Baghdatis at Olympics

CYPRIOT tennis player Marcos Baghdatis, 19, has been given a wild card to play in the Olympic games in Athens 2004. His application forms for participating in the Olympics were first endorsed by the National Olympic Committee (NOC) before being submitted.
Baghdatis was champion in the 2003 Orange Bowl Singles championship in the US and a finalist in the 2003 Mobilux Jr Open. He was also champion in Singles championship in Osaka in 2003, however has had no achievements so far in 2004.

Baghdatis began playing tennis at the age of five after he watched his brothers Marinos and Petros having a game. He was coached by Guillaume Peyre and at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in France.

The Cyprus Tennis Federation started a strategic five-year development plan, the first to be conceived by a Cypriot sporting federation and said that Baghdatis had shown impressive tennis results.

He has been quoted to say that his ambition is “To be in the top ten in the world.” His favourite tennis player is Patrick Rafter.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.