About Facebook and Mark Elliot Zuckerberg

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook Inc. As of February 2012, Facebook has more than 845 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other. Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The Web site's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over. However, based on ConsumersReports.org in May 2011, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts and 5 million under 10, violating the site's terms of service.

Facebook

A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users. Entertainment Weekly included the site on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?" Quantcast estimates Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May 2011. According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account. Nevertheless, Facebook's market growth started to stall in some regions, with the site losing 7 million active users in the United States and Canada in May 2011. Facebook filed for an initial public offering on February 1, 2012.

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg 

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive. It was co-founded as a private company in 2004 by Zuckerberg and classmates Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, and Chris Hughes while they were students at Harvard University. In 2010, Zuckerberg was named Time magazine's Person of the Year. As of 2011, his personal wealth was estimated to be $17.5 billion making him one of the world's youngest billionaires.



Zuckerberg was born in 1984 in White Plains, New York to Karen, a psychiatrist, and Edward Zuckerberg, a dentist. He and his three sisters, Randi, Donna, and Arielle,were brought up in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Zuckerberg was raised Jewish and had his bar mitzvah when he turned 13; he has since described himself as an atheist.
At Ardsley High School, Zuckerberg had excelled in the classics before transferring to Phillips Exeter Academy in his junior year, where he won prizes in science (math, astronomy and physics) and classical studies (on his college application, Zuckerberg listed as non-English languages he could read and write: French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek) and was a fencing star and captain of the fencing team.In college, he was known for reciting lines from epic poems such as The Iliad.
At a party put on by his fraternity during his sophomore year, Zuckerberg met Priscilla Chan, a Chinese-American fellow student originally from the Boston suburbs,and they began dating in 2003. In September 2010, Zuckerberg invited Chan, by then a medical student at the University of California, San Francisco, to move into his rented Palo Alto house. Zuckerberg studied Mandarin Chinese in preparation for the couple's visit to China in December 2010.
On Zuckerberg's Facebook page, he listed his personal interests as "openness, making things that help people connect and share what's important to them, revolutions, information flow, minimalism".Zuckerberg sees blue best because of red–green colorblindness; blue is also Facebook's dominant color.

Social games on Facebook

A social network game is a type of online game that is played through social networks, and typically features multiplayer and asynchronous gameplay mechanics. Social network games are most often implemented as browser games, but can also be implemented on other platforms such as mobile devices. They are amongst the most popular games played in the world, with several products with tens of millions of players. (Lil) Green Patch, Happy Farm,Farm Town, YoVille and Mob Wars were some of the first successful games of this genre. FrontierVille, CityVille, Gardens of Time and The Sims Social are more recent examples of very popular social network games.
While they share many aspects of traditional video games, social network games often employ additional ones that make them distinct.
Companies that make social network games include market leader Zynga, 5 Minutes, Playfish, Playdom, Kabam, Crowdstar, RockYou, Booyah, Row Sham Bow, Inc etc.

Facebook social game companies who are the most successful ones.

Technology & Platforms

A social network video game can be created with any number of traditional video game technologies, however the majority are implemented in Adobe Flash, PHP or JavaScript. Some games may use a combination of these technologies.

A social network game is often played via a web browser, though they are distinct from browser based games in the way they leverage the player's social graph and individual user data that is hosted on the social network. With the invention of smartphone devices, social games have now also seen widespread adoption on mobile platforms such as iOS and Android devices. This is enabled through mobile social networks such as OpenFeint and through Oauth implementations by social networking sites like Facebook which allow applications on mobile devices to access a limited amount of protected user data on those sites. Through an in-app connection to these networks, users can be provided with an experience very similar to that of a web based social game. It's been predicted that social gaming will bring over 6 billion dollars in revenue, by 2013.

About John Robert Isner

John Robert Isner (born April 26, 1985) is an American professional tennis player. He achieved his career-high rank of no. 10 on March 19, 2012, and is currently the second highest-ranked American tennis player behind Mardy Fish. His most famous victories were against Roger Federer in the Davis Cup encounter in February 2012, no. 1 ranked Novak Djokovic at the 2012 Masters 1000 tournament in Indian Wells, Andy Roddick in the 2009 US Open, and against Nicolas Mahut at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships where he played the longest ever professional tennis match, which lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes over the course of three days.

John Robert Isner 

Collegiate career

Isner played collegiate tennis at the University of Georgia from 2004 to 2007 and became the school's all-time leader in singles and doubles victories, earning All-American honors each of his four years and leading Georgia to the 2007 NCAA championship.

John Robert Isner 

About Maria Sharapova

Maria  Sharapova ( born April 19, 1987) is a Russian professional tennis player and former world no. 1. A United States resident since 1994, Sharapova has won 24 WTA singles titles, including three Grand Slam singles titles at the 2004 Wimbledon, 2006 US Open and 2008 Australian Open. She has also won the year-end WTA Tour Championships in 2004. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked Sharapova world no. 1 in singles on four separate occasions. She became the world no. 1 for the first time on August 22, 2005, and last regained the ranking for the fourth time on May 19, 2008. As of March 19, 2012, Sharapova is ranked world no. 2. She has been in six Grand Slam finals with the final record 3–3.
Sharapova made her professional breakthrough in 2004 at age 17, when she defeated two-time defending champion and top seed Serena Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final for her first Grand Slam singles title. She entered the top 10 of the WTA Rankings with the win. Despite not winning a major in 2005, Sharapova briefly held the no. 1 ranking, and reached three Grand Slam semifinals, losing to the eventual champion each time. She won her second major at the 2006 US Open defeating then-world no. 1 Amélie Mauresmo in the semifinals and world no. 2 Justine Henin in the final.

