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05th
January 2010
1st TENNIS
GRAND SLAM
The
2010 Australian Open Tennis Championship gets
underway on Monday 18th January and concludes
on Sunday 31st January with the Men’s
Singles Final.
It is the first tennis Grand Slam of the year
and for many of the players it is their favourite
tournament, due to the fun atmosphere created
by the half a million spectators that visit
Melbourne Park each year.
Reigning Australian Open singles champion is
Rafael Nadal, who won his first hard court Grand
Slam following a titanic five set battle with
his nemesis, Roger Federer.
In the wake of his Australian success, Nadal
won three Masters titles at Indian Wells, Monte
Carlo and Rome, putting him just one title behind
Federer on 15. However, tennis in 2009 for Nadal
went steadily downhill after those wins, due
in the main to injury. He reached the Madrid
Masters final, where he lost to Federer for
the first time on clay.
Then
at the French Open, a tournament he had won
for the last four years and one where he had
never been beaten, he was sensationally knocked
out by the Swede, Robin Soderling in the fourth
round. The defeat ended his chance of emulating
the great Bjorn Borg of five straight French
Open wins. It was confirmed afte that event
that Nadal was suffering from tendinitis in
both knees and that he would need to take some
time out from the tour.
The injury in fact kept him out of tennis for
almost three months thus preventing him from
defending his grass court titles at both Queens
and Wimbledon. Despite playing a number of tournaments
since then, Nadal has failed to win any and
it has become clear that he will need time to
regain his top form. At the recent World Tour
Finals, regarded as the next biggest tournament
behind the Grand Slams, he failed to win a single
match, being eliminated in the ‘round
robin’ stage. However he remains number
two in the world, but only just as he has Serb,
Novak Djokovic , Britain’s Andy Murray
‘and Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina
breathing down his neck’.
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Federer of course
went on to claim Nadal’s crown in the
2009 French Open, becoming the first man since
Rod Laver to have won all four Grand Slams.
He also equalled the Pete Sampras record of
fourteen Grand Slams, which he was to pass
just six weeks later when he won Wimbledon
for the sixth time after an epic final set
against America, Andy Roddick.
Federer also reached the final of the US Open,
but failed narrowly to win that title for
a sixth straight time losing to the world
number five, Del Potro in the final.
Federer has won the Australian Open three
times in 2004, 2006 and 2007 and will start
favourite to do so again in 2010, but he knows
that Grand Slams are becoming tougher to win
and that he will have to be at his very best
to do so.
Djokovic was champion in Australia in 2008,
but despite a great last six months on the
tour which has seen him win five titles, he
has yet to make another Grand Slam final,
but many think that he has made significant
improvements in 2009 and will be one of the
men to beat here.
Murray is rapidly becoming the ‘also
ran’ of Grand Slam tennis. Other than
the 2008 US Open final, which he lost to Federer,
he has not made a single final. His best 2009
Grand Slam performance was reaching the semi
final at the 2009 Wimbledon, where he was
found wanting against the experienced American,
Andy Roddick. Murray has proven he has what
it takes to beat the best players in the world,
but in each of the 2009 Grand Slams he was
beaten by a player lower than him in the world
rankings. Fernando Verdasco beat him in the
Australian Open, Fernando Gonzalez in the
French, Roddick at Wimbledon and world number
13, Marin Cilic at the US Open.
Nikolay Davydenko, who is the world number
six player, won the prestigious World Tour
Final in London at the end of the season,
defeating Del Potro in the final. The win
proved that Davydenko will also be a lively
contender to win his first Grand Slam and
goes to Melbourne in the form of his life.
Discuss
Story
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