"Volume 1"Yeah, I thought of one last thread we needed... you know, for all the articles about him that are written, etc.
NOW we are set with the threads I believe.
But this will be the lovely place where our Serbian friends post the articles and we wait for translations
And this was tweeted a few days ago@MubadalaTennis
World #1 Djokovic is visiting Abu Dhabi Corniche East Plaza for a press conference tomorrow at 2pm! We hope to see you there #MWTC
Suppose it's just about the exho at the end of the month and any other general tennis questions. Seems we haven't heard from him in a while though.... wonder what length his hair is?@milominder Miles Evans
Ooh, getting a camera to the Novak Djokovic presser in Dubai on Saturday...any questions for the great man? #omnisport
Haha. I hope he just got it cut so that its perfect length by AONovak's having a press conference tomorrow
Suppose it's just about the exho at the end of the month and any other general tennis questions. Seems we haven't heard from him in a while though.... wonder what length his hair is?
@TennisReporters
Nadal cites key to 2011 misery vs Djokovic: "I failed in our first match at Indian Wells, where I should have won because the match was..
Lol lmao, Djokovic says he was in control of their FO match in 2006( which he was, cause Nadal was solely a defensive player back then) and he still get's shit for those "arrogant" comments 5 years on. Yet with commies,former players and anyone tennis related outside of forums, Nadal gets the crown of the most humble to ever step on the earth. What a laugh. He thinks exactly the same as all the other top players.@TennisReporters
...up to me at all times until I started to play very badly. If I had won that match would have lessened anxiety in many other [matches]'
Nole is having a huge influence on the rest of players, I like that.Sam Querrey, who returned from elbow surgery in late September and is currently ranked No. 93, tells the New Zealand Herald that he’s taking inspiration from No. 1 Novak Djokovic. "He has been incredible," said Querrey. "Seeing a guy flick the switch like that [winning three Grand Slams in 2011] gives you confidence after I got hurt. I'd like to mimic that, even if it's not on the same grand stage. I want to keep playing an aggressive game using a big serve and going for it on returns. It's not so much a particular shot I'm working on but a style of play."
Juan Martin del Potro tells reporters in Sydney that world No. 1 Novak Djokovic will have a target on his back this year. Djokovic won three majors in 2011, including the Australian Open. "I think Roger [Federer] and Rafa [Nadal] will be going after Novak because they don't want him to repeat the year he just had," 2009 U.S. Open champion del Potro said. "What he (Djokovic) did, very difficult for him to do again. I think if someone can do the same, the only three who can do it are Roger, Rafa and Novak. They are the only three who can have the same fantastic year Novak did."
THE mum of a tearful teenager who had Novak Djokovic's Australian Open shirt "snatched" out of her hand has bought the souvenir for $5500 in an auction this morning.
Money raised from the auction will go to the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, after the woman who grabbed the shirt, Yael Rothschild, decided to sell it to raise money for the charity.
“Yael auctions shirt on @3AW693 and Melissa's mum buys for $5.5K,” 3AW tweeted after it was sold on the Neil Mitchell program.
Melissa Cook, 14, was distraught when she missed out on what she believed was Djokovic throwing his shirt towards her after his Australian Open final win over Rafael Nadal.
Ms Rothschild grabbed the shirt which was heading in Melissa’s direction with footage of the incident going viral online.
Premier Ted Baillieu started the bidding at $200.
Earlier this week, Ms Rothschild angrily denied snatching the shirt, while Melissa declared the sweaty souvenir was hers for the keeping.
Ms Rothschild said she was hurt, and her three daughters very upset, by any suggestion the apparel she grabbed had been taken from Melissa.
Melissa had appealed for the return of a top that was among garments the celebrating champion tossed into the centre court crowd.
She claimed a woman in the crowd had snatched it from her.
"When the shirt was thrown, there would have been 20 excited people, all with their hands out," she said.
"After (it had been) thrown, there would have been 19 disappointed people.
"Such is life. I am not sure how you can snatch out of the hands (of) someone sitting three seats away from you with a barrier between the seating," she said.
Djokovic used several shirts during the final.
Mrs Rothschild said she had not seen Melissa cry after missing a shirt.
She said she thought Melissa had caught other items of clothing tossed by the champion into the crowd after Sunday night's epic final.
"She was seen holding his sweat band, his towel and his shoe - not a bad night's winnings."
Melissa denied this, saying she had taken along items that had been caught by relatives during the 2011 Open.
"And the towel she saw me with wasn't even Djokovic's - it was given to me by an official," Melissa said.
Mrs Rothschild said she was a regular in seats close to Centre Court.
"Djokovic was so gracious to all his fans that he stayed back for a very long time, putting his autograph to the souvenirs of literally hundreds patiently waiting courtside after the match and formalities, T-shirt included," she said.
"And I'm keeping it. I'm a huge fan."
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/tee...on/story-e6frfkvr-1226261735321#ixzz1lJvgu7ff
Glory in golden era of men's tennis
WHEN Jim Courier and Ivan Lendl bumped into each other on their way back to the US this week, they asked each other a question that would have been nagging all retired tennis champions who watched Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal in one of the most extraordinary matches ever played: could I have done that?
