On the one side is the 2012 defending Davis Cup champ, Czech Republic, who beat a Nadal-less Spanish team by beating everyone not named Ferrer. Czech Republic's semifinal opponent was Argentina. For some reason, Juan Martin del Potro must either dislike the Davis Cup team or they must dislike him. While he has played Davis
One stat that came up frequently prior to this match was the 10-0 record Federer had over Tommy Robredo. However, eight of those victories came in 2007 earlier. Since then, the two have only met twice, once in 2009 and once in 2011. Most of that has to do with issues that have afflicted many
Federer's draw has been pretty smooth, about as good as it was at Wimbledon 2012, the year he won the title. So far, he's played Grega Zemlja, Carlos Berlocq, and on Saturday evening, Adrian Mannarino. When interviewed prior to coming on court, he knew he had to do a better job returning serve. His coach
Although the French Open title is more prestigious, and thus where Rafa Nadal has secured the moniker "king of clay", it's Monte Carlo where his dominance has reached epic proportions. Monte Carlo is a strange Masters 1000. Of the Masters 1000 titles, it's the only considered "optional". You aren't penalized for skipping the event with
Maybe it was the comparatively cool weather. Maybe it was the low bounce of the night air. Maybe it was just one of those days. Novak Djokovic, as top champions often do, said he played poorly in his loss to the best old man in the game today, Tommy Haas, a sprightly 34 on the
This is the kind of match that the Australian Open epic. Wawrinka has been around 20s his entire career peaking briefly in the top 10. With all players coming back from training, it's time for players in that next tier to make that push. When the draw came out, everyone looked at Murray on Federer's
Brian Baker, who spent 6 years, in and out of surgery, then had the Cinderella story of 2012 where he made the finals of Nice and did reasonably well at Wimbledon and the French Open, was winning his 2nd round match against Sam Querrey when he was recovering for a shot, and his knee buckled,
Technically, it wasn't an upset. After all, Julien Benneteau, the wily French veteran that pushed Federer to 5 sets last year at Wimbledon, was the 32nd seed, not the young Bulgarian, Grigor Dimitrov. Never mind that Benneteau reached the semis of Sydney, so he had a good tournament, but Dimitrov reached the finals of Brisbane,
Hopman Cup Let's start with an exo, only because I caught the tail-end of this. This is like a mini-Davis Cup. One man. One woman. Two singles. One mixed doubles. The finalists, this year, were Spain and Serbia. Of course, with Novak Djokovic, Serbia won the men's singles. Anabel Medina Garrigues then won a touch
Often the opening tournaments of the new year tell you more about the players ranked outside the top 5 than they do the top 5. After all, it's not only the best of the best that use the off-season (which lasts maybe two months for lower-ranked players) to ramp up their game. So here are
