Column: Breaking down the Nadal era

What makes Rafa, Rafa?

What makes a tennis player a tennis champion to the degree that Rafael Nadal has already obtained at the age of 24, and barring injury, should continue to do for many years to come?

Born to an athletic family on the island of Mallorca on June 3 of 1986 to Sebastian and Ana Maria Nadal, Rafael Nadal grew up playing as much soccer as he did tennis.

He father a business partner with two brothers of a restaurant as well as owner of a glass and window company hired one of his brothers, Toni, who was a Spanish tennis professional, to help train his son.

So from the age of four, Uncle Toni has been Rafael's coach, mentor, support system, strategist and emotional anchor - continuing in that vein even today.

At the age of 12 Rafa's father said he had to make the choice of playing tennis or playing soccer because both were taking too much of his time from his studies.

So with his uncle's advice of feeling he could achieve much more playing tennis, that's the direction he went.

At the age of 14 the Spanish Tennis Federation wanted Nadal to train with it in Barcelona, but his father decided otherwise, and took on the full financial obligation to help Rafa reach his potential.

In an exhibition match with Pat Cash that same year, he showed how much promise he had defeating the former Wimbledon champion.

Before his 16th birthday, Rafa won his first ATP match. By 2004 he gained his first win against the No. 1 one player in the world, Roger Federer in straight sets, the beginning of a great rivalry.

By 2005 Rafa was ranked within the top five players in the world. In his first appearance at the French Open he won his first major title, reached the No. 2 position on the ATP tour and captured 11 titles for the year.

Not bad for a teenager.

Fast-forward to 2010, Rafael Nadal has won nine major singles titles at the age of 24, while Federer owns 16 and he's 29.

The latest came this past Monday with his first U.S. Open win, which added the one major he hadn't won. That gave him wins at all four majors an unbelievable accomplishment that few have achieved.

Only seven players have won what's known as a career slam, and only Agassi and Nadal have done that and won Olympic gold medals too.

So back to the original thought: why has Rafael Nadal excelled so well?

Uncle Toni and his family has played a major part in Rafa's development, there can be no mistake in that. Toni has helped teach his student and nephew modesty, how to stay down-to-earth while instilling values and qualities that show with hard work you can achieve your goals, realizing there's always room for improvement.

It's about attitude, discipline and perspective, that help define results and improve motivation.

There is also the question of staying healthy, physically and mentally.

You can put this whole package together and have a bout of severe tendonitis in your knees, a stress fracture affect your ankle, or the divorce of your parents hit your core, all of these things have happened to Nadal, yet he's returned to what could become known as the Nadal Era.

If you've noticed, even though not together as husband and wife, his parents were both in the stands together cheering their son on with his team of coaches, sister, girlfriend and uncle at the Open finals.

In 2007 in a finals defeat at the Australian Open Toni said he cried like an animal in the locker room, yet we've all seen him console Federer with sympathy, respect and sensitivity- playing down the lime light he rightly deserved in major wins against the master.

His game continues to improve.

He has a better serve, with more speed, spin and location.

His number of aces have more than doubled this year from 3.2 per match to 7.5

Federer hits topspin balls that average 2,700 revolutions per minute, while Rafa's are 3,200. The speedy footwork and great court coverage is above reproach, but continually trained on.

Nadal's goal for the rest of the year is simple, to keep improving.

Uncle Toni was asked if he thought Rafa might become the greatest player of all time, his response, "Ask me in five or six years."

Yahoo Again Cuts Into Google's Share Of Search Market

Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) continued to boost its slice of the Web-search market, taking market share from sector giant Google Inc. (GOOG) again in August, according to data released by an industry researcher.

According to monthly data from comScore Inc. (SCOR), Google still sat comfortably atop Web-search rankings, garnering 65.4% of U.S. core searches, down 0.4 percentage points from July. Meanwhile, Yahoo added 0.3 percentage points to its share of the market, bringing it to 17.1%. Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Bing engine added 0.1 percentage point to its cut of the market, bringing its share to 17.1%.

