Andy Murray 'wants A Grand Slam'
Andy Murray has spoken of how he wants to peak at the right times to fulfil his hopes of winning a Grand Slam.
The Scot has slipped to number five in the world rankings after losing three consecutive matches on the Masters series.
He is 14/1 to triumph in the French Open, while Rafeal Nadal is 1/2 to regain the title he lost to Roger Federer last year.
Murray said: "The sooner I start winning again and going deep into tournaments, the better for me."
While he still wants to win every match that he plays in, the British number one is hoping to save his best tennis for the four big tournaments of the year.
Although some people expected him to seek a wildcard for the next event in Barcelona, he has chosen to spend the next week practicing at the site where he was based as a youngster.
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Roger Federer begins clay court preparations
Roger Federer has hit the clay early in preparation for his French Open title defence.
Federer may have made an early exit in last week's Miami Masters but it was soon back to business for the Swiss who did not even wait until he had left the city before hitting the clay courts.
Federer has opted out of next week's tournament Monte Carlo, a salubrious venue where he's been runner-up to Rafael Nadal multiple times. He is instead spending an extra week honing his clay-court game before competing at the Rome Masters, Estoril (a small tournament he won a couple of years ago) and the Madrid Masters where he defends his title.
Federer's form at Indian Wells and Miami was perplexing after he swept the rest of the tennis world aside to win the Australian Open. However the Swiss believes he may have underestimated the lingering effects of his lung infection.
"Maybe the sickness did take it out of me more than I thought, I could have done much better," Federer mused.
live-tennis.com
Tennis star Andy Roddick named new Lacoste Challenge endorserTennis ace Andy Roddick has been named the newest face of Lacoste's Challenge perfume. The Grand Slam singles champ is replacing Canadian actor Hayden Christensen for the label's newest campaign.
The chic, sporty fragrance is described as "a dynamic and energetic scent designed to inspire men to embrace the life's challenges with confidence, flair and enthusiasm". It defines the mixture scent of citrus and ginger aromatics with woody base.
The new ad campaign features Roddick, who also endorses the crocodile brand's clothing and accessories range, gazing back at the camera in a black Lacoste polo shirt. He inherited the role from Christensen, who was just named the brand's endorser last year.
And how does the tennis champ feel about replacing Christensen as the brand's new face?
"I just think its cool that i followed darth vader [sic]", he wrote on his Twitter account, referring to his predecessor's famous "Star Wars" role.
The brand thinks the 27-year-old athlete is the perfect fit for their product.
CEO Christophe Chenut has been quoted by U.S. magazine People as saying, "We're delighted to be working with Andy as the face of Lacoste Challenge as he is the natural embodiment of the brand's youthful, modern image.
Lacoste Challenge is available in stores for $40 to $60.
Copyrighted by Ibtimes.com.au
Federer can't see French Open leaving Roland GarrosMIAMI: Reigning French Open champion Roger Federer says that despite serious concerns over lack of space, he can't imagine the clay court Grand Slam leaving cherished Roland Garros "in my lifetime."
The Swiss spoke his mind on the crisis which may forced the French Open to move to the outskirts of Paris to a larger venue, as crowds increase and space becomes short on the grounds in the capital's chic 16th arrondissement.
French tennis federation officials warned this week that a move may have to be made should a solution to revamping the current venue not be approved by city fathers.
One possibility: tear down the relatively new Suzanne Lenglen showcourt and construct another with the now-obligatory retractable roof.
"For the venue to move takes a lot, so I think it's not going to happen in my lifetime - when I'm still playing," said the world number one, who will defend his crown in May.
"I definitely think there are always things to do better. It's super-crowded, especially the first week or so. But you're working with a small space."
"It's always very important for the tournament to try their best for the players, because we speak to the press. If we're extremely happy, we're going to speak extremely well about the tournament."
Federer said when he walks on the grounds in two months, he will feel fully ready for a second straight title at the venue where success eluded him for so long.
"Finally, there's less pressure, even though I'm defending champion," Federer said. "I have to defend 2,000 points, and defend the Coupe de Mousquetaires. It's not something that's so simple, I know that.
"I love those kind of challenges, I'm happy I have that kind of pressure. It's going to be one of the first times at the French Open I'm going to walk in the grounds smiling ... thinking, 'you know, what? I've already won this tournament. It's fine.'"
In the meantime, Federer remains focused this week on a third trophy in Miami, with a match against Frenchman Flornet Serra in the third round.
Copyright (c) 2010 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd
Looking Back at a Legend... Billie Jean King
Weeks at No.1: N/A (stints at No.1 pre-date computer ranking era)
Year-End No.1 Finishes (Open Era): 4...equal 4th (w/Davenport)
Tour Singles Titles (Open Era): 67…6th on all-time list
Tour Doubles Titles (Open Era): 101…4th on all-time list
Grand Slam Singles Titles: 12...equal 6th on all-time list (w/S.Williams)
Career Match Win-Loss (Open Era): 695-155
Win-Loss Percentage: .818...9th on all-time list
Having purchased her first tennis racquet with money saved from odd jobs so she could take free lessons, 11-year-old Billie Jean Moffitt told her mom, Betty, "I am going to be No.1 in the world." Girlish bravado, but a hint at the force of nature King would become as a woman. Yes, she rose to the top of the game but more than that she became one of the most significant social figures of the 20th century, her impact as a champion of equality far transcending sport.
