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.

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