Three events that matter before clay season starts.

-Dubai.

-Indian Wells.

-Miami.

Are all five playing at Dubai this year? Here’s what happened last year:

Player	Dubai	Indian Wells	Miami
Federer	DNP	Semis	Semis
Djokovic	Winner	Quarters	Finals.
Murray	Quarters	Finals	Winner
Nadal	DNP	Winner	Quarters
Delpo	DNP	Quarters	Semis

Photos.

Man kisses Nadal. From rafafan. Thanks.

RAFAFAN

Is Rafa Gay or a Bisexual?

I don’t know whether the following video had already been posted on this Really Freaking Lame Tennisblog!? Rafa being kissed on court at the US-Open 09 by a crazy male fan!

We know the names of Navratilova, Mauresmo et al but do we know the names of the corresponding atp tour?

Rafa took it with humor! Es muy buena gente. Cheers.

Perhaps SHE is the GOAT…. From rogerfanusa. Thanks.

ROGERFANUSA

Perhaps SHE is the GOAT….

I am a huge tennis fan. I’ve been watching for years, just started playing. I am embarrassed to admit that I’ve never heard of Esther Vergeer until today when I was flipping through the Sports Illustrated Page. We give Roger Federer well deserved credit for what he has done, but look at what Esther has done, and is still doing….

Taken From Wikipedia…

“Esther Vergeer (born 18 July 1981, Woerden) is a Dutch former wheelchair basketball and current wheelchair tennis player. She is five-time Paralympics tennis champion, eleven-time consecutive world-champion (i.e. winner of the NEC Masters tournament)[1], and has been the world’s top ranked player since 1999. Unbeaten in singles matches since January 2003, she may be the most dominant player in any professional sports.
Vergeer became paraplegic when she was 8 years old due to an otherwise successful, very risky surgery concerning hemorrhaging blood vessels around her spinal cord. During revalidation she learned to play volleyball, basketball, and tennis in a wheelchair. After playing basketball for several years at club level, she was invited to join the national wheelchair basketball team. She played with the Dutch team that won the European championship in 1997.
Vergeer had started playing tennis in parallel with basketball, playing her first international tournament in 1996, and switched to full-time tennis in 1998. Coached by Marc Kalkman, her first big win was at the US Open championships in 1998, moving her from 15th to 2nd in the world ranking. During the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney she did not lose a set to win the gold medal in singles and also won the doubles title with Maaike Smit as her partner.
At international tournaments, Vergeer has (as of November 19, 2009) won 140 singles and 123 doubles titles. Her overall record is 582 wins and 25 losses in singles, and 395 wins and 30 losses in doubles [2]. Since 31 March 2001 she has lost only one singles match (on 30 Jan 2003 at the Sydney International to Daniela Di Toro from Australia). Between August 2004 and October 2006 she even won 250 consecutive sets, only one of which ended with a tiebreaker. Vergeer is currently on a 383-match winning streak[3][4].

She has been nominated five times [5] for the Laureus Award for Sportsperson with a Disability of the Year, winning it twice in 2002 and 2008.

Australian Open: singles 2002-4, 2006-9, doubles 2003-4, 2006-9
British Open: singles 2000-2009, doubles 1998-2004, 2006-9
Japan Open: singles 2004, 2007-8, doubles 2004, 2007-8
US Open: singles 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005-7, 2009, doubles 1998- 2000, 2003, 2005-7, 2009
NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters (“World Championships”): singles 1998-2009, doubles 2001, 2003, 2005-2008
Paralympic Games: singles 2000,2004, 2008 & doubles 2000, 2004

Federer’s Slam finals vs semis for other greats? From stuart. Thanks.

STUART

I don’t remember exactly where I saw it pointed out, it was probably on this sight somewhere, but Federer needs to reach just one more slam final to have been in as many finals as Sampras been in semi-finals! That got me thinking that it would be interesting to compare Federer’s results to the results of other greats but at a “level down”. In other words compare slam wins with final appearances and Federer’s final appearances with number of semi-final appearances for the rest.

Right now taking 16 slam wins would rank him tie forth all time in final appearances. His 22 final appearances would rank him sixth on the list of semi-final appearances.

That’s already pretty amazing but obviously he’s not done yet. There’s a decent chance he could end up with 19 slams which would tie Lendl’s 19 slam finals. Federer probably won’t be able to reach the 31 slam finals to match Connors’s 31 slam semis but he has a decent shot at matching Agassi’s 26 which would tie him for third all time. Reaching 28 might be a stretch, but would tie him for second all time semis with Lendl.

When Fed fans talk about their man taking things to the next level, they really mean it.

Guessing Rafa’s Seeding at the French Open This Year. From Chipnputt. Thanks.

CHIPNPUTT

Guessing Rafa’s Seeding at the French Open This Year

I’ve tried to figure out Rafa’s seeding at Roland Garros this year. To do this, I took the current points of everybody in the top 10 and subtracted the points they have to defend until RG and got what one could call “effective points”, or EPs.

In the numbers below, the first column gives everyone’s EPs. (I have ranked the players according to their current EPs.) The second column gives how many EPs the player is ahead/behind Rafa right now. So for example, Roger has 11350 points right now but is defending 2170 until RG, so he has 11350-2170 or 9180 EPs. Rafa has 3090 EPs so Roger is 6090 ahead of him.

Here are the numbers:

(1) Federer 9180 +6090
(2) Djokovic 5130 +2040
(3) DelPo 5115 +2025
(4) Murray 5060 +1970
(5) Davy 4870 + 1780
(6) Nadal 3090 0
(7) Soderling 3085 -5
(8) Roddick 2990 -100
(9) Cilic 2655 -435
(10) Tsonga 2365 -725

Rafa is effectively #6 right now with #5 a solid 1780 points ahead and #7 and #8 only 5 and 100 points behind. And he’s going to miss a month of play. I’d be worried except that there are no big points on offer this month and lots of clay court points on offer until RG — 3 ATP 100 events at Monte Carlo, Rome and Madrid (earliest one is in April) There are also 2 hard court ATP 1000 events at Indian Wells and Miami before RG, where he may not do so well. So my best guess is he can’t catch anyone above him but he also doesn’t get caught by Roddick, Cilic or Tsonga. Soderling is strong on both hard courts and clay and may get past Rafa.

My guess: Rafa is seeded #7 at RG. That means there is a 1 in 4 chance of him meeting Roger in the QFs and ending the semifinal streak. If he falls below #8, there is a 1 in 8 chance he’ll meet Roger in the pre-quarters.

Last observation: Federer is so far ahead — Djokovic is over 4000 EPs behind him — that barring Roger losing in almost every first round and Novak winning every tournament Sampras’ record of 286 week at #1 is almost certainly toast.