Last year, around this time, Andy Murray was looking for a good tournament win. In 2010, Murray reached his second Slam final at the Australian Open and lost once again to Roger Federer. Not only did tears flow for the Scot, but Murray's game went into a mini tailspin. Murray finally righted the ship and
China, the site of the Shanghai Masters, has been on a quest. They want to produce a top 200 male player. Obviously, top 100 would be great too. They've done plenty fine producing good women players, most notably, French Open champion, Li Na. And they've done well enough producing players that can win a few
Just for the fun of it, I thought I would look at Wednesday's matches and give some thoughts about them. Fernando Verdasco vs. Juan Carlos Ferrero These two haven't played in two years. Verdasco leads 3-2 and won the last two. Ferrero is a strange player. He's frequently injured, but when he comes back, he's
They may eventually become the new "fab four", but they have yet to show the kind of talent that Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray have shown. These "fab four" are Tomic, Harrison, Raonic, and Dmitrov. All four are playing this week at the Shanghai Masters 1000 and three of them played today. Of the four, Tomic
Shanghai is the penultimate (that means "next to last") Masters 1000 event of the year. Due to its late position, it can be a challenge to get all the top players here. In particular, Federer announced some weeks ago that he would be skipping Shanghai. Djokovic announced last week that he, too, would skip Shanghai.
Ever since Federer became dominant back around 2003, pros have had to wait their turn to try to move up the ranks. The first player that waited and waited was Rafael Nadal. Nadal was part of a group of players that have become the most solid group since maybe the Americans back in the early
Fresh off his win over Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray teamed up with his brother, Jamie Murray, to win the doubles title over the fourth seed, Cermak and Polasek of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, respectively, in a tidy 6-1, 6-4 win, the easiest win en route to the title. The two had teamed up to
Easily, easily, the best Murray has played against Nadal in their meetings. This tops his brilliant performance over Nadal back in 2008 Open when the upstart 6th seed upset the second player in the world. To give you some idea of how good Murray's performance was, Murray has only ever taken a 6-0 set off
The year-end championships invites the top 8 players to a round-robin tournament. Points-wise, it can be worth more than a Masters 1000 event to the winner. The top 4 have been known for weeks. Not surprisingly, it's Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, and Murray. The next four are Ferrer, Fish, Tsonga, and Berdych. They have yet to
Andy Murray is ranked 4 in the world. David Ferrer is ranked 5 in the world. You would think the two might be a bit closer in skill, but they do call the "top 4" for a reason. Ferrer is as tough a fighter as you'll ever see, but he is a bit like Justine
