Una situación que sin duda está tensa y aún no termina, falta esperar la audiencia de mañana y saber el futuro del tenista.
Novak Djokovic insiste en librar una batalla personal ante el mundo deportivo, específicamente el del tenis con su deseo de participar en el Australian Open pese a no estar vacunado contra el covid-19.
A ocho días de ser puesto en libertad y a escasas horas del comienzo del primer Grand Slam del año, el número uno del mundo fue retenido de nueva cuenta con todo y visa.
Los abogados del serbio se movilizaron para evitar la deportación, por lo que en sesión de urgencia, le ganaron tiempo a su cliente para tener una audiencia con migración el día de mañana sábado en Melbourne.
La situación migratoria de Novak Djokovic sigue en un hilo y la presión mundial quiere que por una parte se cumplan todas las reglas y por otra se le de libre derecho de decidir sobre su cuerpo.
Una situación que sin duda está tensa y aún no termina, falta esperar la audiencia de mañana y saber el futuro del tenista.
El partido de semifinal del Abierto de Francia 2021 entre Novak Djokovic y Rafael Nadal seguramente se irá a los libros de historia del tenis como uno de los mejores y más intensos. Fuen un encuntro maratónico épico que duró cuatro horas y 11 …
El partido de semifinal del Abierto de Francia 2021 entre Novak Djokovic y Rafael Nadal seguramente se irá a los libros de historia del tenis como uno de los mejores y más intensos.
Fuen un encuntro maratónico épico que duró cuatro horas y 11 minutos con Djokovic impactando al “Rey de la Arcilla” en un triunfo de 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-2. Djikovic ganó los últimos seis juegos del partido, quebrando a Nadal en varias ocasiones, incluyendo el último juego por el triunfo. Ahora enfrentará a Stefanos Tsitsipas en la final el domingo.
Fue un magnífico encuentro entre dos de los “Big Three” del tenis varonil, conforme peleaban ferozmente por cada punto. El tercer set por sí solo duró como 90 minutos, y Djokovic ganó al romper un empate.
"One of the greatest sets of tennis I have ever witnessed."
Djokovic wins an incredible tiebreaker over Nadal at the French Open 👏
Traducción: “Uno de los mejores juegos de tenis que he presenciado”. Djokovic gana un increíble desempate sobre Nadal en el Abierto de Francia.
A pesar de tener 13 victorias en el Abierto de Tenis, la derrota de Nadal el viernes fue solo su tercera en un torneo de Grand Slam, y esta es la primera vez en su carrera que pierde después de alcanzar una semifinal en el Abierto de Francia. El recórd en la carrera de Nadal en Roland-Garros ahora es 105-3, mientras que Djokovic se convirtió en el primer jugador en derrotar a la estrella de la cancha de arcilla dos veces.
Traducción: Ha completado la hazaña más difícil de nuestro deporte no una, sino dos veces. @DjokerNole derrota a Rafael Nadal 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-2 para preparar un encuentro final con Tsitsipas.
Fue uno de los mejores juegos de tenis en la historia, y los fans de todo el mundo, uncluyendo varios jugadores y otros atletas, no podían con la emoción de este partido.
Tiger Woods held all four major titles at once after the 2001 Masters. Make no mistake, the feat was as remarkable then as it is now.
Imagine.
Tiger Woods, at the pinnacle of his powers, started hearing and reading that he was, get this, in a slump in the first quarter of 2001. Really? He had won 10 tournaments worldwide in 2000, including a record-obliterating U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. He became the youngest to complete the career Grand Slam in another record-setting romp in the Open Championship on the Old Course in St. Andrews, then won a third consecutive major when he out-dueled Bob May in a playoff at Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky to win the PGA Championship.
He was 25, the world No. 1 by serious distance, had five major triumphs on his resume, and he was the proud owner of 24 PGA Tour titles heading into 2001.
“No offense to Jack Nicklaus or anyone else but I don’t think anybody has played as well as Tiger played in that particular time,” said swing instructor Butch Harmon, who worked with Woods from 1993 to 2004, a stretch in which he won three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles, 40 PGA Tour titles and eight majors.
“He didn’t have any weaknesses,” Harmon continued. “And I don’t think we can say that about anyone else who has ever played the game. Tiger was the best at every part of the game. He was the best driver, he was the best at controlling his trajectory, he was the best at controlling distance. His short game was the best, he putted under pressure better than anyone. He was the best iron player.
“In my 77 years on this planet and being around golf nearly my entire life, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Woods was so good back then that he made major champion and 12-time PGA Tour winner Paul Azinger pick his spots on the range.
