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06/30/2011
06/21/2011
Some things you may like to know about Miroslava (Mirka) Federer
Born in Bojnice (Slovakia), Miroslava emigrated to Switzerland when she was just two years old.
Her parents currently own a jewelry shop and reside in Schaffhausen.
In 1987, when she was nine, her father took her to watch a tournament at Filderstadt in Germany. Mirka met Martina Navratilova, who thought she looked athletic and should try tennis
Navratilova later sent her a racquet and arranged for her first tennis lesson.......
Prior to her retirement she was ranked in the mid-80s.
She met Roger in Australia at the Olympic Games . . . both were playing tennis for Swiss Olympic Team
Mirka says Roger was so funny and they all were laughing alot
And to Mirka's surprise at the end of the games and it was time to depart
Roger gives her a kiss and asks "what's next."
Mirka said she had no idea that he interested romantically
And now you know the rest of the story . . .
06/20/2011
06/18/2011
Where in the World is Roger Federer? Click on interactive map to follow his tracks . . .
Between June 2010 and June 2011, Roger Federer flew over 73,000 miles. Click on the map to track his travels from city to city. He has played 959 professional matches in his career, appeared in 46 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments and spent more than a decade criss-crossing time zones while collecting a record 16 major singles titles and more than $60 million in prize money. Married and the father of twin 22-month-old girls, Mr. Federer brings his family—jet lag, runny noses and all—on the road with him from Melbourne to Paris to London to New York, and many places in between.
All of this for a man who in August will turn 30, the beginning of the twilight years in modern competitive tennis.
Yet as the 125th edition of Wimbledon is set to begin next week, Mr. Federer is fresh, fit, confident and, remarkably, on the upswing after a stellar performance at the French Open, where he ended 24-year-old Novak Djokovic's 43-match winning streak and pushed Rafael Nadal, age 25 and perhaps the best clay court player in history, to four sets in the final.
"I'm in a very good place mentally and physically," he said. "I still feel very young."
As Mr. Djokovic piled up victories this season, beating Messrs. Federer and Nadal a total of seven times, it was tempting to leave Mr. Federer out of the Grand Slam conversation. His last major title came at the 2010 Australian Open and Mr. Nadal dominated the rest of the season, winning at Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. But in Paris earlier this month against Mr. Djokovic, Mr. Federer either turned back the clock, or showed that in Federer years, the seconds tick away much more slowly than anyone had anticipated.
At Wimbledon, he'll engage in what promises to be a remarkable power struggle. Mr. Nadal hasn't lost at Wimbledon since the 2007 final. Mr. Djokovic badly wants to rebound from his first defeat of the year. Behind them lurks Andy Murray, 24, who won a grass-court event in London this week and is always a threat. As for Mr. Federer, no surface rewards his attacking style as richly as the lawns of Wimbledon, where he has won six titles, one fewer than Pete Sampras. He called Wimbledon the "holy grail" of the sport and his primary goal each year.
Mr. Federer, whose first major title came at Wimbledon in 2003, said his favorite childhood tennis memories were watching Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker contest three straight Wimbledon finals from 1988 to 1990.
"Just practicing at Wimbledon, being a member, putting all the whites on with the ivy on the walls, the purple and green, it's something that really touches me," he said. "It's such a sacred place in tennis."
Everyone knows about Mr. Federer's titles, his graceful technique and his boundless skills: a precise serve, a lightning forehand, deft touch and impeccable footwork. The most remarkable part of the Federer story, though, has been his uncanny ability to fend off physical and emotional fatigue and remain motivated.
Tennis history is littered with great players who succumbed to injuries or burnout. Björn Borg played his last Grand Slam tournament at age 25. John McEnroe didn't win a major title after age 25. In Paris this year, Mr. Nadal celebrated his 25th birthday—and remarked, as he struggled in early rounds, that he felt like he had been "playing for 100 years" on the pro tour. In the Open era, which began in 1968, late-career success has been rare. Only 10 men age 30 or older have won major titles, the last being Andre Agassi at the 2003 Australian Open when he was 32.
On paper, Mr. Federer has had a punishing career. Yet in all his years, he has had few significant setbacks: an ankle injury in 2005, mononucleosis in 2008 and more recently, lower back pain. He has retired from a match exactly once in his life, when he was a 16-year-old playing a junior tournament in Belgium. His immunity from injury is unparalleled.
"If I didn't know better, I would say I don't believe it," said Mr. Agassi, who climbed back to the top of the sport in his 30s, but did it after a rejuvenating break from the game. "But I've seen him do it for too long now. You can't bluff your way through it."
