RESULTS
U.S. Open 2007 – Day 10
Men’s Singles Results - Quarterfinals
Nikolay Davydenko RUS (4) def. Tommy Haas GER (10) 6-3 6-3 6-4
Women’s Singles Results - Quarterfinals
Venus Williams USA (12) def. Jelena Jankovic SRB (3) 4-6 6-1 7-6 (7-4) upset!
Svetlana Kuznetsova RUS (4) def. Agnes Szavay HUN 6-1 6-4
Anna Chakvetadze RUS (6) def. Shahar Peer ISR (18) 6-4 6-1
Women’s Doubles Results - Quarterfinals
Nathalie Dechy FRA (7) Dinara Safina RUS (7) def. Katarina Srebotnik SLO (3) Ai Sugiyama JPN (3) 7-5 6-3 upset!
Mixed Doubles Results - Semifinals
Meghann Shaughnessy USA Leander Paes IND def. Liezel Huber USA Jamie Murray GBR 6-7 (4-7) 7-6 (7-5) [10-5]
Victoria Azarenka BLR Max Mirnyi BLR def. Zi Yan CHN (3) Mark Knowles BAH (3) 7-6 (7-5) 6-4 upset!
COURTSIDE: AT THE US OPEN TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS 2007
The Olympic Factor
Winning the 2007 US Open would mean more to Roger Federer than $2.4 million in prize money. It also means valuable rankings points, and points gained during the 12 months leading up to June 9, 2008, will help determine whether a player receives an Olympic invitation. In other words, the 2007 US Open counts toward Beijing qualifying. In addition to a qualifying ranking, an athlete must have been willing to play Davis Cup or Fed Cup for at least two years between 2005 and 2008 – one of which must be either 2007 or 2008.
Even if Federer becomes injured it is not likely to affect his standing significantly, but those circumstances haven't been officially addressed yet, because the sport's governing body, the ITF, and the ATP men's tour have yet to agree on the Olympic qualifying criteria. It is much clearer on the women's side. The ITF and the WTA agreed that the tour rankings would determine the top 56 entries of the 64-player singles draw. (The draw's final eight will be determined closer to the event.) Up to four women per nation may play singles, and two doubles teams per nation may compete. Since the maximum quota per nation is six women, if the US sends two women who specializes in doubles, its second doubles team would have to come from its singles players, as was the case in 2000 with Venus and Serena Williams, where Venus won gold in both singles and doubles.
As for the 1996 Olympic gold medalist Lindsay Davenport, who has already missed three months of qualifying due to pregnancy and motherhood, she could rely on a “special ranking” as long as she returns within 12 months of having her baby. (Her son, Jagger, was born June 10, 2007). Her ranking was No. 12 when she last played in a single draw – coincidentally, in Beijing, Sept. 24, 2006. The 2008 Olympic tennis event will have a few other things in common with the 2007 US Open: the same hard court surface (DecoTurf II), Hawk-Eye technology, and – for the first time at an Olympics – players may use a challenge system to dispute a line call.
The tennis "test event" will be held in Beijing on Oct. 8 this year. The Olympic tournament will be contested over eight days (Aug. 10-Aug. 17, 2008), and the 2008 US Open will begin eight days later. Eight is a lucky number in China. Will it be lucky for Federer whose birthday, Aug. 8 (8-8) is the same day as the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony? Source: US Open Official, 4th Sep 2007
Once a Champion, Always a Champion
One of the most alluring things about the US Open, in addition to the stellar level of competition, is the attentiveness to its history, traditions and the players who have contributed along the way. Outside of the main draw, one of the most popular events during the tournament is the annual US Open Champions Invitational. This special competition features an exciting roster of former Grand Slam champions and finalists and allows fans the opportunity to see some of their long-time favorites once again.
In addition, with the Champions Invitational played on the outer courts, it gives those watching and playing a truly intimate sports experience. With a much more relaxed atmosphere, the players are also in a lighter frame of mind, bantering with one another throughout the match, something not seen in do-or-die, main-draw competition. While many of those on hand to watch are tennis aficionados who have followed these players throughout their careers, there are also numerous youngsters being introduced to some of the luminaries of the game for the very first time.
