The Swiss has fallen to No 3 in the world after losing to Tomas Berdych, but the effect on his standing is greater than that.
If great memories sustain great players, Roger Federer is drawing on one of his most cherished as he pursues Pete Sampras’s Wimbledon record.
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/ 10 October 2008
Sam Peter, Nigeria’s first world heavyweight champion, should not be defending his title against Vitali Klitschko, writes Kevin Mitchell.
Within minutes of touching down at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas after an 11-hour flight from London, Joe Calzaghe roused his small entourage, went into the desert and did something he doesn’t do even at home in Newbridge, south Wales: he ran for seven miles.
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/ 21 September 2007
If ever there were a case of a sport taking itself too seriously, it arrived in Paris last week, when the geniuses who regard themselves as the guardians of the sport’s morals fined the McLaren team -million (about R700-million). It was grandstanding on a ludicrous scale.
Spare a thought this weekend for Michelle Wie and Freddy Adu. Rarely can two athletes of such immense promise have fallen so quickly on to the hard rocks of reality. Both are kids still and, in their respective disciplines, golf and football, capable of wonderful individual moments.
Subconsciously or not, golf’s stragglers settle in for a quiet, tidy conclusion to their work, risking little and consolidating their places. It’s the way golf is. It’s a great sport, but is primarily a vehicle to shift shirts, clubs and awful trousers. And the workers at the coalface are part of that, seriously well paid for being no better, mostly, than competent.
I’m not sure I was as excited about my first Masters as Charles Howell III was about his. He grew up three miles down the road, after all. And he was playing. I’m just scribbling, as pleasant a task as that is. Charles III said he was in awe of the Augusta National Club and the event before being invited to play here for the first time in 2001: ”Even if they made us hit wooden drivers and gutta-percha balls, I’d show up and be happy just to be there.”
It is back to the judiciary we go again on the moral mess that is football. Soon we will find something to talk about other than Chelsea and Jose Mourinho (not that he minds) but, for the time being, they remain at the centre of the most important debate in football since the start of the Premiership in 1992.
Millwall, long vilified for dirty play and racist fans, are trying to rebuild their image. According to cliché, they are the baddest club in town, the Mike Tyson of football. Now in the FA Cup they’re at it again, with their thuggish, racist behaviour. Or so says Alastair Campbell.