You know it's the 2010's. Back in 2001, Federer beat Sampras at Wimbledon, their only meeting. Federer was a teenager, and such upsets were often caused by teenagers on the rise. Today, there are no bright teens waiting to upset the top players. In 2012, Lukas Rosol upset Rafael Nadal in the second round of
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
Bernard Tomic almost didn't get out of the first round, facing one of last year's new upstart, Martin Klizan, but he managed a third set win. He had a comfortable win against Somdev Devvarman in the second round. But his big challenge was the top-ranked Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Last year, Tomic showed a great deal
When you see Almagro in person, you wonder why he hasn't won more. He has a huge serve, that is often competing with Isner and Querrey and Raonic for most aces in a year. He has a big forehand. His backhand, these days, may be the hardest struck one-handed backhand on tour, better than Wawrinka,
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
And this is why tennis pundits, especially American tennis pundits, should consider writing for some other sport, like curling. For years, American tennis commentators--a rather obscure lot--had been more than happy to bully the Davis Cup. Let's make it more like the World Cup, they said. We can't see top pros like Federer and Nadal
About this time of year, or sometimes just after the US Open, you get tennis pundits, in particular, American tennis pundits who have solutions to what ails tennis. Davis Cup, invariably, gets a makeover. The key criticism of Davis Cup is that it's played over four distinct times, often the week after a Slam. The
No, Ferrero did not simply retire. He had long since decided to retire at Valencia where he and David Ferrer partly own the tournament. Ferrero was part of the Federer generation, the players that followed Agassi and Sampras and hung around a few years before Djokovic, Nadal, and Murray came up the ranks. Like Hewitt
No one had expected the US to make it this far. In the opening round, the US was pitted against Switzerland, on clay, with Roger Federer playing, but Isner pulled a big upset, and the US got past them. Then, the US plays against France, at France, on clay, even though the French might actually
