Arspective : Preview to Arsenal Vs Tottenham, Ind-NZ 3rd test and the ATP world tour in London

So, India take on NZ starting tonight (for us or the US!) in Nagpur. Yes, a draw would be a "defeat" for India. The bowlers, and more importantly the curator, needs to get their act together.


Ryding High!


I think, drawn tests, like the one in Hyderabad and the recently concluded test in SL (where Gayle hit the triple) need to be looked at very seriously by the boards and the ICC. There are far too many drawn tests. Ok, those like the one in Ahmedabad are "acceptable", with some bad NZ catching costing them. Maybe the one in SL could have had a result had the weather not intervened. But, with dwindling crowds in tests, I would go as far as saying that even weather should be taken into account before scheduling a test. At the very minimum, the pitches must produce a result. In fact, I would rather see a mine-field, with the test match ending in 3 or 4 days, than a dull draw. The Nagpur pitch seems to be ok from the result point of view. Only two tests have been played here, and both have had results. Having said that, the Indian bowling is a major worry. With the ageing batting line-up, our bowlers need to start delivering now. Harbhajan's bowling is becoming as predictable as the improvement in his batting. His ability to pick wickets in test relies heavily on the pitch. Zaheer's injury means our bowling is further weakened. Considering Harbhajan's form with the bat, I would be tempted to drop Raina and play Amit Mishra instead. From NZ point of view, they dont need to do anything different. They came in here with zero expectations and thats how they need to continue. I would expect India to nick this one and take the series 1-0 (Sachin gets hits 50th century?!!??!!). Stranger things have happenned though!

The much criticized international break has finished and players are back with their respective clubs. For Arsenal, RVP is not injured, is the big news (fingers crossed!)Arshavin, Rosicky, Nasri, Sagna, Gibbs, Chamakh, Cesc were all involved and have come out unscathed. For tomorrow's game, I wont be surprised if Arshavin is given a rest. Wilshere has a late
fitness test and he will be replaced by the "impressive-against-Everton" Denilson. Vermaelen, worryingly, is still injured and there is apparently no
logical explanation behind his injuries. Reminds me of the Rosicky injury :(. We desperately need his leadership at the back.



Expected line up

F(lap)abianski??
Sagna, Squilacci, Djourou and Clichy
Denilson/Wilshere Song
Walcott Cesc Nasri
Chamakh

subs: Arshavin, RVP, Bendtner, Wilshere/Denilson, Eboue, Gibbs

Bale, obviously, will the player to watch out for and it is just as good that Sagna is up against him. The French full-back has been in really good form and says he is ready for the challenge against the Welshman. Needless to say, this is A HUGE game for us and a win would let us take a peak at the top spot, albeit for a few hrs and put the pressure on Chelsea.


The groups for the ATP world tour tournament in London are as follows:
Group A
Nadal
Djokovic
Roddick
Berdych




Group B
Federer
Murray
Soderling
Ferrer

We also have Bhupati/ Mirnyi and the Paes/Dloughy combinations in the doubles.

Here is the order of play for the first 2 days:
SUNDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2010



CENTRE COURT Start At 12:15 PM
[1] B Bryan (USA) / M Bryan (USA) vs [8] J Melzer (AUT) / P Petzschner (GER)
Not Before 2:00 PM
[4] R Soderling (SWE) vs [5] A Murray (GBR)
Start At 6:15 PM
[4] L DLouhy (CZE) / L Paes (IND) vs [6] M Fyrstenberg (POL) / M Matkowski (POL)
Not Before 8:00 PM
[2] R Federer (SUI) vs [7] D Ferrer (ESP)


MONDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2010

CENTRE COURT Start At 12:15 PM
[3] M Bhupathi (IND) / M Mirnyi (BLR) vs [5] L Kubot (POL) / O Marach (AUT)
Not Before 2:00 PM
[3] N Djokovic (SRB) vs [6] T Berdych (CZE)
Start At 6:15 PM
[2] D Nestor (CAN) / N Zimonjic (SRB) vs [7] W Moodie (RSA) / D Norman (BEL)
Not Before 8:00 PM
[1] R Nadal (ESP) vs [8] A Roddick (USA)


Happy weekend!

