Rafael Nadal - A Hot Spanish Tennis Player.

Rafael "Rafa" Nadal Parera (born 3 June 1986) is a former World No. 1 Spanish professional tennis player, currently ranked #3. Nadal has won six Grand Slam singles titles, and the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles. Nadal was ranked World Number #1 from 18 August 2008 to 5 July 2009. In 2009, he became the first player to simultaneously hold Grand Slam titles on clay, grass, and hardcourt. His success on clay has earned him the nickname The King of Clay.

Nadal was ranked World No. 2, behind Roger Federer for a record 160 weeks before earning the top spot. He has subsequently lost this position again to Federer following the Swiss player's triumph at the 2009 Madrid Masters (where Federer beat him in the final), French Open and Wimbledon. In 2008, he was given the Prince of Asturias Award for Sports, in recognition of his achievements in tennis.

Nadal generally plays an aggressive behind-the-baseline game founded on heavy topspin groundstrokes, consistency, speedy footwork, and tenacious court coverage. Known for his athleticism and speed around the court, Nadal is a capable defender who hits well on the run, constructing winning plays from seemingly defensive positions. He also plays very fine dropshots, which work especially well because his heavy topspin often forces opponents to the back of the court. Nadal is primarily a baseliner and seldom volleys but when Nadal does come to the net he is a capable volleyer.

Nadal and Federer have been playing against each other since 2004, and this rivalry is a significant part of both men's careers:

* They are the only men in the open era who have played each other in 7 Grand Slam finals, with Nadal winning 5 of the 7 finals. Three of these 5 wins were on Nadal's best surface (clay), and he has beaten Federer twice in non-clay major finals: Wimbledon 2008 and the Australian Open 2009.
* Their 2008 Wimbledon final has been lauded as the greatest match of all time by many long-time tennis critics.
* Many critics consider their rivalry to be the greatest in tennis history.
* Nine of Nadal's 13 wins over Federer have come on clay courts, Nadal's best surface. Nadal leads their overall head-to-head series 13-7 (Nadal leads 9-2 on clay, Federer leads 2-1 on grass, nobody leads (3-3) on hard courts).

History of bord game - CHESS

Chess is a recreational and competitive board game played between two players. The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older games of Indian and Persian origin. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.

The game is played on a square chequered chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player (one controlling the white pieces, the other controlling the black pieces) controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king, whereby the king is under immediate attack (in "check") and there is no way to remove it from attack on the next move.

The tradition of organized competitive chess started in the 16th century and has developed extensively. Chess today is a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee. The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Viswanathan Anand is the current World Champion.

Chess is commonly believed to have originated in India during the Gupta empire, where its early form in the 6th century was known as catura?ga, which translates as "four divisions [of the military]" – infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariotry, represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively. Both the Persians and Arabs attribute the game of chess to the Indians. In Sassanid Persia around 600 the name became shatranj and the rules were developed further. Shatranj was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia, with the pieces largely retaining their Persian names. In Spanish "shatranj" was rendered as ajedrez, in Portuguese as xadrez, and in Greek as zatrikion, but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shah ("king"), which was familiar as an exclamation and became our words "check and chess". Murray theorized that this change happened from Muslim traders coming to European seaports with ornamental chess kings as curios before they brought the game of chess.

The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout Europe. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th-century manuscript covering shatranj, backgammon, and dice named the Libro de los juegos.

Another theory contends that chess arose from the game xiangqi (Chinese Chess) or one of its predecessors. Around 1200, rules of shatranj started to be modified in southern Europe, and around 1475, several major changes made the game essentially as it is known today. These modern rules for the basic moves had been adopted in Italy and Spain. Pawns gained the option of advancing two squares on their first move, while bishops and queens acquired their modern abilities. The queen replaced the earlier vizier chess piece towards the end of the 10th century and by the 15th century, had become the most powerful piece; consequently modern chess was referred to as "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess". These new rules quickly spread throughout western Europe, with the exception of the rules about stalemate, which were finalized in the early 19th century. To distinguish it from its predecessors, this version of the rules is sometimes referred to as western chess or international chess.

Writings about the theory of how to play chess began to appear in the 15th century. The oldest surviving printed chess book, Repetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez (Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess) by Spanish churchman Luis Ramirez de Lucena was published in Salamanca in 1497. Lucena and later masters like Portuguese Pedro Damiano, Italians Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona, Giulio Cesare Polerio and Gioachino Greco or Spanish bishop Ruy López de Segura developed elements of openings and started to analyze simple endgames.

In the 18th century the center of European chess life moved from the Southern European countries to France. The two most important French masters were François-André Danican Philidor, a musician by profession, who discovered the importance of pawns for chess strategy, and later Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais who won a famous series of matches with the Irish master Alexander McDonnell in 1834. Centers of chess life in this period were coffee houses in big European cities like Café de la Régence in Paris and Simpson's Divan in London.

