Rob's Blog » Major Events

Excessive Prize Money to Tennis Players

Rob Wood — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:07:37 +0000

The 2012 Australian Tennis Open starts today, and is set to offer the highest prize money in the history of Grand Slam tennis around the world. The total prize pool will be A$26 million, with the men’s and women’s champions taking home a record A$2.3 million (US$2.18 million) each. Does that sound excessive to you? It may be because I am not a great tennis fan, but I cannot see why we need to give them that much. As it is a grand slam event, you don’t need to offer large amounts to entice players to come and play. The winner of any tennis grand slam event will probably boost their off court earnings more than that anyway by being more marketable. Some of you probably will not agree with my next comment (and that’s OK). Another thing that bugs me is that the event organizers have decided that both the men’s and women’s champions will earn the same amount (in 2007 Wimbledon decided to do the same), despite more interest in the men’s side of the tournament, with longer more entertaining games, and consequently better revenue raising potential. I’ll still be watching the men’s final, and afterwards I hope they can give a little back of their millions to the grass roots of their sport.

Related Pages: Australian Open, Tennis

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World Cup Team Names

Rob Wood — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:31:23 +0000

I was compiling a list of rugby union national team names and was surprised to find out that Ireland and Scotland don’t really have one, and that England’s name of the Red and Whites is also not commonly used. Here in the southern hemisphere the terms Wallabies and All Blacks are practically the official names of the national teams of Australia and New Zealand. However, have you ever heard of these teams that are in the current Rugby World Cup: Bati (Fiji), The Brave Blossoms (Japan), Welwitschias (Namibia), and the Oaks (Romainia)?

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Bet on the Octopus

Rob Wood — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:25:41 +0000

Paul the ‘Psychic’ Octopus, also known as the ‘Oracle of Oberhausen’ and ‘Pulpo Paul’, is a resident of the Oberhausen Sea Life aquarium. He became a celebrity after a 100% success rate at predicting the winners of eight World Cup matches – all of Germany’s games and the final between Spain and The Netherlands. I want to go out on a (octopus) limb, and say that it was all due to chance. I know it may sound far-fetched and very unlikely, but maybe he was just lucky and was able to select the winning teams through chance. No psychic abilities, no hand of God, and no conspiracies – just luck. A lot of luck.

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World’s Longest Tennis Match

Rob Wood — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 03:40:03 +0000

If you have been focused on the Football World Cup, you may not have noticed that after three days of playing, the longest tennis match in history has just finished – what a marathon. The match was played between between American John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut at the Wimbledon Championships, starting on June 22 and finishing on the 24th. The match eventually took 11 hours and 5 minutes, spread over three days. The match was won by Isner 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68. The fifth set was the longest set in history as determined by both duration and number of games and the set itself would have broken the previous longest match record of 6 hours 33 minutes. The US Open is the only of the Grand Slams to use a tie breaker in the final set on the singles, the other tournaments use an advantage set, meaning they keep playing until there is a winner by two games clear. As you can see, this can mean a game can go on indefinitely. I hope the others don’t follow the US example and remove the advantage set, as we could miss out of such dramatic games as this.

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The World Cup Sends Me To Sleep

Rob Wood — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:51:24 +0000

With the World’s greatest sporting event currently well on the way in South Africa, it may be surprising that this is my first post about it. It would not be surprising if you knew that I support Australia, and up until today they have not done anything to write home about. After getting up at 2am this morning to watch them play Serbia, I am much happier and very impressed with their performance. Although they won today, they just missed out on progressing to the knockout round. They did us proud, playing great football and giving everything for their country. Missing out of the final 16 is no great disappointment, the Aussies have played above expectations. I cannot say the same about the French team, and cannot imagine the public out cry at their team’s performance. There is always drama at the World Cup, and that is why we are captivated. A few more sleepless nights to come!

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We Just Want To See A Snow Leopard

Rob Wood — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:16:30 +0000

Did you hear about Ghana’s first ever participant at the Winter Olympics, Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong (nicknamed the ‘Snow Leopard’)? He competed in the men’s alpine skiing slalom event, finishing in 47th (2nd last) place. I did, but I did not hear about who won. It is another reminder of why I don’t get too excited about the Winter Olympics. The media think that it is more important to fill up their coverage time with human interest stories rather than the sporting results. As a sporting fan I watch sport to see the action, the competitiveness and the champions. At each Olympics the same thing seems to happen – the media outlets focus their telecast towards the common man, non sports fan, who are more interested in gossip and drama.

