You decide. Here's David Nalbandian "singing" a BackStreet Boys-based song in Spanish with some Argentine band. Turn your volume down when you see David come on the scene. It's pretty brutal. :-) Watch the video.
The nightmare continues for the Rogers Cup. Montreal lost top seed Kim Clijsters in her opening match to a wrist inury; and seeds Nadia Pertova and Anastasia Myskina fell. Let's hope Kim's alright. Here are a round up, video highlights and interviews.
In Cincinnati, the biggest news, of course, was the fall of Federer. Lucky for James Blake, whose tame loss to a sharp Juan Carlos Ferrero would have been the Google News Headline instead. Same goes for David Nalbandian, who was the victim of his own poor play and Federer homie Stan Wawrinka. Fat Dave did not, however, get a code violation: Blake and Federer got one each for blasting balls.
In other news, Baghdatis def. Monfils in an entertaining 3-setter, a resurgent Robby Ginepri over red hot Dimitri Tursunov (the power of the blog manifesting itself yet again?), and Florent Serra took out young gun Novak Djokovic. Roddick, Nadal and Ljubicic are through.
Here are an audio wrap of the day, player interview transcripts, audio interviews, and a review of the highlights.
in the English language press. Well, the English language blogosphere, I guess. Here's guest contributor daylily over at Pete Bodo's blog on My Favorite Armenian Argentine: "The Reluctant Dilletante".
I adore David Nalbandian--from his boyish happy-go-lucky little voice, to his big belly, to his impassive and ill-tempered press conferences, to his incredibly clean ball-striking.
David frustrates me more than Marat Safin does, to be honest; to see Marat's moody, Dostoevskian character thwart his talent is downright depressing, but satisfying in an operatic way. With David, it just seems that he sometimes can't be bothered to bring it.
Please don't phone it in this week, David!
ETA: Nalby didn't even last an hour. That's just sad.
Google Video has got a TREASURE TROVE of free player interviews, match reviews, and match previews from Wimbledon 2006. Here it is. DO NOT MISS THIS.
Nalbandian's Exit and Nadal on beating Agassi are classics.
Well, it was a full day of them. Let's start with the biggest shocks:
Verdasco d. Nalbandian
4th seed and solid grass-courter David Nalbandian (News / Blog Posts) went down in straight sets to Spanish lefty Fernando Verdasco. Nalbandian looked like a contender for the title, but Verdasco outclassed him today. After the 2 first tiebreak sets (both went 11-9), David fell apart in the 3rd. Here are a match report / Nalbandian's Interview / Verdasco's Interview.
(Apparently Nalbandian requested an early start so he could watch Argentina play Germany in the World Cup. They lost; guess it wasn't Argentina's day.)
The Beast d. Blake 
6-4 3-6 4-6 6-1 6-0
Max Mirnyi blitzed Blake (News / Blog Posts) in the 4th and then annihilated him in the 5th. This makes Blake 0-9 lifetime in 5 set matches, which at this point must be messing with his head. He still looked shell-shocked in the ESPN studio, where he was gracious enough to answer "WTF Happened?" questions from Chris Fowler. It's not all curdled cream and strawberries for Blake, though; he can still finish Wimbledon as the number 1 American.
Here are a match summary / Blake's interview /Mirnyi's Interview.
Well today we've got some really interesting match-ups. Mirza v. Dementieva in round one? Ouch. Mirza's power game is suited to grass...and Dementieva...well, I love her, but this could be the upset of the day.
Also, Nalbandian v. Clement, Djokovic v. Robredo, Santoro vs. Berdych, Malisse-Stepanek. What match ups are you looking forward to?
Looks like Ljubicic is about to take out Feli Lopez; he's already up 2 sets on court 13...I'm about to watch the rest of that one. ETA: Wow, Lopez took the 3rd set; he broke Ljubicic to love in the last game of the 3rd set (7-5). Ljubicic seemed to fade after Lopez saved break points in his last 2 games...Lopez is really battling. Let's see if he keeps it up. ETA: Brave effort from Lopez, but not enough.
ETA: Ginepri's crap year continues with his first ever loss to Mardy Fish (in straights sets! Fish had never even won a set off Robby). Davydenko was also dismissed by some Colombian named Falla.
Well after that major tease yesterday, the tournament seems to be in little danger of delay today (though what does "generally dry" mean by London standards?). I think the Federer-Gasquet live chat experiment went pretty well despite the lack of match play, so we might as well stick with it today at the same blog entry. I have a feeling Justine's Center Court match will be very short, bring on The Main Event!
Wow, learning somehing new from Wimbledon Live: when Nalbandian won the Masters' Cup in December, the governor of Cordoba, his home state in Argentina, built 20 courts in his honor. I wonder if Vilas got all huffy about that, too.
Nalbandian's opener against Wesley Moodie is on one of the closer courts, so you can hear everything--and there's a fanatical Moodie fan who keeps cheering and chanting wildly for his man. I don't know why, but it's very, very funny. Nalbandian is playing well, and as always looks like he either wants to eat you or take a nap. He just went up 2 sets to love in just over an hour.
ETA: Justine's match is a joke, she's already up 6-0 3-0. TImmy Henman is in a bit of trouble (against a newly buzz-cutted Robin Soderling). Johnny Mac is commentating, which is great.
ETA: Henman! WTF! He had several set points in the 1st set tiebreak and then loses it on a double fault. Blah. Timmy.