Overall, users made nearly 15.7 billion searches in August.

ComScore has shifted how it reports its data after Yahoo's "contextual searches" skewed results in June. While comScore's definition of a search included the traditional search-box query type of searches, it also included some automatic search results that pop up without a user entering a specific query. Now, the group is measuring U.S. explicit core searches, which exclude contextual searches that don't reflect any intent by users

Review: 'The Town' worth visiting

The decent-hearted criminal trying to go straight. The beautiful woman who doesn't know whether to love him or turn him in to the authorities. The live-wire partner whose erratic behavior threatens to get them all locked away for life. The dogged FBI agent who won't rest until justice is served.

I know what you're thinking: Isn't that the plot of every third episode of "Cold Case"?

But in the confident, assured hands of director Ben Affleck -- taking a leap beyond his ambitious but muddled debut "Gone Baby Gone" -- these familiar ingredients are transformed into something new. "The Town" is a tough, muscular crime drama with a biting wit. It's like a cup of scalding, acid black coffee after the long slumber of the summer movie season.

Affleck announces his intentions in the opening scenes, with a nervously edited, ruthlessly efficient bank robbery, featuring four men in spooky Skeletor masks. They force their way inside and then force the assistant manager (Rebecca Hall, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona") to open the safe. When the cops show up, the robbers -- led by longtime Boston-born friends Doug MacRay (Affleck) and Jim Coughlin (Jeremy Renner) -- take the bank manager hostage.

But even after they release her, their paranoia becomes hard to shake: Might she be able to identify one of them to the feds? Doug starts trailing her, strikes up a conversation at a laundromat and -- before even realizing the dangers involved -- he's falling in love.

As wildly melodramatic as it might sound, "The Town" -- based on the novel "Prince of Thieves" by Chuck Hogan, and ably adapted by Peter Craig, Aaron Stockard and Affleck -- feels entirely plausible and naturalistic. That's partly because Affleck and cinematographer Robert Elswit ("There Will Be Blood") invest so much in bringing alive the Boston setting.

"The town" refers to the Charlestown neighborhood, a dingy section of south Boston, lorded over by a crime boss who doubles as a florist (Pete Postlethwaite, who could do these roles in his sleep, but still does them better than anyone). Affleck has a terrific eye for the way yuppified condos bump up against crumbling old houses, but more than that, he has a great feel for the sometimes perverse loyalties that develop in any tight-knit, family-centered community.

The bulk of "The Town" concerns Doug's desperate efforts to break free from Charlestown, even as his circumstances become hopelessly complicated: Jim continues to insist they take on new assignments; a wily FBI agent (an effective Jon Hamm) tries to bring them down; and Doug's longtime girlfriend, Jim's sister Krista (Blake Lively), refuses to let him break up with her.

Echoing those other recent Boston-based crime epics, "Mystic River" and "The Departed," "The Town" feels a tad overplotted, and it strains for an operatic anguish it doesn't always earn. The weakest link, in fact, is Affleck's own performance, which never fully captures Doug's fundamental decency, or, for that matter, his strain of sociopathy. (Oddly enough, the Boston-raised Affleck's accent is also the least convincing in the movie.)

But that's a forgivable flaw in a movie that otherwise strikes a deft balance between the cynical and the humane. Much like "The Departed," "The Town" looks upon this dog-eat-dog world of petty criminality with a jaundiced, comic eye. But Affleck never lets the characters devolve into cartoons the way Martin Scorsese did, coaxing tense, nuanced performances from Renner, Hall, Lively and Chris Cooper, who turns up briefly as Doug's incarcerated dad.

He also turns out to be a shockingly good director of action. In addition to that superb opening bank robbery, "The Town" serves up two successively more elaborate heists. The climax, especially, is a beauty, a hailstorm of gunfire and smoke and crunching metal, set at Fenway Park. The result is a purely pleasurable, old-school entertainment that never once insults your intelligence.

