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

Operation Grand Slam

My pre-tournament tip, Wales, deservedly took their third Six Nations Grand Slam in eight years.With only three players over the age of 30, they could dominate for some years.
England, who I thought would end up in the bottom half, finished up as runners-up; & in Owen Farrell may have found a dead-eyed kicker in the Wilkinson mould.
France will look to rebound next year from a disappointing 4th place.

Federer back in Form

Roger Federer showed he is still a force to be reckoned with, winning Rotterdam, Dubai, and Indian Wells. Until he lost in Miami it looked like he was on track to regain the world no. 1 ranking, amazingly, at the age of 30. It's still possible, as Djokovic has a huge amount of ranking points to defend this season, but the Fed would need to win a couple of tournaments in the upcoming clay court swing. Also, I still think in the best of five sets matches at the Slams, he will come unstuck against a top eight opponent.

Performance of the Month (Feb & March)

Wales.
Honourable mentions:
Federer.
The GB women 4 x 400 m relay squad, who won the 1st ever GB gold in the event, at the World Indoors.
Brad Wiggins, who became the first Brit since Tom Simpson to win the Paris-Nice stage race.
Vika Azarenka, who lost her 27 match win streak to Bartoli in Miami this week.

Quote of the Month
　
There is no script in sports, you know. I think that's what makes it the best entertainment in the world.
Andy Roddick, after beating Federer for only the third time in 24 meetings.