Top Tennis Stars: August 2011

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Victoria Azarenka Her career high and current ranking is World No. 4

Viktoriya Fiodorovna Azarenka, also known as Victoria Azarenka (Belarusian: Вікторыя Азаранка, Russian: Виктория Фёдоровна Азаренко; born 31 July 1989 is a Belarusian professional tennis player. Her career high and current ranking is World No. 4, which she first achieved on 9 May 2011. She became the highest-ranked Belarusian player ever, surpassing Natasha Zvereva by one spot.
Azarenka has won two mixed doubles Grand Slam titles – 2007 US Open with Max Mirnyi and 2008 French Open with Bob Bryan. She has won seven singles titles, including the Premier Mandatory Sony Ericsson Open in 2009 and 2011 and has made one Grand Slam semifinal appearance at the 2011 Wimbledon Championships and another five quarterfinal appearances overall.
Contents
* 1 Personal
* 2 Tennis career
o 2.1 2005
o 2.2 2006
o 2.3 2007
o 2.4 2008
o 2.5 2009
o 2.6 2010
o 2.7 2011
o 2.8 Criticism
* 3 Career statistics
* 4 References
* 5 External links
Personal
Her move to Scottsdale from Minsk, Belarus was aided by National Hockey League goalie Nikolai Khabibulin and his wife, who is a friend of Azarenka's mother.
Tennis career
2005
In 2005, Azarenka won the Australian Open and US Open as a junior and was named the ITF Junior Girls World Champion for that year, the first player from Belarus to do that. She also won her first ITF title in Pétange, Luxembourg in the same year. In Guangzhou, China, she reached her first pro-level semi-final, winning three qualifying rounds and defeating Martina Suchá and Shuai Peng in the main draw before losing to eventual champion Yan Zi.

Victoria Azarenka

Daniela Hantuchova tennis player to have won the mixed

Daniela Hantuchová Slovak pronunciation; born April 23, 1983 is a Slovak professional tennis player. She turned professional in 1999 and had her breakthrough year in 2002, when she won her first Tier I tournament and ended the year in the top ten.
She is currently coached by Larri Passos. Her WTA Tour mentor in the "Partners for Success" program was Martina Navrátilová, who was her doubles partner for a brief period in early 2005. As of August 22, 2011, Hantuchová is ranked World No. 22 in singles.
In 2005, she became the fifth female tennis player to have won the mixed doubles title in all four Grand Slam tournaments during her career.
Contents
* 1 Personal life
* 2 Career
o 2.1 2002
o 2.2 2003
o 2.3 2004
o 2.4 2005–2006
o 2.5 2007
o 2.6 2008
o 2.7 2009–2010
o 2.8 2011
* 3 Career statistics
* 4 Endorsements
o 4.1 Product endorsement and equipment
o 4.2 Video games
* 5 Achievements
o 5.1 Team achievements
o 5.2 Special achievements
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 External links
Personal life
Hantuchová was born in Poprad, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia) to father Igor, a computer scientist, and mother Marianna, a toxicologist.
When her parents split up in 2003, Hantuchová's performances temporarily worsened. At Wimbledon that year, she failed to convert several match points and was seen weeping on court. She also suffered from a weight problem during this period. She was suspected of being anorexic but denied this.
Hantuchová speaks three languages (Slovak, English and German), and was trained as a classical pianist. She is thought to be a perfectionist and puts a lot of pressure on herself during her training. She qualified for university in Slovakia but deferred it to pursue tennis.[citation needed]
She appeared in the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition alongside Maria Kirilenko and Tatiana Golovin in a pictoral entitled Volley of the Dolls.

Daniela Hantuchova

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

roger federer slam the field at the U.S. Open

Federer, Sharapova hope to slam the field at the U.S. Open
It may not have the name cachet of Wimbledon or the grueling clay surface of Roland Garros, but the U.S. Open has an even greater intangible: New York itself.
"(It's) just a great feeling coming back to New York," says Roger Federer, the former World No. 1 who won five consecutive U.S. Open singles titles from 2004 to 2008. "Honestly, I liked it from day one. It was just one of those tournaments I right away fell in love with -- just the buzz and the energy over there. Sure, it was a bit overwhelming at first. I kind of always liked to play there.
"(It's) difficult with the wind, humidity, the city behind it, the whole deal," he continues. "Having to deal with that was quite interesting. Every time the U.S. Open rolls around, I'm very, very excited."
The season's final Grand Slam event gets going Monday, Aug. 29, from USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y. (with coverage airing over the next two weeks on ESPN2 and CBS), and the sport's best -- including World No. 1's Novak Djokovic and Caroline Wozniacki, plus Rafael Nadal, Maria Sharapova and Federer -- will take to the hard-court surface in search of the singles titles won last year by Nadal and Kim Clijsters.

Sharapova, who won the title here in 2006, has experienced a career renaissance after being hampered by inconsistent play and shoulder problems that ultimately required surgery. After falling as low as No. 126 in May 2009 (and finishing 2010 at No. 18), the 24-year-old Russian native had a successful clay-court season this spring, culminating in a semifinal loss to Li Na in the French Open. She then went on to Wimbledon and didn't lose a set in making it to the final, where she was upended by Petra Kvitova in straight sets.
She comes into this tournament ranked fifth, riding a wave of good feeling from her performance in London.
"To be honest, it's still nice to come home with a nice plate, so I was glad I didn't come home after Wimbledon empty-handed," she says. "To have that moment where you're walking out in the final stage of Wimbledon, even though you didn't leave with the big trophy, you know, gives me a great and tremendous amount of confidence that I've been doing something right in the last few months and I've been getting better.