Who'da thunk? Ben Affleck has been reborn as one of the most promising young film directors working today.

'The Town'

H*H 1/2

Rating: R (for language, violence
and sexual content)
Cast: Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner,
Jon Hamm and Rebecca Hall
Director: Ben Affleck
Running time:
2 hours,
5 minu

Oracle Rises After Corporate Spending Fuels Software, Sun Sales

Oracle hired Mark Hurd, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co., on Sept. 6 as co-president responsible for sales, marketing and customer support. Kimberly White/Bloomberg

Play Video

Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Brent Thill, analyst at UBS AG, talks about first-quarter earnings at Oracle Corp. Oracle reported profit and revenue that beat analysts’ estimates as sales of database software and Sun Microsystems server computers helped it capitalize on a recovery in information-technology spending. Thill talks with Carol Massar and Matt Miller on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart." (Source: Bloomberg)

Play Video

Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Renny Ponvert, chief executive officer of Management CV, talks about Oracle Corp.'s decision to hire Mark Hurd, who formerly ran Hewlett-Packard Co., as co-president. Ponvert speaks with Pimm Fox on Bloomberg Television's "Taking Stock." (Source: Bloomberg)

Oracle Corp., the second-largest software maker, rose in late trading yesterday after its first- quarter results and sales forecast topped analysts’ estimates, helped by an expansion into computer hardware.

Excluding acquisition costs and other expenses, earnings climbed to 42 cents a share last quarter, beating the 37-cent average of projections compiled by Bloomberg. Oracle indicated that sales will be at least $8.4 billion in the current period. Analysts had estimated $8.21 billion.

The company is counting on hardware to spur a new wave of growth, underpinned by its acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. this year. Oracle is assembling more prepackaged systems, which combine its software with Sun’s servers. By adding salespeople and engineers and moving away from low-end machines, Oracle aims to squeeze more sales and profit from hardware, which generated $1.7 billion last quarter.

“We can dramatically improve margins and double the top line,” Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison said on a conference call, without giving a timeframe for the growth.

Oracle rose 4.7 percent to $26.55 in extended trading. The shares, up 3.4 percent this year, had closed at $25.36 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

The company, based in Redwood City, California, reports sales that include deferred revenue from acquired businesses and don’t conform to generally accepted accounting principles. On that basis, sales in the period ended Aug. 31 jumped 50 percent to $7.59 billion. Analysts on average predicted $7.32 billion.

Bigger Deals

“Deals seem to be getting a little bigger,” President Safra Catz said on the conference call.

Oracle is capitalizing on a recovery in corporate information-technology spending by offering a range of software products assembled through acquisitions. The hiring this month of Mark Hurd, who formerly ran Hewlett-Packard Co., may help the company manage Sun and expand into new areas of hardware. Oracle bought Sun for $7.3 billion in January.

Oracle’s earnings add evidence that corporate spending has supplanted consumers as the main driver of demand for computers and software.

Intel Corp., the largest supplier of computer chips, said on Aug. 27 that its third-quarter revenue will be below its previous forecast, partly because of weaker-than-expected demand for consumer personal computers. Dell Inc. also cited weakness in U.S. consumer demand for PCs when its second-quarter gross margin fell short of projections.

Profit Forecast

Excluding some costs, profit will be 45 cents to 47 cents a share this quarter, Catz said. Analysts had estimated 45 cents. Sales will grow 43 percent to 47 percent from a year earlier, excluding the effect of currency fluctuations, she said.

“They surprised across the board, line by line,” said Sasa Zorovic, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Boston. He recommends buying the shares and doesn’t own them. “IT spending is recovering, and in the past couple of quarters Oracle has done better than the overall IT environment.”

Oracle is the largest seller of database software, second to SAP AG in business applications, and the No. 2 provider of application-connecting middleware -- after International Business Machines Corp. Its goal for Sun, a money loser at the time of the acquisition, is to contribute $1.5 billion in operating income during its first year in the fold.

