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It is almost as if the tennis heavenly bodies were reading our observations of the stars feeling jittery on their first time out. The drama was to be had in the iconic Rod Laver Arena as first hot favourite Maria Sharapova, then Roger Federer, and then finally Rafael Nadal all took their turn to broil in the Round Two pressure cooker.
It is always a tricky obstacle course – for those of us who toil over the draw brackets and write the previews working out who meets which seed where, there is always that small moment of doubt – who will fall by the wayside, and thus ruin our painstaking planning!
For those souls not hardy enough to wake up/stay up for the opening day, it was quite a spillage of seeds on the first day. Nay – a quarter of the women’s seeds will be heading for a two week vacation at Bondi Beach. I mean, we know it is an unpredictable Slam just three weeks into the year (gosh is it really only three weeks) but the results threw up some surprising early casualties.
G'day from Melbourne. The jetlagged team is finally getting it together. It's so great being down here. It feels so good. We always feel jittery till the tourney gets going. That first round match in any tourney is tough.
It’s that time of year again, where the winter months give way to people sweltering in the Aussie heat (making those of us who have to de-ice cars… it happens…) very jealous.
Hawaii was awesome. We even took a short heli - ride to Lanai to catch a dinner before we left the islands. We made a puddle jump to the Island of Lanai for some sliders @NOBU among everything else yummy there. Last time we were in Lanai was 25 years ago ,time flies and there wasn't a Nobu.
Aloha and Mahalo. There's nothing like the north shore of Oahu. Especially during the Triple crown. Or even better the "Eddie" ... BIG Waves ... This has always been a favorite pit stop on the way to Australia. Whether we are coming from east coast / west coast it just helps in length of flight and jet lag.
It feels like it has been a long time coming, but finally the Singapore Slammers get their first International Premier Tennis League win! After boasting Serena Williams in their side at the end of the first week, the Slammers could not snap their losing streak since the start of the exhibition league last week.
The News Has been broken by Bob Larson news service that Jo - Willie Tsonga is being paid 500 thousand dollars to play in the inaugural IPTL. If Jo is making $$$$$. What's Roger Federer getting ? $$$$$$$$$$$ ? Or Maria Sharapova ? Or Andy Murray ? We will know in time.
There comes a time, when writing previews and watching matches where a player coming up through the ranks, or perhaps even bubbling under the big boys just catches your eye.
It probably seems quite fitting that a bizarre week of elite tennis came to a bizarre end on Sunday, when Roger Federer in all his cardigan-ed glory walked onto court to announce his withdrawal from the final.
The watching crowds have been willing the tournament to catch light, and for the briefest of moments, the clouds that have settled on the East of London this week lifted momentarily to bring a three-set semi-final that had promise.
After what seems like an interminable age, we reach the end of the round-robins and embark on a straight shoot-out for title over the weekend. By now we have done to death the one-sided matches, the inability of competitors who have proved their worth on every surface imaginable to handle the slick indoor conditions in the tent of doom.
At last we are at the business end of the tournament, and hopefully we will have a semi-final line-up that will do the season-ending finale with eight of the best male players of the year justice. First up we have the unstoppable Novak Djokovic who not only beat Tomas Berdych every bit as handily as he has been doing all week, but wrapped up the year-ending No. 1.
Group B sorted out their semi-finalists on Thursday with Kei Nishikori and Roger Federer doing the honours but in very different circumstances. First up, we lost Milos Raonic to a quad injury, sustained in his match against Andy Murray and serious enough for Raonic not to risk ruining his 2015 season preparations.
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