Another day until the big French Open semis. Let's make some predictions. Nadal vs. Djokovic Because it is the French Open, and there is a viable French player still alive in the semis, Nadal will face Djokovic in the first semifinal of the day, even though most tennis fans realize this is the de facto
Keen observers noted that all four quarterfinals pitted a two-handed backhand player against a one-handed backhand player. In 3 of the 4 quarterfinals, the two-hander was the higher seed: the sole exception was Roger Federer. In yesterday's quarterfinals, Roger Federer lost in straight sets to the powerful Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, leading to a possibility that
Outside the other members of the big 4, if there are two players Federer would prefer not to see in a draw, it's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Tomas Berdych. Both have big serves. Both hit hard off the ground. Both have given Federer troubles in Slams. Remember when Federer has that semifinal streak? Federer had reached
There's something about Nadal that makes Federer fans edgy. Anytime they see an issue, say, a 4-set win over Brands or a 4-set win over Klizan, they think Nadal is vulnerable. They're waiting for him to falter. Surely, he can't recover. They create scenarios in their head about someone making that upset. People forget that
When the draw for the French Open came out, the first big question was: where would Rafael Nadal end up? Nadal had a spectacular clay season which pushed his rank up to number 4, ahead of David Ferrer. This created a great deal of relief among the other top seeds because they didn't have to
In all the years that Rafael Nadal has played the French Open, he's only been pushed to 5 sets once. It happened in an opening r0und match against John Isner back in 2011. Roger Federer? He's been pushed to 5 sets numerous times. During the 2009 campaign, the only year Federer ever won the French
For a set and a half, Rafa was having a Lukas Rosol moment. Rosol, for those that don't pay attention, was the lowly ranked player that upset Nadal in the second round of Wimbledon last year, a loss that sent Rafa to 7 months away from the tour. Rosol achieved this by belting the ball.
The Spanish have a tradition where a child adopts both his father's last name and his mother's. Not everyone follow the tradition as evidenced by Ferrer, Nadal, Lopez. But there is Garcia-Lopez, Gimeno-Traver, Bautista-Agut. With so many Spaniards playing tennis, only rivaled by their Pyrenees neighbors, the French, it's not surprising you've never heard of
With Andy Murray withdrawing days before the start of the French Open, Roger Federer suddenly moved to the second seed, and that meant he didn't have to see Novak Djokovic until the finals. As the third seed, he could have met both Djokovic and Nadal to win an elusive French. But with Nadal as the
Sometime in 2011, during Djokovic's historic win streak and his ascendancy to number 1, many tennis pundits felt Federer would never get back to number 1, would never win another Slam, or if he did, it would be a one-off. Federer was edging to 30. Federer kept saying that it was ridiculous to talk about
