2013 Review

To call this a review makes it sound too authoritative.

Instead here’s a highly personal, selective, subjective Hornby-style list of my favourite sporting events I saw live this year, in chronological order:

1. Man U 1 Real Madrid  2, Uefa Champions League round of 16. Modric.

2. Barcelona 4 Milan 0, UCL round of 16. Messi.

3. Wales v England, 6 Nations rugby. A close contest was expected, but Wales ran away with it in the end

4. Uefa Champions League final (Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund) Robben wins a big final

5. Froch v Kessler super-middle world title. A ring war.

6. Djokovic v Nadal, French Open semi-final. If Nole hadn’t fouled the net…

7. Murray v Verdasco, Wimbledon QF. Comeback

8. Sabine Lisicki v Agnieska Radwanska, Wimbledon SF. Great variety with net play, lobs, drop shots & 9-7 in the final set.

9. Djokovic v del Potro, Wimbledon SF. Best match of the tournament.

10. Wimbledon Final, Murray v Djokovic. The final game alone, the tension was nearly unbearable.

11. Mo Farah’s last lap sprint, 10k final, World Championships

12. San Francisco 49ers 42 Jacksonville Jaguars 10

13. Nadal v Federer, SF, ATP World Tour Finals. I was courtside for the two GOAT contenders.

14. Man City 6 Arsenal 3. My team got whopped, but in a cracking game

The Winning Habit

No Rugby Union team in the professional era had gone through an entire season unbeaten, until the All Blacks denied Ireland with the final play of their game in Dublin. It seemed to me that their final try was inevitable. They had the composure and  technique  to keep going through the phases and  popping the passes until they breached the line.

Seb Vettel shares the winning habit, & he matched Ascari’s record of nine wins on the spin after comfortably winning at Interlagos . Vettel’s total domination is probably the reason the FIA has proposed the last race of next season should carry double points, a suggestion which has attracted widespread derision.

Rafa Nadal has been the man of the year in tennis. He has made an astonishing comeback from a seven month layoff, winning the French & US Opens and finishing with a 75-7 win-loss record. Djokovic was not far behind though, with a 74-9 tally. The Serb had the last word, beating Rafa in the final at the O2.

Comeback of the month :  the New England Patriots, down 24-0 at half-time to Super Bowl  favourites Denver Broncos, but squeaked through 34-31 in overtime.

Performance of the Month

The All Blacks.

Legends

Serena Wiliams finished 2013 with an awesome 78-4 W-L record, her best stats ever. Her shock loss at the 2012 French Open, her first ever 1st round exit from a major, galvanised her to start working with coach Patrick Mouratoglou. Since then she has consistently dominant on the tour, whereas in the past she often saved her best only for the Slams.  

Similarly, Sebastien Vettel has been totally dominant in F1, as he retained the world title with 3 races to spare. He will surely surpass Schumacher’s record of 7 world titles. 

The ageless Bernard Hopkins continues to give hope to those who fear that their physical capabilities will inevitably diminish with advancing years. The 48 year old Philadelphian shrugged off an opponent 18 years younger as he defended his IBF light-heavy title. 

Performance of the Month 

Hopkins.

Maturing with Age

Modern advances in conditioning, diet, and training methods mean some athletes can now compete at the top level well into their thirties & beyond.

I’ve posted on this before, thought it was quite recently, but a trawl of the archive shows it was a 2008 vintage.

http://ronstersramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/no-country-for-old-men.html

Anyway, that post used boxers as an example of athletes disproving  the ‘over 30’ rule. This month  Floyd Mayweather put on another exhibition, schooling  Canelo Alvarez. Mayweather,  36, conceded 13 years to his previous unbeaten opponent, plus 15 pounds on fight night, but was far too slick for the Mexican.

Chris Horner, 41, was the oldest starter of the Vuelta but became the oldest man ever to win a cycling Grand Tour. The previous record for oldest tour winner was 36.

