Newport is the only remaining ATP grass court event that's held in the United States. Once upon a time, the tour primarily consisted of grass, but grass is expensive to maintain, and unlike clay, it needs to be grown and maintained. Unlike golf, this grass is on a small area, so scuffs can be problematic.
There's the big four: Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, and Murray. Then, there are the next two. Soderling and Ferrer. While their games aren't quite good enough to beat the top 4, they are good enough to beat pretty much everyone else. Soderling does his part supporting the two hometown tournaments. This one is played outdoors on
The Federer generation's first success didn't start with Federer. It started with Marat Safin. The Federer generation includes Marat Safin, Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Carlos Ferrero, David Nalbandian, Andy Roddick, and Roger Federer. Excluding Roger Federer, this group has won 6 Slams (Safin and Hewitt with 2 each, Ferrero and Roddick with 1 each). The key
Sometimes a good head-to-head is all you need to feel good about your chances. Hewitt lead Soderling 3-1. However, 2 of the wins were in 2004 when Soderling was starting on tour and Hewitt was still closer to the top of his game. They didn't play again until 2009 when Hewitt won in Cincy in
Of course, no one expected Isner-Mahut to run 5 sets and last 3 days. Both players were probably relieved that there wouldn't be a marathon match. They played on a different court (Court 1) with a different umpire (Lars Graff instead of Mohamed Lahyani) and a different outcome. Isner was favored, although his ranking had
It was thought that the powerful Soderling would have a chance against Nadal. Nadal had yet to play anyone that hit as hard as Soderling. Nadal would have to up his game to face the one man that had beaten him on clay. But Nadal had done it twice before in Slams, once last year
Everyone's asking whether Roger Federer has lost it. But, to me, he's like Chris Evert when Steffi Graf rose to the top spot. Martina was number 1 or 2 and Graf was behind her. However, Evert had been champ for years and years. The women's game still resembled Evert more than it resembled Graf and
Fognini must have channeled the spirit of Andy Murray. Perhaps it was a cramp, but it seems like it was a muscle pull. Whatever it was, late in the third set, Fognini was struck with something that impaired his movement. He went to the only strategy that's available if you want to keep playing. Go
It's just about halfway through the French Open. The men have completed the third round matches. The fourth round begins on Sunday. Let's see how all the seeds are doing. Rafael Nadal Rafa started off the tournament in a new situation: a five setter at Paris. He played nervous in the two tiebreaks he lost,
It's hard to believe, but over the 6 years that Nadal has played the French Open, he's never played a 5-setter. They don't call Nadal the king of clay for nothing. He has played two French Opens without dropping a set. It's perhaps not surprising that John Isner might be the kind of guy that
