Worldwide Gilles is back on track now that he’s completed his Havana Cultura album and brings us his US Open roundup and gives his Champions League predictions:
so Juan Martin del Potro wins the US open – wow ! and all that after Federer’s legendary
hotdog shot the day before. the tides are turning a touch in the world of men’s tennis.
Ever so slightly a new generation is quietly challenging the forces of power. I wish we didn’t have so long to wait till the slam next year in Melbourne, but then again a break will do them all some good – specially Murray and Nadal who both have some re positioning in their heads to do. I think Murray will be okay as he can still improve in a Federer type of way, but Nadal may need some brand new body parts if he is to retain his high power game.
The US open was a great climax to an exciting tennis season this year – and the Clijsters win brought a little fairy tale action to the women’s game – and what about Serena – good stuff! she let off some proper ‘hairdryer’ heat on that poor lines woman! and eventually she
made her apology – wonder whether she’ll still have game motivation next year
- there are certainly a couple of English lasses coming through in the juniors which makes a change – both Heather Watson and Laura Robson won slams and will take some pressure off each other to be the first British lady winners at Wimbledon since Virginia Wade, which if I remember rightly took place during the Queen’s silver jubilee, and that was a long time ago!
Tonight sees the opening group stage of the Champions League.
Overall this competition is beginning to look quite predictable up until the second round. Was it meant to be like this in UEFA’s original imprint? somehow, like the big 4 in England there’s also a set of Euro teams who dominate the competition – in Spain its Barcelona and Real Madrid, Bayern Munich in Germany, Inter and AC Milan as well as Juventus in Italy plus the odd threat from teams like Lyon or Porto – but basically you get a good idea who’s gonna make it to the knock out stages … this year looks very straight forward for all the English clubs – they’ve got very straight forward groups – Man Utd may suffer a little from the distances they have to travel to places like Besiktas in Istanbul or CSKA Moscow, but all in all I don’t see any of them being knocked out this side of 2010. there is one group though worth following … group C which features AC MIlan and Real Madrid (interesting for Kaka’s family) alongside Marseilles and FC Zurich – you can forget the swiss who’ll just be about goal difference, but
Marseilles have invested hard this summer and could prove difficult to beat for the 2 super powers.
My predictions of qualifiers is as follows:
A : Bayern Munich / Juventus
B : Man U / Moscow
C : Real / Marseilles
D : Chelsea / Athletico Madrid
E : Liverpool / Lyon
F : Barcelona / Inter Milan
G : Sevilla / Stuttgart
H : Arsenal / AZ Alkmaar
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I hear you re Nadal. I didn’t see his defeat to Del Potro coming; then again, i didn’t see Federer’s defeat coming as well. I wonder if Fed will be as motivated – now that he’s won everything in the game. That’s always the good thing when there’s one slam missing from the collection. I guess Nadal having to win the US Open to complete the set will keep him motivated for a few more years as opposed to Fed who has now won everything. As for Murray: great talent and all that! But i hope he doesn’t turn out to be another Henman. Interesting times ahead. And yes Gilles P, i can’t wait for the Oz Open either.
: )
D
Comment by Dayo ///// Saturday, September 19th, 2009 @ 03:09 am