Combined Products

The company will unveil “two high-end systems that combine Sun hardware with Oracle software” at next’s weeks Oracle OpenWorld show in San Francisco, Hurd said in a statement.

Investors are looking for clues from Oracle about whether Hurd’s hiring signals more hardware acquisitions, Zorovic said.

“To what extent will Sun be the first of many in hardware?” Zorovic said.

Net income in the fiscal first quarter rose 20 percent to $1.35 billion, or 27 cents a share, from $1.12 billion, or 22 cents, a year earlier. Sales in the year-earlier period were $5.06 billion.

New software license sales, an indicator of future revenue, rose 25 percent to $1.29 billion. David Hilal, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets in Arlington, Virginia, predicted $1.12 billion.

Sales of new database and middleware licenses rose 32 percent to $937 million. Business applications license revenue increased 10 percent to $349 million.

Corporate technology spending will increase 2.9 percent this year to more than $2.4 trillion, after a 5.9 percent decline last year, according to market-research firm Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut.

Support Contracts

Ellison has bought more than 65 companies since early 2005. That’s increased the types of programs Oracle can sell and added customers who eventually buy support contracts, providing a stream of profitable revenue.

Oracle hired Hurd on Sept. 6 as a co-president responsible for sales, marketing and customer support. HP filed a lawsuit on Sept. 7 seeking to block Hurd from working at Oracle. Serving as an Oracle president would make it “impossible” for him to avoid using or disclosing HP’s trade secrets and confidential information, according to the state court complaint.

The suit hasn’t prevented Hurd from starting work at Oracle.

“Hurd fits well into Oracle’s next challenge -- competing in the market for integrated hardware and software systems,” FBR’s Hilal said in a note to clients. He rates Oracle “outperform.”

AIDS virus in monkeys much older than thought: study

WASHINGTON — An HIV-like virus that infects monkeys is thousands of years older than previously thought and its slow evolution could have disturbing implications for humans, according to a new study.

Scientists said the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) -- the ancestor to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS -- is probably between 32,000 and 75,000 years old and may even date back a million years.

"If it took thousands of years for SIV to evolve into a primarily non-lethal state, it would likely take a very long time for HIV to naturally follow the same trajectory," a statement from Tulane University said.

The work led by researchers from Tulane and the University of Arizona included a genetic analysis of SIV strains found in monkeys on Bioko, an island off the coast of what is now Cameroon which split off the continent of Africa after the ice age more than 10,000 years ago.

The study, published in the September 17 issue of the journal Science, calls into question previous DNA sequencing data that estimated the virus's age at only a few hundred years.

"The biology and geography of SIV is such that it goes from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean all the way to the tip of Africa," said virologist Preston Marx of the Tulane National Primate Research Center and a co-leader of the research.

"It would take many, many thousands of years to spread that far and couldn't have happened in a couple of hundred years."

Marx tested his theory that SIV had ancient origins by seeking out DNA samples from monkey populations that had been isolated for thousands of years.

The researchers found four different strains of SIV that were genetically divergent from those found on the mainland. They compared DNA sequences of the viruses with the assumption that they were tracking how both evolved over 10,000 years.

The computer modeling showed the rate of mutation to be much slower than previously thought, indicating that virus is between 32,000 and 75,000 years old to have evolved to its current state. These dates set a new minimum age for SIV, although it is likely to be even older, Marx says.

Researcher Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona said this slow evolution from a deadly virus to a relatively harmless suggests AIDS may continue to be a killer.

"If HIV is going to evolve to lower virulence, it is unlikely to happen anytime soon," he said.

But the scientists said the study also raises new questions about how HIV became an epidemic. It remains unclear why, if humans had been exposed to SIV-infected monkeys for thousands of years, the HIV epidemic only began in the 20th century.