And ouch, what a draw it is. Federer's basically got most of the high-end grass courters in his quarter. Gasquet in the first round, or for all you Gasquet fans (myself included), Gasquet's got Federer. Roger could face Timmy Henman in the second round, and Tommy Haas, who just gave Roger trouble in Halle, in the 4th round. Red hot Mario Ancic and iron-serve Ivo Karlovic are at the bottom of Federer's quarter. Nalbandian or Blake in the semis. Sure, you can't bet against Roger, but wow, this is a tough draw.
Nalbandian's draw looks pretty straightforward until Blake in the quarters, but Poor Andy Roddick (and Marat Safin) are in Lleyton Hewitt's section. Andy Murray's in there, too.
Agassi's in Nadal's portion of the draw, so is Feliciano Lopez, his buddy and Wimbledon housemate who made the quarters last year (first Spaniard in 33 years to do so). F-Lo has been having a dismal year and drawing Ivan Ljubicic in the opening round won't necessarily help matters.
That's good news. On an injury side note, Ivan Ljubicic and Nicholas Kiefer pulled out of this week's Ordina Open in the Netherlands with back and wrist issues. Anyone know if Nalbandian's OK for Wimbledon?
Fun rankings from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Blake Moves To No. 1 (Interview)
Shocked that Safin didn't make the list.
ETA: David's Interview / Roger's Interview
He'd better have a really good explanation for this. A semifinal at Roland Garros against Federer and he retires??? He had Fed on the ropes for the first set and a half, and then Roger really stepped it up and took the second 6-4. (He made a WTF shot in the 7th game of the second set that had Nalbandian applauding and Roger signaling "number 1" with his finger, lol) Roger was up 5-2 in the third when David defaulted. This should have been a great, classic battle. Instead we have...a retirement. The problem seems to be a recurrence of Nalbandian's abdominal issues earlier in the year, compounded by a case of nerves. Well, looking forward to the RG post-match presser.
It's unfortunate because this really does reflect badly on the game of tennis--one of the biggest stages in the game and the number 3 player in the world says "No Mas!" just as he's about to go down 2 sets to one. Of course, these things happen, and one has to assume that Nalbandian was suffering out there. His serving and lateral movement did seem to fall down a couple of levels in the third set. But who knows.
Here's the official site's wrap up.
Well, one half of the dream final is assured, despite the less than perfect storyline. Let's see if Rafa can hold up his end of the deal.
I didn't know Mats had one. I'm a big Mats fan and love the stuff he does for Eurosport. The blog's got some interview footage with Nalbandian, Ancic and Nadal, as well as posts by Mats himself and Mats' admin about Hingis, Marat Safin, and others. Here's the blog.
Here are direct links to some of the video interview outtakes: Here's a Rafa one, here's a Nalbandian one, and here's Mario Ancic.
No disrespect to Ivan Ljubicic, but he doesn't have even a quarter of a chance to beat Rafa on Friday. World number 3 David Nalbandian, however, is a different story. Here's a nice article about the issue: Will Nalbandian Ruin the Expected Federer-Nadal Party? and a terrifying picture of David.
Fox Sports has an expansive interview/profile piece on David Nalbandian with some insight from Federer on the Argentine's game. Overall a really good read, but for the following:
Nalbandian is a dead ringer for actor Christopher Lambert, who played the heroic mythical warrior in the film, The Highlander.
Umm... what? Seriously, WTF are they smoking at Fox. Nalbandian looks nothing like Lord Greystoke.
Read the Article: Nalbandian Still Seeking a Slam
This will be today's marquee match up. Yesterday, you had your pick of that heartbreaker for Marat Safin against Fernando Gonzalez or the battle of the morose teens between Gael Monfils and Andy Murray. Nalbandian should cruise due to Gasquet's recent lack of form, but you can never discount the power of a home crowd and Gasquet's beautiful backhand.
Former grand slam champ Mats Wilander doubts Sharapova's chances at the French and weighs in on The Nalbandian Question.
I'm a big Nalbandian fan and hope he maintains his "foe-coose" so we can see a Federer-Nalbandian rematch next week. Nalbandian's 6-5 lifetime edge over Roger would be on the line.
From the AP: Fishing can wait
He had to cancel a planned fishing trip to travel to Shanghai, where Roddick was one of five leading players who withdrew either before or right at the start of the tournament.
Nalbandian, who collected US$1.4 million (?1.19 million) for winning and improved his year-end ranking to a career-high No. 6, said the manner of his 6-7 (4), 6-7 (11), 6-2, 6-1, 7-6 (3) triumph made it his greatest...
"What's more important is the way that I won," he said. "It's really incredible, these kind of matches in the finals against the No. 1 of the world.
"He didn't lose many matches during the year. So it's really important."
More "Tennis Players in Exotic Places" photos out of China today. This time, Carlos Moya, David Nalbandian, and Juan Carlos Ferrero paid a visit to the Great Wall of China to promote the Beijing Open. Photos in the People's Daily Online here. Just disregard the captions which refer to Juan Carlos as "Carlos Ferrero":)
David Nalbandian d. Andrei Pavel 6-4, 6-1
From the AP and CNNSI: Nalbandian breezes to BMW title
Top-seeded David Nalbandian coasted past Romania's Andrei Pavel, 6-4, 6-1 Sunday to capture his third career title at the BMW Open.
Nalbandian lost only one more game after trailing 1-4 in the first set to win in 69 minutes, his first title triumph since Basel in 2002.
"This is very important to me. I've had a strange year with so many injuries," Nalbandian said. "When I play like this, it makes all the hard work worthwhile."
Has it really been three years since Nalbandian won a title? I know he's had a lot of injuries, but that seems ridiculous for a player of his caliber.