“He was extraordinary back then,” Azinger said. “It was just something to behold. Early on in his career when he came out and I was hitting balls next to him on the range, I would just pack up my gear and move. His stuff just sounded so much better and I was losing confidence when I watched his 9-iron leave. And my ball left nice, don’t get me wrong.
“My friends at home would complain that all we see is Tiger Woods, all they show is Tiger Woods. Well, I’d tell them if they had any idea how his ball sounded like and how the flight looked like, that’s all you would ever want to see. You’d never want to watch anything else. It was just different level stuff.”
But as the golf world celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Tiger Slam this year, it must be noted that in the early part of 2001, as Woods played his way toward the Masters where he’d try to win an unprecedented fourth consecutive professional major, he had not won in – check notes – six tournaments and the word “slump” was suddenly in the conservation.
Tiger Woods is helped into the his jacket for winning the Bay Hill Invitational by tournament host Arnold Palmer on March 18, 2001 in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Scott Audette)
“It annoyed him a little bit that there was some talk of a slump, especially considering he had just won the last three majors the year before,” said Rob McNamara, a longtime vice president of Woods’ foundation who also is a regular playing partner for Woods and provides a second set of eyes to monitor his swing. “It just didn’t add up. A slump? Come on. But it gave him a little chip on his shoulder, a little edge.”
Woods was a tad irritated, too, as he got an earful from reporters during the countdown to the Masters. A day after the 2000 PGA Championship, Woods’ team began a series of phone calls with sponsors, the PGA Tour and CBS concerning his quest for a fourth consecutive major. Woods wasn’t involved in the initial meetings but joined the dialogue about a month after he won the Wanamaker Trophy.
“He was being asked about the Masters every week he was out there but it never really bothered him,” Harmon said. “Mentally, he and Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan were the strongest players. Sure, he didn’t like all the questions because, really, what could he say? But it fueled the fire even more.”
And then there was the hype, the buzz, the laser beam of attention for eight months that was a bit grating even for a man who lived in the white-hot spotlight. And deep down, Woods realized he’d likely never get another chance to win four majors in succession, to go where no man had gone before, and the weight of knowing that just added another hefty log of expectation on his shoulders.
“He knew,” McNamara said, “that it was a once in a lifetime chance.”
Fuel for the fire
Back to the slump.
Woods won five of his last nine starts in 2000 – including the Johnnie Walker Classic to close the year – but started 2001 with a tie for eighth in the Mercedes Championship. He then tied for fifth in the Phoenix Open, tied for 13th in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, then finished fourth in the Buick Invitational.
Whispers of a slump began to take hold and then, after a tie for 13th in the Nissan Open in Los Angeles and a tie for second in the Dubai Desert Classic, the volume meter spiked despite Woods being a cumulative 75 under in those six starts.
On the eve of his next start in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Woods was greeted with questions concerning his “drought” of six winless events, one reporter in particular asking if he was bugged by people wondering what was wrong with him.
“Well, it’s annoying because of the fact that if you think that way, then you really don’t understand the game of golf,” Woods said.
Tiger Woods celebrates on the 18th green after winning the 2001 Bay Hill Invitational. Photo by Craig Jones/ALLSPORT
Fueled by the chatter and headlines, Woods lit the match as he defended his 2000 title at Arnie’s annual Bay Hill gathering. He hit a 5-iron to 15 feet on the 72nd hole and then buried the putt to topple Phil Mickelson by one shot. With rounds of 71-67-66-69 to finish at 15 under, Woods was back in the winner’s circle.
A week later at the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, Woods won the PGA Tour’s flagship event for the first time. After opening 72-69, he had his better-than-most moment on the 17th green during a round of 66 and then polished off his one-stroke victory Monday over Vijay Singh in the weather-delayed tournament.
“Some of the writers – and I know who they are – had suggested and said I was in a slump,” Woods said. “Obviously, they don’t really understand the game that well, because if you look at the way I was playing, I wasn’t playing that bad. It wasn’t like I was missing cuts every week. I was right there with a chance to win in virtually every tournament I teed up in, and I think that’s pretty good.
“It is a game that’s very fickle. You can try as hard as you want, and sometimes it just doesn’t work out.”
On to Augusta
When Woods arrived at Augusta National, he was primed, ready and definitely not in a slump.
“When we got there his game was at a perfect level,” Harmon said. “He prepared the beginning of the year for that tournament. When we were at the Players in March on the range, he’s going, ‘Let’s hit some shots I have to hit at Augusta.’ He was hitting the drive he needed on 13, certain irons he needed into greens.
“He was ready.”
McNamara said Woods put blinders on that week.