Damm & Paes aiming for No.1

Damm and Paes will become the new Stanford ATP Doubles Race leaders if they defeat current leaders Bob and Mike Bryan in Saturday's Sony Ericsson Open doubles final.

Paes and Damm are 17 points behind Bryan bothers who have 247 points compared to their's 230. Damm and Paes, the reigning US Open champions, are chasing their second consecutive ATP Masters Series title (Indian Wells) and their third title from their past four tournaments.

The Bryans have won the Stanford ATP Doubles Race three of the past four years and have led this year's Race since late January when they won the Australian Open. The Californian twins, who have won all four Grand Slam titles, have never won a US spring Masters Series title and recently lost in the first round of the Pacific Life Open.

Something to Cheer for Indian sports , Paes is always there for us....

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• ATP
  

Salute the Legend : Roger Federer

Today marks the 161st week of Federer's reign as no 1 player in the tennis world. Today he has broken the record of Jimmy Connors who was no.1 for 160 consecutive weeks.



Federer Says

It was never really one of my goals to achieve this specific record. I had reached my goal in 2004, when I took over the lead in the world ranking. I remember the moment as though being set free somehow; I then suddenly started playing a lot better and gaining more confidence. All these changes have allowed me to stay at the top for this long. So it is rather surprising to me to beat Jimmy Connors’ 30-year-old record today.

Cutting the cake when Federer became No.1 for the 1st time
img src http://www.atptennis.com/en/players/gallery/?Event=federer161

This record is really commendable as no other player in the past 3 years has ever come near to challenge Federer for the no.1 post, though there were some battles with Nadal but Federer is far ahead of Nadal in ATP points. Federer has 8120 Atp points to Nadal's 4705. One more year of reign is on cards :)

Stats from Federer's Site

The stats

Consecutive weeks at number one
1. Roger Federer (SUI): 161 (between February 2004 and February 2007)
2. Jimmy Connors (USA): 160 (between July 1974 and August 1977)
3. Ivan Lendl (TCH/USA): 157 (between September 1985 and September 1988)
4. Pete Sampras (USA): 102 (between April 1996 and March 1998)
5. Lleyton Hewitt (AUS): 75 (between November 2001 and April 2003)

Total weeks at number one
1. Pete Sampras (USA): 286
2. Ivan Lendl (TCH/USA): 270
3. Jimmy Connors (USA): 268
4. John McEnroe (USA): 170
5. Roger Federer (SUI): 161
6. Björn Borg (SUE): 109
7. Andre Agassi (USA): 101
8. Lleyton Hewitt (AUS): 80
9. Stefan Edberg (SUE): 72
10. Jim Courier (USA): 58

Years ended at number one
1. Pete Sampras (USA): 6 years in series (1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998)
2. Jimmy Connors (USA): 5 years in series (1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978)
3. John McEnroe (USA): 4 years in series (1981, 1982, 1983, 1984)
3. Ivan Lendl (TCH/USA): 4 years (1983, 1985, 1987, 1989)
5. Roger Federer (SUI): 3 years in series (2004, 2005, 2006)


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• ATP Tennis

Technorati Tags:roger federer, 161weeks, atp, tennis, jimmyconnors

Records Galore : Federer

Roger Federer easily tamed James Blake 60 63 63 to win his third masters title in four years. This was Federer's fifth consecutive Tennis masters cup appearance. He lost in the semifinals at shanghai in 2002 and won consecutive title in Housten in 2003-04 and was defeated last year by David Nalbandian.Federer now holds a 22-2 overall record at the circuit-ending finale.