There were thrilling sprint finishes in two endurance events, the Great North Run (Bekele v Farah) & the deciding event of the men’s Triathlon world series (Gomez v J Brownlee).

Rafa Nadal continued his brilliant, unbeaten hard court form this year, winning his second US Open title.

Performance of the Month

Horner.

Honourable mention:

Wilson Kipsang set a new world best today for the marathon, he completed Berlin in 2:03:23

Mo at the Double

There were several stand-out performances at the World Athletics championships. There was Bolt, of course, who did the sprint treble (100, 200m, 4x1 relay) again. Tirunesh Dibaba continued her record of having never lost a competitive 10k race, & is now 11 for 11. The devastating kick finish is now a Mo Farah trademark, and he used it twice as he had to dig deep  to complete the 5 & 10k double. Bekele is the only other man to have done the ‘double double’ at both the Olympics & worlds.

Rafa Nadal’s awesome form continues. He won two Masters titles on hard courts in August, including on the fast courts of Cincinnati, which is supposed to be his weakest surface. His only blip has been Wimbledon, with a staggering 11 finals & nine titles this year.

Performance of the Month

Mo Farah.

Honourable mentions:
Nadal.
Katie Ledecky , successor to Becky Adlington as the long-distance swimming queen. She set 2 world records and won 4 golds at the worlds.

Rule Britannia

2012 was a high point for widespread British sporting success. 2013 is not shaping up too shabbily either. The Lions, Murray, Froome, the Ashes, Justin Rose. Hamilton got in on the act on Sunday at the Hungaroring.

Andy Murray has not been doing too badly lately. 2012 Wimbledon runner-up. Olympics singles gold, & mixed doubles silver. US Open champ. Runner-up Australian Open 2013, & now Wimbledon champ. Famously the gap since Perry won was 77 years. There aren’t many title droughts in sports to beat that. Two of the longest are in baseball: the Chicago Cubs haven’t won the world series since 1908, & it took the Red Sox 86 years to lift the so-called ‘curse of the Bambino’.

It pains me to say it, but with recent results Federer  looks finished as force as the top level. He has lost to players ranked outside the top 50 in three straight events. It’s even possible, if his current poor from continues, that  he may not qualify for the year-end top eight finals.

Chris Froome dominated the Tour de France. Only on the last Alpine stage did he concede time to his major rivals. His Sky team slowed up behind the peloton on the Champs Elysees to cross the line together, losing 40 seconds, otherwise his margin of victory would have exceeded five minutes. Froome showed his class both in the time trials and the mountains.

After  three  rounds at the Open an Englishman topped the leaderboard, but a certain Californian lefty claimed the claret jug. Mickelson has never been ranked world no. 1, but that’s due to playing in the same era as Tiger Woods, having been in the year-end 2^nd spot four times.

Performance of the Month

Harsh not to give it to Murray for ending that long wait, but Froome shades it.

Honourable mention:
The Lions for that rare series win.

Vamos !

Rafa Nadal enhanced his credentials as the greatest ever on the red dirt with an eighth Roland Garros title. Even the most die-hard fans of Bjorn Borg would find it hard to disagree now. Nadal was seriously troubled in the first two rounds but produced his best when it mattered, & the epic semi-final v Djokovic was my sporting highlight of the year so far. 

Serena Williams is on ominous form, on her weakest surface was taken to three sets only once, by Kuznetsova. 

It’s difficult to choose for performance of the month between Rafa & Serena. Rafa edges it for the epic semi-final win over Djokovic. Since I drafted this Rafa blotted his copybook with the loss to Darcis in the first round of Wimbledon, but still… 

At Wimbledon, with all the top seeds falling, it seemed to be the end of an era. It was the first Slam with both Federer & Nadal in the draw that neither made the third round.

The Confederations Cup saw another great run brought to an end. An inspired Brazil took energy & inspiration from the Rio roar to thump the mighty Spain three-nil and again upset the form book. 

