Jarkko Nieminen might be the best player to come out of Finland. Scandinavians have mostly been represented by Sweden, which is pretty impressive given it's a county of less then 20 million people. The Swedes are struggling a bit with Robin Soderling being the only top player, but at least, they have a history of
Here are today's results from Stockholm. Monfils d. Anderson 75 75 Raonic d Dimitrov 75 64 Nieminen d Kame 36 75 61 Blake d Nalbandian w/o The semis put Monfils against Raonic. Again, a good opportunity for Raonic to get to another final, but Monfils should be favored. Then Blake gets a break and doesn't
As the "new four" try to climb their way to the top (whether they can do this is another question), they need to secure big victories at some point. Let's think about the big four. Roger Federer's big win was beating Sampras in the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2001. At the time, Sampras had
In the US, you have to be a diehard tennis fan to watch tennis now. Many people stop watching after the US Open, especially if they follow American football. With the paucity of games in a football season (16 total, as opposed to 82 in basketball, and nearly twice as many in baseball), every game
When all is said and done, it's not clear just how long Federer will maintain the crown "greatest of all time", but he's about to reach a milestone that he's not looking forward to. Federer's credentials for GOAT (greatest of all times) lies primarily with his 16 Slam wins. Of course, there's more to it
Well, this was a sloppy match. When Murray stepped on the court against Nadal last week in Tokyo, he had the courage of his convictions. Murray knows that, against Nadal, he has to hit well. When the final shot hit wide and Murray had completed the 6-0 set, Murray fans must have felt elated at
Most of the times, I think Tennis Channel is doing a pretty good job. Here's a prime example. Last week, in Tokyo, Tennis Channel was not planning to show the quarterfinals live. But, somehow they managed to do just that. They put all four quarterfinals on, live, which means in the wee hours of the
Let's start with the first semi of the day. Feliciano Lopez played David Ferrer. Despite Ferrer being the third seed and ranked number 5, Lopez lead their head-to-head on hardcourts 6-1. To be fair, the two hadn't met on hardcourts since 2009. This is an important observation because David Ferrer, despite having been a very
Last year, Andy Murray had a bit of luck winning Shanghai. The draw was set for Murray to meet Nadal in the semis. Except Nadal never got to the semis, losing early to Jurgen Melzer. Murray didn't face his first true tough competitor until the finals, but Murray dispatched Roger Federer pretty easily. And, to
No, no, I don't mean fuzzyyellowballs.com, the site by Will Hamilton and Adam Sieminski. I mean the actual tennis balls that the site was named after. There are plenty of tennis fans who look at the desire by the top players to form a union as silly. It's the same reactions fans have in team
