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.
If you had asked me, a week before Wimbledon, if I thought Roger Federer could win Wimbledon, I'd say sure, he could, but that Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic would be favored, and possibly Andy Murray, though, at the time, he was the big unknown. He hadn't had a good tournament in quite sometime, arguably
The point lead seemed insurmountable. Novak Djokovic had had the best year of any player in quite some time. Even with his loss to Nadal at the French, he was still the reigning champ in the other 3 Slams. But somehow, Roger knew. He knew, if a series of events happened, he just might make
I may not be able to do this fully as I have to catch a flight, but we'll go for about 3 hours. FIRST SET The roof is open, so the match will start outdoors. Murray called tails, but the coin toss came out heads. Roger elected to serve. *Federer-Murray 0-1. Fed seems a little
Heading into the finals, there are a bunch of stories that one can focus on. It's the first Slam in a while where neither Rafael Nadal nor Novak Djokovic are playing. The last time this happened was only a year ago, at the French Open, when Federer beat Novak Djokovic, to reach the finals and,
Going into the semifinals, my thoughts were that Djokovic would be like a human backboard and Federer would frustrate himself into a loss. I also thought Murray would tough out a win over Tsonga, a player that he'd only lost to in their initial meeting back in Tsonga's run to the Australian Open final in
FIRST SET *Murray-Tsonga 3-0. Murray started serving well, to 40-0. Tsonga came back to 40-15. Tsonga was up on his serve, played sloppy points, and eventually got broken. Murray held a close match. Expect longer rallies and Tsonga coming to net. Murray-Tsonga* 3-1. Nice hold for Tsonga. *Murray-Tsonga 4-1. This looks to be more entertaining
Before the match starts, I want to get in a few predictions. Back in the French Open, we still needed some convincing that Djokovic was playing good tennis. He finally reached a good level of play at the semifinals where he beat Roger Federer. This time around, Djokovic seems a lot more solid heading into
When the Wimbledon draw came out about two weeks ago, fans had to be thinking, oh no, not again. Roger Federer was once again put in the same half of the draw as Novak Djokovic, a trend that seems to defy statistical odds. And that meant, once again, Andy Murray was put in the same
As many a tennis journalist will remind you, Brian Baker had no ranking a year ago, had asked for a last minute entry into a Pittsburgh event--which he had to drive from Nashville and to qualify for--an event that he won, that spearheaded Baker's unprecedented rise through the ranks. A year later, he had entered
