Sometimes a good head-to-head is all you need to feel good about your chances. Hewitt lead Soderling 3-1. However, 2 of the wins were in 2004 when Soderling was starting on tour and Hewitt was still closer to the top of his game. They didn't play again until 2009 when Hewitt won in Cincy in
You would think the second ranked player in the world would get more love at Wimbledon. Novak Djokovic, however, is getting less press partly because his streak, which was the big conversation heading into the French Open, is over. With Federer's defeat of Djokovic and his proficiency on grass, Federer and Nadal are again the
The top seeds continue to roll. Nadal has played Ryan Sweeting twice this year, once at the Australian Open and once at Indian Wells, winning both handily. He lost 4 games in both. Surely, he had to feel pretty confident playing Sweeting. Although Sweeting did win a few more games, he still lost handily in
Of course, no one expected Isner-Mahut to run 5 sets and last 3 days. Both players were probably relieved that there wouldn't be a marathon match. They played on a different court (Court 1) with a different umpire (Lars Graff instead of Mohamed Lahyani) and a different outcome. Isner was favored, although his ranking had
Before we talk about Federer, let's review the late matches yesterday. Yesterday afternoon, it began to rain and this cancelled all play except Centre Court which has, surprise, a roof! When the roof was ready to go in Wimbledon 2009, there was very little rain. Andy Murray played a 5-setter against Stan Wawrinka, and was
When Wimbledon made its draw last Friday, two names appeared near one another: John Isner and Nicolas Mahut. What were the odds of that? Roughly speaking, less than 1%, but not much less. There were accusations that Wimbledon organizers rigged this, even though the draw was conducted in public (which would require some sleight of
The best times to catch Rafa napping in his game is early on. Roger Federer knew this when he nearly won the first set off of Rafa in the finals of the French Open. The problem? It usually takes Rafa only half a set or so before his strokes are back in groove. This happened
Sometimes you think this thing is rigged. This is such a weird draw. Last night, ESPN Classic decided to show Isner-Mahut in its entirety. They had devoted 9 hours to this. Last year, they showed Isner-Mahut in its entirety but clipped out commentary and any downtime between serves and compressed the match to about 3
These are the top 32 seeds for 2011 Wimbledon singles championships. Rafael Nadal Novak Djokovic Roger Federer Andy Murray Robin Söderling Tomáš Berdych David Ferrer Andy Roddick Gaël Monfils Mardy Fish Jürgen Melzer Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Viktor Troicki Stanislas Wawrinka Gilles Simon Nicolás Almagro Richard Gasquet Mikhail Youzhny Michaël Llodra Florian Mayer Fernando Verdasco Alexandr Dolgopolov
On Sunday, it rained. And rained. And rained some more. Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga were left to playing tennis and tweeting to pass the time away. Eventually, the match was called, and the spectators were given full refunds. The players would have to return Monday. Tennis Channel was scheduled to cover the finals early
