US Open - World awaits next instalment in Djokovic-Nadal rivalry

Djokovic and Nadal, who have been dominant over the last 15 slams, will be meeting for the 37th time in the championship showdown, surpassing McEnroe and Lendl for the most clashes since tennis turned professional 45 years ago.

A high intensity, high energy, ball-slugging battle should be in the offing between the Spaniard and the Serb, who have staged thrilling five-setters this year in the French Open semi-finals and last year for the Australian Open title.

Asked if he enjoyed playing against Djokovic, Nadal answered with refreshing honesty.

"I prefer to play against another one," he said with a smile. "But is what it is.

"Talking about a final, I want to play against a player that I have more chances to win. But I played against him a lot of times. Always we played very exciting matches."

Nadal beat Djokovic 9-7 in the fifth set of their semi-final on his way to winning his eighth French Open and 12th career grand slam title.

Djokovic won their six-hour war in the 2012 Australian Open final and has since added a third Australian title in a row to take his grand slam haul to six.

The rivalry between Roger Federer and Nadal had been the foremost grudge game in the sport in recent years, but with the Swiss grand slam king fading from dominance, Djokovic-Nadal has risen to hottest in tennis.

Nadal leads the series 21-15 and has won five of the last six, but his overall edge was largely built in the first half of the rivalry when he won 14 of their first 18 matches.

The Spaniard, who missed the U.S. Open last year after being sidelined for seven months by a knee injury, has come back with a brilliant 2013 campaign.

After skipping the season's first slam, the Australian Open won by Djokovic, Nadal has registered nine tournament victories and been perfect this season on hard courts, posting a 21-0 mark on the surface within a tour-best match record of 59-3.

"It's always the biggest challenge that you can have in our sport now," Djokovic said about facing Nadal. "He's the ultimate competitor out there. He fights for every ball and he's playing probably the best tennis that he ever played on hard courts.

"He hasn't lost a match on hard court this year and we all knew that over the course of last six, seven, eight years, hard court hasn't been his favorite surface.

"He lost three matches this year. With no doubt, he's the best player in the moment this year, no question about it."

Their Flushing Meadows finals clash will be a rubber match of sorts for Djokovic and Nadal.

The second-seeded Nadal won his only U.S. Open in 2010 against Djokovic. The top-seeded Serb won his only U.S. title the next year against the Spaniard. Monday's winner will be the year's only two-time slam champion of 2013.

The showdown will mark the 12th time in the past 15 grand slams dating back to the 2010 French Open that either Djokovic or Nadal will claim the slam title, with Nadal having won six and Djokovic five during the stretch.

The marquee match-up features players with 18 grand slam titles between them, the most in a U.S. Open final since Pete Sampras (13) beat Andre Agassi (7) for the 2002 crown.

Nadal, 27, expects a big battle.

"If both of us are playing at very good level, the match becomes great because we play long rallies, we bring our game to the limit, and becomes a very difficult match for both of us."

"When you are involved in these kind of matches, you feel special," the Spaniard said. "Is true we already play a lot of important matches for our career, so that makes that confrontation special."

The 26-year-old Djokovic, competing in his third major final of the season and fourth successive U.S. Open final, was not cowed by Nadal's recent run of success.

"He's very confident, but you know, I know how to play him. Hard court is my most successful surface. I have played him already here twice in the finals. I know what I need to do."

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US Open - World awaits next instalment in Djokovic-Nadal rivalry

Djokovic and Nadal, who have been dominant over the last 15 slams, will be meeting for the 37th time in the championship showdown, surpassing McEnroe and Lendl for the most clashes since tennis turned professional 45 years ago.

A high intensity, high energy, ball-slugging battle should be in the offing between the Spaniard and the Serb, who have staged thrilling five-setters this year in the French Open semi-finals and last year for the Australian Open title.

Asked if he enjoyed playing against Djokovic, Nadal answered with refreshing honesty.

"I prefer to play against another one," he said with a smile. "But is what it is.

"Talking about a final, I want to play against a player that I have more chances to win. But I played against him a lot of times. Always we played very exciting matches."

Nadal beat Djokovic 9-7 in the fifth set of their semi-final on his way to winning his eighth French Open and 12th career grand slam title.

Djokovic won their six-hour war in the 2012 Australian Open final and has since added a third Australian title in a row to take his grand slam haul to six.