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Go to Bed Tomic

Rob Wood — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:26:05 +0000

Young Australian rising star tennis player Bernard Tomic had a few complaints after his second-round match at the Australian Open against Marin Cilic finished at 2.10am local time. The 17-year-old Tomic was given a wildcard into the tournament, and played well against the vastly more experienced 14th seed Croatian, pushing him to five sets over the course of three hours and 48 minutes. However, Tomic let himself down, and embarrassed many Australians with his comments after the match. He said that if he got the day schedule as requested, that “I think I should have won” … “I can’t see after 1.00am, 2.00am for a 17-year-old to go out and play – It’s difficult.” Welcome to the big world. There are other players who have been playing at these times and winning tournaments. If he wants to be a top 10 player, which he says he does, he will have to learn to handle playing at any time, and he will need to learn to be more gracious in defeat. No excuses.

Related Pages: Australian Open, Grand Slam Tennis, About Tennis

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Another Sporting List

Rob Wood — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:43:42 +0000

Here is another sporting poll that was seen on news.com.au. They were asking for the defining sporting moment of the noughties (2000-2010), and being an Australian website there was obvioulsy an Aussie bias. Their editors had already decided on the top ten, it was the site visitors job to place it in order. First a question about the top 10 that they selected. There are some international performances already on the list – so where is Lance Armstrong’s comback and Phelp’s record medal haul? The list could go on. Based on the choices we had, as an Australian I have no qualms with what was voted on top – Aloisi’s goal and Australia’s qualification into the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Here is the full list (in the final order):

Aloisi and the World Cup Qualification for 2006
Cathy Freeman’s 400m gold medal in Sydney 2000
Bradbury’s gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics – Australia’s first ever gold
Makybe Diva’s triple Melbourne Cup wins
Australia’s 2009 cricket Ashes loss to England
Wilkinson’s heart breaking final kick to beat Australia in the 2003 Rugby World Cup
Final seconds mark by fullback “Leaping” Leo Barry in the 2005 AFL Grand Final
Tiger Wood’s Master’s chip in 2005
“Lay-down” Sally Robbins stopped rowing mid-race at the 2004 Athens Olympics
The NRL Rabbitoh Revival

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Bad Sport Serena

Rob Wood — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:26:44 +0000

In the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, defending champion Serena Williams was fined $10,000 for her tirade directed at a line judge. She said: ‘If I could, I would … shove [this ball] down your throat’. There were a few expletives deleted from that quote. Can you get a bigger contrast between the champion of men’s tennis, Roger Federer and her? Thankfully such bad sportsmanship has not gone unnoticed, with the big fine and her losing the final match point based on that outburst. She was going to lose the semifinal to Kim Clijsters anyway, and the fine is only a smidgeon of what she earned playing the tournament. Let’s hope she gets punished in more ways, but somehow I think she will not be repentant.

Related Pages: US Open, About Tennis, Roger Federer profile

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The 100 Sporting Events You Must See Live

Rob Wood — Mon, 25 May 2009 01:48:29 +0000

A new book by Robert Tuchman, who works in Sports promotion and management, is called, The 100 Sporting Events You Must See Live: An Insider’s Guide to Creating the Sports Experience of a Lifetime. He has used live appeal as the main criteria for his selection. There is a US bias, which is not surprising considering that many Americans think that they are the centre of the sporting universe (which in true in some sports). I don’t doubt his top four, but am not sure that the UNC vs. Duke Basketball Game at Cameron Indoor Stadium deserves top 10 status. I have not seen such as game, so maybe I am not qualified to comment. I have ticked off two of the ten, quite a way to go. Check out the complete list of 100.

Here are the top 10 events you must see, according to Robert Tuchman. What you think?

1. The Golf Masters
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Super Bowl
4. Summer Olympics
5. Army vs. Navy Football Game
6. New York City Marathon
7. World Series Baseball
8. Winter Olympics
9. Red Sox vs. Yankees at Yankee Stadium
10. UNC vs. Duke Basketball Game at Cameron Indoor Stadium

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