Only 5 matches done so far. Let's look at each in turn. Roddick d. Kunitsyn. The key, it seems, to many matches, is winning the first set. Kunitsyn beat Pole Prysiezny, who only seems to get in Slam draw due to his relative low rank. He kept even with Roddick, but once Roddick won the
In another time, another world, Yonex would be salivating at this matchup, against former top 5 players, Lleyton Hewitt and David Nalbandian. Both decked head-to-toe with Yonex clothing, both playing with a Yonex stick. It must be how Nike feels when it sees yet another Federer-Nadal final. Nearly ten years ago, the two had met
Sometimes, during a Slam, you'll see seeds do really well on the first day, then seeds struggle on the second day. Federer and Djokovic had an easy day, so clearly Murray, Nadal, and Soderling had to show them up. And they did. Both Murray and Nadal's opponents retired. Nadal was up 6-0, 5-0 when his
Nearly all the top seeds had pretty easy wins. Federer, Djokovic, Berdych, Verdasco, and Roddick, all top ten seeds won in straight sets handily. The seeds in the teens struggled. Gael Monfils had a tough first rounder against Thiemo de Bakker, needing 5 sets to win. He did win the last two sets comfortably. It's
Although Lukas Lacko had a 6-0 set against Nadal in Doha, Nadal chalked that up with being ill. And that Lacko, who was aggressive against Nadal looked like a deer in headlights. Lacko (pronounced Latch-ko, apparently), who looks like Shaggy from Scooby-Do, just looked dazed. He didn't appear to have much of a game plan.
I didn't catch any of the early parts of this match, but Querrey had a 2 set to 1 lead, but then lost the fourth set, 6-1. When I saw the fifth set, both were on serve, but Kubot seemed more aggressive, especially on return. Querrey escaped a few tough service games, but it generally
Most of the top ten pros played last week and gave themselves a week off to practice leading up to the Australian Open. However, some players seem to prefer playing the week before a major. In Auckland, David Ferrer beat Santiago Giraldo, 6-3, 7-5, to reach the finals where he will face David Nalbandian who
The 96 non-seeds were randomly placed on the board. Number 1 seed, Rafa Nadal is always in the top half at position 1, while number 2 seed, Roger Federer is at position 128 at the bottom of the bottom half. Ivan Lendl was selected to be the person drawing random numbers out of the trophy
2011 starts very differently than 2010. In particular, there are a few names that were nearly no-shows last year, and their presence makes thing more interesting. Consider the following names that were absent or at least irrelevant for much of 2010: Nikolay Davydenko (a few months), Gilles Simon, Ivo Karlovic, Radek Stepanek, and, of course,
I started watching tennis in the early 80s. In those days, cable was just starting to get popular. ESPN was already the premier sports channel because, well, there was no such thing anywhere else. Even so, it competed against the three big American networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC. For the most part, CBS and NBC