The rivalry between Roger Federer and Nadal had been the foremost grudge game in the sport in recent years, but with the Swiss grand slam king fading from dominance, Djokovic-Nadal has risen to hottest in tennis.

Nadal leads the series 21-15 and has won five of the last six, but his overall edge was largely built in the first half of the rivalry when he won 14 of their first 18 matches.

The Spaniard, who missed the U.S. Open last year after being sidelined for seven months by a knee injury, has come back with a brilliant 2013 campaign.

After skipping the season's first slam, the Australian Open won by Djokovic, Nadal has registered nine tournament victories and been perfect this season on hard courts, posting a 21-0 mark on the surface within a tour-best match record of 59-3.

"It's always the biggest challenge that you can have in our sport now," Djokovic said about facing Nadal. "He's the ultimate competitor out there. He fights for every ball and he's playing probably the best tennis that he ever played on hard courts.

"He hasn't lost a match on hard court this year and we all knew that over the course of last six, seven, eight years, hard court hasn't been his favorite surface.

"He lost three matches this year. With no doubt, he's the best player in the moment this year, no question about it."

Their Flushing Meadows finals clash will be a rubber match of sorts for Djokovic and Nadal.

The second-seeded Nadal won his only U.S. Open in 2010 against Djokovic. The top-seeded Serb won his only U.S. title the next year against the Spaniard. Monday's winner will be the year's only two-time slam champion of 2013.

The showdown will mark the 12th time in the past 15 grand slams dating back to the 2010 French Open that either Djokovic or Nadal will claim the slam title, with Nadal having won six and Djokovic five during the stretch.

The marquee match-up features players with 18 grand slam titles between them, the most in a U.S. Open final since Pete Sampras (13) beat Andre Agassi (7) for the 2002 crown.

Nadal, 27, expects a big battle.

"If both of us are playing at very good level, the match becomes great because we play long rallies, we bring our game to the limit, and becomes a very difficult match for both of us."

"When you are involved in these kind of matches, you feel special," the Spaniard said. "Is true we already play a lot of important matches for our career, so that makes that confrontation special."

The 26-year-old Djokovic, competing in his third major final of the season and fourth successive U.S. Open final, was not cowed by Nadal's recent run of success.

"He's very confident, but you know, I know how to play him. Hard court is my most successful surface. I have played him already here twice in the finals. I know what I need to do."

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England's Ashes-winning Charlotte Edwards back on top of the world

She recalls with a shudder how, upon her Test debut against New Zealand in 1996, she had to wear the daintiest and most impractical of skirts.

"Can you imagine? It was terrible,” she says, preferring to leave the finer details of the look to the imagination. “At least there is a little more professionalism now. Everything has changed beyond recognition.”

At 33, Edwards has joined that rare breed of sportswoman to have scaled the sunlit uplands of her profession and stayed there.

She sits on an MCC committee, claims an MBE as part of her burgeoning swag of silverware, and today luxuriates in the most exquisite satisfaction of reclaiming the women’s Ashes.

Fresh from securing an emphatic series victory, she reflects: “It is probably the proudest moment of my career, even more so than winning the World Cup in 2009. Australia are the No?1 team in the world and they had taken away our crown. Not only did we set the record straight, we played the cricket we knew we could. It is a wonderful feeling.”

Through the haze of euphoria, anxieties are still attached to women’s cricket in this country, where just 25,000 played it in any form over the past year as opposed to the 230,000 clamouring to kick a football. But Edwards, through her deep-rooted and self-evident passion, has become emblematic of a telling shift in the sport’s profile this summer. Granted, the England side have profited hugely from the recent double-headers with the men’s team at Southampton and Chester-le-Street, but in the first Twenty20 contest at Chelmsford 5,000 punters filled the County Ground to watch them alone.

“We have been overwhelmed by the support we have had. Ten years ago you would never have attracted that number to a standalone women’s game. You would have been lucky to bring in 300.”

A phlegmatic character who maintains that she is always fixed on the next target, Edwards is making sure that she savours this latest episode of glory. After vanquishing Australia by seven wickets on Saturday, she and her delirious team-mates headed straight off to throw a hen-party for off-spinner Danni Hazell. This, she acknowledges, was a study in abstemiousness compared to the revelries that ensued after the Ashes-sealing triumph at the Ageas Bowl.

