NEW KING AT QUEENS.

Take a bow Juan Martin Del Potro!

In one of the biggest upsets in grand-slam finals history, a 20 year old Argentine dethroned the reigning emperor Roger Federer to win the 2009 men's singles US open and with it his first Grand Slam title. It was a surprise success but a victory hugely deserved for Del Potro. The 6ft 6in Argentine is the tallest grand slam champion in history, as well as the first man to defeat both Rafael Nadal and Federer at the same slam. The manner of Federer's defeat came as a suprise as, in contrast to the French Open where he struggled all the way, the Swiss star had looked imperious throughout the fortnight. Waiting for the Champions Trophy to take-off next week.

What a tournament for Del Potro, who had demolished Rafael Nadal for the loss of just six games in the semi-finals. On his first appearance in a grand slam final, and after more than four hours of tennis, Del Potro completed a well-earned victory over an opponent who has won 15 slam titles.
DelPo's game looks decent though he plays a power-game from the baseline. Of course he may look more gracious if he learns to volley well. If you are looking for an X factor in him, the sense of judgement, anticipation and timing of the baseline shots put him in a different league. And to top it all, the composure he has shown for a 20 year old pushes him a notch ahead of Novak and probably even both the Andy's.

In years to come, this will be remembered as the 'Hawk-Eye Final', as the occasion when the video technology got to Federer, with the Swiss even using a four-letter word during an exchange with the umpire about how Del Potro was using the computer. Okay, it wasn't quite up there with Serena Williams, but this is Federer, and it was a bit like hearing the Pope swear. Roger, who was bidding to win his sixth consecutive US Open title, had looked relaxed and the more likely to take the title having eased through the first set 6-3. But the turning point came late on in the second when the Hawk-Eye video technology - a system Federer has never been a fan of - turned the match on its head. At 5-4 up and 30-all, the line-calling technology denied Federer a set point after his Argentine opponent challenged a call by umpire Jake Garner. The ruling went in Del Potro's favour; the 20 year-old went on to take the set 7-5 and was back in the match. Unconvinced by the computer's calls and incensed by the amount of time it took del Potro to make his challenges, the third set saw Federer snap. "Don't you have any rules for this? I wasn't allowed to challenge after two seconds. The guy takes, like, 10. You can't allow that stuff to happen.", Federer said to Garner who appeared to tell the world No 1 to stop complaining.

This warning was met with further wrath when the 15-time major champion said: "Don't tell me to be quiet, OK? When I want to talk, I talk. I don't give a s*** what he said." Federer won that set. Del Potro came back to win the match. For the first time since 2003, when Del Potro was 14, Federer had lost in New York, going down 3-6, 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-2.

There are now two players younger than Murray, who is 22, to have won a major - Djokovic, the 2008 Australian Open champion, who is a week younger than the Scot, and Del Potro, the first non-European to score a slam since his countryman, Gaston Gaudio, was the 2004 French Open champion.

"I had two dreams this week. One was to win the US Open and the other one was to be like Roger. One is done, but I need to improve a lot to be like Roger" said Del Potro, who moved up one place in the rankings, from sixth to fifth. "Roger fought until the final point. He is a great champion. I'm very happy to be here with this trophy, with these people, on this court. This will be in my mind forever."

For Federer, it was a remarkable end to an incredible year that began with him unable to stem the tears at the Australian Open when he lost an epic five-set battle to Nadal. His first French Open triumph changed everything and, when he won Wimbledon, he broke the record of wins in grand-slam tournaments set by Pete Sampras. Win No 16 was agonisingly close but Del Potro snatched it away from him with a brilliant performance.

In his six US Open finals, Federer had played six different opponents. Beating Federer in the New York final had been beyond Lleyton Hewitt,Andre Agassi,Andy Roddick, Novak Djokovic and Murray. But it was not beyond the man nicknamed 'Enano' or 'Dwarf', who came from behind to win 3-6, 7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 6-2. So Del Potro stopped Federer from becoming the first man to win six successive US Open titles since Bill Tilden in the 1920s. "You can't have them all," said Federer.

The wins in Paris and London appeared to have lifted a weight off his shoulders and he was once again playing with the flair and panache that marked his game in 2006 and 2007, when he won three out of the four Grand Slam titles in each year.

"I don't get hit emotionally as bad maybe in Wimbledon and Australia where it becomes super quiet at the end of the games and you have a lot of things going through your mind.

"Here it's music, so your mind goes to the music instead of the match."

The men's tennis league seems to be getting very interesting with a lot of young and talented contenders. Definitely good news for the game.

On the women's front, I was extremely glad to watch Kim Clijsters win the US Open once again, the first mother to do so in 21 years! Way to go.