“It was probably the most serious I had ever seen him at a tournament,” he said. “He was laser focused.”
Woods began with a 70 and then followed with a 66 to reach the first page of the leaderboard. A third-round 68 put him atop the famous white scoreboards by one shot. His playing competitor in the final group on the final day was none other than Phil Mickelson, who was still in search of his first major.
“The atmosphere, the roars, the excitement, it was off the charts,” said Jim “Bones” Mackay, Mickelson’s longtime caddie. “Everyone wanted to see Tiger.
“And why not? His swing was beautiful, and it looked like nothing could go wrong. And if something happened, like the wind came up or whatever and he did miss a green, you’re talking about a guy who had the best short game in the world and he’s the best putter in the world and the best pressure putter in the game.
“He was just incredibly difficult to beat. It was frustrating.”
Tiger Woods and his caddie Steve Williams walk across the Byron Nelson Bridge during the final round of the 2001 Masters at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia.
Woods started the final 18 with a bogey but rebounded with birdies on Nos. 2, 7 and 8. Mickelson held a share of the lead on four of the first five holes but made bogey on six and never got another share of the lead.
“I can honestly say that Phil’s front nine was the best nine holes of golf I’ve ever seen from everyone,” said Steve Williams, who was on Woods’ bag for 13 of his 15 major wins. “Exact precision. He placed his ball in the exact spot it needed to be. He made the putts he could make.
“It was incredible for me to see Tiger hang with him. But he was grinding, grinding, grinding. Phil didn’t maintain it on the back nine, which was probably impossible to do. And then Tiger flipped the switch on the back nine.”
David Duval, also in search of his first major, started the final round three shots behind but made birdies on seven of his first 10 holes. He held a share of the lead on three occasions on the back nine but a bogey on the 16th – where he missed an 8-footer – and pars on the 17th and 18th – he missed a six-footer for birdie on the final hole – left him short by two and in solo second.
“It was incredibly difficult to beat Tiger back then,” said Duval, who finished runner-up for the second time in four years and was in the top 6 in the other two Masters. “As a competitor, you had to play flawless golf. We all hit bad golf shots and we all made mistakes, including Tiger, but back then you knew his were going to be very few and far between. You had to be spot on competing against him.
“You were playing against arguably the greatest player who ever was. He was unbelievable. His mental game was as good as anybody’s ever; his physical game was as good as anybody’s ever. And he undoubtedly during that time played the best golf that was ever played.
“That was my fourth straight year I could have won the Masters and I didn’t win any of them, so it’s tough to remember details from back then. I remember I didn’t capitalize and missed some putts on 17 and 18 and you just can’t give a guy like Tiger Woods a chance to bury you. Whenever he had a chance, he buried you.”
Mickelson’s undoing came on the 16th when he left his tee shot on the wrong shelf and missed an 8-footer for par. He made pars on the final two holes and finished three behind.
“The 16th was the killer for me,” Mickelson said 20 years later. “I had pulled within one shot, had the honors, and pulled the 7-iron. I didn’t give myself a chance to put more pressure on him.
“It was really frickin’ hard to play Tiger back then. I’ve said the greatest golf in the history of the game that has ever been played was the 2000 U.S. Open. Back then, he hit it so far and so straight and he was such a clutch putter, you felt like you had to play perfect golf to beat him. And perfect golf was not my forte. My forte was to try and make a bunch of birdies and be aggressive.
“I don’t remember the specifics of the round but I do remember coming to the last hole and I was two back and I knew he could fly the tree (on the right) and he’d have 60 yards or something to the hole and it was like, ‘How is the guy going to bogey with a sand wedge going in?’
“I remember feeling distraught on the 18th tee. That round, as long as he hit it and as straight as he hit it, you just couldn’t see him making any mistakes to open the door and that’s tough to deal with.”
Woods never lost at least a share of the lead, with key moments unfolding on the 11th, where he hit a 4-iron to a foot for birdie, a two-putt birdie on the 13th, and overcoming a 3-foot miss for birdie on the 15th. Leading Duval by one and Mickelson by two, Woods capped his virtuoso performance with a huge drive on 18 that set up a sand wedge from 75 yards and a birdie from 18 feet.
Tiger Woods celebrates after winning the 2001 Masters on the 18th green at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia.
After victory was secured, Woods buried his face in his cap and shed a few tears.
“I finally had no other shots to play. That was it. It was done,” Woods said that day. “It was such a weird feeling. Then I started thinking, I had just won the Masters. Then I started losing it a little bit.”
His post-round interview with the media was interrupted by President George H. W. Bush, who offered his congratulations.
