Apocryphal Stories !!!

In the open era(till 2004) 5 Spaniards have won the French Open 6 times. Sergei Bruguera was the only man  who repeated the feat twice. From 2004 on, Rafael Nadal won the French Open 6 times in  7 attempts. No wonder he considers his game to be tailor made for the clay courts. Though he loved clay- which also explains his love for Monte Carlo- it was his dream to win Wimbledon For a person whose game is entirely based on the power that he generates from his strokes, it is natural to go for every match as though it’s his last. When he lost the 2007 Wimbledon final to Federer, he wept under the shower for close to half an hour. What does the man do? He goes back and trains even harder. His belief in training has been steadfast from childhood It was Toni Nadal, who made him revere him training with unconventional motivation. That Nadal had a no-nonsense approach towards winning helped Toni. When he saw the effort dipping, he would fire him up with more practice. Nadal remember...

Once the think tank of Australia sits down on the table after this match, there are three points that would stand out 1) After winning the first T20 International game ever and then proceeding to lose the very next game, comprehensively. From that day on till today, Australia has neither got a stable game plan nor have they got the winning culture that they have in the other two formats 2) As much as they would deny it, the ghosts of that game in Johannesburg still remain and comes back to haunt them from time to time, when they play South Africa. Notably, in throwing away winning causes 3) Shane Watson is central to their fortunes in all the formats of the game. When it comes to Limited overs it is his bowling that stands as a differentiator between the teams At the toss, White was asked if it was individual efforts that counted in the T20 games or the team effort. His answer was “In this format, individuals can win you the match in a ball or two. When it boils down to ti...

Do you have any memories of the man who scored 86 in his debut game against England and also had his biggest moment to savour against them? To drop further clues would mean to reveal the identity of the man In his most popular ODI innings, he bought India back from the dead to actually level the series. It was a game in which Sachin Tendulkar was awarded the Man of the match. He hasn’t played an ODI for more than three years now Now to make the identity of the player a giveaway, he bowed down in front of a packed stadium after leading India to a win over arch rivals Pakistan, in a bowl out. Yes it is Robin Venu Uthappa. After exploding into India’s collective senses in that match at Oval, he quickly slipped down the favourite charts Yet people believe that he has it in him to knock a few bowling attacks over. It must be him and Irfan Pathan, whose non-selection remains a mystery to their followers. While Irfan’s slide is mysterious, Uthappa’s is crystal clear The s...

  After the Argus review went public, Australia’s graph has started to rise. At the forefront of this rise has been the new captain, a new settled opener and a new middle order find Michael Clarke took over the reins of the captaincy at what seemed to be a turbulent time for Australian cricket- Ashes loss, World Cup loss, and the general distrust in people over the team. Though he started out in Bangladesh as the captain, it was in Sri Lanka that his skills as a captain, would be analysed. It was here that he impressed the pundits. He grew strength by strength, as he won both the ODI’s and the Test series, in what was called as a stern examination His able handling of the spinners was refreshing and so was his marshalling of the youngsters in the squad. It wasn’t surprising then, to find the dwindling players make a foothold in the team. Recently Watson said that he saw a shift back to the middle order, in view of his increasing burden with the ball. Clarke was as flee...

Though the players complain of scheduling problems, they are willing to put their might in for the Davis Cup matches. With Serbia, Spain and Switzerland in action over the last week, it gave the fans to watch a plethora of stars in action. With Djokovic, Nadal and Federer in action in these matches for their respective countries, it represented a turning of the corner for Tennis in general Gone were the days of major stars like Sampras shunning the Davis Cup preparation in favour of preparation time. With the change of rules in 2009, where ranking points were awarded for wins in Davis Cup, top players were back in the fold. This provides for superb atmosphere in what are called as ‘rubbers’ Davis Cup, in nature is totally different to Slams. It is the only tournament in Tennis, apart from the friendly Hopman Cup, that has the individual contributing to the Team’s cause.     It is this atmosphere that motivates scrappers like Lleyton Hewitt from Australia and Leand...