After Justin Rose won the US Open, it surprised me to realise that it was so long since an Englishman (Faldo)  last won a major. With Scots, Ulster, & Irish winners having been celebrated in recent years, it didn’t register that there was a barren spell for the English. I remember Rose’s stunning debut at the Open as an amateur. Famously he struggled with the burden of expectation after turning pro, missing 21 straight cuts.  

Performance of the Month 

 

Nadal. 
 

Honourable Mentions:

Rose.

Brazil.

Champions and Underdogs

Quite an eventful sporting month. The Champions League final, the retirement of  Fergie, Beckham, Scholes, & Carragher and Wigan’s rare underdog win in the FA Cup in football alone.

To succeed in top level sport, you need talent and athleticism. If you excel in these you have a contender. Champions have these plus the mental toughness, the ability to deliver in moments of intense pressure, and unremitting focus.

Ronnie O’Sullivan’s talent has never been in question, the mental side less so. Fans will hope he again reconsiders retirement after he shrugged off his long break from the game, cruising to his 5^th world title . Most commentators agree if he can go on to match Hendry’s seven world titles it would be difficult not to rate him as the all-time best.

Rafa Nadal can never be accused of not being focused or a fierce competitor, and has also enjoyed great success after a long lay-off, reaching the final in all eight tourneys played & wining six. Rome was his 24th Masters title, to put that in perspective, Lendl won 22 in his entire career, Federer has 21. Rafa has looked vulnerable so far at Roland Garros though, dropping two sets in his first two matches.

With the financial disparity between the big teams & the rest bigger than ever due to petrodollars & TV prize money, it was quite a feat for Wigan to win the cup against Man City, the biggest spenders of recent years. It was the biggest underdog win since the Wimbledon ‘Crazy Gang’ in 1988.

Floyd Mayweather had looked a bit rusty in his last bout, but looked back to his best as he comfortably outpointed Guerrero in Vegas.

Another world-class match was at the O2. Carl Froch has a chance of a rematch with Andre Ward after coming through a fantastic battle with Mikkel Kessler with a deserved points victory. Ward is behind only Mayweather in the pound-for–pound ratings and should be too slick again for the Cobra.

Performance of the Month

Wigan, for winning the Cup, even though they were relegated.

The Germans

The Germans. I’d written off Bayern for the UCL in the last blog. How wrong can you be ? Barcelona, widely considered one of the all-time great club sides, were handed an incredible 7-0 hiding on aggregate in the semi-final. Dortmund were equally impressive in seeing off Madrid. I would still rate the Spanish national side over their German counterparts though. With hindsight, Man City finishing third in their UCL group behind Madrid & Dortmund doesn’t look like such a bad result now.

Bayern are 20 points clear in the Bundesliga. Unlike the Bavarians, Man United have not won the plaudits but despite not having an outstanding season, performance-wise, won the league at a canter.

When Lukas Rosol famously knocked Nadal out of Wimbledon last year, many people, including me, thought it would be the highlight of his career. Instead, since then he has climbed the rankings (from 100)  to world no. 35 and the best may be yet to come for the Czech.  There was a pleasing symmetry last Sunday with both Rafa & Rosol winning clay-court tournaments in Barcelona & Bucharest. An emotional Rosol dedicated the win to his late father who’d died only two weeks before.

The GB Davis Cup team had a great result at the start of April, beating a top nation despite being without Andy Murray. Youzhny, Russia’s top-ranked player, wasn’t in the Russia team but still the Russians, Donskoy(80) & Tursunov (67) were ranked far higher than the Brits, Ward (214) & Evans (325).

Novak Djokovic ended Rafa Nadal’s  incredible eight year win streak on the Monte Carlo clay. Andy Murray lost in the second round to Wawrinka. I  feel Murray can never get to world no. 1 with his inconsistent clay court results, he’s yet to make a final on clay.  

Performance of the Month

Robert Lewandowski’s four-goal haul in the first leg against Madrid.

Honourable mention:

Chris Gayle hit the fastest ever first class century, off 30 balls, for RCB in an IPL match. No cutting edge sports nutrition for Gayle either, he did it on an old school sports breakfast of omelette, pancakes & hot chocolate.

