Argentina peg Sweden back in Davis Cup slugfest
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer aced his way past Joachim Johansson 5-7 6-3 7-5 6-4 to level the Davis Cup first-round tie after world number seven Robin Soderling had given Sweden a 1-0 lead earlier on Friday.
Johansson, a former top-10 player, served 19 aces but was undone by world number 73 Mayer who hammered 28 of his own.
“He served well but I served better,” Mayer said through an interpreter.
Johansson, now ranked 373rd in the world, looked as if he might pull off an upset when he pounced on a loose service game from Mayer before closing out the first set with an ace.
Mayer though proved too solid, outperforming the Swede in most departments.
In the opening contest Soderling overcame a mid-match wobble to beat Eduardo Schwank 6-1 7-6 7-5.
“I feel good,” said Soderling who will play alongside Robert Lindstedt in Saturday’s doubles. “It’s a straight-sets win and I have to be happy with that.”
Nobel notebook: Dancing queens and rule breakers
The sight of Nobel laureates and the great and good of Sweden dancing to big-band renditions of “The Theme from Rocky” or the music of Earth, Wind and Fire has to be among the more surreal experiences I’ve had in Stockholm. Decked out in evening wear, with their medals and sashes, they twirled, shimmied and occasionally bumped-and-grinded in the ballroom above the banquet hall, where the King of Sweden had recently toasted to the memory of Alfred Nobel.
Welcome to the glittering Nobel banquet, the grand finale of the Nobel Week festivities that celebrate achievements in the arts and sciences.
There was Herta Mueller, the Romanian-born German writer now famous for having stood up to Nicolae Ceausescu’s thugs. She is a small, slight woman with a very serious face. Hardly a surprise since she has had a very serious life. It was a point not lost on those who heard her speech during the banquet as she talked of friends who helped her on her journey and now lay in graves. But she was out there with the best of them, swaying to the music and occasionally revealing a smile.
I spoke to her briefly, to let her know that I had a close friend who had grown up in circumstances like hers, among the German-speaking minority who were second-class citizens in Ceausescu’s Romania. She was gracious and seemed bemused by all the attention she was suddenly receiving.
Mueller has taken full advantage of that attention to highlight the cause that matters to her, human dignity. She alone gave an extended speech to the 1,300 guests, a small break of protocol. The other laureates had brief, often humorous speech-ettes. Mueller described “the path of a child who once tended cows in a valley” all the way to the banquet hall that night.
Dedicating the prize to the memory of people whose lives were destroyed by dictators, she called on the world to fight dictatorships, branding Iran as one. Russia and China, she said, have only “cloaked themselves in civil overcoats”.
Mueller broke protocol in other ways – something she is clearly used to doing. Wearing black, as she has all week, is apparently discouraged for women at the Nobel banquet.
Polish c.banker sees rates up in 2010
WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish interest rates should not fall further and some tightening of monetary policy will likely be needed next year to ensure inflation remains contained, central bank policymaker Dariusz Filar said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Reuters Central European Investment Summit shortly after the Polish central bank kept interest rates on hold, Filar also said high levels of public debt were the main challenge facing Poland’s economy in the next few years.
“I am of the opinion that we are exactly at the level of interest rate which gives us the chance to achieve the (inflation) target, maybe already next year… I do not see a reason to reduce interest rates,” Filar said.
Reviving growth next year will put upward pressure on prices, said Filar, a member of the bank’s 10-strong Monetary Policy Council (MPC), adding: “I do not see significant rises in interest rates next year.”
Poland’s central bank targets inflation of 2.5 percent. In August annual consumer price inflation stood at 3.7 percent.
Earlier, the MPC left its main interest rate at a record low 3.5 percent, as expected. It has cut rates by 250 basis points since last November.
Filar said it would take a relatively long time before Poland returned to potential growth.
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