"I think I always like to let the game talk," she says, "instead of saying, 'OK, I'm feeling better.' Everything is going well. I'm pretty realistic about my results. I always feel like the more matches you win, the ranking is always going to take care of itself."

Like Sharapova, Federer has faced questions about his abilities since falling from the top ranking he held from 2004 to 2008. Currently ranked third behind Djokovic and Nadal, he has experienced stretches of inconsistent play in recent years and hasn't won a major since the 2010 Australian Open. And earlier this month he turned 30, an age considered ancient in tennis.

Still, the 16-time Grand Slam champ is confident in his abilities and intends to prove it in Flushing.

"Do I approach tournaments differently?" he says. "Well, maybe a little obviously. I think when you win 90-95 percent of your matches, you go into a tournament slightly more confident. Other than that, there's not a huge change because I know my abilities. I don't want to say I'm overconfident, but I also know what I can do and I also know ... my limits. Hopefully that allows me to play the best tennis I can each day.

roger federer

Sunday, August 21, 2011

rafael nadal looks to improve ahead of the US Open

Rafael Nadal has admitted he needs to raise his game in time for the US Open after losing to Mardy Fish in the quarter-finals of the Cincinnati Masters.
Nadal has been some distance away from his best over the past fortnight, with some of his performances giving his fans plenty of cause for the concern, the most recently being his defeat to Fish in Cincinnati this past week.
Nadal's uncle and coach Toni is scheduled to arrived in the United States in the next few days to try and get the Spaniard prepared as best as possible ahead of the start of play at Flushing Meadows later this month.
"I have to play my game. I have to play aggressive," admitted Nadal. "I have to move faster.
"I have to play with more intensity and less mistakes. You know, sometimes [I] play well - is not the first time in my career that I am not playing that well, no?"
Speaking after his defeat to the in-form Fish, the world number two continued: "Last year I played terrible here, probably worse than this year.
"The important thing is [to] be ready to change the situation and for sure be fresh mentally and physically, too, to have the view about what you really need to change the situation."
Reflecting on his US Open win last year, Nadal said that his serve had been crucial to his success in New York.
"I didn't change my game a lot last year to play the US Open," he explained.
"My serve worked really well, but I played well. I played well a lot of times on hard courts, not only in the US Open last year. I won the Olympics; Montreal; I won Toronto; I won in Indian Wells twice; [a] few finals in Miami.
"So it's nothing that you think I played something very different last year in New York. No, I played well. That's what happened. I played well and the serve worked better than other times."
The US Open gets underway on August 29th.

rafael nadal

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

novak djokovic.Serbian professional tennis player

Novak Djokovic born 22 May 1987 is a Serbian professional tennis player who is ranked the World No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) since 4 July 2011. He has won three Grand Slam singles titles, the 2008 and 2011 Australian Open championships and the 2011 Wimbledon Championships, becoming the first player representing Serbia to win a Grand Slam singles title and the youngest player in the open era to have reached the semi-finals of all four Grand Slam events, separately and consecutively.
He is considered the best male tennis player to come out of Serbia, the former Yugoslavia and the Balkans. Djokovic is also a double winner of the award The Best Sportperson of Serbia and award for The Best Sportsman by Olympic Committee of Serbia. He has been awarded with the Order of St. Sava, the highest decoration of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Contents
* 1 Biography
* 2 Tennis career
o 2.1 Early career
o 2.2 2006
o 2.3 2007
o 2.4 2008
o 2.5 2009
o 2.6 2010
o 2.7 2011
o 2.8 Davis Cup
o 2.9 Rivalries
* 3 Playing style, equipment and diet
* 4 Grand Slam tournaments
o 4.1 Grand Slam tournament performance timeline
o 4.2 Grand Slam tournament finals
+ 4.2.1 Singles: 5 (3 titles, 2 runner-ups)
* 5 Career statistics
* 6 Awards and honours
o 6.1 Order of Saint Sava
o 6.2 List of awards
* 7 Records
* 8 Off the Court
o 8.1 In Popular Culture
o 8.2 Personal Life
* 9 See also
* 10 References
* 11 Further reading
* 12 External links
Biography
Novak Djokovic was born 22 May 1987, in Belgrade, Serbia, to father Srđan and mother, Dijana. His two younger brothers, Marko and Djordje, are also tennis players with professional aspirations. Since the end of 2005, Novak has been dating Jelena Ristić.[citation needed]
He started playing tennis at the age of four. In the summer 1993, the six-year-old got spotted by Yugoslav tennis legend Jelena Genčić at Mount Kopaonik where Djokovic's parents ran a fast-food parlour.Upon seeing the dedicated and talented youngster in action she stated: "This is the greatest talent I have seen since Monica Seles.Genčić worked with young Djokovic over the following six years before realizing that, due to his rapid development, going abroad in search of increased level of competition is the best option for his future. To that end she contacted Nikola Pilić and in September 1999, the 12-year-old moved to Pilić tennis academy in Oberschleißheim, Germany, spending three months there. At age 14, his international career began, winning European championships in singles, doubles, and team competition.
He resides in Monte Carlo, Monaco and has been coached since 2006 by a former Slovak tennis player, Marián Vajda.
Djokovic is known for his often humorous off-court impersonations of his fellow players, many of whom are his friends. This became evident to the tennis world after his 2007 US Open quarterfinal win over Carlos Moyà, where he entertained the audience with impersonations of Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova.He also did an impression of American tennis great John McEnroe after his final preliminary game at the 2009 US Open, before playing a brief game with McEnroe, much to the delight of the audience. It is because of this jovial personality that he earned the nickname "Djoker", a portmanteau of his surname and the word joker. Novak Djokovic is a member of the "Champions for Peace" club, a group of famous elite athletes committed to serving peace in the world through sport, created by Peace and Sport, a Monaco-based international organization.