Maria  Sharapova 

Sharapova's 2007 season was plagued with a chronic shoulder injury and saw her ranking fall out of the top 5 for the first time in two years. She won her third Grand Slam at the 2008 Australian Open, defeating Henin in the quarterfinals and Ana Ivanović in the final. After reclaiming the no. 1 ranking in May 2008, Sharapova's shoulder problems re-surfaced, requiring surgery in October and forcing her out of the game for 10 months. Sharapova returned in May 2009 and was ranked no. 126 in the world due to her extensive lay-off. Since her comeback, Sharapova has won five singles titles (bringing her career total to 24) and improved her ranking to no. 2 in the world.

Maria  Sharapova 

Sharapova has been featured in a number of modeling assignments, including a feature in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She has been featured in many advertisements, including for Nike, Prince and Canon, and is the face of several fashion houses, most notably Cole Haan. Sharapova was the most searched-for athlete on Yahoo! in 2005 and 2008. Since February 2007, she has been a United Nations Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador, concerned specifically with the Chernobyl Recovery and Development Programme. In June 2011, she was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time.

Maria  Sharapova 

Early life

Maria Sharapova's parents, Yuri and Elena, are from Gomel, Belarus. Concerned about the regional effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, they left their homeland shortly before Sharapova was born.When Sharapova was two, the family moved to Sochi. There her father befriended Aleksandr Kafelnikov, whose son Yevgeny would go on to win two Grand Slam singles titles and became Russia's first no. 1 world-ranked tennis player. Aleksandr gave Sharapova her first tennis racket at the age of four, whereupon she began practicing regularly with her father at a local park.She took her first tennis lessons with veteran Russian coach Yuri Yutkin, who was instantly impressed when he saw her play, noting her "exceptional hand-eye co-ordination."

At the age of seven, Sharapova attended a tennis clinic in Moscow run by Martina Navrátilová, who recommended professional training at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida, which had previously trained players such as Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, and Anna Kournikova. With money tight, Yuri was forced to borrow the sum that would allow him and his daughter, neither of whom could speak English, to travel to United States, which they finally did in 1994. Visa restrictions prevented Sharapova's mother from joining them for two years. Arriving in Florida with savings of US$700, Sharapova's father took various low-paying jobs, including dish-washing, to fund her lessons until she was old enough to be admitted to the academy. In 1995, she was signed by IMG, who agreed to pay the annual tuition fee of $35,000 for Sharapova to stay at the academy, allowing her to finally enroll at the age of 9.

About Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton,MBE (born 7 January 1985) is a British Formula One racing driver from England, currently racing for the McLaren team. He was the 2008 Formula One World Champion.
Hamilton was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. In December 1995, at the age of ten, he approached McLaren team principal Ron Dennis at the Autosport Awards ceremony and told him, "I want to race for you one day ... I want to race for McLaren." Less than three years later McLaren and Mercedes-Benz signed him to their Young Driver Support Programme. After winning the British Formula Renault, Formula Three Euroseries, and GP2 championships on his way up the racing career ladder, he drove for McLaren in 2007, making his Formula One debut 12 years after his initial encounter with Dennis. Lewis Hamilton's contract for the McLaren driver development program made him the youngest ever driver to secure a contract which later resulted in an F1 drive.

Lewis Hamilton

Coming from a mixed-race background, with a black father and white mother, Hamilton is often labelled "the first black driver in Formula One", although Willy T. Ribbs tested an F1 car in 1986. He is also the first driver of black heritage to win a major race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in any discipline.
In his first season in Formula One, Hamilton set numerous records, while finishing second in the 2007 Formula One Championship, just one point behind Kimi Räikkönen. He won the World Championship the following season, ahead of Felipe Massa by the same margin of a single point. Clinching the crown thanks to passing the dry tyre-shod Timo Glock in the wet on the final lap, to take the necessary fifth position. Following that, prestigious motorsport weekly Autosport dubbed him as Last Lap Lewis. He has stated he wants to stay with the McLaren team for the rest of his F1 career.
Following his 2008 title Hamilton struggled with less competitive McLarens, in spite of taking quite a few Grand Prix wins he was not able to challenge for the 2009 championship, and finished a close fourth in 2010, being in mathematical contention until the final round.

Lewis Hamilton

Personal life

Hamilton was born on 7 January 1985 in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England, and was named after American sprinter Carl Lewis. Hamilton's mother, Carmen Brenda Larbalestier (now married as Carmen Brenda Lockhart and preferring to be known as Brenda), is white British, while his father, Anthony Hamilton, is black British, making him mixed-race, (Anthony Hamilton's parents emigrated from Grenada to the United Kingdom in the 1950s). Lewis Hamilton's parents separated when he was two, as a result of this he lived with his mother and half-sisters Nicola and Samantha until he was twelve, when he started living with his father, stepmother Linda and half-brother Nicolas (who has cerebral palsy).In early 2011, Nicolas signed with Total Control Racing to start a racing career in the 2011 Renault Clio Cup. Hamilton was raised as a Roman Catholic by his father.

About Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel  (born 3 July 1987) is a German Formula One racing driver, currently driving for Red Bull Racing. He is the current World Champion, having won the championship in 2010 and 2011.
In his first year driving for Red Bull in 2009, Vettel finished the season as the youngest-ever World Drivers' championship runner-up. He also secured Red Bull's first pole position and race win in the team's history. The following year he went on to become the youngest driver ever to win the World Drivers' Championship. In the same year he helped Red Bull win the team's first World Constructors' Championship. He followed up his first championship with a second in 2011, becoming the youngest double as well as youngest consecutive champion.
Vettel holds numerous other "youngest" Formula One records, among them: the youngest driver to have taken part in an official practice session of a Grand Prix, to score championship points, to lead a race, to secure pole position, and to win a race.

Sebastian Vettel  

Early and personal life

Vettel was born in Heppenheim, West Germany. He has one younger brother, Fabian, and two older sisters, Melanie and Stefanie. Vettel suggested in an interview that he was terrible at school, but he actually earned his Abitur (high school diploma) with a respectable grade. He also mentioned that his childhood heroes were "The three Michaels", who were Michael Schumacher, Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson. He stated that he wanted to be a singer like Michael Jackson but realised that he could not as he did not have the voice.Vettel is also a fan of The Beatles, collecting several records, including Abbey Road and his favourite song being Drive My Car. In an interview on Top Gear, Vettel stated that he was a fan of British comedy such as Little Britain and Monty Python's Life of Brian. Vettel lives in Switzerland amongst other racing drivers and is a fan of German football team Eintracht Frankfurt. Vettel has described himself as competitive, private and impatient. Vettel also campaigns for Head & Shoulders. In the German version of Cars 2, Vettel featured as a voice-over.

Sebastian Vettel  

About Victoria Azarenka

Victoria Azarenka (born 31 July 1989) is a Belarusian professional tennis player. She is the current World No. 1 as of March 19, 2012.
She won the 2012 Australian Open singles title, becoming the first Belarusian player to win a Grand Slam in singles. Her other achievements include winning two mixed doubles Grand Slam titles, the 2007 US Open with Max Mirnyi and the 2008 French Open with Bob Bryan.

Victoria Azarenka 

Personal life

At age 16, Azarenka moved to Scottsdale, Arizona from Minsk, Belarus, to train. In this she was aided by National Hockey League goalie Nikolai Khabibulin and his wife, who is a friend of Azarenka's mother. In 2010 she briefly considered a break from the sport of tennis to focus on education, however, after a conversation with her grandmother she decided to continue playing. It is the inspiration from her grandmother that is regarded as the key for her continued developments in the sport.

Victoria Azarenka 

Samsung Galaxy Note 5.3" Display

Samsung Galaxy Note owners may feel hard done by as Samsung has announced the Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) update won't be landing on the handset until Q2 of 2012.

The Samsung Galaxy S2 is currently in the midst of receiving the Ice Cream Sandwich update and the Galaxy Note was expected to get the upgrade at the same time.
Samsung's latest press release now confirms a Q2 launch for Android 4.0 on the Galaxy Note, but also reveals the update will be accompanied by its new Premium Suite software.
It's worth bearing in mind that Q2 begins in April, so the wait might not be as long as it first seems.

S Pen optimized applications
The Premium Suite upgrade will include "extra multimedia features and a range of new S Pen optimised applications in addition to an OS upgrade to Android 4.0".
Among the new features are the S Pen optimized S Note and My Story apps. S Note allows user to combine their sketches and notes with other digital content, while My Story provides users with a way to create personalized digital cards.

You'll also get Video Everywhere in the new software package, which will allow you to watch video simultaneously while running any other applications on the Galaxy Note.
Simon Stanford, vice president of Samsung's UK Telecommunications & Networks Division said: "We are delighted to be able to offer our customers the Premium Suite upgrade which we hope will enrich their Galaxy Note experience and explore the devices' truly unique features."
Samsung is really looking to push the stylus-handset combo, but the delay in the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade is bound to leave Galaxy Note customers unhappy.

Jenson Button Formula 1 Driver

Jenson Alexander Lyons Button MBE (born 19 January 1980) is a British Formula One driver currently signed to McLaren. He was the 2009 World Drivers' Champion for Brawn GP.
Button began karting at the age of eight and achieved early success, before progressing to car racing in the British Formula Ford Championship and the British Formula Three Championship. He first drove in Formula One with the Williams team for the 2000 season. The following year he switched to Benetton, which in 2002 became Renault, and then for the 2003 season he moved to BAR. They were subsequently renamed Honda for the 2006 season, during which Button won his first Grand Prix in Hungary, after 113 races.
Following the withdrawal of Honda from the sport in December 2008, he was left without a drive for the 2009 season, until Ross Brawn led a management buyout of the team in February 2009, and Button suddenly found himself in a highly competitive, Mercedes-engined car. He went on to win a record-equalling six of the first seven races of the 2009 season, securing the World Drivers' Championship at the Brazilian Grand Prix, having led on points all season; his success also helped Brawn GP to secure the World Constructors' Championship. For 2010, he moved to McLaren, partnering fellow British racer and former World Champion Lewis Hamilton. After finishing fifth for the team in 2010, Button finished the 2011 season as runner-up to Sebastian Vettel.

