Mighty ‘Brit’ beats Djokovic
View(s):In the past seven decades, the big names of Tennis from the British Isles were in the history books. Fred Perry is the most famous of all. In the sixties names like Mike Sangster and Roger Taylor kept the flag flying for Briton but did not pick up any big titles as such. In the last four years Andy Murray has broken this ‘dry spell’ of the British Isles. He has won Wimbledon, Olympic Gold, Davis-Cup for Britain and now stays very close to becoming the world’s number one.
Murray has given ample grounds for this presumption. In Madrid after beating Rafael Nadal nearly beat Novak Djokovic in the finals. Last week he reached the finals of Rome and beat the world’s number one for the Title.
This is his first major clay court title in his ten year professional tour. The last British player to lift the trophy in Rome was George Patric Hughes in 1931. In the finals he beat the well known Henry Cochet – one of the three legendry French musketeers. Virginia Wade of Briton won the ladies title of Rome in 1971.
Tactic of ‘hanging tough’
Murray’s title in Rome came to him on his 29th birthday. On the day of the finals the red clay court was wet and heavy. It irked Djokovic and he lost his cool a good few times and went into a verbal exchange with the umpire over the state of the court. Djokovic can raise his game pace and place his opponents on a ‘hot tin roof’ on any surface and on clay, ever so effectively. Murray having played him many times, was ready for this tactic of Djokovic based on pace.
Murray in fact has lost to Djokovic around thirteen times and this is only his second win over him. Patiently he decided to ‘hang tough’ to Djokovic’s pace changing tactics and return as many as he could and it paid off.
The final score of 6/3, 6/3 in favour of Murray showed that his clay court game is ascending. He has improved his ability to move well on clay. French–Open will be played soon and Murray after his performance in Rome has become one of the top favorites.
Doping and the big betrayal
The history of doping seems to be the well kept secret in sports in the last thirty odd years. The scale at which it has been going on is amazing and annoying for those who believe sports to be an esteemed discipline of life. So much so most on the matt now have been the role models for youngsters coming into sport. What a betrayal of trust is that? It is unforgivable and totally unfair.
How can you rate the ‘doped wins’ and the ‘doped records’ in any sport over so many years? Professional sport opened up another vista starting from 1969. It is now suspected that this is the time that this ‘doping menace’ has crept into the sacred area of sport replacing age old values with money. Another factor that contributed to the wide-spread use of successful doping methods and material is the status quo a country enjoyed winning gold medals in international arenas such as the Olympics. Doping has been used for global war of ideology.
Now it is big and in a full scale war against doping. It is big enough to be the lead story in most of the television channels. The controlling bodies – IOC, WADA, IAAF are on a war footing and some nations have thrown in their facilities at the disposal of these controlling bodies to ‘fish out’ the crooks. Samples taken eight years ago in Beijing Olympics are been tested with today’s technology. Last winter Olympics samples have caused an international scale scandal and accusations go to the usage of national secret services to swap samples in the testing labs. As things stand now, a good number of top athletes will not be permitted to participate in 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. London Olympic samples and others with suspicion are being tested with state-of-the-art methods and it is tightening the net. The worst is not only some athletes but nations may not be allowed into Rio Olympics in August.
It seems the well hidden doping is losing their cover and those who were indulging in it even as far back as 10 years ago are now in a ‘world made of glass.’ Time is ticking on them. The scandal has shaken the noble status quo sportspersons enjoyed globally and making it very unfair on the real sportsmen and sportswomen. Roger Federer was tested just once in ten years and thinks that it was too little. Tennis which had a clean record is no more so.
In Tennis the second grand-slam of the year the French open begins in the last week in May in Paris followed by the Wimbledon at the end of June in London. World Anti Doping Authority [WADA] has vowed that no stone will be left unturned. Let us all hope sanity will prevail soon, or else, we stand to lose the most appealing tradition of man that started in ancient Greece – sports!
George Paldano, Former int. player; Accredited Coach of Germany; National, Davis-Cup, Federation Cup coach–. georgepaldano@yahoo.com