2007/04/29

One closer to 100 straight!

I think we'll be seeing a lot of Nadal pics here at TennisCast for the coming months. Hey everyone, M here. Nadal has added one more win to his now more than impressive straight clay court wins streak resting at 72. In todays Open SEAT Godo tournament in Barcelona Nadal defended his title for a second time by beating Guillermo Canas in a convincing 6-3, 6-4 display. The match lasted and hour and forty minutes and it was all Nadal from the start. The new clay court king posted the only break in the first set and the only break in the second. In the first set Nadal dominated with his 71% first serve percentage. He faced two break points but defended them nicely. He won 80% of his first serves compared to Canas' 61%. In the second set Nadal upped his serve performance and rose his first serve percentage to 80% and won 85% of those first serve. He did not face a single break point in the second. This is Nadal's third straight Barcelona final.

Nadal will not be in action this week as he will take a much needed rest before the second master series of the clay court swing. This week there two smaller tournaments in Estoril, Portugal and Munich, Germany. The highest seeds in each of those tournaments are Davydenko and Haas respectively. Nadal will be back in action along with 54 other ATP pro's on the 7th of May when action gets started in Rome. ATP Master Series TV will have all the action so make sure to check it out.

With this win we'll see one major change in the ATP 2007 race as Nadal will top Federer. Before this tournament began Nadal was a close second at 305 compared to Federer's 345 points, but that all changed when Nadal reached the finals at Barcelona where he could, if he won, recieve 50 points and thus have the chance to pass Federer. With his win he adds those 50 points and moves ever so closely over Federer in the Race at 355 to Federer's 345. It's a tight race for sure this year. Nadal will also receive 300 points for his overall ranking and move to over 5000 points, still a distant second to Federer's 7200. We'll be back next week with results from Estoril and Munich and with our pre-tournament analysis of Rome. See you guys soon. M out.

Oh, remember, Mario gets here this week so we'll be posting our second podcast pretty soon and weekly episodes will follow after that so check back soon.

2007/04/27

Quarterfinal Results!

Sup everyone, M here. The quarterfinals came to a close today and the semifinals are set to go tomorrow in Barcelona. As we had mentioned in a previous entry Ferrer was the first one through to the semis after taking down Nalbandian. This was their sixth meeting and the fifth win for Ferrrer in their head to head. He didn't face a break point, which is hard to come by on clay courts and even harder so against such a high caliber player like Nalbandian, who seemed to be on a hot streak after his convincing win against former #1 Carlos Moya. The second quarterfinal match that got under way involved Nadal. He was seeking his 70th straight clay court win already way ahead of Guillermo Villa's previous record of 53. It will be a long time for this new record to be broken. Nadal was playing exceptionally well in his previous two matches but today, well we can say he played sloppier than usual. He was broken when serving for the match. This was the first time his serve was broken in the tournament. Either Starace was playing high quality tennis or Nadal was just off. Let's give the Italian some credit shall we. He hung tight in the second set until he served at 5 -5 when Nadal broke and then served out the match. I guess Starace just couldn't deal with Nadal's energy as the Spaniard pump fisted his way to a 7-5 win. We mentioned before that Nadal last beat Ferrer in 2005 at the French Open. He has three straight wins against Ferrer coming into this semifinal. Nadal will be fueled by a couple things, his current streak and the chance to defend his title once again. Ferrer will fight to prove his fellow countrymen that he is a factor to be reckoned with on clay. They play tomorrow as the second semifinal at around 3:45pm Barcelona time or 9:45am easter time. The first semifinal will be played at 1:oopm Barcelona time or at 7am eastern time and involves Calleri and Canas.

Canas will be the clear favorite. Not only because of Rankings but the mere fact that he didn't have a quarterfinal match will give him a edge in physical ability. No match you say? Yep, what was supposed to be a great quarterfinal turned to dissapointment as not a single game was played between Canas and Davydenko. The number 4 in the world retired citing a wrist injury. Apparently he was getting massaged for a sore shoulder and by the end of it he couldn't freely move his fingers. A let down for sure as he was poised to make a resurgence this clay court season after many dissapointing results. Calleri on the other hand did have to play his quarterfinal and got through quite easily. He defeated Oscar Hernandez from Spain 6-0, 6-3. He played great tennis, he lost just one point on serve and thus did not face a single break point. He hopes to carry that win against Canas, who is looking to reach his third final of the year(Costa do Sauipe and Miami). We will of course be on top of all the results and we'll be posting them as fast as they come in so come back tomorrow morning for your dose of tennis action. Have a great weekend everyone. M out.