Button was born on 19 January 1980 in Frome, Somerset and brought up in nearby Vobster. He was named after his father's friend Erling Jensen, changing the "e" to an "o" to differentiate it from Jensen Motors. He was educated at Vallis First School, Selwood Middle School and Frome Community College. He is the fourth child of South African-born Simone Lyons and former Rallycross driver John Button, who was well known in the UK during the 1970s for his so-called Colorado Beetle Volkswagen. After his parents divorced when he was seven, he and his three elder sisters were brought up by their mother in Frome. He failed his first driving test for getting too close to a parked vehicle.

Button began karting at the age of eight, after his father bought him his first kart, and made an extraordinarily successful start. In 1989, aged nine, he came first in the British Super Prix. He won all 34 races of the 1991 British Cadet Kart Championship, along with the title.Further successes followed, including three triumphs in the British Open Kart Championship. In 1997, he won the Ayrton Senna Memorial Cup, and also became the youngest driver ever to win the European Super A Championship.

Aged 18, Button moved into car racing, winning the British Formula Ford Championship with Haywood Racing; he also triumphed in the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch.At the end of 1998, he won the annual McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver Award. His prize included a test in a McLaren Formula One car, which he received at the end of the following year. Button entered the British Formula Three Championship in 1999, with the Promatecme team. He won three times —at Thruxton, Pembrey and Silverstone—and finished the season as the top rookie driver, and third overall. He finished fifth and second respectively in the Marlboro Masters and Macau Grand Prix, losing out by 0.035 seconds to winner Darren Manning in the latter.

Review on iPad 3

The new iPad, the iPad 3, the new iPad 3… call it what you want, but it's a device that from the outside looks remarkably like the iPad 2 but with an overhaul on the innards.

The question most people ask us when it comes to the new iPad is: what's different from the old one?Well, in this case it's pretty easy: there's a Retina Display that makes everything looks superbly crisp, an updated A5X processor bringing quad-core graphics and a 5MP camera on the rear with a VGA sensor on the front.Oh, and the iPad 3 is also the device that brings iOS 5.1 to the masses (well, it's also on the likes of the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 as well, but hey, we're not reviewing those today, and you don't really care unless it's a new iPad.)

The design of the new iPad 3 isn't really anything different from the original duo from Apple's tablet range. Actually, while we're thinking about it, it looks almost identical to the iPad 2 – to the point you'd struggle to tell them apart when turned off.However, in the hand, there's a little bit of a difference, especially when it comes to the weight. The new iPad is nearly 60g heavier than the previous iteration, and while it's not terrible, it does add a little arm strain during a marathon movie session.

Retina Display

Before we get onto all the normal insight over the frame of the new iPad, it's worth talking about the main feature: the Retina Display.

Apple has packed a huge amount more pixels into the 9.7-inch screen - 1536 x 2048 to be exact. However, despite the fact that the Cupertino brand makes a big thing about the 330 PPI density of the iPhone 4, we're looking at a screen that's technically a lot less sharp than its smartphone brethren - around 264PPI.Apple has got around this fact by stating that the screen is meant to be held at 15 inches from the face, rather than the 10 inches the iPhone is supposed to from your eyes, and as such the sharpness is the same.

Given the fact the term 'Retina Display' really isn't a legally binding term, we don't care. What matters is the effect - and it's one of the most impressive we've seen on a tablet to date. If someone took an iPad, printed out a really hi-res image of an iOS system and stuck it on the front, we'd struggle to tell the difference - it's superb, and even squinting up close you'll be hard pushed to notice any pixelation.

The colour reproduction will also appeal to many, as it's pretty close to reality - it lacks the punch of the Super AMOLED HD screens seen on the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Note for instance, but it will depend on personal preference as to whether that's a good thing.

We like the vivid colors of Samsung's screens, but we know plenty of people that loathe them too.The main thing is things like internet browsing; photo viewing and movie sessions are all much, much improved over the iPad 2, and is one of the main reasons to pick up the new iPad.

Design

The new iPad, as we said, is only marginally thicker and a little heavier than the iPad 2, and if you pick it up with no knowledge of the former, you'll likely be mighty impressed.The rest of the design is premium too - given you can be paying nearly £700 for a top end model, it needs to seem like a worthwhile investment, and it does.

The curved edges, the oleophobic scratch-proof glass and the aluminium chassis are all the kind of thing that some Android tablets have tried to ape and failed. Of course, many will prefer the feather-light frames of some of the Samsung models but, like the screen, it really comes down to personal preference.The buttonry on the new iPad is pretty sparse though - we're talking four buttons and that's your lot.The iconic home button is back once again, despite rumors of its demise, and is easy to reach and hit within the thick bezel.The rest of the buttons are all clustered tightly together in the top left-hand corner of the new iPad, with the rocker/volume key, the mute/orientation switch and power/lock key all within an inch of one another.

About Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, OIH, (born 5 February 1985),[3] commonly known as Cristiano Ronaldo, is a Portuguese footballer who plays as a winger or striker for Spanish La Liga club Real Madrid and is the captain of the Portuguese national team. Ronaldo became the most expensive player in football history after moving from Manchester United to Real Madrid in a transfer deal worth £80 million (€94 million). In addition, his contract with Real Madrid, in which he is paid €12 million per year, makes him one of the highest-paid football players in the world,[ and his buyout clause is valued at €1000 million (€1 billion, in English usage), as per his contract.
Ronaldo began his career as a youth player for Clube de Futebol Andorinha de Santo António, where he played for two years, before moving to Clube Desportivo Nacional. In 1997, he made a move to Portuguese giants Sporting Clube de Portugal. Ronaldo's precocious talent caught the attention of Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, who signed the 18-year-old for £12.24 million (€15 million) in 2003. The following season, Ronaldo won his first club honour, the FA Cup and played at Euro 2004 with Portugal. Ronaldo scored his first international goal in the opening game of the tournament against Greece and also helped Portugal reach the final. He was featured in the UEFA Euro All-Star Team of this competition.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Ronaldo was the first player to win all four main PFA and FWA awards, doing so in 2007. He was third in the 2007 FIFA World Player of the Year award and second in the 2007 Ballon d'Or award. In 2008, Ronaldo won the Champions League with United, was named best forward and player of the tournament and was the competition's top goalscorer as well as winning the European Golden Shoe, becoming the first winger to do so, and topping the Premier League Golden Boot award. He won three of the four main PFA and FWA trophies, only missing the PFA Young Player of the Year, and was named the FIFPro, World Soccer, Onze d'Or, and the FIFA World Player of the Year, in addition to becoming Manchester United's first Ballon d'Or winner in 40 years. Ronaldo holds the distinction of being the first player to win the FIFA Puskás Award, in 2009, an honour handed by FIFA to the best goal of the year. He scored that goal from 40 yards out against F.C. Porto in a UEFA Champions League quarter-final match, while playing for Manchester United. Three-time Ballon d'Or winner Johan Cruyff said in an interview on 2 April 2008, "Ronaldo is better than George Best and Denis Law, who were two brilliant and great players in the history of United." He was second in the 2009 FIFA World Player of the Year award and also second in the 2009 Ballon d'Or award.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Ronaldo became the highest goalscorer in a season in the history of Real Madrid with 53 goals, surpassing the club's previous high of 49 by Ferenc Puskás. Six days later, Ronaldo broke the record of most goals ever scored in a season in La Liga with 40, surpassing Telmo Zarra's and Hugo Sánchez's mark (38 goals) established in 1951 and 1990, respectively. Ronaldo also broke Zarra's record of most goals per minute, with a goal scored every 70.7 minutes. The newspaper Marca, the official deliverer of the Pichichi Trophy (the top La Liga goalscorer award), claimed that Ronaldo scored 41 goals (Marca assigned one more goal to Ronaldo than La Liga, which attributed it to Pepe). By doing so, he won the European Golden Shoe award once again, becoming the first player to win the trophy in two different championships. He was third in the 2010–11 UEFA Best Player in Europe Award, behind Lionel Messi and Xavi, and second in the 2011 FIFA Ballon d'Or, behind Messi and ahead of Xavi. On March 24, 2012 in the match against Real Sociedad, Ronaldo became the fastest La Liga player to score 100 goals in the league.
Ronaldo has been described as a skillful winger who will take on any defender with his dribbling and pace; and who possesses a powerful, accurate free-kick and crossing ability. Ronaldo is able to score with his head and feet.

About Andy Murry

 Andy Murry

Andrew "Andy" Murray (born 15 May 1987) is a Scottish professional tennis player, ranked No. 4 in the world, and was ranked No. 2 from 17 to 31 August 2009. Murray achieved a top-10 ranking by the Association of Tennis Professionals for the first time on 16 April 2007. He has been runner-up in three Grand Slam finals: the 2008 US Open, the 2010 Australian Open and the 2011 Australian Open, losing the first two to Roger Federer and the third to Novak Djokovic. In 2011, Murray became only the seventh player in the Open Era to reach the semi-finals of all four Grand Slam tournaments in one year.

Early life

Andy with his brother Jamie (left) at the 2011 Japan Open.

Andy Murray was born to Will and Judy in Glasgow, Scotland. His maternal grandfather, Roy Erskine, was a professional footballer who played reserve team matches for Hibernian and in the Scottish Football League for Stirling Albion and Cowdenbeath. Murray's brother, Jamie, is also a professional tennis player, playing on the doubles circuit. Following the separation of his parents when he was nine years old, Andy and Jamie lived with their father. Murray later attended Dunblane High School. Murray is in a five-year relationship with Kim Sears, who is regularly seen attending his matches. The relationship ended briefly in 2009 before they reconciled a short time later in 2010.

 Andy Murry

At 15, Murray was asked to train with Rangers Football Club at their School of Excellence, but declined, opting to focus on his tennis career instead. Murray's tennis idol is Andre Agassi.

