Currently, Soderling has 5580 points to Andy Murray's 5760 which means Soderling is 180 points behind Murray. With Soderling's win at Brisbane, he will replace a quarterfinal result in Marseille worth 45 points with a 250 point win or a net of 205 points, and just move ahead of Andy Murray. This means, with both
Maybe if Tomas Berdych had won, Chennai would seem like it was on par with Doha and Brisbane. Heck, the Hopman Cup, an exhibition had more star power (with Murray and Djokovic playing) than 2 of the 3 official tournaments played this week. But with Stan Wawrinka facing Xavier Malisse, Chennai felt something like the
Last year, Soderling went to Chennai and promptly lost in the opening round to Robby Ginepri. He went to the Australian Open and promptly lost the opening round to Marcel Granollers. Fortunately, this blip in his record didn't affect the rest of his year as he flitted with becoming number 4 in the world. This
Now that we're merely a week away from the start of the first Slam of the year, it's a good time to see the form of the top players. Rafael Nadal Last year, Nadal made a serious go at winning the year-end championships. He took a week off and chose not to play the Paris
The circumstances were quite different last year. Davydenko was coming off a win at the ATP World Tour Finals. Nadal had not won a title in about half a year, but was playing good aggressive tennis to start the year. Federer was playing, well, he has lost the US Open to del Potro and lost
Last year, at this time, Nikolay Davydenko was coming off a great end of 2009 and looking to continue his winning ways in 2010. He had been on a hot streak, winning Kuala Lumpur, winning in Shanghai over Djokovic and Nadal, and winning the year-end championship beating Nadal, Federer, and del Potro, the three Slam
Ivo Karlovic is one of those unusual players. He grew up poor, so he didn't get all the lessons the top juniors got and practiced the one thing you can practice by yourself: his serve. Karlovic not only hits the biggest serve in tennis, he is pretty consistent too. Like Roddick, Karlovic hits about 70%
Looking every bit like a sandy brown Apollo Ohno, soul patch included, or perhaps that faithful stoner buddy of Scooby Doo, Lukas Lacko, the Slovak Shaggy, had Rafael Nadal on the the ropes. Lacko (pronounced Lack-so by the announcers) is not exactly a young player. At age 23, he's been on the tour for a
Once upon a time, there was a split between pro and amateur tennis. Amateur tennis was more of the Olympian ideal. No money except for basic expenses (food, travel, etc). Of course, the lack of money meant that most good amateurs had to become pros to make money, and the poorer you were, the sooner
Historically, Doha has attracted a fairly strong field. In 2010 and in 2009, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal played. Andy Murray won in 2009 and 2008. Nikolay Davydenko is perhaps the most regular participant in this event that's so far away from Australia. Last year, Andy Murray opted not to defend his title at Doha.Â