Quarterfinals underway in Barcelona

Hey everyone M here. The singles quarterfinals are underway in Barcelona today. The first of the four matches is already complete with David Ferrer reaching the semis after beating David Nalbandian 7-6(5), 6-2. The spaniard didn't face a single break point and continues his strong season. The next match is set to begin within the hour with Nadal facing Starace. The two have only met once before back in 2005 in Buenos Aires where Nadal came on top in the round of 16 with a score of 6-1, 6-3. The match after Nadal's is a promising one with Fed Defeater Guillermo Canas duking it out against the number 2 seed Davydenko. This could be a close match if Davydenko plays like the number 4 player we all know. He has been struggling a little these past few weeks so we'll wait and see how he holds up against currently on fire Canas. The final match of the day will be between Oscar Hernandez from Spain and the number 15 seed Agustin Calleri. The two met earlier this year in the Acapulco round of 16 and played a solid three set match with Calleri moving through. We'll have all the results later today so make sure to check back soon.


2007/04/26

Back from hiatus with Monte Carlo Results and Analysis

M here back from our month long hiatus. Sorry about the break guys but things came up, but...we're back and better than ever. The site has been reworked from top to bottom. We got the acin and double faultin lists back up. We got the links to the best tennis sites back up as well. New additions include some pretty cool things. The first one you'll notice is the new TennisCast logo! Yes we finally got the logo done and for now we'll be sticking to that one until a better one comes along. If you guys out there have some Photoshopping skills then please don't hesitate to send us your ideas to tenniscast@gmail.com. We read all the mails we get sent so go and get cracking. We'll have fun with the logo and we'll be making adjustments as the different tennis seasons pass us by this year, and so we start with clay. The second major boost we made to the site is our video section. You can catch it right below the logo. Each week we'll be updating the video section with great clips from the world of tennis. This week we're posting some recap clips of the Monte Carlo final. Check back each week and watch different clips. We got a lot to post so make sure to check them out. We have Federer clips, Ferrero clips, funny tennis clips and even some classics. Now that we're back from our hiatus we'll have constant updates and next week we'll have extensive coverage of the Rome Master Series. This week's videos go along with our results analysis so lets get to it.

So as I write this Nadal's clay court winning streak is at 69. He played today and moved on to the quarterfinals of the Open SEAT Godo tournament in Barcelona by defeating the former Australian Open champ Thomas Johansson 6-1, 6-4. He is one away from getting to 70 and his next match against Starace seems pretty easy. The big news though...Nadal won Monte Carlo. Not only did he win Monte Carlo, but he did not lose a set in the entire tournament. This is including the final where he manhandled Federer and won in straight sets 6-4, 6-4. The game was a little tighter than the score implies but it was no doubt a beating handed to Federer. Nadal played with aggression and his energy was present every point while Federer seemed to be dragging his feet after every point. It seemed like Nadal sucked out all of the energy out of Federer and used it to his advantage. I think this was the key to his victory. Although Federer making twice as many unforced errors as Nadal also helped, I think the intensity with witch Nadal played made all the difference and will make the difference in the upcoming Master Series events in Rome and Hamburg and more importantly at Roland Garros.

Federer keeps coming up with excuses after every lost match against Nadal. For the last five loses he says the same thing “I feel like I'm in good shape for the rest of clay court season, and it's going to come down to the French Open to see who wins.” He always says he learns and takes notes on every match. Lets hope thats true for Federer's sake. I think his tennis legacy is on the line. He might go down the same path as Sampras...the best player ever to play the game and never to win Roland Garros. He needs to stop taking notes. If Federer can steal one of the next master series...he will plant his seed in Nadal. He will strike at Nadal's confidence. If he loses in Rome and at Hamburg I do not think he will able to pull through at the French. He needs to chip away at Nadal's shield as early as possible. If he can win once he'll have the energy and even...hope, that he can stop Nadal at the French. This would be great for the fans as well. If he can actually put up a fight against Nadal and take one of these next tournaments the talk, the thrill and the anticipation of the French will just excite all of the tennis fans around the world including yours truly. So as much as I would like to see Nadal get to 100 straight wins on clay I think I would rather see Federer complete the slam. This is tennis history here guys and we are smack in the middle of it. Lets enjoy it while it lasts. I think we'll be at the same spot come this summer for Wimbledon and the grass season. Nadal got to the final last year and actually put more of a fight on grass than Federer ever has on clay. This will turn out to be truly interesting. Maybe we'll find out everything we need to know when both of them play on a hybrid tennis court for an exhibition. Half grass, half clay...even play for both.

M out, see ya soon with more updates from the Barcelona tournament and Nadal´s ongoing clay court streak. For now...enjoy the videos! Oh...Mario is finally coming down from Miami next week so the podcats will start rolling out on a weekly basis. Alright...that's it for now!