Fedrinator Vs. Nadambo - Tennis the clash of the Titans on the world's biggest Tennis stage -Will it be Titanic results for Federer!

Ok, I admit both lack the physique of a Terminator or a Rambo but you'll agree, both annihilate the competition.

Fedex made short work of Safin and Nadal stepped it up when he really needed against Schuettler. Even though both won, we all saw that they are not invincible.

Nadal looked more shaky of the two and looked definitely rattled when Schuettler got ahead in the second set. As expected though, he managed to win against the german. This however, was the first time in a long time that I saw, Nadal being a defender than an aggressor and apparently he's neither used to nor likes being in that situation.

Under pressure, he was making the mistakes that any player does, hitting long balls, making unforced errors and even double faulting. Before I say anything else, I need to acknowledge that Schuettler despite his two-day marathon match with Clement didn't look jaded as I thought he would and instead looked fresh enough to bring it to Nadal and boy, did he do that. If he had won the second set, who knows what would have happened. When I saw his first two games in the match against Nadal and though he eneded up losing the first set, I felt that if anyone could defeat Nadal, this is the man. Oh what a loss! Spain overcomes Germany again.

Federer on the other hand had a relatively easier match against a resigned-to-lose Safin. I mean Safin seemed to believe what he had said earlier; I'm playing semifinals, but that doesn't mean that I have a chance there .... To beat Federer you need to be Nadal and run around like a rabbit and hit winners from all over the place...... It's another chance for me. But I think it's just a little bit too difficult it would be for me to beat him.

Again, I felt somewhat, if anyone could trouble Roger - Safin could be the man but then we all know the result.

Coming to our match on hand - the £700,000 question is - Can Fedex retain his title! Notice that I didn't say " Can Nadal win the title" - I truly believe that Federer has a mental block against Nadal, a lack of confidence if I could stretch a little bit.

I've also felt that Roger is trying to pscyhe himself up and gets quite a bit defensive when asked about his potential loss to Nadal. His comments, in my opinion, even refelect a certain desperation; "But this is different because this is now crunch time, it's playing the second best player in the world, somebody's got all the chances to beat you on any given day, you know. So you definitely respect that.

It's make or break, and that can sort of put you under more pressure or make you more nervous. I've been in this situation so many times that for me it's not really a whole lot different because for me I know I'm playing very well, and from that standpoint I don't have much to worry about. And I know if I do play well, I'm most likely, you know, going to win the finals."
Here's the full interview link of both players R. Federer Interview - 5 July & R. Nadal Interview - 5 July

Now don't get me wrong these interviews by themselves don't appear to intense, even appear to be nice conversations with nice comments about each other but the overall drift that I catch from these and other comments Roger has made - to me its all one sign - he's great except when he plays Rafa and then he hits a road block.

To me this match's result is going to be a combination of two previous matches
1. Andy Murray and Nadal match
2. Fededx and Rafa French opem final match.

1. If Fedex can win the first set, in my opinion, he will win the match
2. In the French Open final, in my mind, Fedex lost the match in the second game of the first set when he was one game up and had a chance to break Nadal's serve and didn't do it. It brought him down but pumped up Rafa.

Keys to the match;

Roger
1. Do a Schuettler - be highly agressive, not necessarily rush to the net but make Rafa run coast to caost - keep him reacting rather than set up his shots. For gos' sake, win the first set.
2. Be a closer - make sure to break Rafa's serve when you get a chance - if you are up 15-40 on Nadal's serve, play very tight, control your volley's and play be percantages. Try being your usual self and you will neither win the game nor the championship

Nadal
1. Remain aggrassive, win the first set
2. Don't do too many drop shots, Roger is very fit and covers the ground very well and will put you in trouble if these are not ball-dead-on-arrival drop shots.

Good luck to both and as tennis fans, we hope for a good treat as we set glued to our TVs.
Yeah, I wish I was to watch this live but I have to wait till I'm sponsored.

Spain wins after 44 yrs. Now China looms! Tennis World

Ok I admit, the title may be little confusing there! Of course I refer to Euro Cup when I say that Spain won after 44 yrs.

So you may question, why mix Football/Soccer with Tennis. The reason is kind of weirdly obvious to me, at least as far as the Ladies Singles go. Can China do an encore of Spain and win their first ever Grand Slam title!!!

