Read + Write + Report
Home | Start a blog | About Orble | FAQ | Sites | Writers | Advertise | My Orble | Login

Tennis - August 2006

Andy Roddick played Juan Carlos Ferrero in the finals of the Cincinnati Tennis Tournament, defeating the Spaniard 6-3 6-4 enroute to his first title of the year.

In winning at Cincy Andy also won the US Open Series, a repeat of last year.

In January before the Australian Open Andy Roddick also defeated German Tommy Haas at the Kooyong Classic but that was an exhibition tournament.

The Cincinnati tournament was choc filled with surprises, with up-and-coming British teenager Andy Murray beating the Swiss world number 1 Roger Federer in straight sets. Federer later conceded he had considered pulling out of the tournament after making the finals of the Rogers Cup in Toronto (and winning) in order to recover for this week's US Open, the last Grand Slam of the year.


Murray was later defeated by Andy Roddick in the semi-finals. Murray had become just the second person to defeat Roger Federer this year, with World Number 2 Rafael Nadal being the only other person to beat him.

Surprisingly it was Juan Carlos Ferrero who beat Rafael Nadal at Cincinnati at the quarter finals, also in straight sets, although both sets went to tiebreaks. Nadal broke Ferrero early in the 1st set but Ferrero broke straight back. In both tiebreaks Juan Carlos clearly sped to leads to clinch the best performance of (at least) the year.

So at the Cincy tournament it was a rematch of Andy Roddick v Juan Carlos Ferrero at the 2003 US Open. For Ferrero, it has been the only final he had been in for several years.

The promising results at Cincinnati propelled Andy Roddick back to No. 10 on the ATP Rankings and Juan Carlos back into the Top 20 at No. 18, jumping 13 places.

All eyes will now be on the upcoming US Open, where America's much loved Andre Agassi will play last before his retirement.
















*Pictures courtesy of AP Photos and Getty Images and Yahoo, Copyright.

109
Vote
   


Yes so the joke is probably old, but Roger Federer won the Roger's Cup on Monday, defeating French teenager Richard Gasquet in the final, 2-6 6-3 6-2. Yes, Richard did manage to grab a set off the World Number 1, and that's a very good sign that his injury days (since the end of last year) are pretty much over. The shining prospect had defeated James Blake, the magician Fabrice Santoro and fellow rising stars in Andy Murray and Tomas Berdych.

Roger also had a tough draw, having to beat Fernando Gonzalez, Xavier Malisse, Dmitry Tursunov, Sebastian Grosjean and Paul-Henri Mathieu. Because it'd the first tournament since Wimbledon he's probably still getting used to the hard-court surface the US conditions, with the first 4 mentioned all managing to take a set off the Swiss.

Pictures:


Roger Federer:








Richard Gasquet:










(Pictures courtesy of RichardGasquet@Livejournal and Gettyimages.com)
75
Vote
   


Marat Safin showed a surprising performance at the Washington Open, defeating the likes of James Blake and Wesley Moodie to reach the semi-finals, where he lost to eventual champion Arnaud Clement, seeded 11th in the tournament. This is the best result Marat has had so far this year, after sustaining a knee injury in 2005 and receiving a series of poor results.

His Russian Compatriot also showed spark, Dmitry Tursunov stopping Tim Henman 6-7(10) 7-5 6-3 to reach the semis, where he lost to Andy Murray, who debuted in Washington this year.

Eleventh-seeded Arnaud Clement defeated No. 8 seed Andy Murray 7-6(3), 6-2 to win the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington. It was Clement's second title of the year, following his victory in Marseille, which snapped a title drought going back to 2003. He has now won four career titles from nine finals.
61
Vote
   


Stanislas Wawrinka, the second highest ranked Swiss player after Roger Federer, claimed his first ATP title at the Studena Croatia Open (also known as the Umag Open) when No.4 seed Novak Djokovic had to retire with respiratory problems. Wawrinka was down 3-1 in the first set tie-break when Djokovic had to stop.

It came as a shock because Novak had won his first ATP title the week before, and he had possibly burned himself out


[ Click here to read more ]
62
Vote
   


More Posts
1 Posts
3 Posts
2 Posts
61 Posts dating from May 2006
Email Subscription
Receive e-mail notifications of new posts on this blog:
Moderated by Orbler
Copyright © 2006 2007 2008 On Topic Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved. Design by Vimu.com.
On Topic Media ZPages: Sydney |  Melbourne |  Brisbane |  London |  Birmingham |  Leeds     [ Advertise ] [ Contact Us ] [ Privacy Policy ]