King first earned that No.1 ranking in 1966, the year her feisty, net-charging style earned the 22-year-old her first Grand Slam singles title at Wimbledon. By that time she was Mrs Lawrence King, and part of a triumvirate of players who dominated the major titles in the second half of the 1960s, with Australia's Margaret Court and the Brazilian Maria Bueno. King already had more than titles on her mind, however.
As a girl, King had been given a taste of injustice when her tennis club refused to let her appear in a group picture because she was wearing shorts made by her mother instead of a dress. Later, the hypocrisy of under-the-table payments to supposed amateurs - 'shamateurism' - galled King, and when the Open Era was unleashed in 1968 she joined Rosie Casals, Ann Jones and Francoise Durr as one of the four original women professionals.
But despite this advance there was a huge disparity in prize money paid to men and women, and King was quickly at the forefront of the campaign to establish a standalone women's Tour with fairer rewards.
In September 1970, King was ringleader when nine players broke away from the establishment, accepting $1 contracts from promoter Gladys Heldman at an event in Houston. The revolt led to the creation of the Virginia Slims Tour, with King at the very eye of the storm. In 1971, the first full season of the new venture, she won 17 singles titles and became the first female athlete to earn more than $100,000 in prize money in a single year. The achievement even warranted a congratulatory call from President Nixon.
The war was far from won, however: the new Tour was divisive even among women players, and King walked a diplomatic minefield as she tried to get stars like Chris Evert, Virginia Wade and Evonne Goolagong on board.
By 1973 she had the clout to form the Women's Tennis Association, becoming its first president. But women's tennis was dealt a blow when top-ranked Court was thrashed by 55-year-old Bobby Riggs in the so-called 'Mother's Day Massacre' exhibition. Compelled to restore the fledgling Tour's honor, King agreed to take on former No.1 Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes at the Houston Astrodome. More than 30,000 fans saw the match live, with an estimated television audience of 90 million in some 35 countries.
King was acutely aware of the big picture: "I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn't win that match," she said of her 64 63 63 victory. "It would ruin the women's Tour and affect all women's self-esteem." Indeed, far from being a disaster, the match was a spectacular way to draw attention to the cause, and later the same summer she helped secure equal prize money at the US Open.
Not for nothing would "pressure is a privilege" become one of King's best-known quotes. She was the queen of high-stakes tennis, the consummate big match player. "The champions play their weaknesses better," she once said. In a crunch she could find confidence even in her forehand down the line.
During the first half of the seventies King was at the peak of her powers, capturing seven of the 10 Grand Slam singles tournaments played. Ending with Wimbledon in 1975, King won the last seven Grand Slam singles finals she contested. Across her career she was 11-2 in Grand Slam matches that went past 5-5 in the third set and 12-6 in major finals.
King's happiest hunting ground was, of course, Wimbledon, where she won a record (now shared with Martina Navratilova) 20 titles - six in singles, 10 in doubles and four mixed. She appeared in a total of 28 finals, including her 14-12, 11-9 loss to Court in 1970, which remains a classic. King won the triple crown at the All England Club twice, in 1967 and 1973, partnering Rosie Casals and Owen Davidson on both occasions.
By the time King retired in 1983 - she remains the oldest player ever to win a singles title (Birmingham that year) at 39 years, seven months - she had won 67 Tour singles titles (including 12 Grand Slams, one of six players in the Open Era to win all four majors) and 101 doubles titles, not counting those won before the advent of Open tennis in 1968 (the actual figure is more like 129). Only the Australian Open doubles title eluded her and she won a career Slam in mixed. She had been ranked No.1 in the world at year's end five times, been in the Top 10 a total of 17 years (beginning in 1960) and been a member of seven winning Fed Cup teams.
King, who underwent the first of three major knee surgeries as early as 1968, was such a warhorse (on- and off-court) that by her mid twenties she referred to herself as the 'Old Lady' of tennis. It's anyone's guess how many titles she'd have won had she concentrated simply on playing.
If she did hurt her own record, there is overwhelming compensation in her broader legacy. The Women's Sports Foundation, set up by King in 1974 to promote opportunities for female participation in sports, is still going strong. Ditto the innovative, co-ed and fervently populist World TeamTennis League, which she helped found around the same time, serving as commissioner from 1984 until 2001. Founded in 1998, the Billie Jean King Foundation supports projects in the areas of health, education and athletics. And, galvanized by her own painfully public outing in the early 1980s, King remains a potent advocate of the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) community.
