Are We Near the End for Roger?

Late into the Australian night Andy Murray battled past Roger Federer in five sets to reach his third Australian Open and sixth Grand Slam final. In doing so he beat Federer for the 11th time out of 20 encounters but crucially the first time in a Grand Slam Match.  It means that Murray has won the right to face Novak Djokovic in the Final and will want to have some revenge for the 2011 Australian Open Final where Murray was beaten in straight sets by Djokovic.  But for the me the question is how much longer will Roger be able to compete at the top level of tennis?

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

Do you care where they come from?

Today we learnt that British women to be ranked in the top 50 in the world at the same time for more than 25 years. World Number 47 Heather Watson born in Guernsey to a Papua New Guinean mother and has trained at a Tennis Academy in Florida, USA since she was 12. World Number 50 Laura Robson born in Melbourne, Australia then moved to Singapore when she was 18 months old and then to the United Kingdom when she was six but after that she was trained by the Lawn Tennis Association at the National Tennis Centre.

What I am getting at here is that although we should be proud of the performances so far as they are both possible future stars of the sport of tennis, there are both different examples of the most common thing is modern sport.  One is British who went abroad to learn her sport then other is a foreign nation who came to to this country to learn this sport and adopted the nationality, "Multi-National Sport Stars"

Before the Olympics a few newspapers where going on about "Plastic Brits", foreign nationals representing the UK, but after the glorious two week love affair this country had with the Olympic and they have forgotten all about that and is still living off the euphoric high.  But since Immigration had a part to play in at least 24 of the 65 medals claimed by Team GB, should you care?

Week Two US Open

       In the earlier hours of Tuesday morning Rafael Nadal joined the ranks of the all-time greats of tennis as he beat Novak Djokovic to win the US Open and complete his set of Grand Slam titles.  Rafael Nadal became the seventh man to complete the Grand Slam, 4th in the open era.  Late on Saturday Kim Clijsters beat Vera Zvonareva to defend the title she also won at Flushing Meadows in 2005 and 2009.

Technology in Sport

       I was already to finish up my review of the US Open when the rain came down and force Nadal versus Djokovic till this Monday evening at 2100 BST.  So I have a gap in my schedule to write about something else, something I was waiting for the next major controversy so I could share my opinion with you.  Of course by the title of this post you know I am talking about technology in sport.  I am going to talk about technology in sport history, this current use of instant replays in sports and finally, in my opinion, what the future holds in some sports.

The Sunday Sport Round-up

       Wow!  Where do I start?  This weekend was jam packed full of sporting events full of potential excitement and boy did they deliver, the Ferguson's had a weekend they would like to forget, Monza had a fascinating qualifying and race, the Pakistan team have shown some genuine performances, the US Open has blown me and some of the players away, Sky showed the way in Stoke, the second week of Aviva Premiership was close everywhere, another English side lost on penalties and the always confusing Super League Play-offs began.  If you have no idea about what just said then

Week One US Open

       Well it firstly this is a couple of days late but i didn't get round to watching the highlights of most a week one till yesterday. It has been an interest week of tennis starting with Novak Djokovic nearly losing to a fellow Serb who is over a 100 places worse in the world rankings and ending with the utter capitulation of Andy Murray's form. And that was just the men's draw there was lots of going on in the women's side as well.