First of all, I want to congratulate Federer for finally, after umpteen times, winning his maiden French Open title. He truly deserves it, ever since Nadal lost in the fourth round, which came as a shocking to me, and to the tennis world obviously, because no one could beat him until a Swede by the name of Robin Soderling finally had the antidote to Nadal's very powerful, smart game on clay. He eventually went all the way to final and I actually tipped him to win it (since an underdog had to win it this time) and FedEx has got all the pressure to nail it this time around since King Nadal's demise on clay. However Soderling came up really short and FedEx won in 3 sets. I've to say well done!
I was wrong about Nadal winning his 5th straight Roland Garros. Tough luck.
(Refer to my previous post on this.)
Over to the ladies,
I've been a staunch supporter of Safina in this tournament. The first four matches she played was unbelievable: on demolition mode, only lost 5 games, until she met Dangerous Belarussian Azarenka, whom she dug it out in three sets, and the diminutive Slovak, whom she had little trouble in the beginning but finally beat her in straight sets. It was her second consecutive Roland Garros final and I've expecting her to beat Kuzy but then pressure got into her so bad she lost in straight sets 6-4 6-2. You could actually see nerves controlling her when she played in that final. Kuzy was just too good; it was her 2nd Grand Slam trophy, her first trophy was the US Open, having winning it way back in 2004 when she was just 19 years of age.
Once again congrats FedEx & Kuzy!
Federer deserves to kiss his trophy after going so close to it in the previous years.
Kuzy and Safina with the winner's and runner's up trophies respectively.
Okay, since we're in the middle of the year, let us see how are my players doing so far this season:
(Player)-(Position in the beginning of the season)-(Position in the middle of the season, as of June 8th 2009)
The men:
Kei Nishikori-61-113 (the heck?)
Fernando Verdasco-15-8
Ernests Gulbis-53-69
JM Del Potro-9-5
Andy Murray-4-3
The ladies:
Sorana Cirstea-36-27
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova-43-31
Agnieszka Radwanska-10-11
Caroline Wozniacki-12-9
Michelle Larcher de Brito-129-90
A very quick summary:
Nishikori's out due to injury, so he failed to defend his points. I-start-to-believe-in-myself Verdasco made his first Grand Slam SF at the Australian Open and has been progressing well ever since, Gulbis failed to defend his points in Roland Garros where he reache QF last year; he lost in the 2nd round this year, Del Potro keeps getting better, made his first Grand Slam SF at Roland Garros this year (lost to mighty FedEx). Murray has been very impressive so far this season, winning three big titles already and with Wimbledon beckons, I'm sure he's going to go far this time around. Nadal and FedEx have to really watch out.
Ladies!
Radwanska's the only blemish here; her results has been a so-so. No major breakthrough this season yet, nothing to shout about. Cirstea's record was 0-6 in the beginning until she played in Marbella where she got all the way to the SF and recently she made it to the QF at Roland Garros; good job. Pavlyuchenkova's results has been pretty good too, her best result yet is SF at Indian Wells, and her ranking propagated. Wozniacki is by far very impressive in the field. Still 19, her record currently stands at 37-12, the most number of matches won so far among the ladies, and her best result yet is F at Madrid. As of today, she has earned $867,484. She can practically buy anything she wants as a 19-year-old girl. De Brito has just made it to the Top 100, after reaching the 3rd round at Roland Garros recently. She made headlines for her grunting on court and her grunting, I tell you, is very long, unpleasant and extremely annoying. I did predict in my previous post that she's going to make the Top 100 and finally she did! Kudos indeed.
We'll see again how these players will fare in the 2nd half of the season! :D
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