Cheers,
Debashish

Well done DelPo!!
Amazing effort from the 20 year old Argentine. His game looks decent though he plays a power-game from the baseline. Of course he may look more gracious if he learns to volley well. If you are looking for an X factor in Del Potro, the sense of judgement, anticipation and timing of the baseline shots put him in a different league. And to top it all, the composure he has shown for a 20 year old pushes him a notch ahead of Novak and probably even both the Andy's.
Federer had a bad day on court, getting into arguments with the line judge and then the umpire. As one newspaper quoted: 'It seemed like the Pope was swearing' That incident made him lose his temperament asnd ultimately the championship.
Cheers,
Debashish

US Open QFs 3 and 4:

Potro bt Cilic:
I have never seen a whole match of Del Potro or of Cilic.
What I saw was not very promising stuff from Del Potro. Even though he won it rather easily, he looked more like an uni-dimensional baseline player. He uses his height to great advantage for his serve and curling forehand winners, for a tall guy of his size he moves incredibly well. But, he does not have the slice of Fedex or Nadal, neither the top spin for a defensive game. One thing that saves him is the composure that holds him straight which is very uncommon for his age.
Del Potro will lose very badly if he continues his baseline game against the likes of Nadal or Federer.
Coming back to Cilic, he has got a very good slice, looks like an excellent volleyer like his compatriots Ancic and Ivanisevic, has a very good serve and a decent baseline game. If he learns how to be consistent and be patient in big points, he is the man for the future. Watching him in the first set did show that Murray did not at least lose to an average player.
Nadal vs Gonzalez (suspended) :
Will you say a great escape for Nadal ?
He was down with abdominal pain. Such is the quality of his game that he hung in there and did not let Gonzalez break once.
Nadal himself did not earn a single break point. Nevertheless he went on to win the first set. Gonzalez, nervous as ever, against Nadal was hitting massive unforced errors.
The weather being heavily windy favors Nadal a lot, at the same time he has got time to get his things together for tomorrow..
He may very well be into his first US Open final!!
Cheers,
Debashish

Well I'd luv 2 agree wid u my friend as far as an RF~RN finals is concerned. (I'm a veryyyy old Rafa fan :))

Regarding Fed's intentions of avenging his Aussie Open loss, I have always believed that Federer plays his worst tennis against Rafa. Nemesis is not a new word in any game!

Cheers,
Debashish

Morning Guys 'n gals,

I saw the match today morning..
It was Fedex and definitely Tennis at its gracious best in the first two sets.. Do not go by the winner tally, just see the match to believe it.
And like many other matches Roger became complacent in the third and somehow he lost as he had 20 winners,9 aces and just 6 unforced errors in that set. All credit to Soderling for the way he hung in there. Fourth was atypical Roger as he started playing little badly under pressure exerted by the ferocious hitting of Soderling. The pace of his shots were about 10 or 15 kph faster than that of any other player on court, even Gonzalez, and that made Roger's all important weapon, the backhand slices ineffective. It's very tough to win against a guy who serves continuously at more than 125mph.Do not go by the less number of aces that Soderling had as Roger has such good reflexes that he was just about touching most of the serves. The third and fourth sets showed how important it is to serve well to be a great player. Only Del Potro has the stuff to be a future great player in that context adding to the flurry of impossible angles he sneaks out.
Coming to the semifinals , one of the commentators said that Todd Martin, one of the consultants of Novak, should make sure that he does not watch this very QF match that Roger played. It is like losing the match before hand. More importantly, if he watches the match in the third and fourth sets also, that will frustrate him even further because by no means can he serve that well or hit the ball as fast as Soderling. Having said that, Novak is still playing great tennis and he just needs to set things up so that Roger comes under pressure and starts playing badly :))
I am really skeptical about Nadal making it to the SF even though he has a very good record against Gonzalez as somebody who can beat Tsonga on this surface must be playing very good..
Del Potro would definitely prefer a non-Nadal semifinalist as he is scared so very much of Nadal.

Cheers,
Debashish

Maa, main tera beta hoon.

Cheers,
Debashish

The greatest of all times? Of that, there never was any doubt. And great players love creating invincible records to manifest their achievements. Federer did it here.. and how! One of the greatest finals ever to have unfolded on Wimbledon grass, a match that never seemed to end, finally concluded with crowning glory for Roger Federer. A record Grand Slam no 15 and a return to the throne of world tennis, dismantling an absent Rafael Nadal from his numero uno rank.

By the time the marathon duel came to an end, a few glorious statistics had been achieved. Federer etched his name as the highest aggregator of Grand Slam singles titles. 4 hours and 18 mins made it the second longest wimbledon finals of all times(next to 2008 final of 4hrs and 48 mins). The match was the longest ever men's Grand Slam final in terms of games, clocking up a total of 77 across five sets. At 16-14 the final set was the longest fifth set in a men's Grand Slam final in terms of games. Federer served 50 aces, a personal best in all matches and 1 behind an all time Wimbledon high of 51, courtesy Karlovic.

