Posts Tagged ‘favorites’

Federer Plays Better-er as Favorites Roll at Wimbledon; Hanescu in Hissy Spit

Federer Plays Better-er as Favorites Roll at Wimbledon; Hanescu in Hissy Spit
Roger Federer seems to be improving with each round. In the first round the Swiss was almost embarrassingly extended to five sets by Alejandro Falla. On Wednesday Federer make quicker work of unsung Ilija Bozoljac need just four sets.

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Madrid Masters: the Favorites

There are only two ATP Master Series remaining to determinate the absolute winner. Madrid and France will be the two scenarios to gather the tennis stars. The 2007 season has been a breathtaking year and the Madrid Masters as part of it; promises to offer a great show for Tennis Lovers.

The 21-years-old Rafa Nadal is one of the favorites to win this tournament since he had a great early season and he is aiming to recapture the glory, he also has the advantage of playing at home where he obtained the title two years ago. However, the task ahead will not be easy, as in order to get the title the Spaniard will face the defending champion and world number one Roger Federer who has achieved five Wimbledon titles.

While Nadal is coming back from a rest after suffering a knee injury, the Swiss Federer has been in a great form this year. Actually, his last appearance in the hard surfaces was when winning his third grand slam of the year and 12th of his career at the U.S. Open last month.

Third seed Novak Djokovic winner of the Canada Masters in July is also a strong contender; he reached the quarter finals last year in Madrid. As well as Nadal and Federer, the Serbian has already assured his place in Shangai.

But things are very equal and the favorites are taking nothing for granted. The list of favorites includes others figures like: Davydenko, Andy Murray and France number one ranked Gasquet.

Tennis – Nadal and Serena favorites to win Sony Ericsson Open

The annual tournament that is held at Miami, also known as the Sony Ericsson Open or Miami Masters will be taking place this week at the Tennis Center at Crandon Park. The tournament, that has a final prize of $4.5 million and gathers the best of both men and women players of the world, is as well one of the most important tennis tournaments of the year, besides the Grand Slams, under the categories ATP Masters 1000 on the ATP calendar and Premier Mandatory in the WTA .

For this year the favorite spots are set to the both World No.1 seeds, Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal, from whom everyone expects great performances.

The No.1 and two-time defending champion, Serena Williams, will be back on track after skipping her participation at the Indian Wells at the beginning of the month. She has won the tournament 5 times in the last seven years. She has enjoyed it very much since she considers this is her home tournament; she lives just 90 minutes away.

“I love playing here,” said Williams about the tournament. “I have so many friends that come down. Some of them can’t come in the beginning; they can only come at the end. So I always joke that I’ve got to be playing at the end of the tournament. It has worked for me in the past.”

Serena, who has also won the last two Grand Slams, including the Australian Open at the beginning of the year, has been widely criticized before for not giving tennis the importance that it might have, but last year she announced that Tennis will be her No. 1 priority, making her level of competition much more higher than other years and this may give her a lot of chances to dominate again in the 2009 campaign.

Her first match is scheduled for Friday against either Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland or American wild card Alexa Glatch.

On the other side, for men competition the favorite is Rafael Nadal, who just played the final at the Indian Wells tournament beating Andy Murray in two sets. Rafa will try to win a second elite ATP Masters 1000 title as he already arrived to Florida fresh from his last victory expecting to give a great performance as always.

Nadal has six Grand Slam titles under his belt; the last one was the Australian Open when he beat Roger Federer at Melbourne Park. He is now expecting to win the Miami’s trophy since the last two times that he has participated he has lost; the first one in 2005 against Roger Federer and the second one last year against Nikolay Davydenko.

Nadal expressed in a press conference that he has a lot of pressure since everybody wants him to win every single tournament that he participates on. He explained that he feels more confident on the competition level that he is having right now, but he says that it is very difficult to play on his best level during the whole year.

His first match will be Saturday night on Stadium Court against the winner of the match between Teimuraz Gabashvili and Simone Bolelli.