proposed changes on ATP schedule

what do you think of this:-

THE MASTERPLAN
1. The four grand-slam tournaments and four or five “Super” combined events would be mandatory.

2. Round-robins introduced at events below grand-slams and “Super” combined.

3. Masters Series on ATP Tour would disappear.

4. Davis Cup final played in second week of November.

read more on the propose changes to the atp tour schedule here

diminishing... no, vanishing the masters series? the "Super" combined events means the ATP-WTA combined tournament.

if i understand clearly, they wanted to change the schedule to more like the US Open series. i am alright with us open series coz they did a hell of a good job there. but i also hope they are not squeezing too many tournaments in leading to a grand slam.

In the view of De Villiers, the two areas in the calendar that need the most attention are the clay-court season before the French Open and the autumn season leading up to the Tennis Masters Cup circuit finale.

i hope de villiers didn't forget that wimbledon needs attention too. there are just a handful of tournaments leading to wimbledon. and the gap between switching from a dirty tennis shoe to all-white is too short - sometime i believe given the chance, coria or even ferrero would be excel in grass too.

i wonder how is this round-robin format will turn out? will that mean a low-ranking, like world 200, will have the chance to play against 3 players before they bid farewell? sometime, even before the round-robin matches finish, we already know the result. don't you think it will produce a lot of white-elephant matches?

if this propose new schedule take place, i believe thailand open will no longer exist. it's out of the continent for most players and in odd period too. unless they wanna make history like "winners for most tournaments" or a particular player wanna create a "name brand" globally, don't think they even bother to come to this continent.

the sentimental story

i was reading SI's Jon Wertheim weekly mailbag and lead me to another story of james blake.

it was written by the dilbert's scott adams praising james blake on his comeback after his 2004 much talk about story... well, if you don't know what happened to james blake, read the link above! it was such a sentimental story that i cried! yes, i cried while reading the story. and at the end of the story, scott adams wrote:

At the trophy ceremony, Blake spoke to the crowd. He said that in 2004, when he was in the hospital with a broken neck, only one tennis player sent him a note to wish him well. It was Roger Federer.

some might said they are not surprise to know that federer sent blake a note coz he's a nice guy and blah blah blah...

for me, it was a surprise. i thought andy roddick was the best pal of james blake and why only federer the only tennis player sent him a well wishing note? though i admit i'm a federer's fan, but i do visit roddick's website regularly. in roddick's website, he (or his webmaster) always include news about james blake.

i haven't learnt to be a blake's fan yet coz i watch too little tennis of him. also blame it on the time difference between the continent... my local paid tv shows the recent 2 masters played in US but unfortunately due to time difference, those live matches played in the wee hours and do not have repeats! crap!

i hardly watch blake play but certainly no short of praises story about him. now, i'll start to learn to like him.

ATP 2006 fantasy tennis season

hey there, have you register yourself for the atp 2006 fantasy tennis season yet?

join me and my tennis fanatics friends in my sub-league to play against each other - no prize for the winner but you get the fun of competing with someone instead of the thousands of participants... :-)

to play this fantasy tennis game, you must register yourself and create a team before you can join any sub-league team.

my sub-league team: team tennis fanatics

2006 ATP fantasy tennis season

the 2006 ATP fantasy tennis season is now on! registration is free but you are only allow to register once... heck! if i use different IP to register as many as i want also they wouldn't know! :-)

click here to check it out.

ACE - a new tennis show on espnstar

hey, fellow asian tennis lovers! there's a new tennis magazine-like show, ACE, being shown on star sports every thursday at 11.30pm 10.00pm. (or check your local listing)

the show is hosted by geogina chang and co-hosted by jien of football crazy.

the show also feature special guest, this week was Lyetton Hewitt. it was a one by one interview with geogina but unfortunately the interview clip lasted for a mere minute. i hope it would be longer. though i dislike hewitt, but we don't really get to know more about them outside the tennis court and it's good to hear them speak once in a while too.

the show is pretty up to date. tonight's show also feature last tuesday's night "stars for stars awards gala". oh well, ACE is sponsored by sony ericson and the award is a sony ericson sponsored event too. :-)

disappearance

well, there were few tournaments played between aussie open and now but no live telecast!

the pacific life is showing on tv. unfortunately the live telecast starts as early as 2 in the morning for my time. that's why i have been unable to update on my tennis blog.

though tennis is the love of my life but with different tournament playing in different continent, it's difficult to catch all of them.

sorry!

