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text-decoration:none; } img {border:none;} The Sport Review: “Federer
and Nadal: A story of two halves in Australia” plus 4 more- Federer and Nadal: A story of two halves in Australia - Steve Bruce hits out at Gérard Houllier over Darren Bent - Andy Murray hails improving serve after reaching 3rd round - Messi and Mourinho star in Uefa.com 2010 dream team - ‘No concrete plans’ to switch Qatar World Cup to winter Federer and Nadal: A story of two halves in Australia Posted: 20 Jan 2011 05:35 PM PST At the top sat Rafael Nadal hoping to play his first complete match of the Australian Open. At the bottom was Roger Federer, already nicely warmed up by his opening three-set victory and hoping for a straightforward follow-up in his first night match. Their progress would take very different paths. For a man who professed to being "not perfect" in his health, having picked up a virus in Doha, Nadal looked in very fine fettle indeed for his half of the bargain. He had been kept out on court for just 11 games by an injured Marcos Daniel and looked ready to make up for it in Melbourne's midday sunshine. Metaphorically, he barely broke sweat, though in practice he was soaked from brow to calf. Clad in ever-more-drenched hibiscus red, he pounded his lasso of a forehand to each corner at will, ably assisted by a Ryan Sweeting who seemed unable to come up with enough variety to force his opponent out of his groove. It took just 28 minutes for Nadal to take the first set 6-2. In the process, he won 13 out of 13 points on his first serve, the last one being an ace of 130 mph. In the second set, Sweeting found a little more power and placement but his back-of-the-court tactics were no way to beat Nadal, who can reach and counter-punch almost every baseline shot. The Spaniard simply lifted his game, served even better, and secured the second set, 6-1. With the advantage of opening serve in the third set and a quick break in the second game, Nadal rushed to a 3-0 lead. The Melbourne temperature rose to its highest of the tournament as the match headed past 2pm, and Nadal played his part by pouring more heat all over Sweeting like molten lava: 4-0. Then for a moment, Nadal's concentration wavered: it looked as though the angle of the sun disrupted his ball toss. Whatever the cause, a double fault and a wayward forehand gave Sweeting his first break points and he seized the moment. It was only a moment, though, as Nadal broke back and promptly served out the set and the match, 6-1. In his usual attention-deflecting style, Nadal said of his performance: "I think I played a solid match. A few mistakes with the backhand, that's all." The extraordinary reality, however, is that he has now won 23 Slam matches in a row. With disingenuous modesty, Nadal deflected the mantle of 'favourite' onto Federer before the Australian Open even began. He pulled a similar trick when asked what his next opponent, Bernard Tomic, needed to do against him: "Play very bad, please. That's what I can say to him." That's a sentiment that Federer might have had about his own second round opponent, Gilles Simon, because for Federer, this match was always going to pose him questions. Indeed it was the last question he got asked as he walked onto court. What could he do to beat the man who had a 2-0 record over him? The Frenchman has had more than his share of problems in the last year, falling from inside the top 10 to outside the top 50 due to knee problems. Now he is back. He took the Sydney title only last week and climbed, tellingly, to just outside the seedings, at 34. Hence Federer's problem. Initially, it seemed as though he had found the right answer as he efficiently swept through the first two sets, 6-2, 6-3. But Simon is a notoriously good chaser, both from behind in a match and after balls on the court. For such a slightly built man, he has explosive speed, and in the third set, he started to pick up both Federer's ground strokes and his serve. He zipped them back deep to the Federer backhand, then to the forehand, and then wide to the backhand again: simple tactics, perfectly executed. In a dramatic turn-around, Simon broke Federer in his two opening service games and, though broken back, took the set 6-4. In the fourth set, both men's serving became more consistent, but Simon maintained long, fast rallies, breaking down the Federer attack, feeding off his pace, and finally breaking him to level the match with a 6-4 set. What had started as a challenge was becoming a headline story. At 2-2 in the fifth, it could still have gone either way. It was then that Federer, perhaps reminding himself of Paul Annacone's lessons of recent months, adjusted his tactics to try a more varied attack against Simon. He found more acute diagonal volleys, a sequence of soft forehand drop shots, and a few faster cross-court backhands. The combination brought a searing conclusion to the sixth game, a 4-2 lead, and two mighty roars from the usually quiet Swiss. He served for the set and the match, 6-3. It was 1:10am, yet still Federer faced the cheeky on-court questioning of Jim Courier. Despite five sets and three and a quarter hours of tennis, Federer was more than up to the task. Asked how he was feeling before the fifth set: "I'm loving every moment of it, having lost the last two sets." But Federer will be hoping he gets asked some easier questions in his third round match against long-time friend Xavier Malisse. With a retirement apiece for Nadal, Murray, and now Novak Djokovic too, Federer may feel he's owed a break—especially after fending off Simon and Courier in one night. Steve Bruce hits out at Gérard Houllier over Darren Bent Posted: 20 Jan 2011 05:07 PM PST Sunderland manager Steve Bruce has hit out at Gérard Houllier over Darren Bent’s move to Aston Villa. Bent left the Black Cats for Villa in a £24m deal on Tuesday after the 26-year-old striker handed in a transfer request on Monday. Bruce revealed his disappointment at losing his prolific forward, who scored 36 times in 63 appearances for Sunderland, and was left furious by the manner in which the deal was done. “I would have liked even a phone call from Mr Houllier, for whom I did have the utmost respect for what he’s done,” said Bruce. “I would have thought that, out of respect, maybe he would have picked up the telephone to say, ‘We are interested in buying your striker’. That at least would have given me an opportunity to try to do something about it. “If you are telling me we gave them permission to speak to him at 8pm on Sunday and it is done and dusted and there’s a press conference by Tuesday, I don’t think we should insult our intelligence.” The 50-year-old added: “We know in football it happens, we all know what goes on. We are disappointed with somebody of his