As the 19th century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess clubs, chess books and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches between cities; for example the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh Chess Club in 1824. Chess problems became a regular part of 19th-century newspapers; Bernhard Horwitz, Josef Kling and Samuel Loyd composed some of the most influential problems. In 1843, von der Lasa published his and Bilguer's Handbuch des Schachspiels (Handbook of Chess), the first comprehensive manual of chess theory.

History of CRICKET. The development of Cricket game.

Early cricket was at some time or another described as "a club striking a ball (like) the ancient games of club-ball, stool-ball, trap-ball, stob-ball". Cricket can definitely be traced back to Tudor times in early 16th-century England. Written evidence exists of a game known as creag being played by Prince Edward, the son of Edward I (Longshanks), at Newenden, Kent in 1301 and there has been speculation, but no evidence, that this was a form of cricket.

A number of other words have been suggested as sources for the term "cricket". In the earliest definite reference to the sport in 1598, it is called creckett. Given the strong medieval trade connections between south-east England and the County of Flanders when the latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, the name may have been derived from the Middle Dutch krick(-e), meaning a stick (crook); or the Old English cricc or cryce meaning a crutch or staff. In Old French, the word criquet seems to have meant a kind of club or stick. In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, he derived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick". Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word krickstoel, meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in church and which resembled the long low wicket with two stumps used in early cricket. According to Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of Bonn University, "cricket" derives from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, met de (krik ket)sen (i.e., "with the stick chase"). Herr Gillmeister believes that not only the name but the sport itself is of Flemish origin, given an apparent reference found in a 1533 poem called The Image of Ipocrisie, attributed to John Skelton, which suggests a Flemish connection in early cricket.

In 1598, a court case referred to a sport called creckett being played by boys at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford around 1550. This is the sport's earliest definite mention. It is believed that it was originally a children's game but references around 1610 indicate that adults had started playing it and the earliest reference to inter-parish or village cricket occurs soon afterwards. In 1624, a player called Jasper Vinall was killed when he was struck on the head during a match between two parish teams in Sussex.


Royal Grammar School, Guildford

During the 17th century, numerous references indicate the growth of cricket in the south-east of England. By the end of the century, it had become an organised activity being played for high stakes and it is believed that the first professionals appeared in the years following the Restoration in 1660. A newspaper report survives of "a great cricket match" with eleven players a side that was played for high stakes in Sussex in 1697 and this is the earliest known reference to a cricket match of such importance.

The game underwent major development in the 18th century and became the national sport of England. Betting played a major part in that development with rich patrons forming their own "select XIs". Cricket was prominent in London as early as 1707 and large crowds flocked to matches on the Artillery Ground in Finsbury. The single wicket form of the sport attracted huge crowds and wagers to match. Bowling evolved around 1760 when bowlers began to pitch the ball instead of rolling or skimming it towards the batsman. This caused a revolution in bat design because, to deal with the bouncing ball, it was necessary to introduce the modern straight bat in place of the old "hockey stick" shape. The Hambledon Club was founded in the 1760s and, for the next 20 years until the formation of MCC and the opening of Lord's Old Ground in 1787, Hambledon was both the game's greatest club and its focal point. MCC quickly became the sport's premier club and the custodian of the Laws of Cricket. New Laws introduced in the latter part of the 18th century included the three stump wicket and leg before wicket (lbw).


The 19th century saw underarm bowling replaced by first roundarm and then overarm bowling. Both developments were controversial. Organisation of the game at county level led to the creation of the county clubs, starting with Sussex CCC in 1839, which ultimately formed the official County Championship in 1890. Meanwhile, the British Empire had been instrumental in spreading the game overseas and by the middle of the 19th century it had become well established in India, North America, the Caribbean, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In 1844, the first ever international cricket match took place between the United States and Canada (although neither has ever been ranked as a Test-playing nation).


In 1859, a team of England players went on the first overseas tour (to North America) and in 1862, an English team made the first tour of Australia. In 1876-77, an England team took part in the first-ever Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground against Australia.

W G Grace started his long career in 1865; his career is often said to have revolutionised the sport. The rivalry between England and Australia gave birth to The Ashes in 1882 and this has remained Test cricket's most famous contest. Test cricket began to expand in 1888-89 when South Africa played England. The last two decades before the First World War have been called the "Golden Age of Cricket". It is a nostalgic name prompted by the collective sense of loss resulting from the war, but the period did produce some great players and memorable matches, especially as organised competition at county and Test level developed.


The inter-war years were dominated by one player: Don Bradman, statistically the greatest batsman of all time. It was the determination of the England team to overcome his skill that brought about the infamous Bodyline series in 1932/33 particularly from the accurate short pitched bowling of Harold Larwood. Test cricket continued to expand during the 20th century with the addition of West Indies, India and New Zealand before the Second World War and then Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the post-war period. However, South Africa was banned from international cricket from 1970 to 1992 because of its government's apartheid policy.

Cricket entered a new era in 1963, when English counties introduced the limited overs variant. As it was sure to produce a result, limited overs cricket was lucrative and the number of matches increased. The first Limited Overs International was played in 1971. The governing International Cricket Council saw its potential and staged the first limited overs Cricket World Cup in 1975. In the 21st century, a new limited overs form, Twenty20, has made an immediate impact.