Mr. Federer attributes some of his resilience to a love for travel, something that his wife, Mirka, also shares. Many tennis players come to see globetrotting as soul-crushing and do little more than shuttle back and forth between their hotel rooms and the tennis courts. Mr. Federer is more inclined to soak up the local culture: When he went to Shanghai last year, he took Mandarin lessons and spent a day at the World Expo.
"The tour is not supposed to be brutal and annoying," he said.
He said his twin daughters, Charlene and Myla, who will turn two late next month, haven't lessened his desire to win or train. He and the family travel by private jet and his parents and babysitters help with the kids.
Another asset when traveling with family: Unlike many professional athletes, Mr. Federer is not superstitious. "It doesn't need to be the same every day, doesn't need to be the same shower I use, the same restaurant I go to, the same hour I go to sleep," he said. "I've always been very flexible. I don't care if I practice at nine in the morning or 10 p.m.
Mr. Federer has been planning his attack on time—to not just be great, but to do it for longer than anyone else has done it—since he first became No. 1 in 2004. He recalled a conversation he had with his long-time physical trainer, Pierre Paganini, as he closed in on the top of the game.
"I was at a crossroads to decide, 'Am I happy with winning two Slams, one World Tour final, world No. 1? Will that suffice for me, or do I want to achieve more?' " he said. "I remember a very strong conversation with Pierre, we always said, 'If I do hit world No. 1, I won't overplay,' because I tried to look at the long term. I didn't want to just chase everything possible in the short term."
Each year, Messrs. Federer and Paganini block out at least three two- to four-week training periods (usually one each in December, February and July, and sometimes another in the fall). Mr. Paganini said there are four components to each session: rest and recovery, meaning, take time off and start training slowly; strength and endurance exercises not specific to tennis; tennis-centered exercises, such as footwork patterns on a court, but while using medicine balls, not rackets and tennis balls; and tennis practice. Many of these sessions have taken place in the Dubai heat, though Mr. Federer trains there less often since he became a father. He also stretches several times a day.
In the last two years, Mr. Federer has put extra emphasis on his abdominal muscles in response to back pain that lingered long enough, he said, to cost him several training sessions (he cited the injury at Wimbledon last year, when he lost in the quarterfinals).
"After doing it for over one and a half, two years now, it's paying off," he said. "If the back is going to stay this way for the rest of my career, I'll be very happy."
Mr. Paganini, a chiseled 53-year-old, looks like he works out as often as an average person drinks water. He has known Mr. Federer since Mr. Federer was a 14-year-old prize talent in the Swiss Tennis Federation, where Mr. Paganini worked as a trainer in the junior program. He has been Mr. Federer's personal trainer since 2000. He described Mr. Federer as a rare combination of creative and disciplined.
"Usually, when you're an artist, you have not so much structure," Mr. Paganini said. "And when you're a hard worker who is maybe less of an artist, then you're very organized. He is able to do both. Roger is a champ because he's the boss of his talent."
Mr. Paganini says there are two essential elements of Mr. Federer's longevity. First, he still trains with the enthusiasm of a junior. "Sometimes I think, 'Damn it, he's doing these exercises now 2,756 times, but he does it as if it was the first time," Mr. Paganini said.
Mr. Federer also has an uncanny feel for his own health. "He's able to say, it doesn't hurt me today, but it could hurt me tomorrow," Mr. Paganini said. "And he doesn't say this just to have less work to do. He knows that the most important thing is health, and the most important thing for health is communication."
Mr. Paganini cited Mr. Federer's withdrawal from the grass court event in Germany last week as an example. Mr. Federer said he was disappointed to have to skip it. "I had all little niggling injuries," he said. "It would have been a huge, massive risk for me to go play there and then go and play Wimbledon."
Mr. Paganini is just one member of Team Federer. One of Mr. Federer's closest friends, Swiss Davis Cup captain Severin Luthi, has served as a coach for several years now. Stephane Vivier, a former physiotherapist for the men's tour, has been Mr. Federer's private therapist since the fall of 2009, and handles Mr. Federer's aches and pains. Paul Annacone, the former coach of Pete Sampras, is the most recent addition to the group. He began coaching Mr. Federer last summer and has been instrumental in helping Mr. Federer modify his tactics and begin to volley with more frequency, as he did in his earlier years.
Mr. Annacone knows much about the weight of expectations for a champion in an individual sport like tennis. Victories become coronations, proof of one's greatness; losses are taken as signs of an imminent, and probably gruesome, demise. Though Mr. Sampras won 14 major singles titles, he didn't play with the pressure of Mr. Federer. He wasn't given much chance to win on clay, and on hard courts he had many capable rivals. Since Mr. Federer won his first Wimbledon in 2003, he has been expected to win nearly every match he has played on every surface. His record since January 2004, the year he became No. 1: 541 wins and 72 losses, a winning percentage of 88.3%.
