Hope and Redemption

ATP World Tour Finals

Some commentators have suggested Federer can regain the no. 1 spot following his victory at the ATP World finals. While I think Fed will run Nadal closer next year, I feel Rafa will still head the rankings.
I was lucky enough to see the Murray-Nadal semi live. It was incredible how after three hours of a gruelling match they were still hitting with ferocious power, & the noise as they changed ends at six-all in the final set tie-break was something to behold. Skill, guts, fitness & power hitting were all on display in a brilliant match. Murray came back from a break down in the final set-was it a coincidence that it followed a fan’s cry of ‘William Wallace !’ I like to think not.

Redemption for Higgins

Until last week, 2010 was a year to forget for John Higgins . His father has terminal cancer, & for not reporting an approach to fix matches he served a six month suspension & was fined for bringing the dame into disrepute. Higgins found redemption beating Mark Williams 10-9 in the UK final. While O'Sullivan is the most gifted, Higgins is the best match player on the circuit- the most tacticaly astute & one of the strongest mentally, as he proved with his comeback from 9-5 down in the final.

UCL last 16 draw

I had thought Spurs would struggle to get out of their group (13 Sep blog), but they ended up finishing a point clear of the holders, Inter. I also tipped Real Madrid to win, but am slightly nervous about that prediction now if they were to draw Barca, following their 5-0 drubbing three weeks ago. However Mourinho’s Inter lost 2-0 to Barca last season in the group stage, but went on to knock them out in the semi; & if any manager can turn it around, it’s Jose.

Spurs-Milan is a tough one to call, the bookies have it even money-but if Mr Bale has one of his inspirational nights I can see Spurs edging it.
Arsenal paid the price for finishing runners-up in their group by drawing the bookies’ favourites, Barcelona. Barcelona & Arsenal are arguably the two most attatractive passing football teams in the world. However Arsenal’s style doesnt match up well vs the Catalans, as was seen in the 6-3 aggregate loss in last years’ quarter-final.
Man U & Chelsea should comfortably get past Marseille & Copenhagen respectively.