The weather got muggy on Sunday, and with it, Murray still looked sluggish against his second Mayer in a row. In the second round, he faced Leonardo Mayer, an Argentine with a big serve and big forehand. Florian Mayer is a German, who plays two hands on the volley, and likes to crowd the baseline,
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
Prior to teaming up with Lendl, Murray would play matches like this. More than any player in the "big 4", he would often let his opponents push him around, while he would retrieve and retrieve, hope to elicit some errors and hit a few winners. Since he's worked with Lendl, Murray has played more aggressively,
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
For the first time in a long while, I watched the finals of a match while simultaneously in a chat room filled with fans of tennis. Fans of tennis really want close matches. Perhaps this explains the popularity of basketball. In basketball, it's difficult, by and large, to dominate another team. The scores are usually
Let's summarize Montreal so far. First news, Federer chose to skip this event. He had added Hamburg and Gstaad to his schedule partly to compensate for losing early at Wimbledon, and partly to give himself time to get accustomed to his new, larger racquet. Andy Murray lost early. In a way, no surprise. In 2009
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
