Fact for the Day 5

Martina Hingis, was named after the legendary tennis player Martina Navratilova. Her parents, both from Czechoslovakia(the original country of Navratilova before she defected to USA), were professional tennis players. She would have achieved far more, had the injuries not affected her career....

30 games in a set!!!!!

And Federer won 5-7 7-6 7-6 6-3 16-14. Clearly, it went down one of the best finals in the history of Wimbledon. It's amazing that Federer, who was hardly challenged in the whole championship was pushed to such limits in the final. My heart goes out for Roddick and at the end of match, I was unable to decide whether to feel elated for Federer or sorry for Roddick. It was probably one of the times when one understands what "Mixed emotions" actually mean.

However, last year's final still stands as the best in the history. This year's did stretch for a long period of time, but somewhat lacked in the quality. Service was broken only thrice in the match. That is fine, but even otherwise there were hardly any games which were stretched to 'deuce'. It was a match which tested to limits the service of both the players. None of the players seemed to have answer to the other's. Federer hit more than 50 aces in the match while Roddick hit around 30. It would have been more, because most of the time Federer either barely managed to touch the serve or took it on his body. In the second set Federer conceded ony 5 points on serve, with Roddick not far behind with seven. Just goes to show, how powerful both of them are at their services.

Make no mistakes, I totally enjoyed the match. It was a fitting end to the best championship on earth. If last year's final was the longest final in terms of time, this one saw the longest 5th set in the history of the championship.After last year's final, I had not thought that I would witness another such action packed and exciting match again. I was wrong!!! Next year, I would like to be proven wrong again....

A Joke

India beat Bangladesh in its first match in T20 WC. As was expected, the news channels loyally devoted their whole day showing the highlights of the match. The footages of Yuvraj Singh hitting his sixes and Pragyan Ojha scalping 4 wickets were shown so many times that it seems as if news channels are gearing up to give Star Cricket a run for their money. After all, who else can make a superstar out of someone who played his first match and was awarded Man of the Match for the same?

On the same day, a little earlier, the doubles team of Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy won the French Open Title. This was Leander Paes’ 9^th Grandslam Title. I’m afraid to say that the news channels and newspapers did not care to devote even a fifth of the time they dedicated to this cricket match. The media always blames the government for showing lack of interest in sports other than cricket. But isn’t it doing the same? The fact of the matter is that Government does not show interest in any sport. It only spoils whatever goes into its hands. The media, sadly, comes to the fore only when it finds cases which would increase the TRPs and all the blame can be put upon the government. These hypocrites dedicate a full page of newspapers to cricket, while other sports have to console themselves with a few headlines.

For me, and for probably any other sports enthusiast, the French Open title is far much bigger than a match where India beats a minnow and which is being given so much coverage as if India has won a world cup itself. Spare a thought for the likes of Leander Paes (9 Grandslams), Mahesh Bhupathy (11 Grandslams) and Vishwanathan Anand (multiple times world champion) who have brought more laurels to Indian sport than cricket. Unfortunately, Indian tennis has become synonymous with Sania Mirza, who makes more headlines because of the controversies surrounding the length of her skirts as compared to her performances. No wonder, the future of Indian tennis looks bleak once the two torchbearers (Paes & Bhupathy) of the sport retire. Government killed Hockey; media is doing the same to other sports, albeit in a different manner.