“We let our hair down on the way back to Gatwick Airport,” she says. “We called it the ‘party bus’.”

Under Edwards, England would be careful never to take the carousal to excess. When she and her charges shared the open-top bus parade with a hog-whimperingly inebriated Freddie Flintoff in 2005, they resisted any temptation to follow his lead. So they were all models of decorum? “Oh, I don’t know about that. But we weren’t quite that drunk.”

When Edwards won a record 142nd one-day international cap in Colombo in 2010, Clare Connor, whom she replaced as England captain, heralded her as a “credit to women’s cricket globally, a superb role model for girls who aspire to play for their country”.

It is easy to see why, given how steadfastly she has cleaved to her life’s vocation from the age of 11. It helped that she had a father and an elder brother who both played for Cambridgeshire, but from there she has made her work her own. “I watched my father play every week, and I know I wouldn’t have achieved what I have otherwise,” she explains. “We’re very lucky now, though, that girls don’t have to rely on their background to get into cricket.

“The opportunities, whether in terms of one-or-one coaching or the ability to compete in all-girl cricket in schools, are so much greater.” A family visit to England’s victory over India during the 1993 World Cup would decree her fate.

“We all ran on to the pitch afterwards,” she remembers. “I knew in that moment that I wanted to play cricket for a living.”

Alternative paths threatened to entice her, not least a sideline in tennis inspired by her idolising of Steffi Graf. “It was that awesome rivalry with Martina Navratilova that did it. But I knew 100 per cent that cricket was my main goal. I didn’t enjoy tennis as much, for the simple reason that I didn’t like being on my own. I craved being part of a team.”

Her subsequent surge to prominence, sparked by a remarkable 12 centuries for England before she had even turned 18, has coincided with an extraordinary evolution of the sport she loves.

“Twenty years, the cricket world was not what it was,” she says. “In every match I felt as if I was being judged. They were the hardest days for me as a cricket, what spurred me on to succeed. I created quite a thick skin around me. I felt as though I could deal with anything.” And of the future? Can the Edwards effect last until she is 40? “I haven’t put any time limit on it,” she replies, firmly. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t still consumed by the passion.”

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Tennis-Hewitt learning losses not the end of the world

By Will Swanton

NEW YORK, Sept 3 | Wed Sep 4, 2013 1:50am BST

NEW YORK, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Lleyton Hewitt's five-set loss to Russian Mikhail Youzhny at the U.S. Open on Tuesday still stung, but the Australian veteran said having his family around him lessened the pain of defeat and helped him get his priorities right.

Hewitt's wife, Australian actress Bec Cartwright, and his three children were all at Flushing Meadows during his magical run to the fourth round.

After losing to Youzhny 6-3 3-6 6-7(3) 6-4 7-5 on Louis Armstrong Stadium, Hewitt said defeats had become easier to stomach since he became a father to seven-year-old Mia, four-year-old Cruz and two-year-old Ava.

"Every loss still hurts, but it puts everything in perspective," he said. "Your priorities have changed.

"I still get in and prepare for matches as well as possible, but obviously you don't dwell on matches quite as much because you have other things to worry about."

Hewitt led 4-1 in the fourth set and 5-2 in the fifth before letting Youzhny off the hook. He said the physical exertion required to beat Argentina's sixth seed Juan Martin Del Potro in the second round two was still taking a toll.

"It's great to come into the tournament and have a tough draw against a quality player in second round, and beat him," the 32-year-old said.

"It was always going to be hard physically to keep coming out match after match, because in the second round that obviously took a lot out of me to get through del Potro.

"I left it all out there this week, week and a half."

Hewitt was closing in on his first quarter-final berth in New York since 2006 when he had Youzhny on the ropes in the fourth and fifth sets. He was two points from the match in the fifth.

"It could have gone either way," he said. "There was a lot of momentum changes, right from the start. It's disappointing to lose but there's not a whole lot more I could have done."

Hewitt turned his attention to the Davis Cup tie between Australia and Poland in Warsaw from September. The winner will earn a place in the world group next year.

Hewitt expected Jerzy Janowicz to play despite Poland's number one complaining of a back injury after his first-round singles loss at Flushing Meadows.

"Janowicz is a quality player," Hewitt said. "If he was that injured he wouldn't have played doubles here. It was one of the silliest things I have seen."

(Editing by Peter Rutherford)

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