Rafa Surpasses Borg's Record with 47 consecutive wins on clay
He won, 6-4, 6-4, 6-0. He gave away nothing in that last set. What a fighter he is. I'm just so proud of him!!!
They are going to have the trophy ceremony shortly, but since it will all be in Spanish, or actually Catalan, I doubt I'll understand any of it. And I kind of doubt that the commentators speak Catalan.
Rafa is kissing the woman who gave him the trophy -- probably that will be a huge discussion on the GF thread.
He has a huge smile, as he kisses the trophy. And he bites the handle.
Commentators are saying that TR was intimidated by Rafa for the match. He's holding up a red car, so I guess he won a car, too. Just what he needs -- he has about 5 now, and he's never home to drive them.
Oh, no, TTC is now panning to an interview with James Blake. Bad vibes there. Better turn off the TV. ;-)
They are going to have the trophy ceremony shortly, but since it will all be in Spanish, or actually Catalan, I doubt I'll understand any of it. And I kind of doubt that the commentators speak Catalan.
Rafa is kissing the woman who gave him the trophy -- probably that will be a huge discussion on the GF thread.
He has a huge smile, as he kisses the trophy. And he bites the handle.
Commentators are saying that TR was intimidated by Rafa for the match. He's holding up a red car, so I guess he won a car, too. Just what he needs -- he has about 5 now, and he's never home to drive them.
Oh, no, TTC is now panning to an interview with James Blake. Bad vibes there. Better turn off the TV. ;-)
posted by Susan at 9:15 AM
22 Comments:
WOO HOO!!!!!
THANKS FOR EVERYTHING SUSAN!!!
I was on the cheering thread but popping in also.
I am HAPPPPPYYYYYYY!!!!!!
Mary Walsh
Don't worry, Susan!
Blake will be beaten soon...
Meow, Vamos RAFA!!!
Hi susan, here in spain we could watch the trophy ceremony till the end. The woman that gave the trophy to Rafa and kiss him is the Infanta (princess) Cristina, the daugther of the King Juan Carlos, so she is not thread of being GF or something like that. On the other hand, in Spain, women always kiss, among them and with men, so if you see rafa giving two kisses to a girl, probably she is just a friend.
^^^^^ re formal Spanish kisses... foreigners please note that the lips never touch the face, just the air, and if well done there's not even cheek contact, either! You'all don't want to be making mistakes now!
Congratulations to all the Rafamaniacs. For me these 2 stats are more important than the 47th win on clay. Rafa is a true champion, and a very young one. Regards, Cristian
MOST TITLES WON BY TEENAGERS
Nadal captured his 15th career ATP title as a teenager by winning Barcelona. The most titles won by teens:
Bjorn Borg 16
Rafael Nadal 15
Mats Wilander 13
Boris Becker 12
Andre Agassi 10
Andrei Medvedev 8
Lleyton Hewitt 7
Michael Chang 6
In 2005 Nadal was the first teenager to win more than 10 ATP titles in a season since Andre Agassi won six in 1988. Here is a list of players who won five or more titles in a season as a teenager:
Rafael Nadal 11 2005
Mats Wilander 9 1983
Bjorn Borg 7 1974
Andre Agassi 6 1988
Boris Becker 6 1986
John McEnroe 5 1978
Bjorn Borg 5 1975
Jimmy Connors 5 1972
I'm very happy for Rafa's victory in Barcelona. HE'S THE KING OF CLAY !!!!!!!!! This season on clay is his season VAAAAMOOOOOS RAFA I think that he will win the record from GUILLERMO VILAS......
Thanks for all Susan
Vanina from Brussels, Belgium
Does he receive the smaller cup trophy and that big trophy just gets his name added to it and stays in Barcelona? The big one is identical to the one last year. Someone please clarify in this blog. Thanks.
Didn't they have a car presentation? Pictures of car?
