Saturday 21 May 2011

'King' Kenny's league table (since 12 Jan 2011)

The form of the league’s 'big six' since Dalglish took over from Roy Hodgson as Liverpool boss on January 12.


Team (as 11 September)
P
W
D
L
GD
Pts
Man Utd
22
15
3
4
32
48
Chelsea
21
14
4
3
21
46
Man City
20
13
2
5
20
41
LIVERPOOL
22
12
4
6
21
40
Arsenal
21
8
8
5
2
32
Tottenham
20
7
8
5
-2
29



Friday 20 May 2011

French Open Preview

With seven tournament victories out of seven, and 37 consecutive wins in the process, Novak Djokovic has not only utterly dominated tennis in 2011 so far, he has also won a great many admirers in the process. This supremacy has come in a generation many consider as the greatest of all time. Djokovic has improved his game to a level few considered possible: The Serb is now the game’s fiercest hitter and, added to that, he has become fitter and quicker even than Rafael Nadal. His relentless power, combined with his great energy, has been marvellous, and Nadal has been unable to cope over the last two tournaments. 


Perhaps the best part of the current generation of tennis stars, arguably the greatest the game has ever seen, is the humility of the current world’s best. On the court, they are machines. The spellbinding brilliance of Roger Federer during the 2000s raised the bar so high that, in order to compete, a player would have to reach super-human levels of quality, accuracy and consistency. Then the stunning year that Nadal had in 2010 left us wondering how the rest of the tennis world could possibly respond. In an era blessed with some great talent across the top ten, the reality was that when Nadal produced his best nobody could come close to him. But recent tennis history has taught us to expect another phenomenon just around the corner, and Novak Djokovic’s start to 2011, defying all expectation and reason, has delivered just that phenomenon. But, off the court, Djokovic is also extremely popular, demonstrating in his recent victories an admirable humility, humour and grounded passion for the game.