In their world-beating days, both men were renowned as among the fittest players on tour. Courier twice ground his way to Australian Open titles at the height of brutal summers. Lendl held the No 1 ranking for a total of 270 weeks and staged, with Sweden's Mats Wilander, the previous longest slam final.
The short answer? Not a chance. As Courier put it: "Neither of us felt like we could have possibly made it through the way those guys did."
There is ongoing debate over whether last Sunday's Australian Open final was the best match ever played. Some tennis pundits found fault with the lack of variety compared with the great Pete Sampras versus Andre Agassi duels, or a fabled storyline like the one that coursed through John McEnroe's Wimbledon final loss to Bjorn Borg in 1980. Others have taken issue with the 5 hour 53 minutes taken to decide the match, arguing that if Djokovic and Nadal hadn't dawdled between points, it would have been over a lot quicker.
Deep within tennis geekdom, there is a group of fans convinced that this men's final was an epic demonstration of all that is wrong with tennis. They yearn for another time when hard courts were faster and it only took one brilliant shot -- rather than a dozen -- to win a point. "The Pandora's box has now been opened," bemoaned one contributor to a popular online forum. "The Australian Open got such great press that I fear the courts will be slowed down even further in order to assure five-hour finals."
There is no right or wrong answer to these arguments, which are based on aesthetics, tennis preference and taste. For as long as tennis has been played, there has never been agreement on what is the most attractive game style. Some find beauty on a baseline, others in the increasingly rare moments when Roger Federer ventures to the net.
Yet by any objective view of tennis, the sport has never been faster, stronger or more skilful. In pure athletic terms, last Sunday's final was played at a pace and intensity that stunned not only observers but greats of the game and professionals still competing at the top levels of the sport.
This from Agassi: "I have played opponents who can play marathon matches. These guys played a whole marathon like a sprint."
This from Andy Roddick on Twitter: "Djokovic and rafa. Absolute war. Physicality of tennis has been taken to another level in the past 5 years. 6 straight hours of power/speed."
This from John McEnroe: "The shots that these guys can come up with . . . is phenomenal. They have taken the baseline game to a whole new level."
This from Rod Laver: "We will never see something better than what we just saw."
So how did tennis get here? Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley, who has worked for 35 years as a tennis administrator, coach and player, tells The Weekend Australian it is man responding to machine. Where the much-discussed improvement in racquet and string technology since Borg's days has enabled players to hit with ballistic power and fierce spin, less appreciated is the hidden revolution taking place in the physiology of players and how they train and prepare to make best use of these high-tech tools.
Where today's poly-strung, graphite racquets were originally envisioned as offensive weapons -- lightweight cannons capable of firing a 240km Roddick serve and loading Nadal's forehand with 3200rpm's of top spin, it is the defensive arts that are defining tennis. Players are training to new, elite levels of fitness not to win matches, but to stay in them. The best understand that so long as you are still in a point, you have never lost it. Shots that would have been clean winners five years ago are gettable.
Nowhere is this more pronounced than the return of serve; the only match statistic where you'll find Djokovic, Andy Murray and Nadal at the top of the tennis tree, and Federer not far behind.
"Big serves are still big serves but what has got bigger is returns," Tiley explains. "With science and technology in the sport now you can start to determine where a player is directing their serves and where their tendencies are, and players can respond to those tendencies. There is no question that the advantage of the serve has been taken away a little bit by the ability of players to defend. So the next stage of the sport will probably be the serve becoming even bigger."
McEnroe, speaking to a tennis academy in New York this week, declared Djokovic the best returner of serve the game had seen -- better than Agassi, better than Jimmy Connors. Nadal said much the same thing after dragging himself off the Rod Laver Arena close to 2am on Monday morning. "Is something unbelievable how he returns, no? His return is probably one of the best in history."
Comparisons have been drawn between the raw physical demands of Sunday's match and other elite sports. Tennis Australia high performance manager Machar Reid, who as part of his work analyses Hawk-Eye tracking data on ball and player movements in matches, estimates that Djokovic and Nadal would have covered anywhere between 8km and 10km each during their five sets. The critical difference with professional tennis is the abrupt, high-speed changes in direction required to stay in a rally. Each time Djokovic slid to a halt and powered back the other way, his bracing leg absorbed about 2 1/2 times his body weight. That happened, on average, four to eight times each point. There were 369 points in the match.
"You have got those stopping and starting movements associated with the lower limbs and then you have got your upper limbs rotating at really high speed to produce the racquet and ball velocity that they do," Reid says. "To be honest, I'm not sure there is any real parallel with other sports."
Two significant advances in the physiology of today's players is their capacity for high-intensity repetitions and the balance and strength they have in what Reid calls their "end range" -- the body position a player adopts to hit back a ball at the limit of their reach.
"The guys are far stronger and more stable in those positions than the players of yesteryear," he says. "That is by virtue of needing to find solution and reshaping their training programs in the gym and on court. The guys can turn on a dime. That is something that has evolved over time."
