A preview of The Asian Swing

After the US Open there has been the Davis Cup and then the tour moved over to Asia. 

In the Asian Swing there are five different tournaments. The first two tournaments of the swing are at the same time with Bangkok and Kuala Lumpa. Both of these tournaments are 250 tournments. After these tournaments we find the two 500 tournaments in the shape of Beijing and Tokyo. After these two weeks we find the main event of the Asian swing, the Masters tournament, Shanghai.

The reigning champion in Bangkok is Guillermo Garcia-Lopez after he won his second career title. The main match of last year's tournament was the match between Garcia-Lopez and Nadal where Garcia-Lopez saved 24 out of 26 break points! This year the top four seeds are Andy Murray, Gael Monfils, Gilles Simon and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. In the semi-finals this year we have Andy Murray vs Gilles Simon and on the other side of the draw we have the young American, Donald Young vs Gael Monfils.

In Kuala Lumpa this year the top seeds are Nicolas Almagro, Victor Troicki, Janko Tipsarevic and Jurgen Melzer. Last year's champion was Mikhail Youzhny who is not back this year to try and retain his title. The two Serbians seeded 2nd and 3rd have made it to the last four but the other two seeds in the top four have fallen short of the Semi-Finals. The semi-finals are Nishikori vs Tipsarevic and the other is Victor Troicki vs Marcos Baghdatis.

The first of the two 500 tournaments is Beijing or the China Open. In the Chinese Open you can always expect to see some big names at the tournament. The top four seeds so far in the Tournament are Gael Monfils, Tomas Berdych, Nicolas Almagro and Jo-Wilfred Tsonga. Last year's champion was Novak Djokovic and he also won the title in 2009 as well.

The second of the two tournaments is Tokyo. Tokyo is the longest-running tennis tournament in the whole of Asia with its first appearance in 1973. This year Tokyo will have the pleasure of having Rafael Nadal try to defend his championship. A very strong group of players will contest the championship this year. Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, David Ferrer and Mardy Fish will all be part of the tournament this year.

The Final tournament of the swing is the Masters 1000 tournament hosted in Shanghai. The tournament was conceived only in 2009 when it was voted the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Tournament of the Year, as voted by the ATP players. The two past winners of the tournament was Andy Murray last year when he defeated Roger Federer and in 2009 Nikolay Davydenko. This year the top four seeds are the top four players in the world apart from Roger Federer. 

Great Britain back in the Europe/Africa Zone Group I

After a thrashing against Hungary 5-0 Great Britain are back into the second tier of the Davis Cup.

British Team celebrating after victory against the Hungarians

Great Britain are back in the Europe/Africa Zone I after wins against Tunisia, Luxembourg and Hungary. The first test for the Brits was against Tunisia. 

The first match played in that tie was the Brit Jamie Baker vs this year's US Open second round player Malek Jaziri. Jaziri took the match in 4 sets. The rest of the matches were won though by the British team and a weakened GB side won the tie comfortably 4-1.

Their next tie would be against Luxembourg. Luxembourg had a weapon in their side which was the big serving lefty, Gilles Muller. There was another comfortable win for the Brits who now had Andy Murray by their side and he catapulted Great Britain to another 4-1 win. Andy played in 3 out of the five rubbers and he won all of the matches he played in.

The next and final opponents for Great Britain was Hungary. Britain had a full strength team with Andy Murray, James Ward, Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins. Hungary stood no chance against a strong British side. Great Britain won all five of the rubbers and not one of the matches went to five sets. Even with Murray and Ward not being in their best form Colin Fleming stepped up and won his first ever singles match in the Davis Cup in straight sets.

Can Britain make it back into the big time? 

The Future of British Tennis

With five boys junior players inside the top 100 is there to be a big resurgence in professional tennis from the Brits?

With Oliver Golding winning the US Open gold it brings the debate about the future of British tennis back. Britain has had a slump ever since the great champions of decades and decades ago and with Football taking control over most of the British kids sporting life tennis has taken a big back seat.

There have been a few players that have to take tennis in Britain to another level, for example, Greg Rusedski, Tim Henman and Andy Murray but even though we have had at least one player near the top of the game there has been a huge deficiency in the depth of British tennis, our British No2 is ranked 141st in the world in the moment which is quite disapointing.

But some believe that our wait for a big depth in British tennis is over as 5 different junior players are inside the junior top 100. Those players are Oliver Golding ranked 2nd, George Morgan ranked 8th, Liam Brody ranked 10th, Kyle Edmund who is ranked No27th and Luke Bambridge who is ranked 90th.

For the first time in a long time we saw three semi-finalists from Britain this year at the US Open. Even for a tennis rich country like America or Spain that would be incredible but for a country like Britain who hasn't seen a grand slam winner in 1936. Even Liam Brody who didn't quite make it to the semis in New York still made it to the Wimbledon final this year so he is also a terrific prospect.

I think that the most important thing about the great coming of this batch of British teens is competition. Competition is the thing that drives people to become better. With competition comes the determination to improve and do better than you friend. A great example of this comes from outside tennis. Middle-distance running actually.

Think back to the days of Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett if you can. They pushed themselves to the absolute limit. They both pushed each other on. In a 10-day period in 1981 they also traded the world record for the mile between them three times. Coe at one point held the 800m, 1500m and mile world records at the same time, while Ovett subsequently became both the 1500m and mile world record holder.

Now think today with apart from our very own Mo Farah the best in the field are the Kenyans and Ethiopians. How did it change to be this way? Competition. Once one got good others wanted to emulate him and so on until there is about a group of five (like todays British juniors) who are ruling the world of middle distance running.

