Faute! ~ Tennis in 2010 (Part 3)

The Men’s Quarters witnessed the defeat of a heat-drained 3^rd seed Novak Djokovic  against the austrian Jurgen Melzer. The biggest upset came in the form of the fall of Federer against Soderling taking him out in four. The semifinal match between Berdych & Soderling was a crackler each slugging it out till a 5^th set. Soderling got the better of the Czech & moved onto the finals once again. Nadal eventually won the crown  and did it flawlessly, without dropping a set throughout the tournament.

In the Women’s Quarters,4^th seed Serb & former world number one, Jelena Jankovic extracted her USO’09 revenge upon Kazakh Shvedova in straight sets. Injured Russians Dementieva & Petrova  duked it out to 3 sets despite the fact that each was badly injured & hurt with Dementieva beating her compatriot 6-0 in the 3^rd.The “shock upsets” were the defeat of World Number 1. Serena Williams & Dane Caroline Wozniacki. The dane seemed out of sorts in her match against Italian veteran, Francesca Schiavone, losing in straight sets, 6-2 6-3.The Williams-Stosur match was one of the most peculiar women’s match of the tournament. Stosur raced to a one set to love advantage with her kick-serve & crushing forehands against an error-prone Williams. Her serve was clearly not working for her & her movement was appalling. Just when Stosur was ready to wrap up the match in the second set, Williams came back saving match points & clinching the second set in a tiebreak, 7-2. With time running out for Stosur, she threw everything at Williams (except the kitchen sink!) but with her new-found confidence, Williams got back her rhythm & broke Stosur. The momentum of the match began to shift in favor of the world number one, but Stosur was not going to let her take it away so easily from her. After about 3 hours or so, Stosur defeated Williams 8-6 in the third.

In the semi’s, injured Dementieva retired from her match against Schiavone while Stosur dismissed Jankovic , 6-1 6-2. In the finals, Stosur was the clear favorite having beaten 3 former world number ones (including a current world number one) en route to her dream final. Though Stosur lost her first final, 6-4 7-6, to Schiavone she didn’t play badly. In fact, Schiavone played her best tennis displaying “Rafa” like techniques & moves.

Next up, Wimbledon. Can Federer win another title here? Can Nadal repeat his performance of Wimbledon 2008? Can Murray break English history? Watch this space for part 4…

Faute! ~ Tennis in 2010 (Part 2)

Vamos!  :

The Clay court season is dominated by one man, “Rafa”, winner of 4 French Open titles & 2010 was no different. However, the Defending champ was not going to give it to him easy. Roger Federer successfully attained the trophy in 2009 which had eluded him for so long, in fact the only Grand Slam which he hadn’t won. Robin Soderling , the ruthless Swede, was another contender having taken out Nadal in 2009 en route to the finals where he lost to a determined Federer.

On the Women’s side, Svetlana Kuznetsova was the defending champion & the competition was wild. With the return of Justine Henin & Kim Clijsters, French Open 2010 was sure to be a stellar show. Henin was the clear favorite having won it 4 times in the past but in Tennis anything can happen.

Up till the quarters there were no “shock exits” apart from Murray’s listless play against Tomas Berdych, 9^th seed Verdasco & 8^th seed Tsonga exits. The Women’s 4^th round had a few upsets such as the defeat of Venus Williams to Russian, Nadia Petrova & the biggest upset would have to be the fall of Justine Henin to Aussie, Sam Stosur. Having won the first set, everyone expected it to be a straight set affair with Henin breezing past her  opponent. However, the Australian took the next two sets  6-1 & 6-4 crushing Henin’s hope of winning a 5^th French Open title.

What happened to the top 8 Men’s & Women’s  in the French Open 2010 is to be continued…

Faute! ~ Tennis in 2010 (Part 1)

I’m going to split this recap of 2010 into several parts, I’ll try squeezing it into 5 parts(1 each for the Grand Slams & 1 part for the Masters). Enjoy!

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! :

The Hard court season is the first part of the ATP/WTA tour calendar & its one of the most exciting seasons as well. There aren’t any Masters 1000 prior to the first Grand Slam of the year, which I find peculiar considering Masters are held before the remaining Grand Slams.

Australian Open 2010 was strange in several ways: Rafael Nadal, the defending champ, lost (retired, to be precise)  to Britain’s Number .1, Andy Murray in the quarters. Murray went on to “choke” at the last leg of the tournament to an in-form Roger Federer, giving Federer his confidence & first Grand Slam since his French Open victory in 2009.

The women’s side was different in the sense that the finals had two Number.1 players & Grand Slam Champs. Serena Williams was the favorite despite her performance against feisty youngster, Victoria Azarenka & Chinese hard-hitter, Na Li (the first was a 3-setter & the second was a tight 2-setter ) .On the other hand, Justine Henin, who came out of retirement (following in the steps of mum Kim Clijsters) was a favorite too, having reached her first final since 2007. The first two sets went to both players while the third was a nail-biter with Williams clinching it, 6-2.

With these victories, Serena successfully defended her title & rank, while Federer’s win allowed him to sneak past Nadal, back to the Number.1 spot.

Coming up,  Clay Court season,watch this space..

This 'Prime' has nothing to brag about

Title : The Solitude Of Prime Numbers

Author : Paolo Giordano

U.N.Owen’s Rating : 3/5

This Book is my first tryst with “poignant” novels & sadly this could be my last as well. I’m not a person who can’t take a sad & touching tale, I really do “feel” them. However, when books like these come along I just can’t help but...snooze! “Solitude of prime numbers” is about two individuals: Alice & Mattia  who are so different yet they feel comfortable in each other’s presence. Mattia loses his twin sister while ignoring her at a party & grieves over his mistake for many years. This loss leads Mattia down the road of isolation & seclusion making him an odd ball in class. Alice on the other hand is lively & stubborn but struggles with her ski-accident injury much like Mattia suffers with his sister’s loss. When their two worlds collide, everything changes. I’m not going to give away too much for those who want to read this but all I can say is “stay away”! This isn’t a terrible book but it could have been so much better. After realising it was written by a mathematician, I wondered why he would create such a melancholy theme. I was expecting chapters on theories & principles in math which could be used in Life.In fact, there was a single instance in the book where the author makes a comparison between humans & prime numbers which was absolutely the best part of the book in a philosophical sense.Besides that single paragraph the rest of the book completely falls apart. Atleast the translation was good.


Verdict : Borrow this one from a friend (not worth getting it from a library).Hope the next book from this author is better.