Headlining the round-robin competition that concludes on Saturday, Sept. 8, is the legendary Martina Navratilova, who is joined on the women’s side by Gigi Fernandez, Mary Joe Fernandez, Ilana Kloss, Iva Majoli, Hana Mandlikova, Conchita Martinez, Jana Novotna, Anne Smith and Natasha Zvereva. Former male champions include Pat Cash, Andres Gomez, Richard Krajicek, Henri Leconte, Todd Martin, Ilie Nastase, Stan Smith, MaliVai Washington and David Wheaton.
Kicking off the first day of the Champions Invitational was Novotna, who beat Majoli, while Wheaton and partner Gigi Fernandez moved past Washington and Mary Joe Fernandez. Although most still retain some ties with tennis through coaching or commentating, being able to get out and play in this type of environment is still rewarding. “It’s great to catch up with old friends,” said Mary Joe Fernandez, “It’s nice to get out there, hitting the ball again and being part of the tournament, and it’s great to see how the fans enjoy it.” Wheaton, who is now a Christian radio talk-show host, talked about what makes this competition so special.
“Well, we’re playing for blood out there,” said Wheaton, tongue firmly planted in cheek. “Seriously, having played here for so many years, many of your best memories are from here. Then to be away from the game for awhile and come back and be part of the US Open, just in a small way, it’s just a nice diversion from regular life now. But, it’s not a joke. Everyone’s trying to win. But on the other hand, it’s not like playing in the semifinals of the US Open in the main draw. Players are looser, so sometimes you actually see some better shots.” Source: US Open Official, 4th Sep 2007
THIS WEEK
Wed to Thu, 5th to 6th Sep 2007
US Open Tennis Championships 2007: Quarter-finals
Fri, 7th Sep 2007
US Open Tennis Championships 2007: Women’s Semi-finals
Sat, 8th Sep 2007
US Open Tennis Championships 2007: Men’s Semi-finals
US Open Tennis Championships 2007: Women’s Finals
Sun, 19th Aug 2007
US Open Tennis Championships 2007: Men’s Finals
AVP Crocs Tour 2007: Final Day – Las Vegas Gods & Goddesses
Superbikes World Championship 2007: Race Day – Euro Speedway, Lausitz, Germany
Masters Football: Finals
SPORTS SHORTS
* Football Federation Australia has announced that Australia's match against China, which was due to take place in Sydney on October 13, has been postponed to a later date. The Chinese association had asked for the match to be rescheduled because of its participation in important qualifying matches for the 2010 World Cup. China is scheduled to play Myanmar on October 8 and October 28, and was concerned that playing a friendly match against Australia in the period between these matches would jeopardise its qualifying campaign. The two federations will now enter into discussions over an alternative date to play the match. The match in Sydney in October was part of a two-match agreement between the two nations, with Australia set to travel to Guangzhou, China, in March next year. Source: Sportcal, 5th Sep 2007
* French commercial broadcaster, TF1, has secured live rights for Formula 1 World Championship until 2012. TF1 and FOM had an agreement in principal for the rights extension, and a contract has now been signed by both. As a result, TF1 will air Saturday qualifying sessions in Europe live from 2008, sessions previously aired live by Eurosport, the cable and satellite broadcaster that is part of the TF1 group. TF1 refused to comment on whether it had paid a higher annual fee for the latest set of rights than the present deal that was due to expire at the end of this season. The broadcaster's deal for the rights between 2003 and 2006 was worth a reported €12 million ($16.4 million) a year but was extended until 2007 at a higher price. The commercial network broadcast live qualifying sessions in 2003 but dropped the coverage because of poor audience figures. From next year, Eurosport will show delayed coverage of the Saturday qualifying sessions. Source: Sportcal, 5th Sep 2007
* FIFA will offer live webcasts of all 32 matches of the 2007 Women’s World Cup through FIFA.com TV, a free interactive service from its official website. Said FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter; “The coverage from FIFA.com will include live match video of every game in many European countries and video highlights available everywhere in the world, all this for free. I’m certain that this will help to satisfy the global passion for this showpiece of women’s football and raise the profile of the game even further.” Each of the 32 games will be streamed in their entirety in the following selected European territories. All matches will be available with English commentary and will be streamed at 400 kbps. Source: Sport Business, 5th Sep 2007
