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!

Arspective: Post Everton, IND-NZ 2nd test and Roddick's into the ATP finals

We, as Arsenal fans, have complained so many times that we deserved to win and yet lost the match. That was the case against Chelsea. Against New Castle we hit the woodwork three times and had about six or seven shots on target compared to NewCastle's one when they beat us at the Grove. But, against Wolves, for once, the story was the complete opposite. We won a game which, honestly I think, we were lucky to get three points.

Against Everton, we were much better defensively. Fabianski fails to convince me still. While he, admittedly, produced a match-winning performance against Wolves, in the Everton game he was very lucky when he flapped at a deep corner and the linesman adjudged that the ball had gone out when it had actually not. He flapped, missed and the ball bounced off him before he could do anything. Denilson and Djourou had particularly good games, while Nasri, Cesc, Song, Chamakh and Wilshere just continued from where they left and did what was expected of them. Arshavin continues to perform short of expectations. I do feel, however, that a 'magic' performance from him is not far away, when he will single-handedly win a game for us. come on Arsha!


Against Everton, we performed well over-all. Sagna rifled home at the 35 minute mark after Nasri had cut-in and unleashed a fierceful left-footed shot at Tim Howard. Arshavin reacted first to the lose ball and played it to Sagna. The Everton defence were either a little slow or did not expect Sagna to shoot. By the time Sagna let go, it was too let for Everton's defence and the American keeper had no chance. Fabregas doubled the lead about three minutes into the second half, when Denilson drove upfield, played to Cesc, who had a neat interchange (not exactly a one-two) with Chamakh before he let go into the bottom corner across Tim Howard. Then the Moroccan could have put the game to bed, but somehow pulled off an 'Adeb' and missed from inside the 6-yard box. Then Cahill pulled one back for Everton, but we hung on nervily for a well-deserved, HUGE, VITAL three points which sees us go past Man Utd and within two points of Chelsea, whose shock/meek surrender to Sunderland was music to our ears. It magnified their over-dependence on Essien, in whose absence they were, yet again, ordinary.

India, in the 2nd test, have seemingly taken control after a second consecutive century from Harbhajan. He seems to be following the Irfan Pathan pattern. Unfortunately, his bowling average is increasing along with his batting average. Nevertheless, his century was crucial, given the context of the game and helped India take control of the test. While draw seems to be a highly likely outcome, India do have a chance to force home the issue. Dhoni achieved the feat of taking the max. number of catches as keeper-captain in NZ's first innings. He went past Gerry Alexander of the West Indies. He once, famously stopped
Roy Gilchrist from bowling as the Jamaican was hurling beamers in Pakistan.
Three intersting facts about him from the wiki:
1) Gilchrist is considered to be one of only four bowlers ever, to have actually hit the sightscreen after first bounce on the pitch, on the full.
2)While playing in the Lancashire League (after being banned by the West Indies Cricket), he removed a stump from the playing arena and hit an opposition batsman in the head.
3) Gilchrist deliberately overstepped the bowling mark by six metres after being taunted by Kripal Singh of India and delivered a bouncer which hit the Sikh batsman in the head and dislodged his turban.



Anyway, so Mccullum's century sees NZ about 100 runs ahead with 6 wickets in hand. India may be without Zak again on the final day, who is nursing his groin injury.

Roddick, meanwhile has qualified into the top eight of the london ATP world tour finals to be held from Nov. 21 to 28. Wimbledon finalist, Thomas Berdych and the Spaniard Devid Ferrer also join Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, Soderling and Murray who had all already qualified. This was after No.9 Verdasco lost to Mofils in the third round of the Paris open (which Soderling went on to win, beating Monfils in two sets) and Roddick beat Ernest Gulbis of Lativa.

US Open -preview

US Open Men’s Preview

Andy Murray, Scotland

Strengths:
• Killer double-handed back-hand. Best in the game right now
• Beat Federer and Nadal en route to winning the recently concluded ATP tournament at Montreal.
• Youngest among the quartet (Rafa, Del Po, Djokovic and himself), so there is a sense of less pressure on him. He is just about at the right age to start winning slams, he is young but has enough experience.
• In the form of his life. The way he beat Federer (in straight sets) in the Montreal Masters was astounding.
• Playing on hard-courts, that’s his favorite surface. He likes hard-courts more than grass surprisingly.
• Does not need to rely on his serve. His all-round game is not based around his service. Even if he is serving bad, he can make for it

Weaknesses
• Never won a Grand Slam before. Came twice in the final against Federer in US Open 2008 and Aus Open 2010 and lost in straight sets
• British media, British History, expectations. The last decent British player, Tim Henman was so hyped by the media that he could not handle it. They named a ‘Henman Hill’, kept on reminding him when the last British player won a major and how he has a chance to make history. The stupid British media will not shut up and Murray will have to live with it.
• Bad first-serve percentage. Even in the win over Federer in the Montreal masters, he was serving something like 55% on his first serves.


