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Haase, The Djoker's clone

Haase has been another player turning heads at this year’s edition of the Rogers Cup. Sadly, he is not a next gen player but he is a djoker just not the djoker. In his semifinals clash with Federer he earned himself fans by making a mid-match joke. When the Dutchman was preparing to serve a fan shouted “Come on Roger!” Robin quickly came up with a humorous response “my name is Robin!” It didn’t take long for the crowd to burst into tears after that. It helped him grow since then, in the days since he has gotten 50 more followers total compared to his daily average of 10. The tennis veteran has had an admirable 12 year career. He has managed  to put two 250 events on his resume both tournaments being Kitzbuhel from 2015 and 2011. His career high ranking is 33. As a junior, Robin Haase was showing signs of stardom, his highest rank as a junior was world number 3! Up until today the dutchman has won 13 ATP challenger events and isn’t showing signs of stopping anytime

Shapovalov, Canada's future in tennis?

Denis Shapovalov has certainly been turning heads lately during this year’s edition of the Rogers C up With a shocking defeat over Nadal. He was accepted as a wildcard into the tournament, but the tennis world didn’t think much of it, he was just another normal wildcard accepted into the tournament because he’s from the same country. All that changed after a triumph over Del Potro in the round of 32. It was a nice surprise for all Canadians watching for home or from the stands. The real shock came after he battled it out with Nadal in three sets and won 3-6,6-4,7-6(4) in two hours and forty five minute’s time. His next challenge is Zverev, will he beat him in the youngest Masters 1000 semifinal ever? The 19 year old prodigy was born in Tel Aviv, Israel and moved to Canada when he was just shy of his first birthday. He grew up with one older brother, Evgeniy and was raised by a Russian Orthodox father and a Jewish mother. Denis took up tennis when h

Mladenovic, Peaking Or About To Be Peaking?

Mladenovic has been having an amazing run in these last couple of months, is she peaking? Or is this just the beginning? Today, she has just knocked out defending champ of the French Open, Roland Garros. I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg for the young french woman. Born in a town on the coast of northeastern France a tennis prodigy was born to a family of athletes. Her two year younger brother a professional soccer player and her dad a professional handball player, Kristina just had to have the genes of a natural athlete. She had a very successful junior career, the 24 year old won a junior French Open title and fell to Noppawan Lertcheewakarn in the finals of Wimbledon. She was already showing signs of being the most successful pro athlete in her family yet. After her junior days Mladenovic joined the ITF pro circuit and played there for 2 years until she received a wildcard into the prestigious Australian Open in 2009. She ended up losing in the first round t

Nadal: Looking Back

Since it is Nadal’s 31st birthday I thought about looking back at his benchmarks. The Spaniard has accomplished so many things and deserves the world to celebrate his birthday, but let's start with the tennis world for now. Without further ado, the timeline of Nadal! 2001 Turns pro 2003 Nadal cracks top 100 on April 21st 2004 Nadal’s first title (yes, it was on clay) 2005 First Grand Slam (yes, it was roland garros, which is on clay) Crack top 50 on January 10th Enters top 10 on April 25th 2008 Wins fifth Grand Slam:wimbledon (his first non Roland Garros title) Becomes world number 1 for first time after winning Wimbledon 2010 Rafa wins 5th Roland Garros 2011 Wins 10th grand slam (yes,it’s Roland garros) 2017 31st birthday Starting to see why they call him the king of clay huh? Nadal is only one Roland Garros away from winning ten, will he seize this fortnight’s opportunity or wait until next year? Who knows? Happy Birthday Rafa!😊🎂

What Is Too Much Stress? Are There Consequences?

We all know we can over train in tennis, but can we over stress? Recently people have been getting more and more worried about mental health, especially about stress. So, when does healthy competition become unhealthy? A study conducted by NCBI had 8 female tennis players and 8 male tennis players tested for stress after their first match at a tournament and both had stress, women had more. Every athlete takes stress differently but they all have one thing in common, they take it badly, nobody has ever benefited from stress ( except from their opponent ;) ). Stress hits you in three different phases phase 1 is when you first recognize you’re suffering from stress, your mind automatically responds with a fight or flight attitude. Now we hit phase 2, the resistance stage this is when your body starts fighting back it will try to enzyme levels to shield itself from stress and to do that it needs rest, you know you’ve hit phase 2 once you start feeling tired. Phase 3 is wher

Is Junior Tennis Too Much Stress?

    Recently more and more parents have been pulling their kids out of tournaments. The reason for this is because they believe it is too much stress for them.    The Williams sisters weren't aloud to play junior tournaments for their whole childhood but Serena still turned up to be the best womens' tennis player of all time. Was that because she didn't play junior tournaments or is it just coincidence. Besides, your success in junior tournaments has nothing to do with whether you're even going to be on the pro tour or how good you're going to be, it's more to have a Gage of where your skill level is. UCLA researchers conducted a study to see how stressful youth sports really are. They gave athletes from ages 9 to 14 questionnaires to fill out and it turns out sports are less stressful then music recitals and solos, wrestling was the only sport more stressful. In fact, sports were found to be less stressful than regular school tests. So there really isn't

Limited edition Blade and Burn: Are They Worth It?

A couple of weeks ago Wilson has announced they will be selling limited edition blade and burn rackets. Since they went on sale two days ago I wanted to explain what the difference is. There isn't much of a difference actually, the colors are switched so now there's more green and red instead of mainly black rackets, but other than that are there even any differences? They still feature Wilson's special Countervail technology, and the specs haven't changed. But they DO have Matte finishes, pretty tempting, right? But there is no difference in price or specs so it's just which color scheme you prefer really. Wilson hasn't yet said when they will stop selling them. Link to buy them is here:   limited edition blade and burn