magnitude, but there you go.” Bruce also admitted his surprise that the move was ever on the cards and says he did not expect Bent to switch Sunderland for a club eleven places below them in the Premier League. “If I am being honest, I never, ever saw it coming. I didn’t see it coming,” revealed Bruce, who fought off Fenerbache’s attempts to sign Bent last summer. “When I first heard about it, I just dismissed it and thought, ‘No chance’. I just dismissed it because I didn’t think they would get to the levels with the money and I didn’t think Darren would want to go there. I honestly, genuinely thought that. But there you go – I was wrong. “At this particular moment, we as a football club are going to try to play in Europe and Aston Villa are in a relegation battle, so that doesn’t quite make sense. “You will have to ask Darren on those questions – why, and the timing of it, why he couldn’t have waited three months until the summer and just have a little bit of respect for us? Bruce added: “But unfortunately, that’s the way football is and it has gone before you know it.” Andy Murray hails improving serve after reaching 3rd round Posted: 20 Jan 2011 08:38 AM PST Andy Murray highlighted his consistent serving as a key factor in a straightforward second-round victory over Illya Marchenko at the Australian Open on Thursday. The British No1 disposed of his Ukrainian opponent in straight sets 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 in the early hours of Thursday morning. He took just under two hours to secure his place in the third round, where he will meet Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. Murray raced into the lead in the first set, not dropping a game until Marchenko finally managed to hold serve to momentarily halt the rampaging Scot at 5-1. It was a brief reprieve for the Ukrainian as Murray secured the opening set with a rasping ace. The 23-year-old Scot hit an encouraging 16 aces, allowing the him to assert his dominance on the match. “I got a lot of free points on the first serve, which is important because from pretty much the first game he was swinging quite big on first-serve returns and the second serve,” said Murray afterwards. “I think once it got close, he started to miss more, because I didn’t feel like I hit my second serve badly. The ball was bouncing so high, he was really trying to take them on. It was important to get free points off the serve.” Despite having dropped the opening service game of the second set and then surrendering a break-point in the second game, the world No5 hit back and served imperiously throughout. Both players were at times frustrated by bad calls from the umpire and line judges with the Margaret Court Arena, an outside court, not blessed with Hawk-Eye technology. Once Murray clinched a two-set lead the result was inevitable, and he efficiently sealed the third, 6-3. “There were parts of the match that were tight,” said Murray. “Obviously the beginning of the second he started well. I was a little bit tentative. “But I played well. There were a lot of close games, a lot of 30-all games, deuce games, but I served well when I needed to really. That was the difference.” Messi and Mourinho star in Uefa.com 2010 dream team Posted: 20 Jan 2011 08:01 AM PST Barcelona’s Lionel Messi got the most votes from Uefa.com’s users as its 2010 Team of the Year was revealed on Thursday. And José Mourinho was picked as Europe’s top manager following last season’s clean sweep with Inter Milan. Messi netted 47 times for Barça last season and the 23-year-old has already scored 32 in 29 matches this term. The Argentine is joined by fellow Catalan team-mates Carles Puyol, Gerard Piqué, Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta and David Villa – all of whom played crucial parts in Spain’s successful World Cup campaign. Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas was handed a place between the posts after the 29-year-old became the first Spaniard to captain the national side to victory in football’s most prestigious tournament in South Africa. His Real Madrid team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo makes the cut for the fourth consecutive year. The forward, who cost Madrid a record fee of £80m, has already began to repay the hierarchy at Bernabeu for their faith in his ability, scoring 64 goals for Los Blancos since moving to Spain in 2009. And Real Madrid’s most expensive acquisition is joined by compatriot and current manager Mourinho, who enjoyed his most successful year to date in 2010 after guiding Inter Milan to a remarkable treble. The Milan side won Serie A by two points, overcame Roma in the Coppa Italia and completed the treble with victory over Bayern Munich in the Champions League final. Inter’s creative midfielder Wesley Sneijder and Brazilian international Maicon also both made the cut. Ashley Cole is the Premier League’s only representative in this year’s side. The Chelsea left-back made 29 appearances during last season, helping the London side to a Premier League and FA Cup double. Uefa.com users’ Team of the Year 2010 Iker Casillas (Real Madrid); Maicon (Inter Milan), Gerard Piqué (Barcelona), Carles Puyol (Barcelona), Ashley Cole (Chelsea); Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid), Xavi Hernández (Barcelona), Wesley Sneijder (Inter Milan), Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona); Lionel Messi (Barcelona), David Villa (Barcelona). Manager: José Mourinho (Real Madrid). ‘No concrete plans’ to switch Qatar World Cup to winter Posted: 20 Jan 2011 03:55 AM PST Fifa insists it has “no concrete plans” to switch the Qatar 2022 World Cup to winter following suggestions the tournament should be staged in January to avoid searing summer temperatures. Fifa president Sepp Blatter had fuelled talk of a switch earlier this month by stating that he “expects” the 2022 tournament to be held in winter. However, a Fifa statement released on Thursday read: “At this stage there are no concrete plans to change the international match calendar. “Any potential move of the 2022 Fifa World Cup from a summer to a winter period would have to be initiated by the football association of Qatar and would have to be presented to the Fifa Executive Committee.” The decision to award Qatar the right to host the tournament has come under fire with critics claiming that summer temperatures of up to 45C would make staging the competition in the summer dangerous for players and travelling fans. Despite the Qatar bid's vow to combat the heat with air-conditioned stadiums and fan parks, many football chiefs have called for the tournament in 11 years' time to be switched to winter. You are subscribed to email updates from The Sport Review To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. 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