It was a shame Santoro didn’t leave the game with more of a “bang”, but instead he lost in his home masters series tournament in Paris to James Blake in the singles and to two unknown in the doubles partenering Sebastian Grosjean.
The player who frustrated many on the tour with his strange spins, slices and technique will however be dearly missed. Affectionaltly nicknamed “the magician”, his style of play was a favourite with the fans and he was a real crowd pleaser and certainly not someone you would want to play in the first round of a tournament.
Santoro has achieved a huge ammount on the tour and this is what makes him so great
Beat 17 former number 1’s including Federer, Roddick and Sampras
Winner of 6 singles titles and 24 doubles titles
Won his first grand slam doubles title at the 2003 Australian open and defended it the following year.
Is a general all around tactical genius.
We will probably never see a player like him again
Djokovic certainly had a good week anyway. Beating Nadal and then taking a masters series title by beating a french man Monfils in his home tournament is definetly not an easy task, especially so late in the year. Could Djokovic so well at the year end masters yet again? Hmmmmmm. Probably, but there is a huge amount at steak for the top two.
The way I see it is that its all gonna be about Federer and Nadal. The number 1 ranking could change but it is all hugely dependent on how other players do so it is quiet unlikely. There’s a few different ways Nadal could become number one but just taking the title doesn’t guarantee anything. This from the official atp site kind of explains it, kinda confusing but sher!
1. If Nadal is an undefeated champion at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals (winning all-three round-robin matches, a semi-final and final) he will earn the maximum 1,500 points. If that happens, Federer would need to either win all three round-robin matches OR reach the final to beat out Nadal for the 2009 ATP World Tour Champion title.
2. If Nadal goes 2-1 in round-robin play and wins the title he will earn 1,300 points. If that happens, Federer would need to either win two round-robin matches OR win one round-robin match and reach the final to beat out Nadal for the 2009 ATP World Tour Champion title.
3. If Nadal goes 3-0 in round-robin play, wins his semi-final but loses the final he will earn 1,000 points. If that happens, Federer would need only to win one round-robin match to beat out Nadal for the 2009 ATP World Tour Champion title.
Anyway. Well done Novak and I actually cant wait for the finals in London. Should be a great week of tennis.
So ya, Del Potro beat Gonzalez in the end last night, saving 7 match points! Then Gonzalez decided to retire after such a marathon two sets. Silly decision in my opinion. Surely he was playing well enough to still possibly pull off the upset in a final set? Guess we’ll never know now!
Even more top seeds drop out early. Murray loses in 3 sets to the love him or hate him Radek Stepanek. The equally unpopular Robin Sodeling beat Davydenko (who qualified for the year end masters with his loss) in similar fashion.
You can’t help but think there was a slight lack of effort on their part, considering historically Federer and Nadal haven’t done well in both Paris and the year end masters. Murray also pretty much confirmed in his interview he was happy with the matches he got the last two weeks and got a good workout this week regardless.
Can’t believe Federer lost to Benneteau. I actually can’t. Del Potro in the US Open final, yes. Djokovic in the Basel final, yes. But Benneteau? C’mon like! He’s barely in the top 50 and has never even got into the top 30 of the rankings. All the top seeds have had unnecessary struggles in their first round matches but a loss to a top-50′er with no great achievments to his name is a bit unforgivable.
Federer was leading by a set and really shouldn’t have had any difficulty in the tiebreak. Another silly loss that is reminiscent of last year. Still, I’m confident he will win the year ending finals, dare I say without losing a match? Yes, I dared!
Two big stars will have left the game come this weekend. Two time grand slam winner Marat Safin, aged only 29 will play his last tournament this week in Paris. It will mark the end to a frustrating career for the Russian whom has notoriously underachieved on the tennis court. A brilliant player with immense talent, especially on the backhand side, was the subject of a special presentation today on the center court of the Paris masters after his 2nd round loss to Juan Martin Del Potro.
“Today I will put all my memories, all my wins and losses in a small box” said Safin, being optomistic about his future and hopes to stay somewhere in the tennis world.
Even though Safin didn’t make the most of his talents, he still achieved the kind of things most of the players on the tour can only dream of.
Reached world number one
Won the US Open, beating Sampras in the final
Famously beat Federer in the 2005 Australian Open semi-final and went on to take the title.
Nothing shocking today in Paris. All the seeded important seeded players are through so far and defending champion Tsonga has just beaten Montanes . The only kind of odd result is Wawrinka losing to a qualifier called David Guez, ranked nearly 150 places below the Swiss player. What ever happened the days when Wawrinka was reaching master series finals? Such a shame, he should be back in the top 10.
Bring on Federer tomorow night! He opens up against Benneteau. I’m not expecting much of a match though. Still, tis a long time since Ive been able to watch a full Fed match!
Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, what an amazing stadium
Ok, so maybe I wasn’t actually at the Paris masters, but last year I was pretty close! I was in Paris for badminton and was literally one foot away from Gael Monfils who was getting something to eat after one of his matches! Anywayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…
The Paris Masters is one of the top level tournaments after the grand slams. I always think of it of the one the big players miss because the first couple of years I watched it, Federer and Nadal were missing because of their long seasons and match wins. I guess I still kind of have that impression of it, almost like it isnt that important, but it is equally as important as any of the other masters 1000’s!
The order of play for Tuesday is promising. My pick of the day is definitely Juan Martin Del Potro v Mario Ancic. I haven’t seen much of Ancic lately and Del Potro hasn’t regained the form that won him the US Open title yet. Other good matches include
Tursunov v Djokovic (who is just off winning a title Sunday in Basal, beating Mr. Federer)
Kohlschreiber v the inform Youzhny (reached the final in last week)
Nadal playing either Mahut or Mathieu (Im already picking Nadal to beat Monaco first, naturally enough like) oh and
Also have a look out for Nalbandian, he’s been out with injurty and surgery most of the year.
The biggest match of Soderlings life and perhaps one of the most important of Federers. Possibly a career defining match for the Swiss, where winning would surely confirm him as the greatest player to ever pick up a racket (incase there were still some disbelievers!!)
The french open title has got away from him the last 3 years where Nadal beat him in the final each time. But with the other top 4 seeds out fairly early, the title should be all Federers. He deserves it.
Soderling did the impossible by beating Nadal at his favourite tournament where he never lost before or was even pushed to 5 sets. He beat him in 4 sets by really just going for broke and hitting as hard as he could. Amazingly he could keep it up and a final backhand forced Nadal into an error at the net.
The head to head!
Naturally Federer leads. 9-0 with Soderling never even winning a set off Federer before.
Their most recent meeting was a couple of weeks ago in Madrid where Federer won comfortly 6-1 7-5
I’m hoping for a good match but I definitely think the huge occasion will get to Soderling and Federer will leave Paris tomorrow evening with a French Open trophy in his bag!
