WTA - Bank of West Classic - Stanford - Day two

Day two of the Stanford Open and Venus Williams beat Paula Kania in straight sets. This was a good solid win for Venus who has put the Wimbledon disappointment behind her. 

Venus now plays Victoria Azarenka in the second round and if she can get past Vika then I can see her at least making to the semi-finals and beyond. 

Ana Ivanovic beat Sabine Lisicki in straight and It was a very competitive first set. Which Sabine set the World Record for the fastest serve. 

However the second set was a not very eventful and Ana won the set comfortably and the match.

WTA - Citi Open - Washington

Day two of the Citi Open and Taylor Townsend beat Julia Georges in three sets. This was a fantastic win for Taylor who is certainly inform and at this rate she will be top one hundred before the end of the year. 

Kiki Mladenovic beat Lucie Safarova in three sets and Kiki is also inform and has been have a reasonable summer and seems have put the Wimbledon disappointment behind her. 

Kirsten Flipkens beat Heather Watson in three sets and I was disappointed that Heather didn't win this match. It was a match I feel she should have won. 

At this stage in Heather's career the reality is she needs to be getting wins like this or before she knows it she will go from a potential Grand Slam winner to a journey women. 

I hope she can get some decent wins before the US Open starts as this the time when she can pick up some points and at least make into the top fifty. 

World Cup - A review of the beautiful game.

The World Cup is over now and  for the winners Germany it is probably just sinking in what they have achieved. 

I thought the the some of the group games where fantastic and teams played without fear. 

One of the group games  I enjoyed watching was when France beat Switzerland by five goals to two and the French played amazing free flowing footballs. 

The game that I found most exciting was the Ghana versus Germany match and this match could have gone either way but ended up in the draw. 

However the match that almost put me sleep was Nigeria versus Iran was an incredibly boring match with both teams trying hard not to score....

So I thought the knock out games where going to be just as good and sadly it was not the case. The free flowing football had been replaced with edgy and defensive football. 

The stand out game of the knock out stages was Germany beating the host Brazil by seven goals to one. It was a little embarrassing to watch and this was compounded by the crying fans in the stadium. 

So the two most efficient and consistent teams of the tournament Germany and Argentina who made it to the final. 

However it was a little bit of a damp squib with little or no entertainment but the German team where the worthy winners. 

Argentina v Germany - Final review

The final took place yesterday and Germany beat Argentina by a goal to nil in extra time. 

It was a pretty dull match with both teams being very careful but somehow you got the feeling that this was more of an advantage for Germany.

Argentina's Lionel Messi failed to shine and Argentina did not have a single shot on target in the whole match. 

Germany had few chances but where unable to convert them into goals and it took the sub Mario Gotze to come on and break the deadlock late into the second half of extra time. 

For me it was more defending that lead to the goal but the BBC pundits where waxing lyrical about it being an amazing goal. 

Yes it was a well taken goal but I don't think it would even be in my top five goals. 

So Germany won the World Cup and it was well deserved but  I don't like their style of football. 

Which has very little to do with being entertaining and is more about being clinical and efficient. 

But at they end of the day they won the World Cup so they must be doing something right. 

Holland v Argentina - Semi final review

In the second semi final match Argentina beat Holland by four goals to two on penalties. It was a pretty dire affair with little interesting parts. 

This was a surprise as Holland had been playing fantastic free flowing football with Arjen Robben doing some amazing runs and as well as trying to dive for the odd penalty. 

Whilst Argentina had Lionel Messi scoring some very good goals. But I think the fact that all the play went through Lionel Messi somewhat stifled their creativity. 

So in the end it had to be decided on penalties and Argentina where more clinical and therefore won the game. 

World Cup - Brazil v Germany review

In the semi-finals match Germany beat Brazil by seven goals to one! It really was a shocker of a match. 

Brazil defended so poorly and the Germans capitalised on this and where scoring goals at will. 

I thought that Brazil would wake up and start scoring goals but once it became  five goals to nil, the likelyhood of them having any impact on the game looked remote. 

I think Brazilian fans realised this and television pictures captured a lot of crying Brazilians. It was Brazil worst World Cup and too much for many of their fans to take. 

Without Neymar and the suspended Thiago Silva it was always going to be a difficult and this was compounded by there inability to score and desparately poor defending. 

However the Germans will be very pleased with themselves and will hoping that they can carry this form into next weeks final and win the trophy. 

Wimbledon - review from the sofa:)

This years Wimbledon was almost as strange as the previous year. In the ladies draw the top two seeds Serena Williams and Li Na went out early. 

The women'sdraw was uneven and this is how Petra Kvitova managed to get to the final without playing a single top ten seed. 

The women's final was a little embarrassing to watch and Petra did what she needed to do to win the match. 

But it was rather painful watching Eugenie Bouchard making the same errors over and over again. 

It was one of those finals that few will be talking about as players were so unevenly matched. 

The men's draw was a little better but it was sad to see both Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal go out early. 

But at least the final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer was entertaining.

 However I would say that both play quite a predictable game and so it took the match a while to warm up and when it did it was well worth the wait.

So it was a a rather strange Wimbledon especially in the women's draw but the men's draw definitely lived up to expectations.