As for as Men's title; The question in the mind of fans in the tennis world is; can Nadal do the same in the Tennis World!! on Grass!
Would he be able to say Your Ass is Grass to Federer or would Andy Murray bring back some long last glory to British tennis and end up meeting Federer for the top honors, eventually.

Would Federer be even in the Final!

Either way, it is a yummy set up on the Wimbledon stage right now. Federer, Safn, Nadal, Murray, Ancic, Lopez, Schueletter, & Clement - could there be more variety here! I guess you could say that a Baghdatis or a Youzny may have been not bad either but, it is what it is.

However, before we delve deeper into Men's side, let say three Cheers for Zheng Jie of China. The first wild card to reach a grand slam semi-final of the ladies' singles and the first Chinese woman in the last four of a Grand Slam semi-final. Wow! And I believe that if anyone can defeat Serena ( besides Serena herself) Zheng is the one!

As for the other semi between Venus and Dementieva, the question is who will fold up first mentally and I think so far, Russians have shown a tendency to be highly fickle in that department. Would it be a Zheng Vs. Venus, Serena Vs. Dementivea, Venus Vs. Serena or the highly improbable though not entirely impossible; Zheng Vs. Dementiva!

Ooh! the possibilities and potentials! I'm ready to watch some action now.

Circling back to Men's corner now, lets look at the quarterfinal line-up and evaluate;

Fedex Vs. Ancic - would Ancic's marathon match with Verdasco take its toll or would he show the same grit as he showed in that match! I think Fedex may be little too much for Ancic.
Winnner - Fedex

Marat Vs. Lopez - Before I comment on the upcoming quarters match, I must vent a bit on Safin. I have to admit, I was surprised, no - was stunned by Safin's demeanor against Dojokovic in their match - I was expecting almost all through the match that Safin will explode in anger, frustration or both whenever he lost an easy point but boy, was I in for a big surprise. He kept his cool and got under the head of Dojokovic. Yes, I do believe that Dojokovic didn't play too bad except maybe in the third set but I think what got his goat was the fact that like me he expected Safin to implode and that never happened.

Anyways, coming to the quarters - Lopez has couple of good victories under belt specially the last one with Baghdatis but I think Safin is capable of taking care of business.
Winner - Safin in a tight finish

Schuettler Vs. Clement - Schuettler defeated Tipsarevic and Blake on his way while Clement won over Cilic and Bjrokman - I would like to think that Schuettler will win over Clement but given the fact that Germany lost to Spain in Euro - an absurd comparison but a kind of sign!!
Winner - Clement ( because Germany lost Euro cup)

and now Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps the most anticipated quarterfinal match-up

Nadal Vs. Murray - Murray has kep his head with wins over Gasquet, Haas and that old fox Santoro ( God, I love that guy, he makes the best players look ordinary with his game) while in my opinion Nadal has not really been battle tested so far, really speaking and where ever he was tested, he came up with mental toughness to win. He looks to be the fittest player on the circuit and his reputation alone gives him a one set lead over opponents but you know what, I like Andy's chances here. I'm not sure if Andy can keep his head and the focus but if he can, he has a decent chance. I know, I'm being a little ambiguous here but you know this is amongst the toughest to call. In my mind, whoever wins the first set will take the match and the honors.
Winner: the winner of first set

So there, this is how I read the matches and hopefully I'll be correct in predicting All of them - yes, modesty is my middle name.
If that doesn't happen, I'll cry in my towel till I go to sleep.

Lets meet again after the Men's quarters and Woman's Semis are done and see how I fared.

Fedex, Rafa, Dojokovic and a Superidiot - Gimelstob

So, the first week of Wimbledon came to a close y'day and Federer and Nadal continue on their run. Neither of them looked smooth to me though I have to admit that Fedex looks little better then I thought he would but he still continues to play some loose games in almost every match.

Till such time he starts playing more sharply and starts closing out games that he should, he will not re-gain his status as the most dominant player on the circuit. In fact, I think he's in real danger of losing his wimbledon crown this year to Nadal - if Nadal makes it to the finals, which I believe he will.

On the other hand Nadal excfept for his y'day match with Keifer hasn't had the kind of matches that he had in French open and almost every match has started tighter for him compared to his clay court matches, but there is no denying that for a clay court player he is far ahead of the pack. With every win, I think he's getting better here. We'll see how it pans out.

