News & Views

World Cup

Germany is hosting the football world cup. A true WORLD CUP. The statistics speak for themselves: 32 teams; 63 matches; 352 players. Virtually all the countries of the world play football. The thirty-two teams participating in the present world cup are those, which qualified through a series of matches played in zones across the world.

Brazil the winners of the previous world cup started as the tournament favourites. However they lost their way at the quarterfinals. The quarterfinals sent four teams from the European Continent to the semifinals, ensuring that the cup would remain in Europe.

Sport is a great leveller. Super powers, whether, through sheer might or through economic clout, do not necessarily excel in it. Thus otherwise small, little known nations, from Africa and South America, reach great heights in this sport.

Another cup and a dish

The football world cup comes every four years. This year it has relegated another sport, which finds representatives from many countries participating in it. LAWN TENNIS. Football is a team sport; Tennis is an individual’s game. The football world cup has taken away much of the interest in the tennis event of the year: the Wimbledon Tournament played in Great Britain. The football event is strictly “men only”, ladies are found only as spectators. The tennis tournament boasts of equality on this count: a cup for the men’s winner and a dish for the women’s winner.

Tennis greats of yesteryear are part of the Wimbledon folklore. The marathon matches between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe in the eighties and followed by those between Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker and Women Stars like, Chris Evert and Stefi Graf, are part of this folklore. The Indian players like Vijay Amritraj, Leander Pace and Mahesh Bhupati and lately Sania Mirza have kindled interest in this sport in India.