"Something happened in the 20th century to change this relatively benign monkey virus into something that was much more potent and could start the epidemic. We don't know what that flashpoint was, but there had to be one," Marx said.

Smoke-Free Laws May Help Kids Breathe Easier

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 15 (HealthDay News) -- Laws that ban smoking in workplaces and public settings seem to show a fringe benefit: Scottish researchers report that such legislation is linked with a decline in hospital admissions for childhood asthma.

Researchers have long known that exposure to tobacco smoke increases the incidence and severity of asthma, and that children are especially vulnerable.

While other studies have looked at the effects of smoking bans on all ages, and have taken into account on-the-job exposure, "ours is the first study to have looked at a subgroup of the population [children], who do not have occupational exposure," said lead researcher Dr. Jill Pell, the Henry Mechan Professor of Public Health at the University of Glasgow.

In March of 2006, the Smoking, Health and Social Care Act was passed in Scotland. It banned smoking in all enclosed public places and in workplaces.

For the study, Pell and her colleagues identified all the hospital admissions for asthma among children under the age of 15 from January 2000 through October 2009.

The investigators found a total of 21,415 admissions for asthma. Before the smoking law passed, admissions were increasing, on average, by 5.2 percent per year.

After the law passed, there was a reduction, on average, of 18.2 percent each year, relative to the rate on the day the law went into effect.

"The evidence from Scotland is that legislation has an effect that extends beyond the locations that are covered by the restrictions," Pell said. "In Scotland there has been an increase in voluntary bans in the home and a resultant reduction in exposure to secondhand smoke among children. It is clear that legislation has a more general effect on smoking attitudes and behaviors."

She is confident the same effects are already occurring in the United States as well, as smoking bans have been passed.

In the Scottish study, the decline in admissions for asthma was seen in both preschool and school-age children.

When the legislation was first discussed, some feared that the bans in public and workplaces might cause home smoking to increase. But there's no evidence of that, she said. Instead the laws seem to have been followed by an increase in voluntary restriction of smoking at home.

The study was supported by a grant from NHS Health Scotland.

"The findings are a confirmation of the beneficial effect of reducing the exposure of children to environmental tobacco smoke," said Dr. E. Rand Sutherland, chief of the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at National Jewish Health, in Denver.

"The study also suggests, importantly, that children [and not just adults] can be the beneficiaries of smoke-free policies which target the workplace and public spaces," he added.

In the United States, more than 200,000 episodes of childhood asthma each year have been blamed on parental smoking, some research has found.

Test hope in prostate cancer battle

A single blood test for men aged 60 could identify those most likely to develop and die from prostate cancer, new research has suggested.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, with 35,000 in the UK diagnosed every year, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Screening is used in certain countries, but remains open to debate with medical experts weighing up the benefits of screening against the potential harms and costs of over-diagnosis and over-treatment of healthy men.

Prostate cancer can develop when cells in the prostate gland start to grow in an uncontrolled way.

The findings in the British Medical Journal suggested the single test could pinpoint which men needed to be monitored closely and others who needed no further checks.

Professor Philipp Dahm and colleagues at the University of Florida reviewed six previous screening trials involving 387,286 participants. They found routine screening aided the diagnosis of prostate cancer at an earlier stage, but did not have a significant impact on death rates and raised the risk of over-treatment.

A second study by headed by Professor Hans Lilja, showed a single "prostate-specific antigen" (PSA) level test at age 60 strongly predicted a man's risk of diagnosis and death from prostate cancer.

The team found 90% of prostate cancer deaths occurred in men with the highest PSA levels at age 60, while men with average or low PSA levels had negligible rates of prostate cancer or death by age 85.

The findings suggested at least half of men aged 60 and above might be exempted from further prostate cancer screening.

Gerald Andriole, chief of urologic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine, suggested PSA testing should be geared to individual risk. He recommended young men at high risk of prostate cancer, for example those with a strong family history, should be monitored closely, while elderly men and those with a low risk of disease could be tested less often.