* World Championship Sports Network agreed a content distribution agreement with FOXSports.com on MSN. WCSN's Olympic-style and World Championship event video content will now be available to sports fans on FOXSports.com on MSN, and within MSN Video. Fans have the ability to directly access WCSN.com's branded channel on FOXSports.com under the More Sports category, as well as view exclusive sports and world record video in the Olympic Sports section. On WCSN and FOXSports.com, fans will get an inside look as their favorite US and international athletes prepare for the highly anticipated Beijing 2008 Olympic Games with access to unique editorial coverage, interviews and behind- the-scenes news articles. In-depth coverage will include the Cycling Road World Championships, Gymnastics World Championships and the entire Alpine Skiing World Cup season. Source: Sport Business, Sportcal, 5th Sep 2007
* GlobeCast has carved out a terrific business with its US-based World TV assembly of some 200 speciality and ethnic channels over North America. Now it is trying the same over Europe, and with Intelsat as its DTH carrier. The European version uses Intelsat 905 at 335.5 deg East (24.5 deg W), and the service is kicking off with a modest 14 Asian channels drawn mostly from India and Pakistan but targeting expat Asian DTH viewers in Western Europe. The mix includes pay as well as free-to-view channels. Source: Rapid TV News, 5th Sep 2007
* Uefa is distributing €43.2 million ($58.8 million) in solidarity payments from last season’s Champions League to domestic leagues. The federation said today that leagues which had participants in the Champions League will receive a total of €36 million, while those that did not will get €7.2 million. The biggest handouts this year will go to England and Italy, which both receive more than €6 million. The payments are intended to support youth development activities in professional soccer and are made through national associations. The domestic leagues are responsible for distributing the money to their clubs. To qualify for the funding, clubs must have an approved youth development programme, but the 32 which competed in last season’s Champions League (group stage onwards) are ineligible. The amounts received by the leagues vary according to certain criteria, notably the value of the market in their country. Source: Sportcal, 5th Sep 2007
MORE NEWS
Malaysia/Broadcaster: Media Prima Targets 100k Subs for Online Portal
Media Prima Bhd is targeting to achieve at least 100,000 subscribers in 12 months for its online media portal that is scheduled to officially roll out on Sept 6, said its network media portals general manager Paul Moss. The first-of-its-kind video-on-demand offerings in the country comprises local and selected foreign syndicated programmes on TV3, ntv7, 8TV and TV9 24-hours-a-day via a desktop or notebook PC with broadband or high-speed Internet connectivity. "Hopefully, we can achieve six figures (number of subscribers) in 12 months," he said, adding that the subscription was based on a hybrid basis, either on a monthly subscription or pay-per-download basis.
"The good news is that everyone can watch all this online for free within 12 hours of the programme broadcast on TV. Each episode will be free for a week, after which it will be stored in a library," he said. Moss said fee charges was only applicable when viewers wanted to purchase and download programmes and archived materials to their PCs. Each download will cost RM1, while a RM15 monthly package allows for up to 150 downloads. "We want to be the online TV destination of choice for Malaysians and we have set a target to be among the top five local websites within the next two years," he said.
He added that its new online TV offers high quality video and audio compatible with the likes such as YouTube. "We are using state-of-the-art technology and IT infrastructure." Moss said the company would also leverage on its collective 40,000 hours of library video archive, going as far back as the mid-80's and make them available to its registered online subscribers. He added that viewers can enjoy web exclusives, including live or online events, behind the scenes, audition clips, bloopers, recaps, video promos, contests, free downloads, messenger boards, blogs and wikis.
"The catch-up TV service is a unique and compelling platform to suit today's demanding lifestyle. All Malaysians can now have the freedom to choose when they want to watch their favourite programmes," he said. Going forward, he said the move to online TV was just one of the next big thing for Media Prima and the company would be rolling out more developments soon. Source: The Edge Daily MY, 27th Aug 2007
Global/General: 4b Phone Lines Worldwide, Says UN
Largely because of the mobile phone boom in developing countries, telephone service has quadrupled in the past decade to 4 billion lines worldwide, according to a report from the UN telecommunications agency. The International Telecommunications Union counts 1.27 billion fixed lines and 2.68 billion mobile accounts. The total number of people represented by those figures is unclear because many people, particularly in industrial countries, have both kinds of service.
