The year-end championship has gone through a lot of changes over the years. Initially, it was a round-robin event, but back in 1981, there was some gamesmanship by Ivan Lendl. Bjorn Borg had won enough in his group to qualify for the semifinals, so he took some strategic losses. This left the unheralded Gene Mayer
Surely, David Ferrer had to wonder if this day would ever come. At 30 years of age, Ferrer has been toiling on the tour for some time. Ferrer's career started its upward trend back in 2010 when he won two titles but reached three additional finals. Ferrer has been an incredibly solid top 5 player
This was the first real match that I've seen Janowicz play. My first mental note was: this guy hits a lot of drop shots for a big guy. Janowicz stands at 6'8" in the rare air of Isner, Karlovic, and Anderson. I amended that note: this guy hits a lot of drop shots for anyone.
Ah, puns. When the ATP Tour decided that pros needed more rest in the off season, they removed the week between Paris (Indoors) and London (World Tour Finals). Surely, organizers had to realize that such a move would create a bit of havoc with the schedule--and it has. Djokovic lost in his opening round. Murray
Male players had been clamoring for a longer off-season. The women just had their championship conclude the past week, so they are, for the most part, done (oddly enough, they run additional tournaments after the year-end championship). The ATP has to placate many tournament organizers who like hosting a world-class event. While tennis pundits (looking
When they decided to remove the week between Paris and London, you knew that odds were that the top 8 players would not be completely motivated to win Paris, especially, the top 4. Of course, Nadal has already decided to take the rest of the year off to recover, so he was a no-show regardless.
Novak Djokovic opened up his second round (he had a first round) ready for Halloween. He dressed up in a Darth Vader mask, perhaps aware that Disney had spent billions acquiring the Star Wars franchise, or maybe it was just coincidence. He stepped on court knowing that he would end the year at number 1
Let's rewind the clock some--back to 2008. 2008 was the year of the previous Olympics, back in Beijing. Andy Roddick decided not to play the Olympics that year, hoping that he could do well in the US Open series with a depleted field due to the Olympics. Heading into Los Angeles, he reached the finals
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
The last few years, Novak Djokovic has challenged Federer at his home tournament in Basel. This year, he opted not to play. Let's see how this impacts Federer's chances at number 1. Currently, Federer has 12165 points to Djokovic's 11970 points for 195 point lead. However, Djokovic played last year and reached the semis. This
