Friday, January 20, 2012

Origami and more...

1. From a relative anonymity to the Hall of Fame - the jump that Marcos Baghdatis made in the sport of racket smashing.

Sure you have heard of the champions of this sport.
Goran Ivanisevic is undoubtedly one of the greatest. A Wimbledon champion and a fine tennis player. Finer than him were the pieces of his equipment after he was done with them. This is what he said after his semi-final against Kafelnikov -

"I was pretty nice to the racket all last week. I was surprised how easy it broke. Maybe there is something wrong with it, or I'm too strong."

Another famous champion is the Russian, Marat Safin. If you were to consider only his racket smashing reputation, then this man should be sending shivers down the Russian Duma (all 140% of them). He is estimated to have smashed over a thousand rackets in his career.
In his own words, the logic behind his passion for racket origami -
"Today I smash rackets, for tomorrow we die."

Safin: Using the Force to destroy this particular one
Even the great Roger Federer is a nondescript in this sport. Then how did Marcos Baghdatis achieve his feat, you might ask. In a highly explosive fit of rage in the match against the Swiss, Stanislas Wawrinka, the Cypriot destroyed not just one or two, but FOUR rackets, all within a minute, before smiling, accepting a code violation and resuming the game.


Thank goodness Cypress is no longer a part of Greece.


2. Clash of the Canines - A poor joke that can be made on two very talented youngsters on the circuit.
But the Aussie, Bernard Tomic (read more about him here) and the Ukrainian, Alexandr Dolgopolov (nicknamed Dog) match up to showcase the most extraordinary brand of tennis. As Vijay Amritraj pointed out -

"If Ferrer and Hewitt played a match, no doubt it will be of excellent quality, but they will end up playing the same point over and over again.
They will come no where close to matching the variety of these two youngsters."

          

And in a true display of rising confidence, the younger Tomic battled past Dolgopolov in five electrifying sets to advance to a personal best fourth round in the Australian Open and set up a clash with four-time champion Roger Federer. This performance also justifies his new title of being Australia's No. 1.

3. After shattering and grinding all records, and then sweeping them and throwing them into the bin, all in one Wimbledon match, one would have thought he'd had enough of five set marathons.
But clearly, five set marathons have not had enough of John Isner.

The American giant with a powerful service game had two of them, back to back. Against the Argentinian, David Nalbandian, he went on for 4 hours and 41 minutess before winning 10-8 in the fifth set, which alone lasted for 99 minutes. And against the Spanish lefty, Felicano Lopez, he toiled for 3 hours and 26 minutes. But this time he ended up on the losing side.

Isner: After someone kidded that they're abolishing tie breakers.
Of course, these encounters do not compare at all with that Wimbledon match (Isner's, not the 08 final). But it would seem Isner is making himself into a professional long-distance runner.
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Read the first of the articles on the One Hundredth Australian Open here.

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