Federer piled up records this year:

1. First ever player to win $8 million in prize money in single season. He has won $8,343,885 in 2006 and has amassed $29,576,458 in career prize money during a nine-season professional career.

2. Federer is the only player to have won more then 10 tournaments in three consecutive years. 2004-05 (11) 2005-06 (11) 2006-07(12).

3. Federer became the sixt player in open era to win three or more year end championships after John McEnroe (1978, 1983-84), Boris Becker (1988, 1992, 1995), Ilie Nastase (1971-73, 1975), Ivan Lendl (1981-81, 1985-87) and Sampras (1991, 1994, 1996-97, 1999).

4. Federer amassed a 92-5 win loss record the year 2006

5. Roger has till now won 45 career titles and is not ranked 11 in the open era. Records of Rod Laver ,Pete Sampras , Bjorn Borg and many others are in danger.

6. Federer is the only player in the open era to win both the US open and Wimbledon for three consecutive years.

7. Holds the record for longest winning streak both the grass and hard courts.

8. Federer ended the year with 1674 points 780 more then the nearest rival Nadal.

9. He is the third in the open era list on consecutive rein at the top position 147 weeks (Starting from 2nd Feb 2004.) behing Jimmy Connors (160) and Lendl (157). He is fifth in total weeks behind sampras(286), Lendl (270) ), Connors (268), McEnroe (170), and Federer (147).

10. First man in open era to reach 6 consecutive grand slam finals


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• Atp Maters

It's Federer vs Nadal Again

We will witness another clash of the titans match between Nadal and Federer in the ATP masters semifinals. Nadal defeated Davydenko 57 64 64 in just concluded thriller match for the semifinal birth in Shanghai. They will facing each other for the 6th time in this year with the last match between them was the wimbledon final 2006. Nadal leads 6-2 in head to head with four victories on clay court and one on hardcourt. Federer has one only two matches against the second seed Nadal. Federer will have advantage in this match because it is not being played on clay court and also some psychological edge having won the last clash between the two players.



Head to Head Record.




In another match James blake is now playing Tommy Robredo to make a 3-0 win loss record and in doubles Bjorkman-Mirnyi, Knowles-Nestor have qualified for the SFs with 3-0 and 2-1 win loss record respectively.

Nalbandian bounces back with semis birth, Paes& Damm also in

Roger Federer and David Nalbandian helped each other to secure a place in the semi finals from the Red Group. Nalbandian first defeated Roddick 62 76 and Federer later on defeated Ljubicic 76 64 to make a 3-0 win loss record in the tournament. With these results red group standing were 3-0 for Federer and 1-2 for Roddick, Nalbandian and Ljubicic but Nalbandian advanced because of better set won percentage (4-4 versus 3-5 for the other two players).

In a similar fashion Damm-Paes also qualified for the semis. World No-1 team of bryan brothers were shocked by the 4th seeded Paul Hanley and Kevin Ullyett 36 76 64 thus kicking them out of the tournament with 3-0 win loss record.

With this loss the win loss standing in the Red Group were 1-2 for the other three teams of Damm-Paes , Erlich-Ram and Bryan Brothers. Damm-Paes qualified because of better percentage of sets won record.


Today the other semifinalist from the Gold Group will be decided. Nadal will take on Davydenko and Robredo will face in form Blake.

James Blake First into Semis

The last man to qualify for the ATP tennis masters is now the first one into semis. Blake stormed into the semis after defeating Russian Davydenko(3) 26 64 75 to lead the Gold Group 2-0. Rafael Nadal kept hopes of reaching semis alive after defeating Spaniard Tommu Robredo 76 62.

Blake will face Robredo in the last match, even if he loses he will have a 2-1 record and the second semifinalist will be decided in a do or die battle between Nadal(2) and Davydenko. Since blake has scored victory over both the players he will top the Gold group.




Federer will face Ljubicic and Roddick will face Nalbandian today. If Ljubicic and Roddick wins then there will be a three way battle for the semis place as all the three players will have 2-1 record.