David Nalbandian Had A Crazy Car Incident

David Nalbandian, the the former tennis player suffered a scary and crazy incident in Tucuman in Argentina. The incident happened during a rally race, in which Nalbandian was also a participant. During the race, Nalbandian’s car Chevrolet Onix lost its control and got broken. The good part in the incident is that both Nalbandian as well as his teammate came out are safe from the car and both are doing well now.

This is not the first time that this has happened to the player, but this is the third time, Nalbandian has suffered such incidents. Before this it happened in the year 2015 and in the year 2016. After coming home safely and receiving treatment for the minor injuries he and his teammate got, he came on twitter and twitted to his fans and well wishers ‘For all who got worried about me after the incident, many thanks, when you fight for the second place, such things happen.
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Gasquet Believes Nadal Could Overcome Federer

Richard Gasquet reckons that Roger Federer is the best male tennis player ever, but, at the same time, he has also said that the way Rafael Nadal is going; he might end up taking over that status in the future.

A couple of years back, no player could have even imagined of going close to Federer in terms of winning the Grand Slam trophies. But, because of the deterioration in the game of the Swiss maestro in the last couple of years, Nadal has managed to do that.

The Spaniard has shortened the gap between him and Federer quite significantly. Now, it’s just a matter of three more slams for Nadal to draw level with his greatest rival.

This gap is still big, but, the fact is that Federer is not supposed to be going to win any more slams in his career. He seems to have past his peak. However, the kind of champion he has been, he can do anything, but, for him to win a slam again from here on, it would take a miraculous effort.

As far as Nadal is concerned, he, in all likelihood, is going to have a couple of more fruitful seasons if he remains fit. So, he can surely be tipped to surpass Federer’s tally of 17 at some point of time.

When Gasquet was asked to pick one guy whom he thinks has been the greatest in the history of the game, the Frenchman said, “It has to be Roger, at least for now. Yes, it’s very much possible that Rafael Nadal breaks his record, but, at this point of time, if I have to choose one, I will go with Roger.”

Gasquet is currently in Colombia taking part in the Claro Open. He is the top seeded player there.

Monaco To Take On Andujar

Gabriela Sabatini’s countryman, Juan Monaco, is going to take on the Spanish player Pablo Andujar in the title round match of the ongoing Swiss Open. It’s the first occasion that these two players would go head-to-head against each other.

Monaco had had a bit of a struggle in the Round of 4 against Robin Haase of Holland who is placed above him in the world rankings. He had been broken early in the first and the second set in that match. But, he battled through it and eventually won to reach the final.

Later on in the post match interview, Monaco had admitted that it was more because of nervousness that he made mistakes at the start of both the sets.

Monaco has been in the final of 18 ATP events before out of which he has won 8. So, his record in the finals is not that bad. That conversion rate can still be better though, but, since he has tasted success in the title round of the tournaments before, he would be fairly confident against Andujar.

As far as Andujar is concerned, he has made his way to the finals of any event after a gap of two years. So, he would surely be slightly nervous. He had a comfortable win in the semis, but, that was against an out of form Fernando Verdasco. In the final match, he will be locking horns with a player who is in great rhythm and thus, he will have to play much better.

The Spaniard has a couple of titles under his belt, but, as written above, he has not seen glory for a long time and thus, would be a little short on confidence entering tomorrow’s match.

Andujar’s world ranking is 44 at the moment.

DEL POTRO FACES LOPEZ

David Nalbandian’s countryman, Juan Martin Del Potro, will take on Feliciano Lopez of Spain in his opening match in the BNP Paribas Open. It will be a second round match.

There have been concerns over Del Potro’s fitness. His wrist has not been in a perfect condition in the last 10 days or so and there had been speculations in the last few days that he might decide to pull himself out of the Indian Wells event, but, he hasn’t released an official statement regarding that yet. So, it is believed that he would take part in the competition.

