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
Jerry Seinfeld, the American comedian, said fans of a sport, say American football, were for a uniform. He pointed out that if a player was playing for your team, you supported the player. If he was playing for some other team, you did not support him. Team sports engender an unusual kind of loyalty. In
Was away at the US Open, so have barely had a chance to report about it. Let's quickly get to the top pros. Rafael Nadal Rafa played on the last match in the day session on Arthur Ashe. His opponent was Ryan Harrison. Harrison's a hard worker with a huge serve, but he has liabilities
Of the two, John Isner generally has the more straight-forward strategy. He knows his liabilities: he doesn't return particularly well, and he doesn't run particularly fast. These two constraints dictate his style of play. Hit big serves, hope for weak returns, and go for big shots on the forehand. On the return of serve, take
When Djokovic was on his epic win streak in 2011, the tennis media was in a frenzy by the time the French Open rolled around. Djokovic had finally beaten Nadal on clay. He had not lost a match up to that point. Djokovic would eventually lose to Federer in the semis of the French, but
Let's take a quick look at each of the finalists before discussing the finals. Last time we saw Juan Martin del Potro, he was playing the best match of this year's Wimbledon in a losing effort to Novak Djokovic. In two previous matches, he had hyper-extended his knee, so no one knew much how he
ESPN couldn't have asked for a better pair of finals this past weekend. After "The Body" issue featured two tennis players, John Isner and Aga Radwanska, made it to the finals of Atlanta and Stanford on the same weekend. For Isner, Atlanta is the tournament that vexes him. Twice, he's been runner up to Mardy
Today, two big men went into finals of clay events hoping to win a title on clay. One man did. John Isner combined a play of hard serving with consistency to get a win over Nicolas Almagro. Despite Almagro's rank as a top clay courter, the two have played each other close on clay. Despite
The myth used to be that big men prefer faster surfaces. Grass and hard courts were better for big guys who had big serves but lumbered around. Clay courts, by contrast, were bad for big men who allegedly lacked big groundstrokes. Indeed, as in basketball where big men were told to play center and close
2005 was a key year for Americans and it culminated in the US Open run of Andre Agassi, the last hurrah of America's last great champion. This event felt like a passing of the baton. Agassi beat young James Blake in 5 sets in the quarters of the US Open and beat Robby Ginepri in