In his landmark victory, Woods made 23 birdies and led the field in greens in regulation (82 percent) and driving distance (305.5-yard average). He earned a clean sweep of the majors in 294 days and was 65-under par in the four championships, winning by a combined 26 shots. And he had won five of the last six majors played.
“To win four consecutive majors, if you look at my career, I don’t think I have ever accomplished anything this great,’” Woods said. “It’s hard to believe, really, because there’s so many things that go into winning a major championship. You’ve got to have some luck. You have to get some breaks. You have to have everything go right. To have it go right four straight times, some of the golf gods are looking on me the right way.
“I have a better appreciation for winning a major championship,” Woods said. “To win four of them in succession, it’s hard to believe.”
Woods finished in a tie for 12th in his bid for a fifth consecutive major in the U.S. Open two months later at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But in a 36-tournament stretch on the PGA Tour starting with the 1999 PGA Championship and ending with the 2001 Masters, Woods won 17 times.
“It’s fair to say no golfer has performed at that level for that stretch of time,” Williams said. “As great a player Tiger has been for his entire career, this was Tiger at his all-time best. The U.S. Open at Pebble and the Open Championship at St. Andrews were as close to perfection for the greatest player of the modern era.
“I think the Tiger Slam is his single greatest achievement in golf. No player has ever been under greater scrutiny as Tiger was during the 2001 Masters, and to pull it off was simply incredible.”
As good as it gets
While Woods has delivered other memorable masterpieces and stretches of golf – the 1997 Masters, 2008 U.S. Open, 2019 Masters – those who had front-row seats to his brilliance during his journey to four consecutive majors say it was the best golf he ever teed up and remains vivid in their memories 20 years later.
“He was unimaginably good,” said Brandel Chamblee, Golf Channel analyst and former PGA Tour player who won the 1998 Greater Vancouver Open. “You could never conceive of a player like Tiger in that time. There had never been a player who was the best at so many areas of the game. You could find problems in everybody’s game, but Tiger was the longest and straightest driver in the game in that period, he was by far the best iron player, he was a Seve-esque scrambler, and he was the best putter anybody had ever seen. And then he was mentally the strongest player the game’s ever had.
“I make comparisons all the time to literature but no one could conceive of a character in literature more troubled and brilliant than Hamlet, and Tiger was that brilliant and untroubled. He was Hamlet. You can’t even imagine the guy. Well, there’s the guy, the greatest character in literature, more real than actual human beings. And that was Tiger.”
Azinger tied for 15th in the 2001 Masters, nine strokes back, and can still picture the genius that was Woods back then.
Tiger Woods reacts to making the final, winning putt at the 2001 Masters. (Photo: Timothy A, Clary/AFP via Getty Images)
“He made the extraordinary shot, made the extraordinary chip, made the extraordinary putt. He won playoffs. He won back-nine duels. He did what he had to do. He was the most opportunistically successful player in the history of golf. I’m not trying to blow smoke. He was just something to see.”
Mackay said you had to be there to truly appreciate the wonder of Woods.
“I would almost say that people who missed that era that think they know about it probably don’t know about it. You can certainly read about it,” Mackay said. “But to see it in person and whether you were trying to beat him in the same group or trying to beat him from three groups ahead, to go through all of that was just amazing. There was so much going on.
“You almost had to make decisions on occasion because you know the world had to come to an end for this guy to make a bogey. He was Tiger. You’re thinking sometimes that he can’t even do something and then he does it.
“I’m so grateful I got to see it.”
As for the name of the sweep? Grand Slam? Tiger Slam? Some insist it can’t be called the Grand Slam because if didn’t occur in the same calendar year. Others don’t care.
“I don’t know how you don’t call that a Grand Slam,” Duval said 20 years later. “If you’re in possession of all four of them and have won them in succession, it’s a Grand Slam. I just think those people that say it wasn’t a Grand Slam, that’s just them trying to take away whatever little bit they can away from Tiger.”
Harmon has always had a direct answer when he’s been asked.
“I just say there has never been a human being who walked on the planet Earth who has ever done what Tiger did by winning four consecutive majors,” Harmon said. “So you can call it whatever the hell you want.
Gary Player shares his secrets to a successful life and how he thrives at 85 years old.
Gary Player is a champion many times over in golf but believes he is also a world champion in life itself. Player, a World Golf Hall of Famer, believes the success he has had didn’t happen by accident.
Player believes that adversity has molded him into a world champion. He recalls thanking God every day of his life for the difficulties he has encountered. Player’s mother died from cancer when he was 8 years old. His brother fought in World War II, his sister was in boarding school and his family struggled financially.
