While here in the States, our sports focus remains on our crappy Fantasy Football picks and Major League Baseball’s post-season – a big congrats goes out to American Donald Young for making it to the Thailand Open Final.
Unfortunately, Andy Murray annihilated him (6-2, 6-0); but it was a tough road to the final. He had to defeat the likes of Igor Andreev and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez early on…Then, without a doubt, in the best match of the tournament, he took out Gael Monfils in a third-set tie-break during the Semifinals: 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-5). Hopefully, another sign of progress being made in “young” American tennis…
So on a Monday where the Brewers lead the Diamondbacks (2-0), the Cardinals and Phillies are now tied (1-1) after a nail-biter Sunday Night, Texas and Tampa are tied at (1-1) as are the Yankees and Tigers; while Fantasy Football Fans are stoked with Michael Vick’s numbers, but Eagles fans are frustrated with the finish; while Lions fans finally have a moment to hold their heads high and Green Bay continues to dominate; while Steelers fans worry about Big Ben’s injury…Tennis continues – with plenty of drama coming over the weekend.
You know about Andy Murray’s win in Thailand…the guys were also playing in Malaysia, where Janko Tipsarevic took the title. A nice recovery after his U.S. Open collapse, after taking the first two tie-break sets and then retiring against eventual winner Novak Djokovic.
Another Serbian player grabbed negative headlines Saturday, though – David Savic received a lifetime ban from the sport and was fined $100,000 for attempting to fix matches.
Up in Boston over the weekend – a fun Champions Cup Event featuring Michael Chang, Ivan Lendl, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi. Andre won the Cup with an (8-5) win over Courier in the Final.
Congrats to Agnieszka Radwanska…she won the Pan Pacific Open Title in Tokyo over Vera Zvonareva (6-3, 6-2). The ladies now move on to Beijing for the China Open where Vera Zvonareva’s already won her first round match…
Serena Williams won’t be playing in China, she was left out of the draw on Friday, and Maria Sharapova pulled out to give her ankle more time to recover.
Li Na, who has played inspired tennis over the past two-years, coming off her announcement of a new endorsement deal with a casino and hotel company – promptly arrived in China, and lost in the first round. Whoops!
The guys are in both China and Tokyo this week….
BREAKING NEWS: Andy Roddick just lost his first match in Beijing to Kevin Anderson (4-6, 5-7). Kevin’s originally from South Africa but played his college tennis at the University of Illinois. A huge win for Kevin, after losing to Roddick in both an Australian Open and Wimbledon tune-up this year.
In Tokyo, Mardy Fish won his first round match over Ryan Harrison (6-4, 3-6, 7-5).
