Last year Wimbledon witnessed a memorable final when the Williams sisters defied the odds to face each other in the womens final. It had appeared that both had past their best while eastern european opposition began to dominate the sport. However when Venus defeated her sister 7-5 6-4, she claimed her fifth Wimbledon title after her triumphs in 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2007 and her first against her sister in the final. Back to back titles were not expected but she did it in fine style. Sister Serena was tipped to become more successful than her older sister but has thus far only managed the two titles she won a couple year back now in 2002 and 2003 both against Venus in the final.
The two again have a chance to go against each other in the final this year but first both have to overcome their quarter final opponents today. Venus who is seeded third faces Polish 11th seed Agnieszka Radwanska while Serena faces eighth seed Victoria Azarenka from Belarus a bit later on. Between the sisters games first seed Dinara Safina has her quarter final tie with the unseeded German Sabine Lisicki. Russians Safina and Elena Dementieva are expected to both win their quarter finals and face the sisters in the semi finals.
Serena has showed terrific form so far having already slaughtered Daniela Hantuchova and she will definitely be tough to beat Azarenka. However Azarenka can look back to the Miami final for confidence where she beat Serena
In my opinion it would great to again see the sisters in the final but it is still to soon to say it will happen as both must overcome the quarters and then possible grueling semis for the big one to happen. I will be pulling for Venus if it does happen purely because I admire her for coming back so strongly in the last two years after it seemed her sister had put her away for good in 2002 and 2003.Venus also seems the more humble of the two while Serena has to be commended for her fierce attitude and the way she fights back to win rallies.
Still on tennis while many would argue the tournament has been a bit deflated with the men’s champion Rafael Nadal pulling out a week before the start I still believe people shouldn’t overlook Federer as a worthy Wimbledon champion this year if he wins. Last years final could have gone either way and while Nadal has overcome Federer in other finals I still think Federer should be given more chances to show that he in fact still better than Nadal.
Nadal being the younger is stronger and fitter but none should look past Federer looking at his history in the game. Nadal is still a long way off from equaling a CV to Federers and Nadal may still have a lot of time on his hands to make up, it’s a lot easier said than done.
Best of luck to Roger and Venus, will be supporting both of the older stars to prove their age is just a number.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Morne Steyn: the answer to flyhalf problems
A kick of 55m stood between the Springboks and a memorable lions test win. A packed crowd full of red and green and journalists in just about every corner. This is the pressure that Morne Steyn took on when he asked his captain to take the kick on Saturday afternoon. On his home ground Steyn saw Francois Steyn appear out the corner of his eye, the springboks normal longer kick specialist, but insisted to his captain he was the man for the job.
He couldn’t have been more right. In fact that kick could have been ten meters further back and perhaps Steyn still would have had enough to put it over. He described it as one of the best kicks he has had and what a time to do it. The conversion he had just a few minutes earlier was just as impressive. Jaques Fourie’s try was as close to the corner as they come and Steyn made it look simple. One can’t imagine how Ruan Pienaar must have felt to see Steyn look the hero at the expense of himself who perhaps had the worst kicking day of his life. A week earlier Pienaar couldn’t miss but this time round at Loftus it was a totally different story.
It will be interesting now to see what Peter De Villiers does with his starting lineup. He has been critizised already about making Pienaar his flyhalf and now with a remarkable talent in Steyn he certainly has to change his plans. Will it happen? Knowing De Villiers I would imagine not without a fight. He has so far shown favoritism towards Pienaar and while I believe he is a good player, his place needs to be taken by Steyn for the good of the team.
Brussouw is another player that I’m not sure about. Sure I think he is a brilliant player and he showed it this weekend but whether he should start is something different. I imagine that he is a lot more effective as an impact player because of his strength. I believe this weekend in the final game against the lions, which is effectively a dead rubber game, would be a good chance to try him from the start but he is human and towards the end of the game when it counts most he won’t be as strong as he would be being brought on from the bench. With Schalk out for eight weeks he may have to be used for a while starting but when Schalk comes back I wouldn’t be angry to see Brussouw move back to the bench.
The Tri Nations is coming up and this year we finally have a good chance of winning the tournament after our last success came five years ago in 2004. The way the team was able to come back showed guts especially when they didn’t deserve to win the game. So many times in the past the Boks have played brilliant rugby and deserved to be the winning team but fell on the losing end because of little mistakes. New Zealand are not looking as strong as they have in the past, defeated by France on home soil was not expected and while a win this week restored pride to a certain degree they will have to be a lot better to defend against the boks who’s attack was incredible this past weekend. Australia meanwhile shouldn’t challenge their southern hemisphere rivals but that doesn’t mean they will go down without a fight. Australia have always been good competitors and whatever team they put out you know they wont lay down to be run over by opposition.
Anyway whatever happens I hope the decisions made by the coach don’t cause too much of a rift between the players in the team. I wish the cameras could have shown Pienaars reaction to Steyns kicks this weekend, was he happy or angry.
While still on the topic of the Boks I hope coach De Villiers gets hammered for using the race card on those who said Ricky Januarie is out of form. It is so often that you hear of somebody of colour calling white people racists when they express their opinion of a person of colour and is something they don’t want to here. That really is so twenty years ago and we don’t need that in sport, certainly not by the coach of the squad. De Villiers certainly continues his foot in mouth disease without the slightest hint that a cures on the way.
All for now,
Cheers Justin
He couldn’t have been more right. In fact that kick could have been ten meters further back and perhaps Steyn still would have had enough to put it over. He described it as one of the best kicks he has had and what a time to do it. The conversion he had just a few minutes earlier was just as impressive. Jaques Fourie’s try was as close to the corner as they come and Steyn made it look simple. One can’t imagine how Ruan Pienaar must have felt to see Steyn look the hero at the expense of himself who perhaps had the worst kicking day of his life. A week earlier Pienaar couldn’t miss but this time round at Loftus it was a totally different story.
It will be interesting now to see what Peter De Villiers does with his starting lineup. He has been critizised already about making Pienaar his flyhalf and now with a remarkable talent in Steyn he certainly has to change his plans. Will it happen? Knowing De Villiers I would imagine not without a fight. He has so far shown favoritism towards Pienaar and while I believe he is a good player, his place needs to be taken by Steyn for the good of the team.
Brussouw is another player that I’m not sure about. Sure I think he is a brilliant player and he showed it this weekend but whether he should start is something different. I imagine that he is a lot more effective as an impact player because of his strength. I believe this weekend in the final game against the lions, which is effectively a dead rubber game, would be a good chance to try him from the start but he is human and towards the end of the game when it counts most he won’t be as strong as he would be being brought on from the bench. With Schalk out for eight weeks he may have to be used for a while starting but when Schalk comes back I wouldn’t be angry to see Brussouw move back to the bench.
The Tri Nations is coming up and this year we finally have a good chance of winning the tournament after our last success came five years ago in 2004. The way the team was able to come back showed guts especially when they didn’t deserve to win the game. So many times in the past the Boks have played brilliant rugby and deserved to be the winning team but fell on the losing end because of little mistakes. New Zealand are not looking as strong as they have in the past, defeated by France on home soil was not expected and while a win this week restored pride to a certain degree they will have to be a lot better to defend against the boks who’s attack was incredible this past weekend. Australia meanwhile shouldn’t challenge their southern hemisphere rivals but that doesn’t mean they will go down without a fight. Australia have always been good competitors and whatever team they put out you know they wont lay down to be run over by opposition.
Anyway whatever happens I hope the decisions made by the coach don’t cause too much of a rift between the players in the team. I wish the cameras could have shown Pienaars reaction to Steyns kicks this weekend, was he happy or angry.
While still on the topic of the Boks I hope coach De Villiers gets hammered for using the race card on those who said Ricky Januarie is out of form. It is so often that you hear of somebody of colour calling white people racists when they express their opinion of a person of colour and is something they don’t want to here. That really is so twenty years ago and we don’t need that in sport, certainly not by the coach of the squad. De Villiers certainly continues his foot in mouth disease without the slightest hint that a cures on the way.
All for now,
Cheers Justin
Sunday, June 28, 2009
FIFA cheats on VISA with FNB
Today I have decided that the worst part of the world cup next year is the ticket scheme. Why did it piss me off? First off it seemed as though I was applying for a job, filling out an online form with all my details with the knowledge that my application may not be accepted, seriously is FIFA going the BEE route and trying to get equal distributions of races into the games. Never have I ever heard of filling out forms in order to get tickets to the sport games until the FIFA world cup.
But that wasn’t the worst part. What hacked me off totally was that after filling out all of FIFA’s krap it followed with a page called ‘payment’. Now I was expecting to be asked for payment details after my application was perhaps accepted, or maybe even asked my credit card details, fair enough its how it is done in the modern era but that didn’t happen either. Instead the website obviously assumed that I had either a VISA card or mastercard and obviously being South African that was very unlikely. So after filling out all the forms it came down to clicking on the x you see on the top right of your screen and meant the forms I filled out came to nothing but frustration to myself. What made it worse was the stupid sign at the bottom of the page that said ‘FIFA prefers VISA’. I coudnt give two tosses for VISA’s sponsorship of the world cup and really they should have thought about expanding themselves in South Africa before sponsoring an event in the country
So after all of that I am going to go down to FNB tomorrow to get the form to fill out which is the alternative method to apply for tickets but it will probably ask me for my FNB account details, of course another bank branch I do not belong to and what will frustrate me further is a sign at the bottom which will probably say ‘FIFA prefers FNB’. Should a simple game like football be a run by a bunch of twits like FIFA who ruin the other parts of the game making them complex. The ticket scheme is so confusing and could be done so much better and perhaps in the way that other tickets are sold. South Africa is hosting the damn tournament so surely we should have at least one ticket outlet in each province hosting games where we can pay for our tickets with real currency. I’m sure everybody would agree that it is unfair for those being VISA, Mastercard or FNB customers to have a chance to get tickets easily, while those that bank with others such as standard bank like myself lose out totally while wasting our own time in the process. FIFA are way too biased towards their sponsors to a point where they don’t even want people attending the world cup that endorse competitor’s products. Is that really the nature of the game of football? Tell me Sepp, is football still the winner in the end?
Another thing is that with tickets being sold predominantly on the net, how on earth are those in rural townships supposed to be able to get their chance to attend the games. These are the people that you would imagine FIFA would be most adamant of receiving tickets seeing as FIFA wants to take the game to the poorer of people. So there you go, FIFA the dumbest thing that ever happened to football.
Cheers till the next rant,
Justin
But that wasn’t the worst part. What hacked me off totally was that after filling out all of FIFA’s krap it followed with a page called ‘payment’. Now I was expecting to be asked for payment details after my application was perhaps accepted, or maybe even asked my credit card details, fair enough its how it is done in the modern era but that didn’t happen either. Instead the website obviously assumed that I had either a VISA card or mastercard and obviously being South African that was very unlikely. So after filling out all the forms it came down to clicking on the x you see on the top right of your screen and meant the forms I filled out came to nothing but frustration to myself. What made it worse was the stupid sign at the bottom of the page that said ‘FIFA prefers VISA’. I coudnt give two tosses for VISA’s sponsorship of the world cup and really they should have thought about expanding themselves in South Africa before sponsoring an event in the country
So after all of that I am going to go down to FNB tomorrow to get the form to fill out which is the alternative method to apply for tickets but it will probably ask me for my FNB account details, of course another bank branch I do not belong to and what will frustrate me further is a sign at the bottom which will probably say ‘FIFA prefers FNB’. Should a simple game like football be a run by a bunch of twits like FIFA who ruin the other parts of the game making them complex. The ticket scheme is so confusing and could be done so much better and perhaps in the way that other tickets are sold. South Africa is hosting the damn tournament so surely we should have at least one ticket outlet in each province hosting games where we can pay for our tickets with real currency. I’m sure everybody would agree that it is unfair for those being VISA, Mastercard or FNB customers to have a chance to get tickets easily, while those that bank with others such as standard bank like myself lose out totally while wasting our own time in the process. FIFA are way too biased towards their sponsors to a point where they don’t even want people attending the world cup that endorse competitor’s products. Is that really the nature of the game of football? Tell me Sepp, is football still the winner in the end?
Another thing is that with tickets being sold predominantly on the net, how on earth are those in rural townships supposed to be able to get their chance to attend the games. These are the people that you would imagine FIFA would be most adamant of receiving tickets seeing as FIFA wants to take the game to the poorer of people. So there you go, FIFA the dumbest thing that ever happened to football.
Cheers till the next rant,
Justin
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Pilot
It has been for some time that I have waiting to start my own blog concerning sport from my own perspective. The holidays have just begun and with an abundance of spare time there is no better time for me to begin. To start it off I thought where better to begin than with South Africa’s own national football team, for me an investment that is finally paying off, in sporting terms of course.
I have for several years now been supporting Bafana, however only with disappointment. The loss to Ghana in 2005 was my breaking point. The loss on home soil meant that we failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup, and this devastated me greatly. I had followed football since 2002 where South Africa made an impressive showing at the world cup only to be kicked out on goal difference while Paraguay progressed. From then on my taste for South African football grew, but like I said that Ghana game was my breaking point. With the loss came South African football hitting a slump that would prove to take a long time to let go of. This seemed a hard pill to swallow at the time as we had recently been awarded rights to host the 2010 world cup.
I perhaps should have seen the signs coming if I had observed my history closer. Bafana had experienced decreasing fortunes in the AFCON(African cup of nations). After their momentous win in 96 it followed with a runner up spot to Nigeria in 1998 and we fell a further position back in 2000 when we came third. It didn’t stop there, two years later we only reached the quarter finals and then for the following three competitions we couldn’t even manage to pass the first round. We hit absolute rock bottom when we didn’t qualify for Angola in 2010 and while I now believe it may be a blessing in disguise for the team, it is still a horrible idea to think that we did not qualify for Africa’s continental showpiece.
With the prospect of bombing out in the confederations cup, coach Santana came in with mission impossible which was ‘try to improve Bafanas image’ or in other words show they are not chumps. This was made more interesting when Bafana was placed in a group considered dead easy
New Zealand and Iraq were the two that would contest with South Africa for the second spot in group A, while Spain was sure to come first in the group. The first game for South Africa against Iraq was shocking. While we did dominate the chances, the finishing was woeful and it was a performance to forget. The second game against New Zealand showed contrasting events. We completely dominated the all whites and by some miracle only managed to put two of our chances in the back of the net, something I believed we may rue come the final games but that was not the case as Iraq showed their attack was as poor as their game plan and ended up drawing 0-0. South Africa on the other hand showed another impressive performance against Spain in front of a passionate Bloemfontein crowd but in the end still lost going down 2-0.
We went on to face Brazil in the semi finals a few days later and this was when my perspective of Bafana changed and I realized that there was going to be changes in South Africa’s performance from here onwards. While we may have gone down one nothing to a brilliant but devastating Daniel Alves goal in the final minutes, Bafana proved that they are worthy of sharing a field with any of footballs elite. Possession and shots on goal statistics were close to equal. Defense and attack were both impressive and it opened my eyes to a new era for South African football.
How did it happen? Perhaps it was Santana but there are many other propositions. Maybe they finally learned to play as a team or maybe they realized that the support for them was worthy of a team with a positive attitude. Whatever it was it gained respect not only from South Africans but also from football followers worldwide and who knows, if we find a clinical finisher we may be able to emulate Korea or Japan as they performed exceptionally when they co hosted the world cup in 2002.
Whatever happens I will continue to support South African football. Tomorrow is the third place playoff and while some argue that it’s a needless game I look forward to seeing South Africa close off their campaign with a positive performance. Players like Pienaar, Booth, Tshabalala and Khune have really stood out for me in this tournament and who knows, maybe tomorrow they will celebrate a historical win. But even if they do go down I will know that they did their best and that’s all I can ask for from them.
The Confederations cup has done a good duty to me by sparking a light of anticipation in my soul for the world cup in under 12 months and my own spare time has been taken up by viewing websites documenting the impressive foundations being set for what in my opinion is to be a very successful world cup. One that has to be mentioned is http://db5.skyscrapercity.com. It’s a forum that follows a number of architectural buildings in the making and if you follow the links you will find a number of threads dedicated to South Africas own stadiums in construction for 2010. The pictures are incredible and you have to check them out. Follow the links to ‘world forums’ and then to ‘stadium and sports arenas’. There are some guys on there posting their own photos of the remarkable stadia and is definitely worth a quick scan.
That’s all for today. Just a reminder to watch Bafana against Spain tomorrow at half four from Royal Bafokeng and then at 8:30 is the final between Brazil and US, that’s from Ellis Park. Enjoy the football feast.
Justin
I have for several years now been supporting Bafana, however only with disappointment. The loss to Ghana in 2005 was my breaking point. The loss on home soil meant that we failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup, and this devastated me greatly. I had followed football since 2002 where South Africa made an impressive showing at the world cup only to be kicked out on goal difference while Paraguay progressed. From then on my taste for South African football grew, but like I said that Ghana game was my breaking point. With the loss came South African football hitting a slump that would prove to take a long time to let go of. This seemed a hard pill to swallow at the time as we had recently been awarded rights to host the 2010 world cup.
I perhaps should have seen the signs coming if I had observed my history closer. Bafana had experienced decreasing fortunes in the AFCON(African cup of nations). After their momentous win in 96 it followed with a runner up spot to Nigeria in 1998 and we fell a further position back in 2000 when we came third. It didn’t stop there, two years later we only reached the quarter finals and then for the following three competitions we couldn’t even manage to pass the first round. We hit absolute rock bottom when we didn’t qualify for Angola in 2010 and while I now believe it may be a blessing in disguise for the team, it is still a horrible idea to think that we did not qualify for Africa’s continental showpiece.
With the prospect of bombing out in the confederations cup, coach Santana came in with mission impossible which was ‘try to improve Bafanas image’ or in other words show they are not chumps. This was made more interesting when Bafana was placed in a group considered dead easy
New Zealand and Iraq were the two that would contest with South Africa for the second spot in group A, while Spain was sure to come first in the group. The first game for South Africa against Iraq was shocking. While we did dominate the chances, the finishing was woeful and it was a performance to forget. The second game against New Zealand showed contrasting events. We completely dominated the all whites and by some miracle only managed to put two of our chances in the back of the net, something I believed we may rue come the final games but that was not the case as Iraq showed their attack was as poor as their game plan and ended up drawing 0-0. South Africa on the other hand showed another impressive performance against Spain in front of a passionate Bloemfontein crowd but in the end still lost going down 2-0.
We went on to face Brazil in the semi finals a few days later and this was when my perspective of Bafana changed and I realized that there was going to be changes in South Africa’s performance from here onwards. While we may have gone down one nothing to a brilliant but devastating Daniel Alves goal in the final minutes, Bafana proved that they are worthy of sharing a field with any of footballs elite. Possession and shots on goal statistics were close to equal. Defense and attack were both impressive and it opened my eyes to a new era for South African football.
How did it happen? Perhaps it was Santana but there are many other propositions. Maybe they finally learned to play as a team or maybe they realized that the support for them was worthy of a team with a positive attitude. Whatever it was it gained respect not only from South Africans but also from football followers worldwide and who knows, if we find a clinical finisher we may be able to emulate Korea or Japan as they performed exceptionally when they co hosted the world cup in 2002.
Whatever happens I will continue to support South African football. Tomorrow is the third place playoff and while some argue that it’s a needless game I look forward to seeing South Africa close off their campaign with a positive performance. Players like Pienaar, Booth, Tshabalala and Khune have really stood out for me in this tournament and who knows, maybe tomorrow they will celebrate a historical win. But even if they do go down I will know that they did their best and that’s all I can ask for from them.
The Confederations cup has done a good duty to me by sparking a light of anticipation in my soul for the world cup in under 12 months and my own spare time has been taken up by viewing websites documenting the impressive foundations being set for what in my opinion is to be a very successful world cup. One that has to be mentioned is http://db5.skyscrapercity.com. It’s a forum that follows a number of architectural buildings in the making and if you follow the links you will find a number of threads dedicated to South Africas own stadiums in construction for 2010. The pictures are incredible and you have to check them out. Follow the links to ‘world forums’ and then to ‘stadium and sports arenas’. There are some guys on there posting their own photos of the remarkable stadia and is definitely worth a quick scan.
That’s all for today. Just a reminder to watch Bafana against Spain tomorrow at half four from Royal Bafokeng and then at 8:30 is the final between Brazil and US, that’s from Ellis Park. Enjoy the football feast.
Justin
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