1 :a personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure (as a political leader) 2 :  a special magnetic  charm  or appeal  charisma of a popular actor> The above mentioned is the definition for ‘Charisma’. The second one would perfectly imply anybody who has ‘it’ in the entertainment industry. The purpose of taking the readers through the dictionary definitions of Charisma, is that I saw it with my own eyes yesterday For long this man has been called a passive actor and a performer suited only for intense roles as his face takes that little bit longer, to register a happy expression. He had a life defining hit in 2006 which bought a lot of unwanted attention. The pressure to deliver a colossal hit grew with every film, that he acted in. It, in fact was so overbearing that he stayed away from the turnstiles for three years Then when he came back from the self-imposed exile, people questioned his c...

On 1 st February 2009, Roger Federer broke into tears at the Australian Open presentation. The words that he uttered before breaking down were ‘God, it’s killing me’. There was a reason behind that. Though Federer will not reveal it, it was pretty clear. 2008 was a year that Federer couldn’t put it through Nadal He lost the French Open final (expectedly) and then was at the receiving end at Wimbledon, which was later hailed as the ‘Greatest match ever played’ . All this came to a conclusion at the Australian Open final 2009, where for most part of the match, Federer had played the better tennis and even won more points than Nadal This season, Nadal went through a similar run. He entered into 6 finals against Djokovic and lost in each one of them. It is not a co-incidence that Djokovic is having a dream run. In doing that, Djokovic has spread his wins over Nadal on all the surfaces- hard, clay, and grass After he lost to him at the Wimbledon, Nadal acknowledged that Dj...

Just when does a person call any match as the ‘greatest match of all time’? It has got to have what one would call an occasion, setting and a storied rivalry. Wimbledon final 2008 had all of this. It was the longest final at 4 hours and 48 minutes When one chooses to write on the final, you would half expect them to write a lot about the match, for the match was one such. But Weirtham treads off the beaten track here as he concentrates on the growth of Federer and Nadal in his description of each set and talks about the Wimbledon grass, general health of tennis and also how the games are broadcast from Wimbledon The game was one such where Federer found it tough to break Nadal’s serve and ended up conceding 6 games in every set to Nadal. Weirtham also concentrates on how Nadal’s game poses problems for Federer. He reveals in detail the way Nadal tormented the (weak) backhand of Federer A lot many people will brush away lot of facts from the book as unnecessary trivia, ...

The much vaunted middle order of India, before they embarked on the tour of England, made public their desire of scoring a hundred at Lord’s and getting onto the honours board. Only one of them was successful and he went on to score two more hundreds in the series, only to see his team being whitewashed On the other hand, the man who it was thought would score his 100 th century on the hallowed turf of Lord’s came a cropper till the last innings of the series. It was in that innings that he started to come into his own and the century of centuries and consequently, a draw seemed to be on cards. It was not to be as India stumbled onto a defeat as soon as he was dismissed As it always does, the failure of Sachin Tendulkar on this tour sparked off a huge debate about who is the better player of two. It is without doubt that if it comes to the range of strokes, effervescence, and rising to the occasion it is Tendulkar who would run ahead but when the parameters are set to being effecti...

Last month when India were on a tour to the Caribbean, they handed out debut to a player who is almost considered as the next batting great- Virat Kohli. He did not make any use of the opportunity and had to return to the repair shop immediately. His technique was found wanting against the short balls and the working over that he got from Fidel Edwards is something that would stay in the mind for some time to come Now in England, the youngsters and not so young, especially the left handers, are being hunted out with the short balls. Anybody who saw the dismissals of Mukund, Raina and Yuvraj, would have lost hope on them countering the short balls. Mukund did not make anything of the reprieve he got of the first ball he faced in the second innings. Instead his response to a continued barrage was to put the hand in front of the helmet grill! For long, the talk about Raina was his susceptibility to the short balls. Any kid with a working knowledge on cricket will tell you that the si...