The increase has been especially strong in developing countries that have been able to provide cellular phone service to tens of millions of people much more cheaply than having to wire up homes and offices for fixed-line telephones. As a result, 61% of the world's mobile subscribers are in developing countries, the ITU said. China and India, for example, together added almost 200 million mobile subscribers to the global total in the first three months of this year. In 1996 there were fewer than 1 billion fixed-line and mobile phone subscribers altogether. Fixed-line subscriptions have grown slowly since then, but mobile has taken off, showing "spectacular success," said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, one of the report's authors.
The report also said more than 1 billion people in the world use the Internet. Although the least developed countries lag in telecom service, growth is picking up in Africa, thanks to advances in technology that enable broadband connections over mobile phones. But the report said countries may need to change their regulatory requirements if the benefits of newer networks are to be realized. Source: AP report on Asia Telecom, 5th Sep 2007
ARTICLES, COMMENTS & OPINIONS
The Casino That Ate Macau
Kent Ewing writes for Asia Times Online, 5th Sep 2007
When the Venetian Macau, the world's largest casino, opened its doors last week, Macau completed its transformation from colonial backwater to the Las Vegas of Asia. And, going strictly by the numbers, that transformation has been a winning bet. In the space of five years, thanks to its booming gambling industry, Macau has overtaken the Las Vegas Strip as the richest gambling market on the planet. Consequently, the city's economy is surging, with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) surpassing neighboring Hong Kong's last year.
Despite the slick new casinos and bulging city coffers, however, Macau is in trouble. The singular focus on turning the city into a gambling capital has skewed the economy, draining the labor pool and undermining other industries. With the highest-paying jobs now available in casinos, a rising number of youth are dropping out of school to grab them, and there is also growing unrest among locals over the cheap foreign labor that has been imported to support the casino boom. Moreover, corruption has raised its ugly head.
The Venetian colossus has been jokingly called "the casino that ate Macau" by William Weidner, president of Las Vegas Sands Corp, which built the mega-resort. For critics of Macau's single-minded growth strategy, Weidner's joke stands as a dark metaphor for the decline of other sectors of the economy in favor of gambling and for the social ills that have accompanied that decline. For the moment, however, those voices are a cry in the wilderness of Macau politics, drowned out by the hype and hoopla surrounding the opening of the Venetian. After all, it's hard not to be impressed by the sheer scale of the US$2.4 billion gamblers' paradise. Until the Venetian opened it doors on August 28, the $240 million Sands Macau casino resort, which debuted in 2004, had set the standard for opulence.
Ten times the size of the Sands, the 32-story Venetian boasts 850 gaming tables, 4,100 slot machines and 3,000 hotel suites - which in a single day accounted for a 65% increase in five-star hotel rooms on offer in the city. Add to that a 93,000-square-meter shopping plaza for 350 different retailers and a sports stadium that seats 15,000, not to mention 111,000 square meters of convention space. In an attempt to re-create the charm and elegance of Venice, the resort will employ natty gondoliers to transport guests down canals that course through the largest single building in Asia. Indeed, the only building in the world larger than the Venetian was built to hold airplanes - the Boeing plant in Everett, Washington.
The Venetian will carry a payroll of about 15,000 employees, roughly 5% of the labor force in Macau, a city 60 kilometers southwest of Hong Kong with a population of 526,000 and a total land mass of about 16 square kilometers, 40% of which has been reclaimed from sea. A sleepy Portuguese colony for 442 years, Macau reverted to Chinese rule in 1999.Macau officials hope the Venetian will not only attract the growing number of high-rollers on the mainland - where the economy continues its nearly 30-year miracle of high growth while gambling remains taboo - but also lead to a more diversified economy, enticing to shoppers and conventioneers. Ultimately, the city hopes to rival Hong Kong as a convention and entertainment hub. Article continues…
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