Sports Then and Now

Juan Martin del Potro competing in 2007.

Touting former champions like Robin Soderling and Gael Monfils, plus previous top-ranked competitors like Juan Martin del Potro and Fernando Gonzalez, the 2010 BMW Tennis Championship Tournament gets underway the week of March 14th in Sunrise, Florida.

Just what is it that makes this increasingly popular ATP Challenger event so attractive to players and fans?

The BMW Tennis Championship falls sandwiched between two highly popular American Hard Court ATP Masters Series Tournaments –– the BNP Paribas Open at Indians Wells held March 8–21 and the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, scheduled March 22-April 4.

The BMW tennis tournament with its stellar location is poised offering premier scheduling starting the week of March 14th, making it an attractive destination for top-tier players upset early at Indian Wells.

Those players losing in early rounds in California wishing further match play before moving onto Miami, as well as other up and coming players on the ATP Tour seeking first-rate competition, find the BMW Tennis Championship in Sunrise a perfect solution.

Those factors along with its first-rate facilities and its player-friendly reputation make this challenger event a certifiable success story.

The tournament in Sunrise fills a definite need for players while providing fans with a great opportunity to watch some of the world’s best compete.

The BMW Tennis Championship has evolved into a win-win in everyone’s book –– which is the exact reason for Challenger Tour events. Read the rest of this entry →

Spanish sherry is a sorely undervalued wine. Tainted by associations with the syrupy brown tipple of yesteryear, its variety, delicacy, subtlety and vitality is one of the revelations of travels through Spain.

And just as these glorious wines represent the diverse and sunny personality of that country, so do their tennis players. One look at Spain’s all-conquering Davis Cup squad, and you are spoilt for choice.

The dry, crisp, light fino might be Tommy Robredo. The bold salty tang of a manzanilla could sum up Feliciano Lopez. The nutty golden amber of an amontillado is Rafael Nadal. But the most perfect analogy is between the dark, intense oloroso and Fernando Verdasco.

There are plenty of the female persuasion who would nod at the suitability of the word for the most sultry of athletes: Oloroso is Spanish for “fragrant.”

But its appropriateness is more than skin deep. It has just as much to do with how this richest of sherries is produced. The long and unique maturing process makes this mellifluous wine suit Verdasco perfectly.

The deeply flavoured dry oloroso ages slowly, becoming darker and stronger as it matures to coppery bronze. What’s more, its natural sugars convert, through long fermentation, to the sherry family’s highest alcohol content.

So in colour, strength, and development, Verdasco emulates the finest oloroso. He is a man and a tennis player who seems to have grown more slowly and matured more steadily than the rest. Read the rest of this entry →

Big Bill Tilden was Americas first great champion.

Like many tragic sports figures, “the fault lay not in the stars but in himself” for tennis legend William “Bill” Tilden.

Loving the limelight, the footlights and the spotlight, Tilden shunned real life for the artificial, constructing a world he could not inhabit. No one could. Born into wealth and privilege, pampered by an over-protective mother, and held at arm’s length by a grief-stricken father, Tilden was forced into tennis at his father’s insistence.

Tilden showed promise at an early age, but he did not care for the game. Later on he avoided life by playing tennis, finding the soothing rhythm of its point, counter-point a barrier against outside emotional distress.

Big Bill reigned supreme during the 1920s in America, often sharing sporting headlines with notables like Babe Ruth, Bobby Jones, Red Grange, and boxer Jack Dempsey during a time referred to as the golden age of sports. Tilden won every major tournament he entered for six years, including six U.S. Nationals (now called the U.S. Open). Read the rest of this entry →

Nalbandian defeats Federer in Madrid

David Nalbandian and Roger Federer have fought each other long and hard on tennis courts around the world since their days on the junior circuit with Nalbandian usually winning those early contests.

The Argentine’s game when he plays it at his best makes him almost unbeatable.  Early on in his career Nalbandian was a superior player to Federer who often could not control his emotions, losing his way in a match.  The wily Argentine recognized this fact and took full advantage.

Once they turned pro, Nalbandian won their first five matches.  It wasn’t until they met at the year-end 2003 Tennis Master’s Cup in Houston in round robin play that Federer was finally able to defeat Nalbandian 6-3, 6-0.   Even so Nalbandian finished 2003 in the top 10 for the first time in his career.

Even as Federer began his remarkable winning span from 2004-2007, Nalbandian continued to rise up periodically and remind the Swiss of his roots, back in the days when Federer could be flummoxed by the consistent play and tenacious returns that the Argentine was capable of  delivering.

Nalbandian loved to remind Federer that he could exert his will and still beat the World No. 1. Read the rest of this entry →

Just how worried are the “big cheeses” in charge of the first Masters events of 2010? As the men’s Tour heads towards the climax of the early hard court season in North America, the window of preparation is closing fast. Yet there are worrying signs about who will actually start, let alone stay, the course.

With the news this week that Juan Martin Del Potro will be absent for between one and two months due to a recurrence of a wrist injury, it will be touch and go whether the world No. 5 is able to play in either Indian Wells—which begins in four weeks’ time—or in Miami—six weeks hence.

This comes on the heels of Rafael Nadal’s departure from the circuit in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, also for at least a month. He is still targeting Indian Wells for his return. But the uncertainty surrounding the fitness of two of the game’s biggest draws must nevertheless be causing a few sleepless nights for tournament organisers.

Del Potro has been hampered, on and off, by tendinitis in the wrist since he won the U.S. Open last September. It forced him to pull out of the second round of the Shanghai Masters, and flared up again at the warm-up tournament in Kooyong before the Australian Open.

He has now been forced to withdraw from Marseille and Dubai with the same problem, and is also unlikely to join the Argentine Davis Cup team against Sweden next month. Read the rest of this entry →

The series “Pillars of Roger’s Career” looks back at key matches in the evolution of the mighty Roger Federer.

As the tennis telescope turns towards Flushing Meadow at the end of August, the world sits comfortably on its axis, and turns at its designated 24 hours a day. Roger Federer is No. 1 in the world, holds the Wimbledon title, and has broken Pete Sampras’ grip on the Grand Slam record.

Rewind 12 months and this was precisely the scenario that had been predicted for last year’s US Open. Except that, by August 2008, Federer had lost his No. 1 ranking, lost his Wimbledon title and had many commentators doubting whether he would ever reach that elusive 14th Grand Slam. The earth had, for tennis aficionados, tilted out of true.

Federer’s losses had begun, unexpectedly, at the very start of 2008, the first surprise being his capitulation of the Australian title. A subsequent diagnosis of glandular fever explained the result but did not silence the few who had begun to question his hunger.

While Federer continued with the required tournaments and ATP commitments, he was clearly not himself. Rafael Nadal was eating away at his ranking points, Novak Djokovic was celebrating his first Slam victory and further Masters success. Other rising stars were also picking Federer off—not least Andy Murray.

So the year went on, with a shocking defeat at the hands of Nadal in Paris, and a heartbreaking loss to the same adversary at Wimbledon. Most ominously, he made early exits from the key hard-court Masters leading into Flushing Meadows.

So the pressure could not have been higher nor the expectations lower for the four-time U.S. champion’s bid to equal the 80-year-old record of Bill Tilden. Read the rest of this entry →