Thursday, January 18, 2007

The Comparison Continues…

I have been watching and reading news article’s where comparisons between Pete Sampras, ”The Champion” and the current No.1 Roger Federer has been going around for a while. For me it’s really difficult to understand how any comparison can be made between any two players or any two teams of different two different eras.

But if you ask me who would be my personal favorite…I would definitely go for Pete Sampras who was ranked World No. 1 for 286 weeks (record). I guess Federer at 25 has many more years of tennis left in him and as of now has 9 grand slams to his credit compared to 14 in all for Pete. So considering the trend of the previous few years of competition faced by FedEx or to say the lack of it, I guess he would without doubt be crossing Pete’s 14 grand slams in the coming 2 years or so.

I would like to take you to the early nineties and the time when Pete started to make his mark on the tennis court…he definitely had much more fierce competitors than what Federer has now. To name a few Stefan Edberg who was at the fag end of his career, wasn’t playing that well but still was a force to reckon with, but you still had Boris Becker, Jim Courier doing well, the ace guys Goran Ivanišević, Richard Krajicek, Mark Philippoussis. Michael Chang who never gave up and of course you had the flamboyant Andre Agassi. You had players who were expert playing on only one surface like some of the Spaniards like Alex Corretja, Albert Costa, Carlos Costa, Sergi Bruguera who could play only on clay. You had Pat Rafter, Greg Rusedski, Tim Henman, Yevgeny Kafelnikov competing well, and then you had Marcello Rios to my surprise becoming the number one player at one time.

The fact of the matter is that Federer, with no fault of his, doesn’t have the same kind of opposition that Pete had during the nineties and thereby he is winning almost all tournaments.It’s just in the past year or so, Rafael Nadal has been giving him some kind of resistance, which is quite unfortunate.

Many would disagree with this …but facts are facts and you cannot deny it.
As far as his record is considered...its amazing.

Grand Slams 14
Tennis Masters Cups 5
ATP Masters Series 11
ATP Tours 34
-GAG

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Spin Wizard Bids Adieu...!

The Magician Celebrates.....

Shane Keith Warne….the name mesmerizes you…isn’t?

I was fortunate enough to be born in the era of this Great (this word is quite often misused, but not in the case of Warnie) Aussie cricketer. For me he is the best thing that has happened in cricket. He must be a spoilt brat doing all kinds of illegal stuff (be it cricketing controversies like leaking out weather information prior to a match….I really don’t understand what would happen if he had done that…would it change the consequences of a cricket match and the weather is for everybody to see for themselves, him sending ridiculous SMS’S, taking those banned pills as advised by her mother etc.).What ever is said about this guy, the for sure is a match winner and I his bowling speaks for it.

The start to his international cricket wasn’t that great, where he was hammered all along the park by the Indians and finished up taking a solitary wicket (Ravi Shastri) in the test match. Don’t really want to get into his records as of now as this article is meant to honor to this greatest bowler I have seen in my life.

I was fortunate to see some of the legendary bowlers in action, but I can for sure say this that none were like Warnie. He has several tricks up his sleeve…and number of different deliveries to hurl at the batsmen. His varieties contain the normal leg-spin, the wrong-un, the flipper (goes straight after pitching), and the zooter (goes straight after pitching, but gains momentum after pitching)

He is worthy enough to have received accolades from all corners of the world and we’ll for sure miss the MASTER in action. For me he has been a legend and doing what he does is no joke…believe me! He is definitely a cricketing idol; many youngsters try to emulate his style of bowling, his style and his trait.

Today the 05th of January 2007 a great career has come to an end and finishing with 708 test wickets and over 1000 international wickets, I salute the wizard of spin; Shane Keith Warne

-GAG

Thursday, January 04, 2007

The subtle differences-II , Continued from http://www.thinshark.blogspot.com/

Chennai:

1. Any body from North India or any other part other than South India is referred to as “SETH PAYYAN”.

2. Kollywood (Tamil Cinema Industry) is supposed to be very advanced and technically brilliant….I agree…but their fans are Morons….any kid on the road would ask you “nee rajni aaa….kamal aaa…”…meaning are u a fan of Rajnikanth or Kamal Haasan.

3. People in Chennai worship their film stars…and love heroines (should have a large sized tummy…see their pelvic motion to believe it.

4. The slums at Chennai have to have something hard in the night before they go to sleep ,they call it “Thanni “ and then we should see them go high and listen to their language.

5. Food in Chennai is good but, I some how feel how could you eat curd rice day in and day out.

6. Only place where you can see people dancing (Dappaankuthu) on a song called ‘Gaana Pattu’ at funeral procession or at a wedding. This dance has actually become so popular that a movie becomes a mega hit.It is believed to be performed to relieve stress.

Kolkata:

1. Most pathetic place I have ever been to.

2. To start with,there is no alphabet “V” in this part of the world…..Pranav becomes Pranab.

3. Every one should be addressed with a suffix “da” (male) or “di” (female) in their names and the software industry it’s a must to show how close you are to your BOSS.

4. TAKA...TAKA...TAKA…I thought Indian currency was Rupee…But here they still follow the Bangladeshi currency

5. This is a place of Strikes…..there are strike imposed either by the opposition party or by the ruling party ever fortnightly for anything.

6. One common factor between Chennai and Kolkata…they have strong women buffoon in Mamata & Jaya who manage to shake the government.

7. Still you can see Trams linger on the road….hampering the flow of traffic and annoying the public.

8. Amazing it may sound, but the Local Bus (size doesn’t matter) has to have 2 conductors in every bus….one managing the commuters at the front and the other at the back enquiring “KOTHAAAIII”…meaning “where do u wanna go”.

9. Invariably every bus stop has a Water Tank associated to it and we need to tell the conductors which tank number we need to go.

Pune: Good-Sweet memories…so let it be like that….no complaints what-so-ever.

-GAG