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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Yao Ming Best Player of Rockets

Yao Ming (Chinese:pinyin: Yáo Míng; born September 12, 1980) is a professional basketball player who plays for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is currently the tallest player in the NBA, at 2.29 m (7 ft 6 in).

Yao, who was born in Shanghai, People's Republic of China, started playing for the Shanghai Sharks as a teenager, and played on their senior team for five years in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), winning a championship in his final year. He entered the 2002 NBA Draft, and after negotiating with the CBA and the Sharks to secure his release, was selected by the Houston Rockets as the first overall pick of the draft. He has since been selected to start for the Western Conference in the NBA All-Star Game in all seven of his seasons, and has been named to the All-NBA Team four times. However, the Rockets have advanced past the first round of the playoffs only once since he joined the team, and he has missed significant time due to injury in each of the past four seasons.

Yao is married to Ye Li, a former player for the China women's national basketball team. He is one of China's best-known athletes, with sponsorships with several major companies, and he has been the richest celebrity in China for six straight years. His rookie year in the NBA was the subject of a documentary film, The Year of the Yao, and he co-wrote, along with NBA analyst Ric Bucher, an autobiography titled Yao: A Life in Two Worlds.

By : Wikipedia.com

Houston Rockets

Houston Rockets Picture Team

The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston, Texas. The team plays in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in National Basketball Association (NBA). The team was established in 1967, and played in San Diego, California for four years, before being moved to Houston, Texas.

In the Rockets debut season, they won only 15 games. But after drafting Elvin Hayes first overall in the 1969 NBA Draft, they made their first appearance in the playoffs in 1969. After Hayes was traded, Moses Malone was acquired to replace him. Malone won two MVPs during his time in Houston, and he led the Rockets to the conference finals in his first year with the Rockets. He also took the Rockets to the NBA Finals in 1981, but they were defeated in six games by the Boston Celtics.

In 1984, the Rockets drafted future Hall-of-Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, who led them to the 1986 Finals in his second year, where they lost again to Boston. In the next seven seasons, they lost in the first round of the playoffs five times. They did not win their first championship until 1994, when Olajuwon led them to the championship, and 1995. However, the Rockets did not advance to the finals again, and missed the playoffs from 1999–2003. They did not reach the playoffs again until they drafted Yao Ming and they did not advance past the first round of the playoffs again until 2009.

By : Wikipedia.com

Monday, May 11, 2009

Roger Federer

Roger Federer (born on August 8, 1981) is a Swiss professional tennis player who is currently ranked World No. 2. He was the World No. 1 ranked player for a record 237 consecutive weeks, from February 2, 2004, to August 17, 2008. Federer is widely considered one of the greatest male singles tennis players of all time.

Federer has won 13 Grand Slam singles titles (3 Australian Open, 5 Wimbledon, 5 US Open), currently just one shy of all-time leader Pete Sampras. He also has won 4 ATP World Tour Finals titles, 14 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles, and 26 standard ATP tour titles. He holds numerous records in the sport, including having appeared in 10 consecutive Grand Slam men's singles finals (2005 Wimbledon Championships through the 2007 US Open) and 19 consecutive Grand Slam singles semifinals (2004 Wimbledon–present). He also holds the open era records for most consecutive wins on both grass courts (65) and hard courts (56). He also has a storied rivalry with Spaniard Rafael Nadal, who succeeded Federer as the World No. 1 player in 2008.

As a result of Federer's successes in the sport, he has been named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year for 4 consecutive years (2005–08).

By : Wikipedia.com

Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal Parera (born June 3, 1986) is a Spanish professional tennis player who has been ranked World No. 1 since August 18, 2008. He has won six Grand Slam singles titles and the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles. He has captured the last four French Open singles titles, joining Björn Borg in 2008 as the only other man to have won four consecutive singles titles there. In 2008, Nadal became the second Spanish man to win Wimbledon. Nadal is only the third male player in the open era to have won the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year, and the first since 1980 (Borg). In 2009, Nadal became the first Spaniard to win the Australian Open

Since 2004, Nadal has had a storied rivalry with Roger Federer, which many consider to be among the greatest in tennis history. They are the only men in the open era who have played each other in seven Grand Slam finals, with Nadal winning five of those matches. Nadal was ranked World No. 2 behind Federer for a record 160 weeks before earning the top spot. Nadal has won 13 of their 19 singles matches, as well as all five of their most recent encounters.

Nadal has been especially successful on clay courts. He has a 25–1 record in clay court tournament finals and is undefeated in 45 best-of-five-set matches on clay. In each of the last four years, he has won both the French Open and two clay court Masters Series tournaments. He also owns the longest single-surface winning streak by a man in the open era, having won 81 consecutive matches on clay from April 2005 to May 2007. As a result, some tennis critics and top players already regard him as the greatest clay-court player of all time.

On August 18, 2008, for the first time ever Nadal clinched the year-end World No. 1 ranking for 2008. The same year, he was given the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for his achievements in sports.

BY : Wikipedia.com