Honourable mention: Significant events of 2010
Bernard Tomic acts up again
17-year-old Australian tennis professional Bernard Tomic seems to have made a tradition of misbehaviour and 2010 was no exception. He acted up at the Australian Open again, after his second round loss to Marin Cilic. This time, he lashed out at event organizers,
claiming that the match started too late in the evening and kept him up “past his bedtime”. It seems as if the tennis world has another John “SuperBrat” McEnroe in the making.
On-court ‘accidents’
Tomic’s tantrum was not the only incident of childishness at the Australian Open. An opening round match between Christophe Rochus and Donald Young had to be put on hold when it was discovered that one of the ball boys had wet himself and soiled the court.
Pete and Andre, not so philanthropic after all
Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras proved that immaturity is not just for 17-year-old tennis players. The two players were anything but charitable towards each other at the Hit for Haiti event and indulged in below-the-belt comments and mockery. Even worse, their
jabs were exchanged on microphones broadcasting to the entire audience. An event that should have been remembered as the reunion of two of the world’s best players will instead go down in history for its extraordinarily bad show of poor sportsmanship.
Me, me, me
Serbian tennis professional Jelena Jankovic seems to be turning into a diva. When asked to give some input about her compatriot Janko Tipsarevic’s game, her reply was classic: “Can I please talk about myself?”
Nadal loses timepiece
After many weeks of flaunting a Richard Mille timepiece (reportedly worth somewhere over half a million US dollars), Rafael Nadal managed to lose the collector’s item watch during the Toronto ATP tournament.
Aisam-ul-Haq, the Patriot
Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna made waves at the US Open this year and were most definitely one of the most talked about teams in the world. After the duo won their Los Angles semi-final to make it to the doubles final, Qureshi was asked to comment
on the prowess of Indian doubles players. Marking a clear line between the two countries, Qureshi replied, “I don’t know. I’m Pakistani.”
Lipsky’s marital luck
This year, Stanford player Scott Lipsky said his vows. In addition to this, he also won the Atlanta Championships doubles shield just eight days after his wedding. When asked to comment on this, he responded, “I should get married more often.”
John Isner fights Nicolas Mahut in a (not so) epic match
In most cases, a first round match is nothing more than a formality for seeded players. They are the least watched rounds of any event, since the results are, for the most part, entirely predictable. However, this is not always the case.
For example, let’s consider the epic battle which took place on the courts of the All England Club this year. American tennis professional John Isner, seeded 23rd at the tournament, met his French opponent Nicolas Mahut on the courts of Wimbledon.
Entering the match, he had no idea that it would become as legendary as it did. However, the match extended over three days; it lasted eleven hours and five minutes and concluded with John Isner as the victor at 70-68 in the final set. This astonishingly high
figure is because Wimbledon does not allow a tiebreak, for the determination of a winner in five sets.
However, the length of this match does not imply tennis prowess. It simply means that both players were poor returners, unable to challenge each other enough to reach a conclusion.
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