Rafa Nadal, Spain

Strengths:
• Ability to grind down opponents,
• Tremendous mental strength,
• Chasing down every ball without giving up,
• Heavy top-spin from his specially designed Babalot racquet are some obvious strengths of Nadal.

Weaknesses
• Does not like hard-courts. His technique is not as smooth as Federer and thus he exerts lot of pressure on his knees and ankles. Hard-courts can be very unforgiving on those joints making him injury-prone on this surface. This very thought (of getting injured) would mean he may not come out with his A-game.
• Reducing “lefty factor”. When he burst onto the scene, immortals like Federer did not know how to handle the heavy top-spin from the left handed-forehand onto their back-hand, especially on clay courts.
• Never won the US Open before. Has won all the other slams, including the Aus Open.

Roger Federer, Switzerland
Strengths:
• Been there, done it before, five times at the US Open and sixteen times otherwise
• Huge hit. He is always the crowd favorite wherever he goes. Federer’s opponents will have to live with that
• Change of style. As evident from the Montreal Masters and the Cincinnati open, Federer has started using chip n charge more often than he used to. With awesome hands at the net, he could be a handful.

Weaknesses
• Weak back-hand. As awesome and elegant it looks, there is no doubt that his back-hand is his weakness.
• Weak back-hand means he also has a weak return of serve when compared to the other top players.
• At 29, you get a feeling that he has achieved so much that there might a sense of , dare I say, complacency and lack of hunger as compared to say a Murray or a Nadal.

Roddick, USA
Strengths:
• Awesome serve. Best serve in the Men’s circuit. A-Rod needs to forget about first serve percentages and go flat-out. If he goes flat-out and gets 60% first serves in, that is better than him going conservatively and getting 70 -75 % first serves.
• Home ground, home support.
• Been there done it before. Not often can you say that about A-Rod, but the US Open 2003 is the only slam he has won in his career so far.
• Reducing expectations. There were such high expectations immediately after he won the US Open 2003, that one gets the feeling it got to him. Now, no one expects him to win the US. Can he do a Goran’01?
Weaknesses
• Over-reliance on serve. If he does not serve well, he is in hot-water.
• Conservative shot-making. Built like and ox, some of his shots are put-it-back-into-play shots. Needs to go for broke more often.
• Inexplicable losses of concentration, leading to loss of confidence. His loss to Mardy Fish at Cincinnati was unbelievable. He was up 5-2 in the second set and all-over Fish. Lost concentration and the set. Lost confidence and the match. (losing the final set 6-1)

Who will be the challenger??

So Henry out of England, lets now discuss something about “definitely the oldest championship” The Wimbledon. Since we are now playing with tradition, I remember one very absurd rule which was once associated with Davis Cup, probably the second oldest championship. There was this challenger concept in which all the other participant will fight among each other to challenge the defending champion. So in effect defending champion was required to play only 1 match.
Now just for a moment we assume that this year’s championship is played with the same challenger rule with a certain Mr Federer as a defending champion. Now just like any aajtak correspondent, I will give myself a certain amount of liberties to analyze the few players who I feel can challenge the King::
1. Rafael Nadal :: Well this guys biggest advantage is the timing of the championship. Winning a grand slam is a huge confidence booster, and last time that confidence carried him to the final, where he even managed to take a set from Federer. That in itself is a big achievement for a Spaniard who publicly says that grass is never his favorite surface.
2. Andy Roddick:: He is the perennial underachiever of the men’s tennis , who for his whole life has been trying to come out of the Fed’s shadow. Lets do something which the great jimmy Connors is trying to do, analyze his game. He has a great booming serve, a good forehand and a decent enough slice backhand. Still he never ever manage to show us that ”yes , this guy is going to defeat Federer ”. Why?? This is what Mr Connors has to find out…still if we continue to serve well probably he might be the challenger.
3. all journey men::: this special category is dedicated to all those players who are all good players but I don’t why , but we know that they cant win Grand Slam. These players include davydenkos , djokovic, Blake etc etc.
4. Last one can be some mysterious guy :: someone who is made for Wimbledon?? What a crappy definition of mysterious guy?? But really I mean it…someone who is born for a grass. Attributes required are quite simple, good old serve and volley game.

So analysis done. The really firework will start from today, I would like the challenger , whoever he may be, to win , but whenever the Roger comes to play , my loyalties switch sides. He is someone like Sampras, whom you will never ever want him to lose.