Apocryphal Stories !!!

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, ...