Murray was born with a bipartite patella, where the kneecap remains as two separate bones instead of fusing together in early childhood. He was diagnosed at the age of 16 and had to stop playing tennis for six months. Murray is seen frequently to hold his knee due to the pain caused by the condition and has pulled out of events because of it, but manages it through a number of different approaches.

Dunblane massacre

Murray attended Dunblane Primary School, and was present during the 1996 Dunblane school massacre. Thomas Hamilton killed 17 people before turning one of his four guns on himself. Murray took cover in a classroom. Murray says he was too young to understand what was happening and is reluctant to talk about it in interviews, but in his autobiography Hitting Back he says that he attended a youth group run by Hamilton, and that his mother gave Hamilton lifts in her car.

About Rafael Nadal

Rafael "Rafa" Nadal Parera (born 3 June 1986) is a Spanish professional tennis player and a former World No.  1. As of 19 March 2012, he is ranked No. 2 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). He is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time; his success on clay has earned him the nickname "The King of Clay", and has prompted many experts to regard him as the greatest clay court player of all time.
Nadal has won ten Grand Slam singles titles, including six French Open titles, the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles, a record 19 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments (tied with Roger Federer), and also was part of the Spain Davis Cup team that won the finals in 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2011. He completed the career Grand Slam by winning the 2010 US Open, being the seventh player in history, and the youngest in the open era, to achieve it. He is the second male player to complete the Career Golden Slam (winner of the four grand slams and the Olympic Gold medal) after only Andre Agassi.

Rafael Nadal

Nadal had a 32-match winning streak in 2008, starting at the 2008 Masters Series Hamburg to the 2008 Western & Southern Financial Group Masters and Women's Open, which included titles at Hamburg, the French Open (where he did not drop a set), Queen's Club, his first title at Wimbledon, and the Rogers Cup. In 2011, by winning the Monte Carlo Masters, he became the only player to have won seven editions of a tournament in a row at the ATP level. Nadal was ranked world No. 2, behind Roger Federer, for a record 160 consecutive weeks before earning the top spot, which he held from 18 August 2008 to 5 July 2009.He regained the world No.1 ranking on 7 June 2010, after winning his fifth French Open title. He held it until 3 July 2011, when Novak Djokovic replaced him as world No. 1. Nadal has held the No. 2 ranking for an ATP record 227 weeks (as of 19 March 2012).

Rafael Nadal

Early life

Rafael Nadal was born in Manacor, Majorca, Spain to Sebastián Nadal, a businessman who owns an insurance company, a glass and window company, Vidres Mallorca, and manages his own restaurant, Sa Punta. His mother is Ana María Parera, a housewife. He has a younger sister named María Isabel. His uncle, Miguel Ángel Nadal, is a retired professional footballer, who played for RCD Mallorca, FC Barcelona, and the Spanish national team. Nadal supports football clubs Real Madrid and RCD Mallorca. Recognizing that Nadal had a natural talent for tennis, another uncle, Toni Nadal, a former professional tennis player, introduced him to tennis when he was three years old.
At age eight, Nadal won an under-12 regional tennis championship at a time when he was also a promising football player. This made Toni Nadal intensify training, and at that time he encouraged Nadal to play left-handed for a natural advantage on the tennis court, as he noticed Nadal played forehand shots with two hands. When Nadal was 12, he won the Spanish and European tennis titles in his age group and was playing tennis and football all the time.Nadal's father made him choose between football and tennis so that his school work would not deteriorate entirely. Nadal said: "I chose tennis. Football had to stop straight away."


When he was 14, the Spanish tennis federation requested that he leave Majorca and move to Barcelona to continue his tennis training. Nadal's family turned down this request, partly because they feared it would hurt his education, but also because Toni said that "I don't want to believe that you have to go to America, or other places to be a good athlete. You can do it from your home." The decision to stay home meant that Nadal received less financial support from the federation; instead, Nadal's father covered the costs. In May 2001, he defeated former Grand Slam champion Pat Cash in a clay-court exhibition match.
At 15, he turned pro. Nadal participated in two events on the ITF junior circuit. In 2002, at the age of 16, Nadal reached the semifinals of the Boy's Singles tournament at Wimbledon, in his first ITF junior event.
By the age of 17, he beat Roger Federer the first time they played and became the youngest man to reach the third round at Wimbledon since Boris Becker. At 18, he helped pace Spain over the US in the junior Davis Cup in his second, and final, appearance on the ITF junior circuit. At 19, Nadal won the French Open the first time he played it, a feat not accomplished in Paris for more than 20 years. He eventually won it the first four times he played at Roland Garros. In 2003, he had won the ATP Newcomer of the Year Award. Early in his career, Nadal picked up the trademark habit of biting the trophies he won.

About Roger Federer

Roger Federer  (born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss professional tennis player who held the ATP No. 1 position for a record 237 consecutive weeks from 2 February 2004 to 18 August 2008. He had been ranked number 1 for a total of 285 weeks, second only by a week to Pete Sampras' 286 weeks. As of 19 March 2012, he is ranked World No. 3 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Federer has won a men's record 16 Grand Slam singles titles. He is one of seven male players to capture the career Grand Slam and one of three (with Andre Agassi and Rafael Nadal) to do so on three different surfaces (clay, grass, and hard courts). He is the only male player in tennis history to have reached the title match of each Grand Slam tournament at least five times and also the final at each of the nine ATP Masters 1000 Tournaments. Many sports analysts, tennis critics, and former and current players consider Federer to be the greatest tennis player of all time.