The reason why there has been a huge lack of British tennis is the lack of competition and luckily today is looks as if that problem has been stopped. Here are now a series of players that are looking to make on the big stage so look out for a batch of home grown young talent coming through the ranks and making it into the top 100 at least.

For once you are allowed to expect something from the world of British Tennis.

US Open Final 2011

The final of the US Open had all the chance of being one of the greatest matches of the year. It didn't disappoint. The match was won in four sets by Djokovic against Nadal. The final score was 6-2 6-4 6-7 6-1.

The first game really set the tone for the whole match with terrific ball striking from both players. You had the feeling right from the start this was going to be an epic. Nadal drew first blood in the opening set. It was a great start to the match from the former World No1. A great response though from the Serb and he broke straight back 2-1 in the opening set.

Djokovic went on to hold his serve and then an incredibly tight game on Rafa's serve where Djokovic played some breath taking tennis to get himself up in the match for the first time 3-2 Djokovic. Another great game in this set, Djokovic wins it though and the following game on Nadal's serve Djokovic wins it in some style. That was his 5th game in a row! Djokovic won the first set 6-2 with the shortest game of the match. Nadal looked like he had a lack of confidence as he played too far away from the baseline.

Nadal stops the run of six straight lost games by winning the first in the second set comfortably on his serve. Nadal then broke Djokovic to take an early lead in the second set. 2-0 Nadal. After an epic 17 minute long game with spectacular hitting Djokovic got the break back 2-1! Djokovic went on to hold his serve and look to attack Nadal on Nadal's serve. Djokovic was on rampage and managed to break Nadal again! Many were getting the feeling of "Déjá Vu". 3-2 Djokovic second set.

The Serb held serve to put even more pressure on the Spaniard. It was a must win game for the former world No1. Another terrific game in the match was played out. Nadal after a tricky game somehow managed to hold serve and then in another epic game Nadal played the best tennis of his life and broke back to get both men back on serve!

A faulty game not to remember from Nadal as Djokovic took the initiative and broke again. 5-4 Djokovic second set. He then held his serve to close out a tough second set 6-4.

A good start to the third set from Nadal saw him hold his serve to love but Djokovic wasn't going to let Nadal get an early advantage like he had done in the past two sets and held his own serve. Djokovic charged in front by breaking the Nadal serve once again to get a very important break in the third set. Nadal broke back though to bring the score back to 2-2.

Game after Game they continued to produce one of the most watchable matches I had ever seen. The average of a game in the match was over 6 minutes for sure. It was as if they had forgotten how to hold serve! To be perfectly honest there were literally to many talking points in each game that my brain couldn't keep up.

Djokovic broke for the eighth time in the match to give the score 3-2. Nadal broke back though once again. 3-3 third set! Nadal held serve playing like a man on a mission. 4-3 Nadal.

Eventually Novak Djokovic held his serve. 4-4 in the third. Two confident holds in a row from Nadal 5-4. A hold from Djokovic put the set at 5-5. An Exceptional series of points from Djokovic brought him to another break of Nadal's serve and he had a chance to take the match and championship. On 15-15 the best point ever was played out with the last shot a backhand down the line from Nadal!

Nadal broke back at 6-5 to bring one of the best sets of tennis to a nail-biting finale. An great tie-break saw Nadal triumphant, this match would go to a fourth set! At the beginning of the fourth set Djokovic's back felt tight and we thought that maybe he would have to retire but he worked his way into the set and managed to loosen up.

Djokovic took control of the set with incredible, champion-like play and never looked back. Djokovic stormed to victory in the fourth set 6-1.

US Open Diary Day 13

Super Saturday was exactly as expected with two exciting semi-final matches.
  
The first match of the day was the match between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. The third seed was looking to prove himself as a true competitor at the top of the men's game. Novak Djokovic was also looking to improve his amazing year by making it to the final of the US Open.

The match started off with Djokovic looking slightly tired and Federer playing terrific. In the first set Federer was looking stronger and eventually he managed to close out the set 7-6 on the tie-break. In the second set in was more of the same with Federer looking the man more up for the job and he reasonably comfortably won it 6-4. That wasn't the end of the fight though. 

Djokovic came back in the third showing great bravery and played the kind of tennis that has brought him to two grand slam victories already this year. The third set was one which Djokovic won 6-3. The fourth set followed quickly with Djokovic winning it 6-2.

The fifth and final set was one of the most entertaining of the tournament. With both men playing terrific tennis they both held their serve until Djokovic was serving at 3-3 when Federer broke him to love. Many thought this was "the deciding break" when Federer had two match points at 40-15. Djokovic though showed immense bravery by blasting a return winner past Federer and then saving the other match point and then broke back. He then broke Federer at 5-5 and the match was all over 6-7 4-6 6-3 6-2 7-5!

The second semi-final of the day was between Nadal and Murray. Nadal was looking to prove that he is the best male player in the world and Murray was still on the search for his first Grand Slam win. The first set was as most suspected, Nadal dominated, it seemed like Murray was fatigued and every time he tried to come forward and finish of a point Nadal would pass him dramatically. Nadal won the opening set 6-4.

The second set wasn't any closer and Nadal dismissed Murray emphatically 6-2. In the third set though Murray decided to open up his shoulders and go for shots and really attack Nadal and managed to salvage a set 6-3. Murray attempted to keep the same level of play but Nadal upped his own game and destroyed Murray in the fourth set 6-2.

On Monday Nadal and Djokovic will contest a hugely anticipated final for the US Open 2011 title!