London Calling - Day Seven Diary

© Gianni CiacciaSlumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel has been to watch the tennis this week.

Star Spotting

From the red carpet to the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals: Bafta-nominated Dev Patel, star of Slumdog Millionaire, is one of many star names to have graced The O2 arena this week during the year-end championships.

Harry Potter stars Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley), Jamie Campbell Bower (Gellert Grindelwald) and Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy) have all been guests of tournament sponsors Lacoste throughout the week.

Premiership footballers have been out in force to watch the world’s best tennis players this week. Thursday evening saw Tottenham Hotspur’s Robbie Keane, Michael Dawson, Jermaine Defoe and Luka Modric, Arsenal’s Andrei Arshavin and Chelsea’s John Obi Mikel all take their seats in the stands to watch Juan Martin del Potro beat Roger Federer. Meanwhile, Argentine and Manchester City striker Carlos Tevez was courtside to watch his good friend, del Potro light up The O2 in a three-set win over Federer.

Celebrity Gallery

ATP supervisor Gerry Armstrong, an avid Tottenham Hotspur fan and current leader in the ATP London’s Fantasy Football mini-league, even managed to get his photo taken with Spurs stars Dawson and Keane.

WBA World Heavyweight Champion David Haye is the latest celebrity to check out the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and received a rapturous reception Saturday evening when he was introduced to the crowd at the semi-final between del Potro and Robin Soderling.

Bryans Upset “Governator” Schwarzenegger

Following their round-robin victory over Lukasz Kubot and Oliver Marach Friday, which secured their place in the semi-finals of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, California natives Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan were informed by the world’s media that they had upset Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Austrian born Schwarzenegger, star of The Terminator movies, hails from the same hometown as Marach – Graz, Austria.

“Hopefully he's not going to raise our taxes,” joked Mike Bryan. “We apologize to Arnold. But we had to do what we had to do. We needed this one. So I apologize to the Austrians, but we needed it.”

BBC Five Live Tidbits

Commentators on BBC Five Live Extra, where you can listen live to the final tomorrow, have been scouting out some interesting tidbits from players taking part in the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.

According to the Five Live tennis team, Mark Knowles joined in his family’s Thanksgiving celebrations via skype, obviously unable to join them as he and partner Mahesh Bhupathi had advanced to the semi-finals of the season finale.

Meanwhile, had del Potro not advanced to the final of the year-end championships, he planned to travel to the north-west of England to attend the Merseyside derby between Everton and Liverpool and cheer on friend and countryman, Javier Mascherano.