Andy Murray

On Saturday, Andy Murray defeated tennis legend Goran Ivanisevic to win the betfair Tennis Turbo trophy and a £50,000 cheque.

The tournament was played in Londons O2 Arena in front of 9,000 fans, plenty of whom were supporting their homegrown star, Andy Murray.  Murray first beat his brother, Jamie, 7-5 in the semi-final, and then defeated surprise finalist, Ivanisevic, winning 7-4 to claim the winner-takes-all prize pot.  Ivanisevic had defeated Greg Rusedski 9-8 in a sudden death decider to move his way into the semi-final where he saw off American James Blake before facing Andy in the final.

Andy broke the retired Croat’s serve, which used to be legendary in the game, almost immediately.  Ivanisevic didn’t recover from being 4-2 down to the young Scot, and Murray won out 7-4.

The matches last just half an hour, and play is speeded-up considerably on an ultra-fast court.   The event is still in the experimental stages, and will be moving to Spain next month.  It seems like a lot of fun though; the players wore coloured clothing and were introduced with loud rock music.  Afterwards Andy said:

“It was awesome. I really enjoyed myself and the crowd were unbelievable. It was a lot of fun playing a tennis match like this. For me to play against two Wimbledon champions in one day was great.”

Current world number 1 Roger Federer will take on former world number 1 Pete Sampras on the 22nd November in an exhibition match in Malaysia

The match will be played at night in the Malawati Stadium in Kuala Lumpur on a medium speed indoor carpet.

Federer just one his 12th Grand Slam title and has his sights set on overhauling the 14 titles that Pete Sampras has. There is no doubt in my mind that Federer will surpass this number, the question is when rather than if.

When Sampras retired back 2002, he retired a grand slam winner. His final competitive match of his career seen him defeat fellow country man Andre Agassi to win his 5th US open title, 12 years after his first victory in the 1990 competition. If Federer stays fit for this long, the number of grand slam wins he actually reaches could obliterate Sampras’s current record.

These two players share a similar oddity, as great as they are, neither have won French Open and will always remain black mark on their career. Although Federer still has many French Open’s left in him, many feel that whilst Rafael Nadal is around, Federer will always be second best on the red clay of Rolland-Garros. Federer has made it two final in the last two years only to defeated by Nadal in 4 sets on both occasions. Pete Sampras on the other hand never manged to reach a French Open in his entire career.

On the one occasion when Federer and Sampras did meet competively previously, with the young 19 year old Swiss won a five-set thriller in the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2001. He would go on to win his first grand slam at Wimbledon two years later.

Another future exhibition match between these two is scheduled for Madison Square Gardens in New York, sometime in March next year.
 

I found this video on YouTube earlier today.  It is the US Open Series promotion video bloopers.  Take a look - it’s pretty funny!  Like it says in the title, it’s just as well they are talented…

Mens singles:  [1] Roger Federer (Sui)
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Womens singles:  [1] Justine Henin (Bel)
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Mens doubles:  [10] Simon Aspelin (Swe) & Julian Knowle (Aut)
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Womens doubles:  [7] Nathalie Dechy (Fra) & Dinara Safina (Rus)
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Mixed doubles:  Victoria Azarenka & Max Mirnyi (Bel)
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Mens singles championship:

[1] Roger Federer (Sui) d. [3] Novak Djokovic (Ser) 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-2), 6-4