Rafael Nadal is now back at number 2 in the ATP 2006 Race with 284 points. This is only computed from the beginning of the year. The full list is at;
"http://www.atptennis.com/en/
players/championsrace/"
Someone should tell the ATP that their data for the players "His Activity" pages is showing their race position as it was in the prior week. Even though they show it after each tournament as "New Race Position". I.e. in Nadal's case after Barcelona they show it as position 3 under "his year's results page". It's a indexing calculation error. Amazing how many errors there are in web sites and computer programs. Never trust your bank statement. Computers make errors because the people that program them put the wrong code into them.
Use the above link (both lines) to see the correct race postions.
Susan,
Just caught up with your blog, after watching the match for the second time on TTC.
You definitely guessed the score better than I did during the match, since Fox Espanol didn't seem to think we needed to see it onscreen until game point!
Kudos to the ATP for organizing the second great final for TTC viewers in the US. Finally someone gets that we like tennis here and definitely want to see the best of it!
Also upset that TTC cut out the awards ceremony and then ruined most of what they did show with big graphics across the screen. Where did that come from? They've always before been so good about staying live and showing the ceremony.
And ditto to cutting out at the same time after the match. That's one person I have no need to hear from either!
Thank you so much for your play by play commentary. I'll probably read it again tomorrow. :-)
Judith M. dijo...
Does he receive the smaller cup trophy and that big trophy just gets his name added to it and stays in Barcelona? The big one is identical to the one last year. Someone please clarify in this blog. Thanks.
Didn't they have a car presentation? Pictures of car?
........
Judith, the Trofeo Conde de Godó is HUGE and very valuable - it stays in Barcelona. I think he gets a replica... The other trophy is presented because the tournament goes by another name, too... the Spanish International or something like that.. and it's the trophy for that.
There was a SEAT Altea car prominently on display but that was the one raffled among the public. I expect Nadal will give his to charity (or perhaps his mum again!). This year once again he refused the SEAT official car offered him and insisted on having the KIA he promotes in Spain - there it was parked outside the club house beside all the SEATs with his name prominently displayed on it!
RE: Rafael Nadal is now back at number 2 in the ATP 2006 Race with 284 points. This is only computed from the beginning of the year. The full list is at;
"http://www.atptennis.com/en/
players/championsrace/"
Someone should tell the ATP that their data for the players "His Activity" pages is showing their race position as it was in the prior week. Even though they show it after each tournament as "New Race Position". I.e. in Nadal's case after Barcelona they show it as position 3 under "his year's results page". It's a indexing calculation error. Amazing how many errors there are in web sites and computer programs. Never trust your bank statement. Computers make errors because the people that program them put the wrong code into them.
Use the above link (both lines) to see the correct race positions.
--------------------------------
++++ We sent the above message to the ATP site operations and guess what? After the entire year of these race positions being incorrect at each player's "His Activity" page, they are now correct. Including even Roger Federer's which was at zero after his first tournament win of the year. Rafael Nadal fans thus help bring accuracy to the ATP web site. ++++
--------------------------------
The Tennis Channel
30 min program
'No Strings' episode made in 2004 in Miami with Rafael Nadal.
To repeat on The Tennis Channel in USA;
Tuesday May 2
10:30 AM Eastern (7:30AM Pacific)
Wednesday May 3
8:30 AM Eastern (5:30 AM Pacific)
Friday May 5
5 PM Eastern (2 PM Pacific)
http://www.thetennischannel.com/
Further correction regarding the ATP site on the player "His Activity" pages.
They didn't fix "new race position" Instead they have removed the "the new Race Postion" after each tournament, which was in error, and instead they have replaced it on said pages with the Indecit ATP ranking. And thus for Rafa, it shows 2 now after every 2006 tournament." They either don't have an easy fix, or there are too many people who don't understand that the race position is a different computation which starts at the beginning of each year. Bottom line bookmark the following link if you want to know the race position of players, as they don't make the information easily available until the 2nd half of the year, at the ATP site.
