Rafael Nadal slams Argentinean media on false political comment

Rafael Nadal is setting the record straight. He's not interested to get involved in anything political be it locals, national or international.

Here's what he has posted in his website today:

I don’t usually like to get involved in anything tabloid related, but given the seriousness of the matter I would like to straighten things out a bit.

It appears that some Argentinean media publishers have released a statement directed to me in regards to a ‘comment’ that apparently I made about their politics.

Well, I would like to say that those comments are completely false and my team is now going to get involved to try to track the source of these lies. We are going to take the necessary steps to stop this from happening again.

I am the kind of person that doesn’t like to get involved in politics, not local, nor national, and specially not international. That’s the way it is, and the way it will remain.

I really hope that all the Argentinean people that read the article know that it wasn’t me who said those things but instead it was someone else who just wanted to take advantage of my name.

Thank you everyone!

Rafa

I'm not sure what kind of comment falsely reported by the media publishers in Argentina.

But one thing for sure, the heat of Davis Cup final has begun!

(Via Rafael Nadal's official website, Image via zimbio.com)

WTA Championships: Ana Ivanovic gets her cake then pulls out; Serena Williams withdraws too

We don't get to see Fernando Verdasco celebrating Ana Ivanovic's 21st birthday.

Instead WTA boss Larry Scott and tournament director Karim Alami were the guys celebrating Ivanovic's birthday at the VIP Village of the Khalifa International Tennis Complex.

They presented her with a cake, shaped like a tennis racquet, made by Le Notre Paris.

The bad news is Ivanovic announced today that she has withdrawn from the Sony Ericsson Championships due to a virus.

The 20-year-old beauty has felt unwell throughout her stay in Doha and was affected by illness in her opening two round-robin matches.

Good for Agniezka Radwanska though as she will take on Svetlana Kuznetsova in Ivanovic's place.

"It's obviously, very, very hard for me," said Ivanovic.

"After the other night's match, it was a very intense and long match. I actually started to feel worse. Yesterday I didn't feel good, and today even worse."

"I tried to hit yesterday actually. I was on the court for about ten minutes, and as long as I didn't move it was okay. But if I tried to hit a little bit harder or to move to the side, it was impossible to do."

"Even if I were to step on the court [tonight], I wouldn't even be able to go through a few games."

The withdrawal is obviously a disappointing and sad ending to an otherwise glorious season.

But 2008 isn't all bad as Ivanovic won her first ever Grand Slam title and reached No.1 in the world (plus she also pocketed $100,000 at Doha despite the disappointing result).

She said: "Even though I had a tough few months, I still think this was the best year of my career so far. I won a Grand Slam, and I reached the position of No. 1. So there's lots of positive things to take from this year."

In another shocking withdrawal, Serena Williams cited a stomach injury when she pulled out of her match at the Sony Ericsson Championships against Elena Dementieva, who advanced to the semifinals.

“I did feel pain last night,” the U.S. Open champion said.

“I was still in pain just getting out of bed.”

Williams lost to her sister, Venus, 5-7, 6-1, 6-0 on Thursday.

Serena said she might have tweaked a muscle and that doctors had told her to rest.

(Via AP, Ana Ivanovic website, Images via zimbio.com, Yahoo! Sport)

Roger Federer shaves for Gillette at Shanghai

While in Shanghai for Tennis Masters Cup, Roger Federer makes some money by squeezing in a Gillette promotional campaign in between his training.

This event named Boys To Men were attended by a thousand of university students. Check out the youtube posted by The Star Online at the end of this post.

Roger Federer competes in a shaving competition.

"What was that?"

Couldn't be bothered, Mirka finds something to do to kill her time.

I guess Federer lost in the competition. He haven't finish the other half of his face.

A token of appreciation for Federer.

(Images via sina.com)

Random pictures at the Tennis Masters Cup Shanghai

Everyone already know why Rafael Nadal is not in Shanghai for Tennis Masters Cup.

But I don't see Andy Roddick and Nikolay Davydenko either. I've been surfing some of the popular Chinese websites trying to dig some photos of the two but to no avail.

However here are the rest of the guys. But before that look at the robin group allocations below (numeric prefix denotes seeding)

Red group
1. Roger Federer (SUI)
3. Andy Murray (GBR)
5. Andy Roddick (USA)
8. Gilles Simon (FRA)

Gold group
2. Novak Djokovic (SER)
4. Nikolay Dawydenko (RUS)
6. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA)
7. Juan Martin Del Potro (ARG)

The lovely Mirka and Roger Federer. You know what? I'm actually rooting Federer to win here.

Novak Djokovic has not been his usual self lately. Either the US Open impacted his

confidence or he has been partying really hard.

Andy Murray is a hot favourite but let's rewind back to the recent Olympic Games, he was beaten
by Rendy Lu in the first round. China has been quite tough on Murray, so he's not really my pick to win here.

Murray took part in the Tennis Masters Cup draw ceremony at the Hilton Shanghai on
Wednesday. The names of the players were inside traditional Chinese fortune cookies.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, fresh from winning the Paris Masters looks confident and ready
to win again.

The Chinese people believe that number 8 is a lucky number. Gilles Simon believes it too.

Frenchmen Gilles Simon and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga practice together.

Juan Martin del Potro looks yummilicious here.

Thanks to anon, now we can finally see Nikolay Davydenko in Shanghai!

(Via sina.com, fft.fr)