The evolution of tennis has rendered meaningless many of the statistics traditionally used to measure matches and individual performance. Still reckon it comes down to a big first serve? If you look at tennis's big four, only Federer ranked in the top 10 last year in both aces hit and first service points won. Djokovic, the best player in the game, ranked 26th in aces and 21st for first service points. Still think winners minus errors is a good way to track the quality of a match? Between them, Djokovic and Nadal hit 39 more unforced errors than winners on Sunday night. But as Laver marvelled the morning after the match, both players were hitting endless "winners" -- the ball just kept coming back.
Tiley says some of the points played in the men's final would have been impossible not long ago. The combination of the ball being hit harder, players running faster and improved anticipation and defensive shot making is, in effect, shrinking the tennis court before our eyes.
"The game has evolved with greater speed and velocity and now players, with their skills, are countering that speed and velocity and adding some of their own. Some of those rallies between Nadal and Djokovic, we would never have seen those 10, 15 years ago. Not at that pace and not at that duration. There was one 37 ball rally where Djokovic almost won the point eight times and Nadal was able to defend."
Another misleading statistic in tennis, though the only one that ultimately matters, is the string of tournaments won by Djokovic. Djokovic last year had one of the most dominant seasons in ATP history, winning 10 tournaments including the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the US Open, and losing just six matches for the year. He has begun this season the same way.
Yet men's tennis is far from one Djoker and the pack. The quality of last Sunday's final and the two epic semi-finals that preceded it were the product not of one dominant player being challenged by the rest but four rarely gifted players pushing each other and the game into a very uncomfortable place.
The ruling order in tennis is shaped by a rock-paper-scissors relationship between Djokovic who beats Nadal, Nadal who beats Federer, and Federer who is the only player to beat Djokovic in a slam last year since 2010. The power balance is fragile, as Nadal can ruefully attest after narrowly missing a makeable backhand pass that would have put him 5-2 up in the fifth set against Djokovic. Then there is the emerging Murray, who according to McEnroe played the best match of his career against Djokovic in their oscillating semi-final, and came within a couple of points of winning.
Pete Sampras, a man who physically monstered tennis in another era, saw the future at Wimbledon last year when he said of Djokovic, Nadal, Murray and Federer: "Those four guys are just better movers than everyone else. They are better athletes."
Competition theory says that so long as the big four stay healthy, tennis can only get better. That means more matches comparable to last week's Australian Open final and more arguments about which match is the greatest. The one thing not to do is spend this "golden era" of men's tennis -- as Tiley and others have dubbed it -- wishing the game was played another way. "I think it is an incredible time," McEnroe says.
"I think we (had) better enjoy it while it lasts."
http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Te...s-Awards-Djokovic-Wins-Sportsman-Of-Year.aspx
Novak Djokovic won the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award on Monday night, at a ceremony in London.
The Serbian won three Grand Slam championships in 2011 - at the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open - and became No. 1 in the South African Airways ATP Rankings. He compiled a 70-6 season record, including a 41-match winning streak that ended with a loss to Roger Federer in the Roland Garros semi-finals.
"On behalf of the ATP, I would like to congratulate Novak on his very deserving selection as Laureus World Sportsman of the Year," said Brad Drewett, ATP Executive Chairman and President.
"Last year, Novak thrilled fans around the world with one of the greatest seasons in the history of tennis. His incredible accomplishments on the court are even more impressive when you consider that he is playing amongst arguably the most talented generation of players of all-time. If Novak’s triumphant victory in Australia last month is any indication, we are in for another spectacular season in 2012."
Djokovic won his fifth major championship and third at the Australian Open last month, when he beat Rafael Nadal in the final.
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2011 Laureus World Sports Awards Winners
Sportsman of the Year: Novak Djokovic
Sportswoman of the Year: Vivian Cheruiyot
Team of the Year: FC Barcelona
Breakthrough of the Year: Rory McIlroy
Comeback of the Year: Darren Clarke
Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability: Oscar Pistorius
Action Sportsperson of the Year: Kelly Slater
Lifetime Achievement Award: Bobby Charlton
Sports for Good Award: Raí Souza
The Laureus World Sports Awards, which recognise sporting achievement during 2011, were announced at the Awards Ceremony at Central Hall, Westminster, which was hosted by Academy Award nominated and Golden Globe winner Clive Owen and attended by guests from the worlds of sport and entertainment.
The 2012 Laureus World Sports Awards have had the support of UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor of London Boris Johnson. Mr Cameron, who met Djokovic at a reception at 10 Downing Street on Monday afternoon, said, "I am delighted that the Laureus World Sports Awards are in London in 2012.
"These Awards celebrate the world's top sportsmen and women and highlight the incredible power of sport to make a real difference to individuals and communities around the world. I can't think of a better way to kick off our Olympic year."
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, said, "The Laureus World Sports Awards coming to London is one of the highlights of an amazing calendar of events taking place in London in the lead up to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
"Having the Awards here shows that London is not only the greatest capital in the world but also the greatest place for sport at all levels – from top sports stars to grassroots sporting champions. Laureus and I share a commitment to making sport a positive part of everyone's life regardless of age and ability and I am delighted that they have come to London in such an important year."