Be sure to combine the two lines below without the quotes.
"http://www.atptennis.com/en/
players/championsrace/"
Another error on the ATP web site, since Rafael now has his own official website, is that on the ATP main stat page for Nadal, it still lists as his "official website" ;
www.atptennis.com/nadal
rather than;
www.rafaelnadal.com
Whereas for Federer it shows;
www.rogerfederer.com
Someone having contact to Rafael Nadal's people should let them know of this error at the ATP site as fans are not seeing his site which itself references the fan page board of vamosrafel.com.
We are not affiliated with RN.com. The link has been removed.
Re: Susan said...
We are not affiliated with RN.com. The link has been removed.
------------------------------
Yes, the fan page link is now dead there. As recently as a week or so ago it was still connecting to the message board.
It's kind of a pain to go to the rafaelnadal.com site as you always have to load all that flash stuff and then click the English page and load more flash stuff, all of which you have seen before. Flash stuff should be used sparingly, like seasonings.
They should perhaps model the site after vamosrafael.com, or tigerwoods.com, or rogerfeder.com. But maybe they really don't want a web site and all its headaches.
For what it is worth Rafael Nadal could and might be in first place in the ATP Champions Race after the French Open.
Remember that this race is computed from the beginning of the year 2006 only.
However in the rankings (based on the rolling prior 12 months of play results) he will remain in 2nd place. To be in first place in the Champions Race it would take winning Rome, Hamburg, and the French Open. No small task.
They should perhaps model the site after [b]vamosrafael.com,[/b] or tigerwoods.com, or rogerfeder.com.
I think
They should perhaps model the site after vamosrafael.com, or tigerwoods.com, or rogerfeder.com.
Interesting point.
by the by, there actually is a website;
vr.com
and also;
rn.com
neither of which are connected to rafael nadal, thus while most know what you and others speak mean and are referencing in shorthand, some of the 10's of millions of fans reading this stuff may think those are also the actual sites of vamosrafael.com and rafaelnadal.com respectively.
I don' understand why they gave Rafa 4545 points in the ATP Entry list this week. If he had 4335 last week (with the points of Barcelona 05 already discounted), he took 300 for winning the Godó 06 and he did not lose any point this week because he did not play Estoril or Munich in 05, he should have 4635 this week and not 4545. It seems they granted Rafa only 210, the amount of points for the finalist in Barcelona. Has anyone an explanation? Thanks, Cristian
ATP ENTRY RANKING SYSTEM
What is it?
It is a 52 week rolling ranking system based on a player’s 18 tournament results. Players ranked high enough to qualify for the Grand Slams and Tennis Masters Series tournaments must count those results, even if not playing results in zero points. In addition they count their best five International Series events.
Why continue with a 52 week rolling system at all?
To determine seedings and tournament entry status, it is not practical to use the ATP Champions Race. The Race, while indicating the hottest players in the game at any stage, does not necessarily indicate an overall standing in the game. This is especially valid at the start of the year when early tournament winners may well be leading the Race, but are not yet established top players for the purposes of seeding and tournament entry.
Won't it be confusing to have both the 52 week Entry System and the annual ATP Champions Race?
It shouldn't be confusing at all. With the emphasis on the Race, tennis fans will see a clear progression through the year and will be able to focus on who's hot and who's not. The concept of a race to the top will be much more clearly and simply defined. The Entry System will be of secondary importance and will be used chiefly to determine entry status and seedings.
Why not continue to emphasise the 52 week system?
Research has shown that the best of 14 ranking system has been a turn off for tennis fans, who find it difficult to understand and therefore hard to follow. There has also been a large and growing chorus of criticism in the media. The 52 week Entry System, however, has a role to play in the game for entries and seedings and therefore will be preserved, but with the emphasis given to the easier to follow ATP Champions Race.
Bottom line you need a computer or a spreadsheet to do this calculation easily.
The above may not be the latest but probably is.
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