Tennis has had its share of fairy tales, players that come out of nowhere to win a title. Usually, these players are young, like Mats Wilander who claimed his first title at Roland Garros when he was 17, or Boris Becker claiming his second title at Wimbledon in 1985 after capturing his first at Queen's
This isn't quite the same story as Jeremy Lin who hit a bright patch of success when he became the point guard for the hapless New York Knicks, full of talent, and short on quality result. The Harvard grad who grew up in the shadows of Stanford enthralled media and fans across the US as
The French Open (referred to as Roland Garros by the locals) released its main draw. Once again, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer are in the same half of the draw. Novak's section has some solid, but not overly tough players. Hewitt is in his section, but Hewitt is not a noted clay courter, and he's
Has Rafa got his mojo back? Maybe. With his wins at Monte Carlo and Barcelona, Rafael Nadal has to be feeling good on his best surface. Still, Djokovic came into the finals with two solid wins, over Tsonga and Federer. His loss to Rafa in Monte Carlo could be blamed on Djokovic's personal loss when
The women's final preceded the men's. The men's had been scheduled for around 4 PM in Rome. The women started a little less than two hours earlier. For a while, it appeared that the women's match would finish routinely. Li Na had won a close first set, 6-4. She was comfortably up 4-0 with a
If you were to place a bet on who had a better chance to beat Rafa on clay, Djokovic or Federer, who would you pick? Federer has only beaten Rafa on clay sparingly. In Hamburg some number of years ago, and in Madrid, during its inaugural start. He may have another win here or there,
Ever since the US Open, Roger Federer has been playing some solid tennis. Indeed, even if you include the US Open, Roger Federer came within a hair of beating Djokovic. Only a go-for-broke return by Djokovic followed by a dig-out return and a Federer slap shot that clipped the net causing the ball to fall
Given how often Rafa and Novak were competing against each other, they seemed so far ahead of everyone that no one would catch them, but Federer had an outstanding end of the year where he won Basel, Paris, and the year-end championship. Federer continued to have a solid 2012, starting off better than he has
Rome is the last big tournament where many of the names expecting to contend for honors at Roland Garros will play. Let's just say that 2012 is significantly different from 2011. 2011 was the year of Novak, and the question then was "Can Novak win on clay?", and the answer was yes, but. He beat
It wasn't a pretty match, by any means. There seemed to be a lack of rhythm and flow, and thus, it was one player striking the ball well, and the other not as well, and vice versa. Berdych started off the match strong with an early break and rode that break to a 7=5 first