Hymns & Errors

March was for me the best month of sport since the Olympics: Man U-Madrid, Barca-Milan, Man U- Chelsea, both legs of Spurs-Inter, Wales-England. Spectacular matches & all on terrestrial TV.

Barca responded to two Classico defeats & losing the first leg of their round of 16 match to Milan in emphatic style. It’s hard to look beyond them or Madrid as winners now, especially as Bayern only scraped past Arsenal. Perhaps Dortmund could spring a surprise.

Wales lost seven on the bounce in the autumn, & at half time in their first  6 Nations game were down 30-3 to Ireland. The turnaround was completed in the title decider in Cardiff, as England and Owen Farrell were shown to be fallible, Wales in the end winning by an emphatic scoreline.

Andy Murray is up to world no. 2 after winning Miami. In this BBC interview (link below) Lendl made a refreshing point about a more favourable draw made possible by a higher seeding. Normally players give the standard line that they don’t look at the draw, all matches are tough, you have to beat the best to win, etc. Lendl instead was saying it would be preferable for the big four players to play each other, hopefully in gruelling matches before facing Murray. A dream scenario for the French Open, with Ferrer 4^th seed & Rafa 5^th; would be Djokovic(1), Nadal(5) and Federer(3) drawn in the same half.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/scotland/21967941

Performance of the Month

Wales.

Honourable mentions:

Rafa Nadal, won a record 22^nd Masters title in Indian Wells

Tiger Woods, back at world no. 1 after a three year hiatus

Going The Distance

The packed tournament calendar is a continual complaint from the top tennis pros, and to avoid injuries & burn-out their schedules have to be carefully managed. While some of the top players, most notably Federer & Murray, skip Davis Cup duty , others give their all. The Davis Cup doubles rubber Czech Republic  v Switzerland was proof of this. Berdych & Rosol beat Wawrinka & Chiudinelli after a gruelling 7 hours 2 minutes, 24-22 in the fifth set. It was the longest  ATP match ever, bar Isner-Mahut.  Incredibly Wawrinka and Berdych still had the energy to play their singles rubber the next day.

Rafa Nadal made a successful return to action after his injury long lay-off,  with a runner-up spot in Vina del Mar & winning in Sao Paulo. He plays Ferrer in the Acapulco final today, the toughest opponent he’s faced since his comeback, should be a tough test.

Performance of the Month

The Czech/Swiss doubles foursome.

Honourable mention:

Gareth Bale. His recent scoring record (seven in Feb) speaks for itself.

Djoker Top of the World Down Under

Novak Djokovic was just too good for Murray in the Australian Open final. This ES article

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/other-sports/andy-murrays-real-pain-is-playing-in-such-a-golden-era-8469326.html

had a rather negative statistic about Murray losing five out of six Grand Slam finals. However, losing to Fed three times & twice to Djokovic is hardly a poor showing. You could say that in fact winning even one final is a great achievement, in this golden age of excellence where tennis is being taken to new levels of athleticism.

The same article did point out , that in their first Slam finals, Nadal & Federer faced easier opposition on paper, against lower ranked opponents. Whereas it used to be rare, nowadays it's unusual for the Big Four, or the top four seeds in the absence of Nadal, not to make it through to the semis of every Slam.

At the moment, it's hard to look beyond Murray & Djokovic contesting more Slam finals. Federer might be able to upset one of them at Roland Garros or maybe both at Wimbledon. The other big intangible is the state of Rafa Nadal's knees. He's due to make his tournament comeback next week in Vina del Mar, Chile. Will he be able to get back to his former level, & can his knee joints withstand the pounding of seven consecutive best -of five set matches ?

Performance of the Month

Djokovic.

Honourable Mentions:

Phil Taylor, still got it at 52, & now owner of 16 world titles.

Mark Selby, Masters snooker champ. ‘The Jester’ is as sharp on the green baize as he is in the sartorial stakes.