The Week in Tennis – Shanghai Masters

Here we go…It was a sports-packed weekend here in the States…

The St. Louis Cardinals collapsed, gave-up 6-runs in the 5th inning and lost the NLCS opener to the Brewers in Milwaukee Sunday afternoon. After several rain-delays and a win for Texas Saturday, Game-2 in the ALCS was rained-out yesterday in Arlington.

The Raiders honored Al Davis with a win on the road over the Texans…

There are now six races left in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, as Jimmie Johnson won at Kansas Speedway over the weekend – climbing two spots in the chase, just 4-points behind leader Carl Edwards. Kevin Harvick is just one point off “The Chase” lead.

Tiger Woods finished tied for 30th at the Frys.com Open, but all anyone can talk about is the “Hot Dog Incident,” where a fan charged the green and threw a hot dog in his direction. Bryce Molder won the tournament on the SIXTH playoff hole.

Time continues to run out on an NBA deal that’ll save the start of the season…

And two Northwestern students won $50,000 in an FLW event over the weekend – without catching a single bass on the final day of competition…Maybe I really DO stand a chance on the tour!

There’s plenty of tennis to talk about after another action packed weekend in the Far East…First up, Andy Murray bageled Rafael Nadal in the 3rd set to win the Japan Open; while in Beijing, Tomas Berdych finally won a trophy after taking down Maric Cilic in 3-sets.

Fire-up the Shanghai Masters – Andy Roddick, after a tough first-round loss last week in Beijing – survived a 3-setter over Yen-Hsun Lu today. Verdasco and Nalbandian also advanced to the second-round. Andy Murray is the defending champ, and is looking strong after titles in Bangkok and Tokyo over the past two weeks. Congrats to Donald Young, by the way – who qualified for Shanghai after an impressive Asian swing this year…

In other news from Shanghai – A quote from the Associated Press: “The top men’s tennis players may still meet this week in Shanghai to discuss their grievances with the ATP tour despite the absence of Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. Andy Roddick said at the Shanghai Masters on Monday he hopes other players are still “passionate” about the problems and open to discussing ways to resolve them.”

On the WTA Tour – congrats to Agnieszka Radwanska – she won the Beijing Title over Andrea Petkovic in three-sets. The match lasted over 2-and-a-half hours, and Agnieszka didn’t win a single game in the second-set!

The ladies now head to Austria or Osaka…where former Springfield Laser Tamarine Tanasugarn is the defending champ, and dispatched American Christina McHale in straight sets today.

Plenty of tennis left to play as the WTA prepares for the year-end championships in Istanbul at the end of the month, and as the guys gear-up for London November 20th!