This month (September) started with amazing trip NYC and US OPEN 2014. It was a great time to catch up with some long lost friends that I have not seen for ages and to catch up with he tennis world. I have also attended Tennis Show at Grand Hyatt, which is the biggest tennis show in industry. A lot of new interesting inventions, we can also see the rise of technology use in the tennis industry.
US OPEN was full of surprises on the men’s side where Croatian Marin Cilic ended up winning the whole thing by beating another upset in the final, Kei Nishikori. A lot of people thought this was a last chance for Roger to win another major, but who knows maybe he comes out next year looking even stronger than in 2014. The absence of Rafa Nadal at US OPEN due to wrist injury made the draw even more open. Defending champion is playing his first tournament after three months starting this week in Beijing, China.
On the women’s side Serena Williams won US OPEN without any real competition. I guess we all expected that to happen after her amazing run at the tournaments running into US OPEN. It was more of a surprise that Ivanovic and Bouchard did not present more of a threat. We are all happy that Caroline Woznacki has finally made into Grand Slam Final, looks like breaking up from Rory is doing her good!
And now….after few weeks of downtime to recover/relax everyone is back in full action in China and Japan this week. We are still missing Federer in Beijing but he has announced that he will participating at Shanghai Rolex Open starting October 4th. We are all thrilled to see Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal playing this week, who knows perhaps another dream final?
In Japan at Rakuten Japan Open WC Japanese player ranked 103 in the world Tatsuma Ito defeated number one seed Stan Wawrinka, in the first round. This was great win for Japanese tennis, especially after huge excitement of Kei Nishikori reaching US OPEN final and last week winning Malaysian Open. On the other hand Stan has for sure not played the part of being Australian Open Winner 2014. Is there any chance he can get back to his top form for the end of the year season, particularly indoor tournaments in Europe?
At WTA tour Ivanovic seems to be in her top form again. But it appears that same names are making the last four or eight at the Asian series. Kvitova, Bouchard, Ivanovic are favorites to win the end of the year Masters.
To wrap everything up, for sure the biggest news of the fall season is the announcement of LiNa that she is retiring from tennis caravan. It seems that her body cannot take the brutal practice schedule that is needed to stay on top. It is shame to see her leave before the end of the year, but I guess it is always best to leave when you are still ranked high and to leave when you are on the downfall….
Looking forward hearing from all the readers as to what topic would like to hear about in our next blog! We are always open to new suggestions. Until then…if you need Halloween costume ideas I suggest dressing up as Roger/Rafa or Sharapova/Bouchard 🙂
