry for two reasons, firstly when the goal was scored there was not a man on one of the posts and the header went right where he would of stood and secondly nearly half of the corners taken where short, none of which came off. These are two of my greatest peeves.