I promise to keep today's post shorter than yesterday's massive researched list of forgotten NBA players. I hope you enjoyed yesterday's post but the only news in the NBA the last few days is negative not positive. The CBA expires tomorrow night at midnight and although David Stern is very optimistic that the two sides will come to an agreement shortly, all we can base these negotiations on right now are what is going on in the NFL. So lets switch gears more to a happy subject, tennis. I love tennis as you probably have gathered from the last month or so of posting. I am like most tennis fans these days, only really following the Major tournaments (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, US Open), but I do follow the top players when they play in warm-up tournaments such as Indian Wells, or Queens Club. My favorite tournament has always been Wimbledon and the epic John Isner-Nicholas Mahut match last year just cemented exactly why tennis should be a bigger sport in the US than what it currently is.
This year's Wimbledon has been fantastic. On the Men's side you had all 4 top seeds (Nadal, Djokovic, Federer, Murray) battling other top players such as highest ranked American Mardy Fish and flamboyant Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Wednesday's quarterfinals were definitely a tale of two stories. In the early morning games (8 AM start here on the east coast), Roger Federer jumped out to a commanding 6-3, 7-6 lead against Tsonga but boy did the tables turn quickly on the 6-time Wimbledon champion as Tsonga did not drop serve the rest of the match taking the next 3 sets breaking Federer once in each of them 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 en route to the major upset. It marked the first time in 179 career matches at a major that Federer lost after holding a 2 set to none lead. While Federer lost on Centre Court, Djokovic had to rally against the young Australian Bernard Tomic. Djokovic won the opening set 6-2, dropped the 2nd 6-3, before taking firm control winning the last two sets 6-3, and 7-5. In the afternoon, Britain's golden boy Andy Murray took on Feliciano Lopez on Centre Court. Murray dominated the Spanish lefty winning in straight sets 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. While Murray moved on quickly, Nadal had a little tougher time on Court 1 vs. Mardy Fish. Nadal looked comfortable early taking the first two sets 6-3, 6-3 before dropping the third set 5-7 to Fish. Nadal then ended the match by taking the 4th set 6-4 to move on and face Murray in the semifinals. Djokovic and Tsonga will meet in the other semifinal on Friday.
On the Women's side, the top seeds have had a very rough go at it. Top seed Caroline Wozniacki failed to make the semifinals of a major once again and the Williams sisters lost on the same day for the first time ever. The semifinals of the women's draw will be played tomorrow starting with 4th seed Victoria Azarenka taking on 8th seeded Petra Kvitova at 8 AM EST. Neither of the women have ever made a major final let alone win one. Should be an amazing show of young Eastern European power with Azarenka the slight favorite to advance. In the second semifinal, young wildcard Sabine Lisicki of Germany becomes the first German woman to make the semifinals since Steffi Graf in 1998. She will take on 5th seeded Maria Sharapova. Sharapova once was the teen sensation of the sport but after years of injuries and poor execution she finally has it all together and looks to regain dominance in the sport. But she is going to have to break through against powerful server Lisicki who is playing with a ton of moxie and has the swagger of a 5-time champion not a first time semifinalist. I love her game and although I have been rooting for Sharapova throughout the tournament I will definitely be pulling for the underdog in this one. Should be some great tennis for the world to see! I highly recommend checking it out!
Last Night's Biggest Winner: I took a day off yesterday with the monster post of this but last night 1 man really stood out. Cliff Lee of the Philadelphia Phillies is seriously dealing right now. He has a 5-0 record in June with a 0.21 ERA. If that isn't pitcher of the month stats I don't know what is! He finished off the month by cooling off the daunting Red Sox lineup by throwing a complete game shutout allowing 2 hits and 2 walks while striking out 5.
Last Night's Biggest Loser: Well it was more during the day but I think Zack Greinke gets this unfortunate honor. While yes, he was facing the best offense in the majors, the Yankees he still gave up 7 earned runs in 2 innings en route to a 12-2 defeat. Greinke had been hot lately but this loss drops him to 7-3 on the season and the 31.50 ERA for the day just really looks ugly everywhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment