Musings !!

RAFA : THE KING OF CLAY

What an epic. 277 minutes was all it took for the first semi final of the French Open to end. For two men to run around in the heat of Paris for more than 4 hours is no mean feat. Even if somebody gave me a billion dollars to do that, I will balk, will surely think more than once before doing it. I know tennis matches have been played for longer duration than this and I also know that the scoreline of 6-4 3-6 6-1 6-7 9-7 is not something which has happened for the first time ever and there have been far more epic scorelines than this, but the intensity from start to finish was unparalleled. 

World No 1 Novak Djokovic faced off against arguably his only challenger in the world right now, defending French Open champion Rafael Nadal. Nadal, the king of clay, came into the match with a 57-1 record on the French clay. While Djokovic had the motivation to put one over his opponent who defeated him in the final last year. The red clay provided the perfect setting with the first set going Nadal's way, Djokovic lending a helping hand my making way too many unforced errors. Djokovic came back to win the second set 6-3 only to see Nadal run away with the third 6-1. Then arose the champions spirit, Djokovic looked down and out when Nadal served for the match at 5-4 but came back strongly to force a tie breaker and then swiftly took home the fourth set. Djokovic broke early in the fifth set and held onto serve but Nadal too broke to make it 4-4 and this served up an exciting finale. Both matched each other shot for shot, but there was the famous Nadal spirit and stamina that took him over the line.

Now to another sporting event that's gone a bit under the radar, mainly due to it not being a full senior tournament. The UEFA Under 21 Championships are underway in Israel, seven of the qualified teams along with hosts Israel are participating. With highly fancied teams like Spain(holders), Germany, Netherlands, England, Italy locking horns with lesser weights like Israel, Russia, Norway, thus making the tourney a good mix. At the end of the first round of fixtures, Spain, Italy and Netherlands have looked the real deal. Normally, an under age group tournament seldom produces quality with the players raw and still learning their trade at club level. But going by the first few matches we have quite a contradiction this time around. Highly rated youngsters like Isco, Thiago Alcantara, Lorenzo Insigne, Marco Veratti, Asier Illaramendi, Adam Maher, Kevin Strootman, Patrick Herrmann, Lewis Holtby have already created quite a buzz with their starring performances. With such quality oozing even in tournaments like these, football fans will be salivating. These tournaments, which are often neglected by the general fans, have got their profile raised to such an extent that the normal fans have started following them like any other high profile tournament, thanks to all those youngsters. May the kids have a bright future.

And onto some news on yours truly, thisisfutbol.com roped me in yesterday as an opinion blogger. It was advertised that they required writers and I applied with a 750 word piece. And finally I am there. A big thanks to Harry Cloke and his team who are doing such good work at the site.