Federer has appeared in an unprecedented 23 career Grand Slam tournament finals, including a men's record ten in a row, and appeared in 18 of 19 finals from the 2005 Wimbledon Championships through the 2010 Australian Open, the lone exception being the 2008 Australian Open. He holds the record of reaching the semifinals or better of 23 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments over five and a half years, from the 2004 Wimbledon Championships through the 2010 Australian Open. At the 2012 Australian Open, he reached a record 31st consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinal.
Federer has won a record six ATP World Tour Finals (highest all time) and a record 19 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments (highest all time, tied with Nadal). He also won the Olympic gold medal in doubles with his compatriot Stanislas Wawrinka at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. He spent eight years (2003–2010) continuously in the top 2 in the year-end rankings and nine (2003–2011) in the Top 3, also a record among male players. His rivalry with Rafael Nadal is considered one of the greatest of all time in the sport. Federer is greatly respected by fans and by fellow players alike as shown by the fact that he has won the ATPWorldTour.com Fans' Favorite Award a record nine consecutive times (2003–2011) and the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award (which is voted for by the players themselves) a record seven times overall and six times consecutively (2004–2009, 2011). Federer also won the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year Award in 2006. In 2011, he was voted the second most trusted and respected person in the world, second only to Nelson Mandela.

 Roger Federer

As a result of Federer's successes in tennis, he was named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year for a record four consecutive years (2005–2008) and in 2012 he topped a list of the "100 greatest tennis players of all time" (male or female) by Tennis Channel. He is often referred to as the Federer Expressor abbreviated to Fed Express, or FedEx, the Swiss Maestro, or simply Maestro.


Personal life

Childhood and early life
Federer was born in Binningen, near Basel, to Swiss national Robert Federer and South African-born Lynette Durand. He holds both Swiss and South African citizenships.] He grew up in suburban Münchenstein, near Basel, close to the French and German borders and speaks Swiss German, German, French and English fluently, Swiss German being his native language. He was raised as a Roman Catholic and met Pope Benedict XVI while playing the 2006 Internazionali BNL d'Italia tournament in Rome.Like all male Swiss citizens, Federer was subject to compulsory military service in the Swiss Armed Forces. However, in 2003 he was deemed unfit due to a long-standing back problem and was subsequently not required to fulfill his military obligation. Federer himself also credits the range of sports he played as a child—he also played badminton and basketball—for his hand-eye coordination. "I was always very much more interested if a ball was involved," he says. Most tennis prodigies, by contrast, play tennis to the exclusion of all other sports.

Marriage and family

Federer is married to former Women's Tennis Association player Mirka Vavrinec. He met her while both were competing for Switzerland in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Vavrinec retired from the tour in 2002 because of a foot injury and has since been working as Federer's public relations manager. They were married in Basel on 11 April 2009, surrounded by a small group of close friends and family at Wenkenhof Villa (municipality of Riehen). On 23 July 2009, Mirka gave birth to twin girls, Myla Rose and Charlene Riva.

Outreach and charitable efforts

Federer supports a number of charities. He established the Roger Federer Foundation in 2003 to help disadvantaged people and to promote sports. In 2005, he auctioned his racquet from his US Open championship to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina. He was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador by UNICEF in 2006. At the 2005 Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, Federer arranged an exhibition involving several top players from the ATP tour and WTA tour called Rally for Relief. The proceeds from the event went to the victims of the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Since then, he has visited South Africa and Tamil Nadu, one of the areas in India most affected by the tsunami. He has also appeared in UNICEF public messages to raise public awareness of AIDS. In response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Federer arranged a collaboration with fellow top tennis players Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick, Kim Clijsters, Serena Williams, Lleyton Hewitt, and Sam Stosur to forgo their final day of preparation for the 2010 Australian Open to form a special charity event called Hit for Haiti, in which all proceeds went to Haiti earthquake victims. He was named a 2010 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in recognition of his leadership, accomplishments, and contributions to society.
Similar to the 2010 event, Hit for Haiti, Federer organized and participated in a charity match called Rally for Relief on 16 January 2011, to benefit those that were affected by the 2010–2011 Queensland floods.

Federer is currently number 25 on Forbes top 100 celebrities.

About Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic (Serbian: , Novak Djokovic born 22 May 1987) is a Serbian professional tennis player who has been ranked World No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) since 4 July 2011. He has won five Grand Slam singles titles: the 2008, 2011 and 2012 Australian Open, the 2011 Wimbledon Championships, and the 2011 US Open. By winning three Majors in 2011, Djokovic became the sixth male player in the open era to win three Majors in a calendar year.
He is the first male player representing Serbia to win a Major singles title and the youngest player in the open era to have reached the semifinals of all four Grand Slam events, separately and consecutively.[4] Amongst other titles, he won the Tennis Masters Cup in 2008 and was on the team which won the 2010 Davis Cup. He also won the bronze medal in singles at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Djokovic was ranked the 40th greatest player of all time by a panel of specialists.