In August 2009, at a ceremony at the White House, King was among the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom - America's highest civilian honor - from US President Barack Obama. The honorees were chosen for their work as 'agents of change', and she certainly passed muster.
Has King stepped on toes along the way? Surely. But if her convictions ever came across as militant, her push for equality regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation was never less than right. With immense drive and personal charisma, her pioneering feat has been to take people along for the ride.
Notable H2H (Open Era): vs. Austin 1-5, Casals 29-3, Court 2-5*, Evert 7-19, Goolagong Cawley 12-4, Morozova 1-2, Navratilova 5-9, Wade 22-9
* Career GS plus Open Era Tour matches only.
(c) 2010 WTA Tour, Inc
It's the court of King Roger at Indian Wells
Most of the time, Roger Federer is the Muhammad Ali of tennis. Against the best competition in the world, he floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.
Then there are those times, such as Sunday, when he also flutters.
Federer is a majestic figure, No. 1 in the world for a total of 273 weeks, owner of a record 16 Grand Slam titles, usually as unbeatable as he is revered.
He is a legend before his time, because his time appears to have plenty of ticks left on the clock. At 28, he is about three months away from tying Pete Sampras' record of holding the men's No. 1 ranking for 286 weeks. He floundered a bit in 2008, gave up the top ranking for a while, then got it back while winning two more Slams and getting to the final of the other two in '09.
He is seeded No. 1, obviously, at this year's BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. He began the year with yet another major title, beating Brit Andy Murray in the Australian Open final.
So when he took the court Sunday for his first match, in the late afternoon shadows of a perfect desert day, the place was as packed as it will ever be for a late-day match this early in the tournament. They surrounded him in the 16,100-seat stadium, many squinting down from the high sections and into the descending sun.
They didn't come so much to root as to gawk. If tennis had a nomination for eighth wonder of the world, Federer would be it.
It had been an eventful day on the men's side of the draw, even before Federer stepped on court.
Two unseeded Americans, James Blake and little-known Michael Russell, eliminated seeded players. Blake beat No. 13 David Ferrer of Spain, 6-1, 6-4, and Russell beat No. 32 Igor Andreev of Russia, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2. Andy Roddick, seeded No. 7, beat qualifier Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan.
Not as fortunate was fifth-seeded Russian Nikolay Davydenko, who has struggled with a bad wrist all season and withdrew from the tournament Sunday after an MRI exam finally showed that the wrist was broken. Also having a bad day were the Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike of Camarillo, top-seeded in doubles but beaten by Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic and Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany.
All that served as stage-setting for Federer, whose grand entrance was withheld for nearly three hours as Maria Sharapova was upset in the preceding match on center court.
Federer's straight man this time was Victor Hanescu of Romania, a tall, hard-hitting baseliner, who had played Federer four times previously and had yet to win a set.
As if on cue, Federer ran off to a quick lead and won the set, 6-3, winning 20 of 21 points on his serve.
That was the float-and-sting Roger. The fluttering Roger showed up in the second set, spraying shots, failing to convert break points and looking somewhat fragile in the 7-5 tiebreaker won by Hanescu.
Then the fragility disappeared in the third set, as Federer gobbled up Hanescu, 6-1. It was almost as if Federer had glanced at his watch and realized he had a dinner reservation.
But it's not so easy to just win and run off, if you are Roger Federer. When the match ended, they carted out a table and put three huge crystal trophies on it, all three for Federer. One was for being player of the year in '09, an obvious choice. Another was for being selected the top practitioner of good sportsmanship on the tour, his sixth such selection.
The third, especially fitting this day, was for his seventh straight selection as tennis' fan favorite.
He said all the right things on court to show appreciation for those fans, and he echoed that later in his news conference.
He even got off a verbal sting-like-a-bee moment in that news conference when asked the inevitable about the verbal sparring and tense moments between Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi in Friday night's charity event.
"I'm a father now," Federer said, "so I thought about giving them a timeout."
For a man who has hit most of the lines his entire career, it was just another successful shot.
Copyright (c) 2010, The Los Angeles Times
Fernando Gonzalez Aims To Masters Indian Wells
Fernando Gonzalez of Chile, is a player who is comfortable on all surfaces, indeed his one Masters Series final berth was in Rome on the Clay back in 2007, where he lost to Rafael Nadal. Gonzalez also fell short in the Semi Finals of the French Open, losing in 5 sets to Robin Soderling of Sweden despite holding a 4-1 lead in the 5th set. Fernando Gonzalez's one appearance in a Grand Slam final, was in the Australian Open along the way Fernando Gonzalez beat Rafael Nadal in straight sets in the Quarter Finals, before losing the championship match to Roger Federer in straight sets. Gonzalez went on to reach the ATP Masters Cup that year in Shanghai and he did record his 1st ever victory over Federer, in the group stages Federer however managed to rebound and went on to win the title. Gonzalez will be hoping to find his best form this week and win his 1st Masters Series shield in Indian Wells California.
Copyright (c) 2010 Bleacher Report, Inc
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