australian open - conclusion

the first hour, i loathed federer. the 2nd, i love him. it's difficult to hate him isn't it?

at first i was cursing him for making those mistakes. baghdatis was too good - in retrieving back all those amazing shots from federer's racket. for any other players, those shots would be lethal but baghdatis managed to get back almost all of it. he won his previous matches simply because he could retrieve balls and have few good winners too.

it was either baghdatis has learned how to serve like federer or federer simply getting old and have difficulty reading baghdatis' serve, but he simply couldn't get close on breaking baghdatis on the first 2 sets - even though he did break baghdatis twice after baghdatis breaks him.

but undeniable baghdatis play pretty good in the first two sets. he keeps on hitting winners on federer's 2nd serve. federer didn't really serve well too. he used to have difficult angle even on his 2nd serve but he was untypically serve to the hitting zone of baghdatis most of the time on the first 2 sets - seems like inviting baghdatis to hit every winner out of his 2nd serve. i couldn't stop cursing so that he can serve wide out so that baghdatis would not take the ball on the rise and get another point out of it.

Baghdatis suffered a fall in game two of the fourth set and immediately called the trainer but the damage was already done. from bbc sports

i don't think bbc sports and us are watching the same match! hey, that wasn't a fall and obviously baghdatis was suffering from cramp. when the journalist writes that baghdatis "fall", it kinda like saying "yeah, baghdatis injured. that's why federer can beat him..."

and what the hell was the band coming out to sing a song right after federer/baghdatis came out from their locker room? isn't that weird? shouldn't any kind of entertainment should be performed before the players set foot on the court? even if they wanna perform, i thought it should be the national anthem instead of just another band trying to sell more record and get their name on the international tv. when i saw the band performing, i was cursing the organiser for having such an arrangement. please do not do that again next year!

will baghdatis here to stay? we'll see after this. he could be just another martin verkerk... who's martin verkerk? exactly! he's the runner up for ferrero in 2003's french open. where is he now? i wouldn't know and nobody's bothered!

Q. You said that you were going to be going home to Cyprus in the next couple of days. The Victorian government said the other day they'd love you to take out Australian citizenship. Would you ever really consider doing something like that?
MARCOS BAGHDATIS: Really, tell you the truth, that's not what's in my mind for the moment. I mean, my dream is to win Davis Cup for my country. I think my country is Cyprus, and I want to do it with them.

from baghdatis' post final match conference interview

it's funny how australia so desperate for someone (of their own) to win their open after so long and simply make everyone their citizen. and i must laught at jelena dokic, their adopted and failure daughter. now, stop making me laught.

yeah, i was crying too after the final. i remember someone or the media criticising federer for being too sensitive to become a champion when he won his first wimbledon in 2003. after winning his 7th, i wonder what those people gonna say about this? :-)

Q. Could you say how difficult it is when day in, day out, you're having to spend an entire day waiting around. It's likely to happen more and more because No. 1 seeds at US Open and here, there's more night sessions coming along. It's going to become a trend. How difficult is it to spend all day waiting to play, two days really?
ROGER FEDERER: Also the rhythm is just really difficult, you know, because the average going to bed was about 4 o'clock in the morning, you know, the last few nights, waking up at 12 to 2 in the afternoon. So it's a really weird schedule, you know, I'm going through. I wake up and all I do is rest and hit a little bit. If I feel like I need, you know, to do some extra stuff, I'll do it, but I didn't have to do it this time because I thought I was ‑‑ I had to save myself.

I think especially before the big matches, like maybe Kiefer and now Baghdatis, it's hard, waiting in the room all day. So actually nice to get out here and get the first hit, take a shower, get ready, you know, sort of eat something and being active. Just sitting in the room, it makes it hard, but you don't want to lose energy either.

So makes it hard, but I think once you get used to it, it's easier.

federer's post final match press conference interview

last year's us open, the no.1 seed was playing first in the day session. we all fans never know how difficult it was for a player to sit around and wait for their night session match. personally i enjoy the night match simply because i could watch it live on tv (aussie is only 3 hours ahead while us is exactly 12 hours behind malaysia. wimbledon is 8 hours behind but since the center court do not have lights, they don't play until too late. while the local tv station do not broadcast french except from q-final to final but since they play in the afternoon and 8 hours behind, i have chance to watch it)

last us open, i compiled a list of my favourite quotes from those genius (or stupid, it doesn't matter coz it's only between a thin fine line!). this time around, there's a list compiled by aussie open website.