Wellllllllll, guess what??? Yup more tennis now! (naw!!). This post will be all about on the men's ATP AEGON Championships final, which was controversial to say the least in its outcome, so here is more on that.
So the men's final at Queens club was between, the Croatian player, Marin Cilic, and the former World No.3, David Nalbandian. The match itself for the first 1 hour and 20 minutes or so was very tight and entertaining, with play all square with Nalbandian serving at 3-3 in the 2nd set. But Cilic however managed to break Nalbandian's serve, to move ahead in the set 4-3, and at this point Nalbandian become angry and kicked an advertisement sign that was enclosed around a line judge's chair, which resulted in a shin injury for the linesman. As a result Nalbandian was disqualified from the match, which meant that Marin Cilic became the champion by default, with the scoreline reading 6-7, 4-3 in Cilic's favour, in what was a very dramatic end to a promising match.
It was a great pity that the final had to end in such a way as this, and I can understand that Nalbandian would want to vent a bit of frustration. But if you look back at the footage of what he did, you see it was almost like he was taking a penalty kick in a football match, as he really lashed out at the line judge's box chair, and there was really no excuse for it. However Nalbandian was quite apologetic afterwards and there clearly was no malicious intent in his actions, as it was just a spur of the moment thing. Nalbandian afterwards in his post-final interview apologised to the crowd for what happened, but he also went on to blame the ATP for their strict rules and he felt that they can do a lot to players and nothing happens. This didn't go down too well with the Queens club crowd, and I personally think Nalbandian should have just apologised to the crowd and the line judge, and left his comments about the ATP for some other time, but he continued re-stating them while being interviewed by Sue Barker, and even further so in his press conference. Marin Cilic himself wasn't too happy about winning in this way either, and he was sorry too for the fans, but on the face of it he was a more deserving winner, and its a pity his triumph was not the way he wanted it, as well as being overshadowed by Nalbandian's actions.
But it also does raise one or two questions about how the tournaments are organised as well as the line judge seats and how they have these silly enclosures, with advertisements on them, as clearly these enclosures are a bit of a safety hazard. If a line judge wants to get up from the chair, he or she could trip up on the enclosure for example, and in Nalbandian's case, he could have a lawsuit in the offing. The line judge himself was in a bit of shock after the incident and clearly his leg was bleeding afterwards. And as a result of this Nalbandian could face a hefty fine from the ATP, and its a pity it had to come to this for him, as he will no doubt face all sorts of questions in the press. Anyway despite all that, that's the end of another Queens club tournament, it was definitely quite a controversial one, not to mention it saw just about all the top seeds, including Andy Murray topple out of the event, one after the other.
As for Andy Murray, well he remains upbeat, despite his loss, he has said in his BBC column that it was in a way a good thing, as it allows him more time to prepare for Wimbledon than it did last year, where he hardly had any after winning the Queens title. So hopefully Andy will go into Wimbledon feeling alot fresher and fitter than last year, and hopefully his preparation at the Boodles Challenge event this week will give him a couple of wins (or at least one!) before the next slam begins. At least with this Nalbandian thing the press will get off his back (so to speak!) about his back, and they have something more meaty to get their teeth into.
But what are his actual chances this time around?????? Hmmmmm. To be honest I'm still not convinced he will win the title, as no doubt he will have to face Nadal in the semis, should he get there again. And last year after winning the first set in his match with Rafa, he missed one shot in the 2nd set and his game proceeded to fall apart. And he cannot let that happen this time around, as he will have to play as well as he did, if not better as he did in Melbourne earlier this year to have any chance to get past Rafa (again assuming he get's that far!). And for me it still has to be Rafa and Djokovic for the Wimbledon final, and the best we can hope for Andy is that he has a very tight semi final Rafa match like he did in Australia earlier this year against Djokovic in the semis there. But if he can improve on that performance then he surely will have a good chance of reaching the final and just maybe winning that elusive grand slam. However given his recent form I remain sceptical of his chances, but it is another grand slam and for Andy nowadays it is all about the majors, so here's hoping he can do well again on his home soil. But I think Andy will realistically only get as far as the semi finals again this year, that's assuming he can actually get there, but fingers crossed!
Anywayyyy that's it for now, more will follow on the ladies WTA Premier event this week from Eastbourne, which starts tomorrow, so that should be really good.
So that's it for now.
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