Stan’s the Man in Paris… now onto the grass courts!
In what was expected to be a defining year in tennis for Novak Djokovic in completing is career slam, yesterday’s French Open Tennis Final at Rolland Garros proved to be another heartbreak moment for the Serb.
Having overcome the King of Clay Rafael Nadal in the quarter finals, followed by a testing 5-set semi against Britain’s Andy Murray, Nolé had just one more hurdle to complete his set of Grand Slam trophies.
In his way stood eighth seed Stan Wawrinka who by his own standards, was also having an impressive tournament, having already beaten the darling of tennis Roger Federer in convincing fashion, followed by local hero Jo Wilfried Tsonga.
Still, the form book suggested that Novak was the hot favourite and was in the form of his life. So victory was a foregone conclusion right? Absolutely not. Stan the Man had other ideas, with some sizzling backhand winners and dogged groundstroke play that dragged him back from a set down to win in four sets in what was seen as one of the best ever performances by anyone in a slam final. Stan was simply too hot to handle and he lifted the trophy in empathic style.
Novak was left to ponder what might have been in his third French Open final defeat and now the fans attention turns to the grass court season which is now longer than ver with the shift in dates, caused by the late start of Wimbledon, now pushed back a week.
June is going to be a great month for tennis in the UK with tournaments scheduled to air on TV including Nottingham, Queen’s Club in London, Eastbourne, and of course the big one in SW19 at Wimbledon, now commencing June 29th.
Coverage will be spread across the BBC, plus Eurosport and other networks so keep an eye on the UK TV schedules for live coverage of this month’s tennis action.
Golfing fans have all eyes on Chambers Bay
It’s the US Open this month, as one of golf’s biggest major’s gets underway on 18th-21st June in Washington State.
Home grown favourite Rory McIlroy has shown some strange and indifferent form of late, with his most recent performance at The Irish Open perplexing everyone by missing the cut. Having only days prior stated that he wanted to dominate the sport much like hero Tiger Woods, his form was anything but that of what we had come to expect from the 2011 US Open champion.
Surely the Northern Irish master can up his game for the big one across the pond? You can find out by catching all the action unfold live on Sky Sports 4 HD.
Hamilton’s back in the groove!
After a very disappointing result in Monte Carlo, having lead the entire Monaco Grand Prix from start to finish, only to be denied victory by a bazaar team decision to pit; reigning World Champion Hamliton got his season back on track yesterday by bringing his car home in an incident free Canadian Grand Prix to grab all the points and another Formula One win.
Everything seemed to fall into place for the Mercedes team, with the Ferrari’s having major problems in qualifying as German four-time World Champ Sebastian Vettel failed to get past the first session of qualifying and was forced to start at the back of the grid.
Teammate Kimi Raikkonen was also unable to make any inroads into the silver arrows dominance as the high speed track at Montreal suited the Mercedes set up this time around, with both Hamilton and Rosberg taking the first two positions on the podium.
Hamilton now leads to World Championship standings by only 17 points, whilst third placed Vettel is only 43 points adrift so this season is by no mans over year.
On 21st June, the teams head off to Spielberg for the Austrian Grand Prix, and with 12 races left, there’s still plenty of laps left to run and incidents to come.
So don’t miss any of the races as we get to the business end of the season by tuning into Sky Sports F1 later this month.
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