Damian Sheridan Without a doubt one of Britain’s biggest sporting achievements saw 18-year-old Emma Raducanu win the US Open defeating Canada’s Leylah Fernandez in straight sets.
What made it even more remarkable was that she was a wildcard and had to go through three qualifying matches to reach the main draw. The 18-year-old from Kent, ranked 150 in the world before the tournament, also went the whole tournament without even dropping a set.
Novak Djokovic and Ash Barty reigned supreme at Wimbledon this year in the Men’s and Ladies singles each picking up a cheque of £1,700,000.
Djokovic has had a sensational 2021 winning the Australian, French and now Wimbledon to put him level with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal on 20 Grand Slams. These three players have dominated tennis over the last 15 years and especially in the case of Djokovic show no sign of easing up.
This was Djokovic’s sixth win on the grass of Wimbledon and this year’s tournament was probably one of his most straight forward. Despite losing the first set a couple of times in the Championship you always felt he would step up a gear in the remaining sets and this proved the point.
Although taking place a year later than it should have done the Euros produced some excellent matches throughout the tournament with Italy winning the tournament on July 11th beating England in the final at Wembley.
For the first time the tournament was played in multiple countries which proved a success although some teams did have to travel a lot more than others, Wales had a lot of travelling whilst England played all their games at Wembley bar their quarter final versus Ukraine.
The group stages contained no real surprises with France ending up top of the so called ‘Group of death’ which also contained Portugal, Germany, and Hungary. France, Portugal, and Germany all progressed to the last sixteen, but all went out at this stage, France were shocked by local neighbours Switzerland in what was probably the biggest shock of the tournament.
Rafael Nadal continues to rule the clay in Paris convincingly winning his thirteenth French Open crown against world number one Novak Djokovic. This is the same Djokovic who has won all his 37 matches in 2020, bar match he was disqualified from at the US Open when he hit a line judge.
The final, between the two current best players, was a one-way affair with Nadal winning in straight sets which included the first set to love.
Spain’s Rafael Nadal beat Daniel Medvedev in Sunday’s US Open final to move within one Grand Slam of Roger Federer’s record.
If a great final fought over five sets Nadal ended up winning the final set 6-4 which was his fourth US Open title and 19th Grand Slam title leaving him just one short of Roger Federer’s total.
Rafael Nadal served up a tennis master class in Paris and won his 12th French Open crown which is a remarkable achievement.
The Spaniard had not been in form leading up to the tournament, losing in Monte Carlo, Madrid and Barcelona and had been suffering from injury too. However back at his most successful tournament he proved victorious against Dominic Thiem and he heralded it as ‘biggest satisfaction’ of his career which is some statement considering the amount of titles and Grand Slams he has won.
The Champions League has now reached the semi-final stage and feature two mouth-watering ties, Liverpool v Barcelona and Tottenham Hotspur v Ajax which are both two legged affairs being played over the next two weeks.
The winner of the first match will be favourites to win the Champions League, both clubs have had fantastic seasons whilst the other semi-final is contested by two teams who were not fancied to get this far but have played some fantastic football and defied the odds. Ajax were 250-1 to win the Champions League back in August and Tottenham Hotspur only gained one point from their opening three Champions’ League group games but turned it around claiming a draw in Barcelona and then defeating Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City in the knockout stages.
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