Results tagged “masterscup”

By Geoff Ng and Pete Chorba

History repeated itself again yesterday as top-seeded (and not top-ranked-anymore) Roger Federer lost his first round match at this year's Shanghai Masters Cup, currently going on at the Qizhong Stadium. This year-ending tennis event represents the gathering of the eight "best" players on the ATP Tour of the year for a fierce round-robin competition to earn not only the honor of winning the Masters Cup, but also a nice purse of $625,000.

The International Olympic Committee has called on Beijing Games organisers to release detailed information about air quality gathered during an August trial when 1.3million cars were taken off the Chinese capital's roads.

There must be something strange in the air (literally), because this year's Tennis Masters Cup has been quite a doozy. And after last night's action (Day 3), it's officially a doozy. Richard Gasquet of France, the last man to qualify for the tournament, upset number three in the world and crowd favorite, Novak Djokovic of Serbia, in convincing fashion, 6-4, 6-2. It was Djokovic's second loss in the tournament, after falling to Spaniard David Ferrer...

... why not get a terracotta one instead? That statue on the right, ladies and gentlemen, is Roger Federer.

After their appearance in the final of The Championships, Wimbledon, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have both qualified for the year-ending Masters Cup, held annually in Minhang, Shanghai.

There seems to be some changes afoot in the ATP, including cutting down the currently nine tournament Master's series down to eight, and moving the Masters' Cup back to Europe. However, that doesn't mean that Shanghai will no longer host a major tournament. Etienne de Villiers, the new chairman of the ATP, revealed that

Plans are to stage new combined tournaments before the French Open in the spring and convert the current Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai into an autumn dual-sex event.

Photos from thepirate411.

The race for the eight spots in this year’s Tennis Masters Cup -- to be held in Shanghai for the third time (November 12-19) -- is hotting up, with newer stars like Marcos Baghdatis and James Blake vying to join old hands Federer, Roddick and Nadal in the prestigious end-of-year tournament.

Have you ever heard of Henrik Stenson? He's a very good golfer, but not exactly a household name (unless, of course, you are from Sweden). He is, however, the highest ranked golfer participating in this week's BMW Asian Open in Shanghai. Ernie Els, Luke Donald and David Howell all pulled out of the tournament, citing one ailment or another. It's leading some to wonder: Are the world's top athletes allergic to Shanghai? You may remember the mass exodus of top names at the ATP Tennis Masters Cup last fall. And more recently, many of the big guns did not make the trip to the World Short Course Swimming Championships. The South China Morning Post has taken to calling this the "Shanghai Sickness" -- we always thought that was food poisoning. Anyway, here's a list of athletes that don't seem to be current on their Shanghai shots:

• Rent a car in Shanghai, drop it off in Beijing a couple days later -- all for RMB 1,200. We have our doubts whether this deal is available to foreigners, but right now it is only open to Shouqi Car Leasing Co.'s 10,000 members. Why? They don't want people driving off with their cars: "The high proportion of people who rent cars but fail to return them has been a major hurdle in China. About 6 percent of the entire Beijing rental fleet of 20,000 were stolen last year." Ouch.
• The Masters Cup Tennis Tournament will stay in Shanghai until at least 2008.
• Maybe someday it won't be all about the Maojamens. Replacing Mao's image on Chinese banknotes with Sun Yatsen and Deng Xiaoping, and other CPPCC proposals of interest.

The Hilton Shanghai looked less like a hotel and more like an airport when Shanghaiist visited last night. Set up in the foyer was an x-ray machine exactly like the ones you find at Pudong or any other international airport, and each guest who entered the hotel was asked to put their luggage on the conveyor belt for a security check. Unlike when we travel home from China for a holiday, Shanghaiist wasn’t harbouring 400 DVDs and 10 Xiangyang watches in our bag, so we had nothing to be nervous about.

The field is finally set for the Tennis Masters Cup, which comes to Shanghai's brand-spankin'-new Qi Zhong Stadium (pictured) November 13-20. Competing in "the final showdown" are some of the biggest names in men's tennis. (Also competing are guys named Ivan Ljubicic, Guillermo Coria and Nikolay Davydenko.) Players headed to Shanghai you may have heard of are Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt and Andre Agassi.

We will soon find out. The HSBC Champions golf tournament hits Shanghai's Sheshan Golf Club -- which touts itself on its website as "Shanghai's first truly private and exclusive 'members only' golf club" -- November 10-13. Private. Exclusive. That about sums it up. Tickets for the tournament are RMB 500 (around $60) for Thursday and Friday and RMB 1,000 for Saturday and Sunday. A tournament pass that includes all days is RMB 2,000, just RMB 319 more than the monthly income for the average Shanghai household. Not exactly the best way to grow Chinese interest in golf from the bottom up, as is necessary. But who cares about that? Tiger is coming to town!