Skip to main content

January 2015

First of all, Happy New Year! (I know it’s a little bit late saying that)

Since it is a new year, let’s look ahead to what’s interesting ahead on the sports calendar. To be honest, 2015 isn’t the year that where many major sporting events will be held. You will still have your UEFA Champions League Final, World Championships, Grand Slams, Super Bowl, NBA Finals, and also a World Series that involves only two countries. Here are five things I’m looking forward for this year in sports:

1. Can McIlroy complete a “Rory Slam”?
All eyes will be on Rory McIlroy come this April when the Masters begin. Guess who was the last man to hold all four slams at once? It’s none other than Tiger Woods. Tiger was the last man to hold all four slams at once which was way back in 2001. With the Masters being the only major missing from Rory’s trophy cabinet, a win at Augusta will make him a step closer to complete a “Rory Slam”.

2. The End of the “Big Four”?
Honestly, is it a “Big Four” or a “Big Three”? Based on the accomplishments, it’s definitely still a “Big Three” of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic. Will this be the year where the dominance of these guys is officially done? Last year, the world witnessed two new grand slams winner: Wawrinka in the Australian Open and Cilic in the US Open. Who will be stepping up to threaten these guys? Raonic? Dimitrov? Nishikori?

3. Defending the UEFA Champions League Title
There’s always this curse in champions league football that no teams has ever successfully defend their title since the title name was introduced in 1992. Defending champion Real Madrid are in good shape to rewrite history by being the first team to successfully defend their title. Champions league football will return on February 17th when the Round of 16 begins.

4. Rugby World Cup
Perhaps the only major competition this year, the Rugby World Cup is all set in England come September. Defending champion New Zealand will hope that they will be able to win their first World Cup outside of home soil. This will be the eighth edition of the Rugby World Cup. New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and England are the only four countries that has ever won the title. France will definitely hope to nail their first title after losing in three finals.

5. Malaysia’s Badminton Future
The future of Malaysia’s badminton seems gloomy and bleakly. With Lee Chong Wei out indefinitely due to failed doping test, there are no players in the rank that are good enough to fill his shoes. All eyes will be on the coaching team changes in March when great Dane Morten Frost takes over as the performance director of the national badminton team. Hopefully the national badminton team will able to gain back those glory days we once had with a new man at the helm.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

[Badminton] Marching to Rio

Victory in Malaysia means Lee Chong Wei is back on track, but the race to Rio remains wide open. As the shuttle from Chen Long sailed long behind the backline, Lee Chong Wei raised his arms high into the air, signalling to the home crowd the moment of the victory. His 11th Malaysian Men’s Singles title, a timely boost for his confidence after suffering two early exits in the last two tournaments. Although it wasn’t a competitive match as many predicted, nevertheless it was a comprehensive and convincing win for Malaysia’s badminton superstar. The victory over Chen Long also means that Chong Wei has levelled their head to head record to twelve a piece, having also won the last two meetings at China and Hong Kong in November. While Sunday’s performance wasn’t the best from Chen Long, struggling badly with the drift inside Melawati Stadium, the three victories over Chen Long signals that Chong Wei might have found the exact game plan to expose Chen Long’s weaknesses. Similar to victor
1 comment
Read more

Brazil's Painful Postmortem

Losing two straight matches, conceding 10 goals in the final two matches isn’t the way you want to end your World Cup especially when you are playing at home. Tears of sorrow, the voices of disappointment surrounded every Brazil fans all around the world. It was a massive let down for the Brazilians considering they had high hopes for this team to win the World Cup for the sixth time. Now, it’s all done and dusted. Considering how eventful it was leading up to this World Cup, this certainly wasn’t a football festival the Brazilians have wished for. After all those horrific moments on the pitch, now it’s the time to sit down and analyze what could have been undo to get better results. At the end of the day, we need to face the truth - This Brazil team is not good enough. It’s unfair to say this is the worst Brazilian team by judging on their 1-7 defeat to Germany. But this team is definitely not the best they had over the years. Let’s start with their manager. Luiz Felipe Sc
1 comment
Read more

After My Test

          By this time of my life, I had already encountered hundreds or possibly thousands of exams, tests, quizzes or whatever similar to these. Of course before the exam, you studied hard hoping to score a good grade in the test. But often the reality doesn’t sound like that. Sometimes you did better than you expected, sometimes worse than you expected. I guess the scenario of the latter happens more often than the first one for me.           Of course, you wait for your results of the test. After your test paper is being distributed by your instructor back, you take a look at the score then flip it through and see what are the mistakes being made then you just stuck your paper into the bag. Does that sound familiar?           These actions above are what most students did nowadays including me. Well, recently I have this professor that allows you to resubmit your test to get extra credits. How it works is that he will first mark your paper after the examination. If you have m
1 comment
Read more