Confidence booster

I'm sure the whole world (tennis world, that is) that Roger Federer won the ATP Madrid Masters on Sunday, beating nemesis Rafael Nadal in two straight sets. This is definitely a much-needed morale and confidence booster for the Swiss star, who lost the last five encounters to the Spaniard including the heartwrenching loss at the Australian Open (we all know he cried right?).

To add more impact on the loss, Federer defeated Nadal on the latter's homecourt so imagine the disappointed faces of thousands of spectators at the "Magic Box."

Even though I wasn't at the "Magic Box," I was also disappointed with the results. Nope, it's not because I am anti-Federer or something. It's just that I predicted Nadal to win at this ongoing contest at the ATP website - The ATP World Tour Draw Challenge Circuit. Basically, I got zero points at the final stage thus dropping my ranking at the Madrid Open tournament to 6735 out of 12877 global opponents.

Anyway, I just read the terms and conditions of the contest and found out that only entries from selected countries are eligible to win the grand prize which was a trip for two to London for the season ending Championships. Bummer, my country was not included but the terms did state that I can still take part in the site but not win anything. Now I know how Nadal must have felt after losing the match..... (lol).

Stunning win for Manny Pacquiao

I've been sneaking some Manny Pacquiao-related articles on my tennis website and as expected, it spiked up the traffic especially since he won the match in about six minutes (2 rounds). The article can be read HERE.

Good thing we didn't subscribe for the pay-per-view service which costs about a thousand pesos. It would have been a waste. I've been following the match via the live blog of Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated and was surprised when he said that it was over in just two rounds.

I immediately flipped through the cable channels to see who will broadcast this development first. It was CNN for the win in that department, followed by ANC / ABS-CBN which made the announcement via a news scroller at the bottom of the screen. Amusingly, BBC Network seemingly delayed their news about Pacquiao’s victory.

As always, GMA Network hoarded a lot of ads. I'm thinking that the kapuso network had a hard time editing the match since the match was expected to last for at least 10 rounds. However, I just had to deal with it and see how Manny won the match in such a short span of time.

Congrats Manny!