"Pete was very emotionally tired—he wasn't physically tired, he was emotionally tired at the end of his career," Mr. Annacone said. "Roger still has the energy of a 23-year-old. He's relentlessly optimistic."
What's Old, In Tennis Years
The ages of five legends when they won their last Grand Slam tournaments
Pete Sampras, 31
Won U.S. Open in 2002
Rod Laver, age 31
Won U.S. Open in 1969
Björn Borg, 25
Won French Open in 1981
Jimmy Connors, 31
Won U.S. Open in 1983
John McEnroe, 25
Won U.S. Open in 1984
Keep it going Mr. Federer as long as possible because you are one of a kind and will be greatly missed when you do decide to retire.
06/17/2011
Some interesting notes about Seeding at Wimbledon . . .
As you all probably already know, Wimbledon does not picked the seeds exclusively along their ATP Tour Ranking. Roger (ATP #3)has a better grass court record than Djokovic, which could have bumped him up in the records, but that better record is not enough to overcome the 2800 point deficit he has in the rankings. Say if it was 800 points he could have been seed ahead of Djokovic because of his 6 wins at Wimby; and Djokovic not yet making the semis. So the top four or seeded according to their rankings, and assuming they all made it to the final four Roger would play Djokovic; and Nadal would play Murray.
"Wimbledon uses a formula to seed the men's tournament. First of all, only the top 32 in the ATP rankings can be seeded (assuming no withdrawals before the event). To determine the actual seeding, they first take the total number of ATP ranking points that a player has earned over the past 52 weeks (which is the same as used to determine a player's ATP ranking). They then add an additional point for every point earned on grass in the past 52 weeks. This means, basically, that points earned from 2010 Wimbledon, Newport, Eastbourne, and 's-Hertogenbosch and 2011 Queens and Halle are doubled. Then they add another bonus of 75% of a player's best result from the 52 weeks prior to that. There is no conspiracy, it just simply uses this formmula.
With that taken care of, let's look at how it will affect the tournament this year. Federer has a lot more bonus points coming into Wimbledon than Djokovic, but it is not enough to overcome the 2800-point disparity between them in the rankings. The top 5 seeds will be the same as their rankings. Tomas Berdych will jump David Ferrer for the #6 seed with Ferrer falling to #7. In what is probably the most important jump, Andy Roddick will move ahead of Mardy Fish and Gael Monfils for the #8 seed. This is critical because it means that Roddick cannot meet another top 8 seed until the quarterfinals."
http://www.thebigtip.com.au/tennis/wimbledon-seeding-explained
06/15/2011
Serena remains positive despite loss to Zvonareva
It says something about this extraordinary player that most people expected Serena Williams to progress against the world No 3 Vera Zvonareva in only her second match back after a year's absence from the game – and she wasn't far away from making it. As it is, the Aegon International will have to make do with just one comeback queen from that family in the quarter-finals after Venus Williams powered her way past former world No 1 Ana Ivanovic.
Serena actually served for the match at 5-4 in the second set and but for a double fault on break point might have made it. She still showed plenty of her famous tenacity and courage in coming back from 5-2 down to pull level in the third set, but just couldn't quite keep up the revival. Consequently, it was something of an anticlimactic victory for the No 1 seed, who won 3-6, 7-6, 7-5 in just over three hours, which was at least some compensation for the American; what Serena needed most of all was time on court and she's had five hours this week.
As a result, she will go into Wimbledon next week in better shape than she has any right to expect and fully justifying her bumped-up seeding of seven. She is ranked 26 at the moment. Following Kim Clijsters's withdrawal, Zvonareva is now seeded number two and Na Li, the French Open champion, number three.
Venus sweeps past Ivanovic at Eastbourne; Serena loses to Zvonareva
Five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams extended her tennis comeback with another win, beating former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic in Eastbourne, England, in straight sets.
Williams defeated the former world No. 1 from Serbia, 6-3, 6-2 in the round of 16 at the Aegon International grass-court tournament on England’s south coast. She’ll play the winner of the match between French Open champion Li Na from China and Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia in the next round.
“It’s been tough,” Williams, who had been sidelined with a hip injury for five months before this week, said in a court- side interview. “My form seems to be better with every game.”
Earlier today, the seeding committee at Wimbledon, the year’s third Grand Slam event that starts June 20 in London, gave Williams a No. 24 seeding. She is ranked 33rd on the WTA Tour.
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