Del Potro’s performance in the 2014 season has been a little up and down. He lifted the trophy at Sydney right at the start of the season and thus, entered the Australian Open as a strong contender, but, as a few other top players, he also had to get knocked out pretty early from there and it was in that tournament that his wrist began giving him a few problems.

The Argentinean took part in a couple of events even with that wrist trouble, but, he was far from his best and in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, he had to leave his match against Somdev Devvarman in between.

As far as Lopez is concerned, his form has been very poor this season. But, in his first match at Indian Wells, he secured a comfortable victory in straight sets. So, he would have been confident about taking on Del Potro who is coming back from a short break.

Del Potro is clearly the favourite, but, the chances of him being in rhythm are not that good because he had been giving his wrist some rest and thus, has not trained that much before this tournament.

DEL POTRO TIPPED

David Nalbandian’s countryman, Juan Martin Del Potro, had an absolutely fantastic time in the last season. He won more than 75% of the matches that he featured in and at the end of the season; he was in top 5 in the world rankings. However, one thing that the Argentinean superstar didn’t manage to do during the season was winning a major tournament. He went close to doing that at All England Club, but, he didn’t succeed eventually.

Del Potro has so far won just one Grand Slam in his career. He had done that at Flushing Meadows 4 years back by beating one of the all time greats Roger Federer in the final.

Del Potro’s performance in the major tournaments in the last couple of seasons has not been encouraging at all and on most of the occasions, it’s Federer who has knocked him out of those tournaments. The Argentinean player has faced Federer 15 times in the major tournaments till now and has ended up being defeated 12 times.

However, Federer is approaching the end of his career now and the one guy who would welcome this news big time is Del Potro.

There is plenty of tennis still left in Del Potro. He is just in his mid twenties at the moment. So, it’s not that the time is running out for him. But, he needs to learn a few things and the first and the most important of them all is how to play during the big matches.

Del Potro can surely get better of any player in this world on his day. If he just manages to improve himself a bit temperamentally, he will certainly have some more Grand Slam titles under his belt in a few years’ time.

DEL POTRO MISSES OUT

David Nalbandian’s countryman, Juan Martin Del Potro, has been defeated by the Swiss superstar Roger Federer in a Group B match of the ongoing ATP World Tour Finals. Federer won the match in three sets by 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), 7-5.

With this win, Federer has reached the semi final round where he will face his arch rival Rafael Nadal.

Federer had lost his last 3 matches against Del Potro and he seemed to be on his way of losing another one against his Argentinean rival as he lost the first set, but, he re-gathered his focus after that and came on top in the next two sets to win the contest.

Overall, it was the 20^th match between these two players and Federer defeated Del Potro for the 15^th time.

Talking to the reporters in the post match interview, Federer said, “I wasn’t fluent, but, I tried to hang in there and I am delighted that I ended up winning. Probably, luck also favoured me on a few occasions.”

“I don’t have enough time to rest. There is another game for me tomorrow. Hopefully, I continue in the same way and make things tough for Rafa.”

Federer’s start against Del Potro was horrible. He lost his serve in the very first game of the opening set. The next 3 games went with the serve and then, in the 5^th game, Federer’s serve was broken again. Now, to recover from there was not easy at all for the Swiss maestro. He did get a breakthrough in the 8^th game and managed to reduce Del Potro’s lead to 5-3, but, that was not enough. He needed one more breakthrough which he didn’t get and Del Potro held his serve in the 10^th game to finish off the set.

Federer began poorly in the second set as well. He dropped his serve in the 3^rd game and got down by 1-2, but, he broke back in the 6^th game to level the scores. There were no breakthroughs in the next 6 games and the set went into the tie breaker.

In the tie breaker, Federer was the dominant player. He had no problems whatsoever in pulling that off.

Federer seemed to be losing his focus in the decider as he lost the first 3 games in a row. But, he managed to equalize the proceedings with a breakthrough in the 5^th game and a serve hold in the 6^th game.

Both the players held their serve in the next 4 games and then, in the 11^th game, the Swiss maestro got another breakthrough which took him ahead by 6-5. He served out the next game and with that, he secured his entry into the next round.