The highly awaited final was studded with glitterati - Laver,Borg,Nataste,Sampras apart from Sachin,Warne and Russell Crowe. But the second set was when Roger Federer, on the brink of falling into a two-set hole to Andy Roddick, reminded Pete Sampras that he hadn't come all the way from Los Angeles to congratulate the first American Wimbledon winner since Sampras won here in 2000. Long before Roddick mis-hit a forehand, finally surrendered, 5-7, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5), 3-6, 16-14, to Federer's quest for a 15th Grand Slam singles victory after 4 hours 18 minutes, Roddick hit a blistering forehand on the first of those four set points in the second-set tie breaker. The ball landed deep in the court, at Federer's feet, on his backhand side. On pure instinct, he flicked at it with his wand of a racket, angled it just enough to direct the ball cross-court, over the net, into open space. "Come on," Federer shouted, convincing nobody except himself that there was still a way out of the trap. He believed because he is Federer. Five points later, it was one-all in sets. The match of Federer's record-setting dreams and - some would say - Roddick's life, was on.

I always believed he was just an unforced error or another winner away to be at level with Roddick. He got it all the same. And the backhand was not just instinct it was that unmatched ability to move and think in the court. Strange enough, it was surprising that a man hitting 50 aces never appeared to be running away with the match. Such was the resolve of the opponent that it took 77 games in a match of 77 games for arguably the best tennis player of all generations to convert a break point. A mind-boggling 107 winners (he had 89 winners in the last final) and it still went to the wire.

The 2nd set tiebreaker does remind us of a US Open quarter finals between Krajicek and Sampras. Krajicek had a pretty good record agains Pete and at that time he won Wimbledon (by beating Pete in the quarters). Krajicek was a set up and led 6-2 in second set tiebreak. Pete came back, won 6 points in a row and won in four sets! Only the greatest of players can do this.

Last year, Bjorn Borg turned out for the final and the match proved a little too much for Federer.This year Pete Sampras had turned up. And Federer was not having a great time in the first-half. But I do agree Sampras became the very reason for Roddick's defeat. He pushed Roger to play harder, tougher and probably crazier (a word Roger kept repeating in his awards speech).

Comparisons with last year's final are inevitable. So which one was more of a tennis treat? Definitely 2008. Service, Volley and even the baseline game was slightly better this year but the return of serve was definitely better than last year. I believe Rafa would have attacked more of Roger's 2nd serve which was patchy in pieces.Federer was again below par in both the matches. 2009 he survived because he served billiantly and 2008 the other way. To me, this one was no less intense, emotionally and psychologically. Get into the shoes of Roddick and his box of people, and you'd have felt the heat. But the rain delays, Roger's fightback and the rivalry between Roger and Rafa made 2008 more memorable. There the context was between "Roger's grass court reign and Rafa's threat to thwart that". There was a great pre-tournamnet buzz back then. Here it was more of a surprise show from Roddick and no pre-match tension or hangover gripped the audience other than Roger's 15th which he would have achieved eventually.

Roger could not play a single lob volley or a drop volley successfully in the entire match, those have been two of his most deceptive weapons since last 3-4 years or even more. That is precisely the reason the match was dragged till eternity until the string lost its tension. Roddick terminating the match with two wayward forehands was an absolute anti-climax. In the end how could you expect him to win when he had hit lesser winners, far lesser aces and had bettered the unforced error count by only 5. But then I can also say that another player had done the same thing last year and turned up champion. However I have always believed that Federer plays his worst tennis against Rafa. Nemesis is not a new word in any game.

To end it on a positive note, I want to spray some uninhibited admiration on the man who lost as a fighter. One of the most brilliant stages of the match was watching Roddick win ten games in a row while serving to stay in the match. Somehow, if Federer would have been serving second in that set, he probably would have been more vulnerable. I was simply floored by the unrelenting determination of this guy. He was conceiving shots which he would not even have thought of 2 years back. His net game was as good as it can get for anyone. His strategy of hammering down aces at Federer's body was a fantastic strategy that was impeccably executed. At Roddick's pace and with the accuracy he had that day, it was marvellous that Roger still managed to return a few of those bodyliners. And in the end, it was awesome to see him wave to the crowd after having lost the marathon. I was happy for Roger but somehow, would have felt better if Andy had won the battle. Alas, he didn't just lose to someone. He just bowed down before the greatest!

Cheers,
Debashish

1) all robert de nero
2) all al pacino
3) all jim carey

Good bro. Nice way to put it up!

Moi list:

1. Forrest Gump (in fact most Tom Hanks starrers)
2. Awakenings (Robin Williams and De Niro combo.. u can't beat them!)
3. Dog Day Afternoon (Al Pacino the God)

Cheers,
Debashish

TR Number 5470261 Application Number 342554 Name SAURABH JAIN Date of Birth 07/06/83
Test Section Score Percentile Section - I Quantitative 40.00 (out of 100) 96.53 Section - II Logic & Data Interpretation 33.00 (out of 96) 91.84 Section - III Verbal 63.00 (out of 160) 98.36 Total 136.00 (out of 356) 99.14

Yet no calls mentioned....can ny body tell me y?
Is it because of DI?
:(

Bro, going by the trend that I hv observed since yesterday, DI must hv dumped u.