“Adversity makes you a champion,” Player said recently. “Adversity makes your marriage better. Adversity makes you a better business man, a better father, a better mother. We got to be thankful for adversity.”
Player married his wife, Vivienne, in 1957 and doesn’t take anything she does for granted. His wife is currently battling cancer and Player believes that their love is the strongest part of her recovery.
“Your whole life has got to be a honeymoon if you want it to be successful. Work at it. Love is the greatest word in the world.”
Player sat down with Averee Dovsek for the latest episode of her podcast “WHY YOU SUCK AT GOLF!” and shared some tips on how to achieve a successful life. He believes to be successful in life you need to do at least four things: “Eat as half as you eat, exercise twice as you do, laugh three times as much as you do, and have unmeasured love in your heart.”
“I don’t think there is a human being in the world that gets the love I get,” said Player. “The love I get is unbelievable, but I also give it.”
Player is 85 years old, but half his age in spirit. He believes that this pandemic has presented a lot of difficulties for many, but he argues that obesity and lack of exercise is more detrimental to human health than COVID-19.
“When I get in the gym, I move like a 40-year-old. I move like crazy,” Player said.
SAN FRANCISCO – Jordan Spieth is a Wanamaker Trophy away from becoming just the sixth player to complete the career Grand Slam. But he’d like to win any trophy these days. The former world No. 1 and three-time major champion is still struggling to …
The former world No. 1 and three-time major champion is still struggling to emerge from an abyss that began taking hold heading into the summer of 2018.
Until then, Spieth was elite, a favorite every week he put a peg in the ground, a winner of 11 PGA Tour titles before turning 26, including his E-ticket ride at Royal Birkdale in England to win the Claret Jug in 2017, his last victory.
Then his game started cooling when the heat began rising two summers ago. In 50 starts since finishing third in the 2018 Masters, Spieth has missed as many cuts – 8 – as he’s notched top-10 finishes. He’s fallen to No. 62 in the world. And momentum of any sort has been fleeting.
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At times he’s been bewildered standing over the ball with putter in hand, or an iron, or a driver or 3-wood. The winless stretch has often sent him to the practice ground in search of lost form alongside longtime coach Cameron McCormick and under another set of watchful eyes, those of his caddie, Michael Greller.
But faith has not deserted him. Like a weeble wobble, he keeps getting back up.
“I almost feel at times like the game is testing me a little bit right now because I feel really good about the progress I’ve been making, and then it seems like I’ll really have one (good round) brewing, and then I’ll get where I used to hit a tree and go in the fairway, it’ll hit a tree and go off the cart path out-of-bounds,” Spieth said Tuesday at TPC Harding Park, site of the 102nd PGA Championship.
Aug 4, 2020; San Francisco, California, USA; Jordan Spieth (right) receives coaching from Cameron McCormick (left) on the practice range during a practice round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at TPC Harding Park. Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
“It just feels like I kind of here or there am taking some punches right now as I’m really progressing in the right direction,” he added. “You can get really upset and complain about it, which I’ve done and that’s not helpful, or you can look at it like hey, this is part of the game testing you, and the better you handle these situations, the faster you progress forward.
“I’ve done a really good job of that the last really three tournaments that I’ve played as opposed to any previously, and Michael would attest to that, and my attitude has been phenomenal. Been OK with knowing that the game will test you, and also believing in the process at hand.”
At hand this week is the first major in 13 months due to COVID-19. TPC Harding Park is lush and soft, the fairways thin, the cypress trees imposing, the temps cool and the mist heavy.
A strong test, in other words. A test, Spieth said, he’s confident he can pass. Even if he isn’t in his best form.
“About as much as it’s been since I won The Open Championship, I guess,” he said when asked how much he thinks about joining Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen as the only players to win the career grand slam. “It’s something that I really want. It’s probably the No. 1 goal in the game of golf for me right now.
“I’m working the right way, and even in a few years of feeling like I didn’t have my ‘A’ game any time I teed it up, I still had a chance to win three or four majors on a Sunday. Majors aren’t necessarily totally about form. They’re about experience and being able to grind it out, picking apart golf courses, so I feel like I probably have more confidence going into a major no matter where my game is at than any other golf tournament.”
Until that Sunday comes when he wins again – major or otherwise – he’ll keep working and believing.
“I’m in no hurry. I’ve got a lot of years in front of me and hopefully the best years in front of me,” he said. “I just stay the course. I keep my head down, focus on what our team is trying to accomplish and work each day really, really hard. I’ve worked my butt off over the last year mentally, physically and mechanically.
