The 2015 Davis Cup Final

Slightly off topic, but today Britain achieved the seemingly impossible. The GB Davis Cup team lead by Andy Murray and Coach Leon Smith beat Belgium 3-1 to win the Davis Cup Final. Young Kyle Edmund (20), world number 100  made his debut, surprisingly comfortably taking the first two sets of Belgian's number one, David Goffin, although he actually went on to loose in five sets. Nonetheless, the Davis Cup was just an amazing experience for an up and coming tennis player, whatever their nationality. Thankfully, the Murray Brothers conquered Steve Darcis and David Goffin in four sets to set up an unbelievable opportunity. Team GB had to win just one match on the final day to become Davis Cup champions - and they did.

One thing's for sure is that this was a far cry from five years ago, on the brink of relegation to the bottom tier of the competition and playing in tiny venues across the world - most not even televised. Congratulations Team GB!

Why are 'in' calls more reliable than out? | #DavisCup

To celebrate the start of the GB vs Australia semi final tie in Glasgow I thought I'd add another tennis related post to the collection!

If you're a huge tennis fan, you might have noticed that when a player challenges a call, more often than not, it's an 'out' call they're challenging. This is because the brain is slow at processing fast moving objects and the brain tries to compensate. So much so the brain can end up over compensating. If the ball continues to move in a straight line the Umpire 'sees it' farther than it is and the ball bounces inside the court, and the call is wrong. Lets hope none of that happens this weekend!

Good luck Team GB - go smash it!!

(sorry to my Australian readers!! :) )

Team GB initial nominations:

Andy Murray (Number 3 in the world)

Kyle Edmund (21, just entered the top 100)

Jamie Murray (Doubles, ATP top 8)

Dom Inglot (Doubles around 40 in the world)

James Ward

Team Australia Nominations:

Bernard Tomic (a late replacement for Nick Krygios)

Sam Groth

Lleyton Hewitt

Thanasi Kokinakkis 

Strawberries and Cream and all things SW19

It's that time of the year once more, where all the stars of the tennis world descend on SW19 for the biggest grass court tournament of the year. Andy Murray, the British Favorite will be bidding to win his third grand slam. Andy, well known for showing his emotions on court had to work hard to overcome his on-court frustration to start winning more and more matches - in particular, the high pressure grand slam finals.
Unfortunately, he lost in the 2012 Wimbledon Final to Roger Federer, some see this as his turning point. In numerous interviews he said that in a way he'd learnt to accept that he may never win a Grand Slam. This allowed him to relieve himself of the huge amount of pressure he faced - particularly in front of a home crowd. With the help of his then coach- Ivan Lendl, he started seeing a sports psychologist. In a way, this was venturing into uncharted territory seeing any kind of psychologist was seen as a sign of mental weakness. Sports psychologists help athletes optimise their performance, channeling any emotions into purely getting the job done, all with techniques like positive self-talk and also discussing any other issues Andy or any other athlete may be facing which could all impact on his performance.
However Andy does at Wimbledon he seems to have undergone a complete change since he got married in April this year, he's won all but one match - recently he's just won Queen's, got to the semis of the French Open, and won 2 clay court titles. However far he gets at Wimbledon, surely this should give him bags of confidence going into his first round match - against Kukushkin of Russia.

Elsewhere in Wimbledon this year we have - 

Aljaz Bedene vs Stepanek 

Liam Broady vs Matosevic (AUS)

James Ward vs Ferrer (ESP)

Kyle Edmund vs Dolgopolov (UKR)

Klein vs Seppi

Heather Watson vs Caroline Garcia (FR)

Laura Robson (her second competitive match after a 17 month injury break) vs Rodina

Jo Konta vs Sharapova

Naomi Broady vs Duque-Marino

Good luck to all the Brits playing at Wimbledon next week! :)

Andy Murray's 500 career wins

Andy beat Kevin Anderson about a fortnight ago during the Miami open, and with his wedding to Kim Sears on Saturday I thought i'd look at what it's taken for Andy to become the world number 3.