Fedex on the other hand has a tough match coming up with Hewitt. Since Tony Roche has previously coached Roger and is now coaching Hewitt, it will be interesting to see if Hewitt has a major strategy coming into the match and causes extra concerns to Roger. I do except Roger to come through but only with a whisker.

In my mind its very clear that IF Federer doesn't win this 2008 Wimbledon Men's Championship then herefater he will only be playing as one of the good players and not the greatest. In other words, No 2008 Wimbledon Title - No other Tennis Final win. He may end up winning 2 or more grand slam titles to get ahead of Pete Sampras' grand slam record but he will be winning that over a long period of time, UNLESS he wins this time in AELTC.

Now coming to this moron called Gimelstob - yeah the same guy who endeared himself to many a tennis fans by his oncourt persona during 2007 US open after losing to Andy Roddick - remember the few minutes that he grabbed the microphone and started asking funny questions to Andy and jibing in general.

Alas, how were we to know that a man who appeared to be witty on the court was shitty in his head. If you don't know why am I saying all this or why tennis fans are upset then this is the background;

Earlier this week, he went on the morning show of a radio station and vomitted out filth as you can read in this article by Dan Steinberg;

But just before you start reading on what he said, wherein besides addressing Ana and other women tennis players in worst possible ways, he berated Ana's game, here's a quick look at Ana's and Gimelschlob's records

Justin’s lifetime record: Singles: 106W-168L, highest world ranking 68.
Doubles: 171W-154L, highest world ranking 18.

Anna’s lifetime record: Singles: 209W-129L, highest world ranking 8.
Doubles: 200W-71L, highest world ranking 1.

Here's the article;
And when he went on the Junkies this morning, he talked about--what else?--the female figure.

Early on, it was Brooke Mueller, the new wife of Charlie Sheen, with whom Gimelstob said he was previously "friendly. Biblically friendly. I don't think I was the only one," he added.

There were vague references to other conquests, but his most interesting remarks were reserved for Anna Kournikova, whose St. Louis Aces will face the Kastles in a late July grudge match that will surely be uglier than any World Team Tennis grudge match this town has known. Seriously, if you thought DeShawn-LeBron was ugly, just wait for Gimelstob-Kournikova.

"She's a [bleep]," Gimelstob said of Anna, using a word that rhymes with "kitsch. "We're gonna kick her [bleep]," he added, using a word that almost rhymes with "kastle."

Well then. Will he talk junk to her on the court?

"One hundred percent," he said. "If she's not crying by the time she walks off that court, then I did not do my job."

So it's pure hate then?

"Hate's a very strong word," he said. "I just despise her to the maximum level, right below hate. I think she falls into the Marcelo Rios 'Scumbag' category....And this whole bluff about her retiring because of her back? She had the yips on her serve, she can't get her serve on the court. Wait until you see on July 23, she's gonna be serving 40 miles an hour and I'm gonna be just plugging it down her throat....We do exhibitions together and I'll mock her, and make fun of her. I'll just make her know that she's stupid....I'm sure she'll rue the day that she has to come here and actually share space with me."

The Junkies asked whether she knows that they'll be facing each other; "probably," Gimelstob said. "She might not even be smart enough to read the schedule."

They asked if he would serve at her head; "No, I'm gonna just serve it right into the body, about 128, right into the midriff," he said.

And they asked what would happen if Kournikova made a move on Gimelstob. You know, a Biblical move.

"Definitely not," he said. "I have no attraction to her, because she's such a douche....I really have no interest in her. I wouldn't mind having my younger brother, who's kind of a stud, nail her and then reap the benefits of that."

Later, he was asked to assess the top 20 players in the WTA rankings;
he called Tatiana Golovin "a sexpot,"
Nicole Vaidisova "a well-developed young lady," and
Alize Cornet "a little sexpot." ...........................

If you are a tennis fan appaled by this Schlob's comments, I encourage you to write to following;

Tennis Channel - where this a$$hole is somekind of journo
Alos note that the Tennis Channel is sponsored by
Wilson Sporting Goods (racquet@wilson.com),
Tennis Warehouse (info@tennis-warehouse.com),
Tennis Court Online (http://www.tenniscourtonline.com/ContactUs )
IMG Academies (laura.young@imgworld.com) and
Lacosta (http://www.lacoste.com/usa/main.html - contact form) to name a few.
You should cc e-mails to them as well as the tennis channel -general@thetennischannel.com