Fly My Ideas

Nike and Adidas, the two largest sports brands are dominating in terms of sponsorship in tennis. Big name players like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, and Maria Sharapova are under contract with Nike. While top ranked players like Novak Djokovic and Simona Halep have sponsorship agreements with Adidas.   Here is a list of all the sponsors for all top 16 men and women tennis players: (excluding non-tennis sponsors) *World rankings are based on January 31st 2016 World Ranking: Name: Apparel Sponsor: Shoe Sponsor: Equipment Sponsor: 1 Novak Djokovic (SRB) Uniqlo Adidas Head 2 Andy Murray (GBR) Under Armour Under Armour Head 3 Roger Federer (SUI) Nike Nike Wilson 4 Stan Wawrinka (SUI) Yonex Yonex Yonex 5 Rafael Nadal (ESP) Nike Nike Babolat 6 Tomas Berdych (CZE) Adidas Adidas Head 7 Kei Nishikori (JPN) Uniqlo Adidas Wilson 8 David Ferrer (ESP) Lotto Lotto Prince 9 Richard Gasquet (FRA) Le Coq Sportif Asics Head 10 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA) Adidas Adi...

Here we go! The first major of the year - the Australian Open kicks off on Monday in Melbourne. Let’s take a look at both the men and women singles events of the tournament. Men’s Singles It is not a surprise who is heavily favored to win the men's singles title. It would be crazy for any tennis analysts out there to go against Novak Djokovic to win his 11th grand slam title in Melbourne. As Andy Murray quite rightly pointed out, only an off-day from Djokovic will derail his bid for a 6th Australian Open title. Djokovic finished the 2015 calendar year strongly by winning the ATP World Tour Finals in London and started the year by winning in Doha. So, naturally it is hard to go against a guy who made all four grand slam finals last year. But let’s not get carried away. Djokovic will start as the heavy favorite to win the title, but there are definitely lots of other players to look out for. Andy Murray, who has been a finalist four times in this tournament, has a favorabl...

Since Park Joo-bong took over as the head coach of the Japan national badminton team in 2004, the Japanese team has made significant process over the last 10 years. In 2014, Japan won its very first Thomas Cup (Men’s badminton team tournament) by beating former winners - China and Malaysia en route to be only the fourth nation to have ever win the title. The women’s team made it to the Uber Cup Final since 1981 before eventually losing to 13 times Champion - China. Last year, Japan finished runner-up in the Sudirman Cup, the world mixed team badminton championship, losing the final to China. While Japan has made great strides on team competitions, they have yet to produce an Olympic Champion or World Champion in individual competitions under the Park Joo-bong era. The closest Japan has ever came was in the 2012 London Olympics when women doubles pair - Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa won the silver medal after losing the final to Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei of China. But that is a...

Nobody love to lose. Either the passionate sport fan who pay thousands of dollars for his season ticket every year, or the player and manager involved in the match, everybody wants to win the match because victory is always the sweetest. But losing is part of any sports. For most sport fans, when their favorite team starts playing badly or losing games, most people will lay the blame on the manager or the coach. “Fire the manager”, “Sack the coach”. A common comment that you will see instantly on social media pages after a lost game. The theme of calling their manager to quit happened too much on team sports. It is simple. The manager holds the biggest responsibility in making decisions on the field or court. For fans, blaming the lost on one person is the most easiest way to lay the blame on. Anything that doesn’t go right on the field must be the fault of the person who is the decision maker. In today’s sports culture, with the widespread use of social media, more and more execu...

December 24th, 2015 Now is the worst time being a Lakers fan. It’s just that simple, our team suck. The Lakers suck. Nobody expect you to win the NBA title. Nobody expect you to make it to the playoffs. Nobody even expect you to win half of your games. All we want is a better showing than the previous two seasons and make the team WATCHABLE. Is that so hard to ask for? I guess at this point of the season, every Lakers left on this planet (The real fans) have the thinking of win or lose, please just look better on the court. Before the season set off, I gave my team a 30 win target for this season. Now it seems like achieving 20 wins will take some monumental effort from the team. You can blame almost everybody for this awful team: the front office, the coaching staffs, the players. But most Lakers fans and I will put the most blame on Byron Scott. In case you don’t know who he is, he is the coach that stands by the courtside on every Lakers game with his arm crossed. (Sometimes...

Just two months ago, we saw the struggles of Lee Chong Wei. A lost to Lin Dan in the second round at Japan, followed by a lost to a Korean qualifier in the qualifying rounds in Korea. But of course, all these struggles are quickly forgotten, thanks to this great run of form he had in recent tournaments. Chong Wei has won three straight Super Series titles in France, China, and Hong Kong. These victories were even sweeter the fact that he beat both Lin Dan and Chen Long at the same tournament, the first time he has ever done that en route to win his first ever China Super Series title. 5 days after beating Chen Long in the final of the China Super Series event, he continued on his fine form by beating the World number one player once again in Hong Kong. So far this year, Chen Long is the guy to beat in men’s singles. Much like Novak Djokovic in men’s tennis, Chen Long has won 5 super series titles and successfully defended his World Championship title in August. For anybody to ...