BBC says Delhi to hit 0°C on Feb 1st

Acc. to BBC’s weather forecast, National Capital Delhi will record its lowest ever temperature in 72 years, tomorrow – February 1st! The temperature will drop to 0° Centigrade i.e. freezing temperatures!

Over the last few days, the mercury is dipping and if the weather forecast is correct, Friday could be Delhi’s coldest day in 72 years. The BBC weather forecast says the minimum will hit zero on Friday. [Yahoo News]

Indian Meteorological Department, however says it won’t touch zero but ‘may’ reach 1°C! As if that one degree will make any difference! Delhi’ites, better be prepared for the chill. Am lucky to be down south in Hyderabad, where the forecast says it will be a bright and sunny day tomorrow with an estimated temperature of 24°C

Movie Review: Sunday

I knew from the moment I caught the first trailer of Sunday that it was a remake of the Telugu film Anukokunda Oka Roju; thanks to all the missing Sunday rigmarole. AOR was a much hyped and revered movie but one which I found to be a complete dud, an ignominy, an apology of a movie! With that apprehension hangover, I wouldn’t have seen Sunday at all if it weren’t for the trailers that seemed to hint that it was a comedy caper and also Director Rohit Shetty’s pedigree (with Zameen and Golmaal behind him). So I threw caution to the winds and saw Sunday….on a Monday

(Spam) Milestone II

Akismet has caught 50,598 spam for you since you first installed it.

That’s quite a lot of spam, considering that moi Blog contains about 650 posts which have received a little over 2200 legit comments! Of course, I keep deleting oh-so-many seemingly-legit-but-inane-nevertheless comments but even then this is an extremely high number of junk! Thanks Akismet! This place would have been a dumpster if it weren’t for you (or else I’d have become a madman trying to manually delete all those spam comments!)

P.S: I harked back to the Archives and guess what! A little under an year ago (Feb 25th) the legit comments count stood at 1000 whilst spam count had touched 10000. And a year down the line, comments have doubled whereas spam has multiplied five times!!!

Djokovic it is!

Novak Djokovic is the Australian Open Tennis Champion for the year 2008. The No. 3 seed Djokovic beat unseeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in a pulsating match that lasted four sets. The eventual scoreline was 4-6  6-4  6-3  7-6 (7-2). Djokovic thus becomes the first Serbian to win a Grand Slam title and the youngest ever Australian Open Champion (at the Melbourne Park venue) [Match Report]

It was always fancied to be a Federer-Nadal final but these two players beat their much-fancied rivals in the Semi Finals to book their place in the Finals and what a match it was! It was Tsonga who drew first blood as he won the first set 6-4 on the back of a couple of break points. I’d thought that since Djokovic had the big-stage-experience, he would do all the dictating in the match but I was wrong, as far as the first set goes! But the Serb reasserted himself and produced a much more disciplined and aggressive Tennis to take the second set, breaking Tsonga’s serve in the seventh game and closing the set 6-4. The third set too went Djokovic’s way as Tsonga was beginning to get frustrated at Djokovic’s long service times and his own errors. An early break allowed Djokovic to gain the lead and he built upon it to take the third set 6-3. Tsonga came back strongly in the fourth set and the games went with the serve. Although both players had chances at a break, they couldn’t capitalise and the set went into a tiebreak. Djokovic produced some scintillating passes and forehands to gallop away into the lead and a Tsonga double-fault later, he served out the match to take the Championship!

Earlier in the day, India’s Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza lost the Mixed Doubles’ Final to Nenad Zimonjic and Tiantian Sun in straight sets. Sania was carrying a niggling injury and the duo never got into the kind of rhythm that saw them reach the Finals. [Match Report]

Sharapova Triumphs

Maria Sharapova has won the Australian Open Tennis title by beating Ana Ivanovic in two sets [7-5 6-3]. And it was exactly what I had predicted a few days ago (“P.S: I’m tipping Sharapova to come up trumps in the Ladies’ Finals and FedEx to win the Men’s!”). Well, I know the latter part of that sentence isn’t going to come true but hey, Sharu won yaar! Thats good enough. And unlike yesterday, I did get to see the replay of the match and the entire presentation ceremony later. Sharapova was the fastest off the blocks and even broke Inanovic’s serve to get ahead but a couple of double faults brought the game level again. But Sharu converted another break point and won the first set. Second set was more easy for Sharu as she broke Ivanovic’s serve in the seventh and ninth games to win the set, match and championship. [Match Report]

This is Sharapova’s third Grand Slam title after the Wimbledon and US Open and with the French Open coming up, she has a chance at the Career Grand Slam!
And she’s still 20! Well done Sharu….

Republic Day Salute

Long live The Republic of India.

P.S: Lazybug‘s got an interesting patriotic story to share with us.

FedEx Derailed

World No.1 and defending champion Roger Federer has been beaten in the Australian Open Semi-Finals. Third seed and the man widely tipped to be Federer’s real challenger, Novak Djokovic, beat him in straight sets to book his place in Sunday’s Final against unseeded Frenchman Jo-Wilifried Tsonga. Djokovic won the match 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 on the back of good breaks of serve and some uncharacteristic unforced errors from Federer. 2008 won’t see a Federer Grand Slam, as many had hoped for!

Match Reports: BBC Sport | Australian Open Homepage

I would love to catch this match’s highlights. But I know that I won’t be able to Given my cable op’s obsession with the full match replay of the Ind Vs. Aus Test Match and WWE, Star Cricket and Ten Sports will be the only Sports channels available at night!!! Guess I’ll have to make do with News reports etc.

Coming back to the Tennis, its going to be Djokovic Vs. Tsonga in the Final on Sunday….will be an interesting one to watch! I guess they haven’t played each other before and that will make it all the more tough to make predictions. Me tipping Djokovic to win his first Grand Slam title…he’s got the experience and nerves for it.

Sharapova Wins! Rafa Loses!

The Australian Open is easing into the decisive phase and today’s matches featured a straightforward victory, a come-from-behind-win and another a stunner of a result!

In the Women’s Singles Semi-Finals, it was a battle of two ova’s against two ovic’s. Fifth seed Maria Sharapova eased to a straight sets victory over third seed Jelena Jankovic and in the other semi-final, fourth seed Ana Ivanovic came from being 0-6 down to win against ninth seed Daniela Hantuchova.

But the real surprise of the day came in the Men’s Singles Semi-Finals as World No. 2 and second seed Rafael Nadal was beaten in straight sets by unseeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga! That puts to rest the hopes of another of the Rafa Vs. Fed Final! But of course, Federer has to beat Novak Djokovic first in their Semi-Final.

P.S: I’m tipping Sharapova to come up trumps in the Ladies’ Finals and FedEx to win the Men’s!

[Australian Open Website]