 Novak Djokovic

Early and personal life

Djokovic was born 22 May 1987, in Belgrade, SFR Yugoslavia, to father Srdan and mother Dijana . His two younger brothers, Marko and Ðorde, are also tennis players with professional aspirations. Residing in Monte Carlo, Monaco, Djokovic has been coached since 2006 by a former Slovak tennis player, Marián Vajda.[9] Similar to fellow pro Roger Federer, Djokovic is a self-described fan of languages, speaking four himself: his native Serbian, English, German, and Italian. Since the end of 2005, Djokovic has been dating Jelena Ristic .

He started playing tennis at the age of four. In the summer 1993, the six-year-old was spotted by Yugoslav tennis legend Jelena Gencic at Mount Kopaonik where Djokovic's parents ran a fast-food parlour.Upon seeing the dedicated and talented youngster in action, she stated: "This is the greatest talent I have seen since Monica Seles." Gencic worked with young Djokovic over the following six years before realizing that, due to his rapid development, going abroad in search of increased level of competition was the best option for his future. To that end, she contacted Nikola Pilic, and in September 1999, the 12-year-old moved to the Pilic tennis academy in Oberschleißheim, Germany, spending four years there. At age 14, he began his international career, winning European championships in singles, doubles, and team competition.

Djokovic is known for his often humorous off-court impersonations of his fellow players, many of whom are his friends. This became evident to the tennis world after his 2007 US Open quarterfinal win over Carlos Moyà, where he entertained the audience with impersonations of Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova. He also did an impression of John McEnroe after his final preliminary game at the 2009 US Open, before playing a brief game with McEnroe, much to the delight of the audience. It is because of this jovial personality that he earned the nickname "Djoker", a portmanteau of his surname and the word joker. Novak Djokovic is a member of the "Champions for Peace" club, a group of famous elite athletes committed to serving peace in the world through sport, created by Peace and Sport, a Monaco-based international organization.

 Novak Djokovic

Djokovic is a Serbian Orthodox Christian. On 28 April 2011, Patriarch Irinej of Serbia awarded Djokovic the Order of St. Sava I class, the highest decoration of the Serbian Orthodox Church, because he demonstrated love for the church, and because he provided assistance to the Serbian people, churches and monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church of Kosovo and Metohija.

He is a keen fan of Serbian football club Red Star Belgrade, Italian Serie A side A.C. Milan and Portuguese club S.L. Benfica. Djokovic is good friends with fellow Serbian tennis player Ana Ivanovic, whom he has known since the two were children growing up in Serbia.

About Lionel Messi

Born in Rosario, Sante Fe, Messi began playing football at a young age and his skill and potential was soon realized by Barcelona. He left Rosario-based  Newell's Old Boys's  youth team in 2000 and moved with his family to Europe, as Barcelona offered treatment for his growth hormone deficiency. Making his debut in the 2004–05 season, he broke his team record for the youngest footballer to score a league goal. Messi scored his first goal for Barcelona in official competition on 1 May 2005 at the age of 17 years, 10 months and 7 days. Major honours soon followed as Barcelona won La Liga in Messi's debut season, and won a double of the league and Champions League in 2006. His breakthrough season was in the 2006–07 season; he became a first teamregular, scoring a hat-trick in El Clásico and finishing with 14 goals in 26 league games. Messi then had the most successful season of his playing career, the 2008–09 season, in which he scored 38 goals to play an integral part in a treble-winning campaign. This record-breaking season was then eclipsed in the following 2009–10 campaign, where Messi scored 47 goals in all competitions, equalling Ronaldo's record total for Barcelona. He surpassed this record again in the 2010–11 season with 53 goals in all competitions.

By the age of 21, Messi received Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year nominations, won both the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year in 2009, and won the inaugural FIFA Ballon d'Or in 2010 and 2011. He also won the 2010–11 UEFA Best Player in Europe Award. His playing style and small stature has drawn comparisons to Diego Maradona, who himself declared Messi as his "successor".

Messi has won five La Liga titles, three Champions League titles, scoring in two of those finals, against Manchester United in both 2009 and 2011. He was not on the pitch as Barcelona defeatedArsenal in 2006, but received a winners' medal from the tournament. After scoring 12 goals in the 2010–11 Champions League, Messi became only the third player (after Gerd Müller and Jean-Pierre Papin) to top-score in three successive European Champion Clubs' Cup campaigns. However, Messi is the first one to win the Champions League top scorer titles for three consecutive years after Champions League changed its format in 1992.Messi is the fourth football player to win three Ballons d'Or, after Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten and the second player to win three consecutive Ballons d'Or, after Michel Platini (however, two of his Ballons d'Or are FIFA Ballons d'Or, which he won consecutively). In 2012, Messi made UEFA Champions League history by becoming the first player to score five goals in one match, in a 7–1 win against Bayer Leverkusen.

Lionel Messi

Messi was the top scorer of the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship with six goals, including two in the final game. Shortly thereafter, he became an established member of Argentina's senior international team. In 2006, he became the youngest Argentine to play in the FIFA World Cup and he won a runners-up medal at the Copa América tournament the following year. In 2008, inBeijing, he won his first international honour, an Olympic gold medal, with the Argentina Olympic football team. At international level Messi has scored 22 goals in 67 games.