Of all the personalities, Novak Djokovic is the one who has most embraced his fame. Rafael Nadal does his duty, but you get the sense he's shy and prefers a quiet time. Roger Federer is friendly, but aloof. Andy Murray is moody and when he isn't, he seems kinda dull. Djokovic likes being Djokovic, and
With the finals of Vienna and St. Petersburg being played today, there's only two more weeks where players can qualify for the year-end championship, namely Basel/Valencia next week, and the last Masters 1000 event of the year in Paris. This week, two events are being played, one in Vienna and one in St. Petersburg. Last
The US Open series is often used by Americans to showcase their talents. It starts in Atlanta and ends in New York City at the US Open. Many non-Americans often skip the first month of the US Open series and start play in Canada. The downside of all this play is Americans generally play poorly
It's always tough to summarize a match when all you see is a final score. Yesterday, I caught some of the Tipsarevic-Davydenko semifinal in Moscow. Alas, Davydenko is still struggling with control issues. He lost the first set 6-2, but had game points to keep it to one break. Yet, Tipsarevic broke anyway. The story
Jarkko Nieminen might be the best player to come out of Finland. Scandinavians have mostly been represented by Sweden, which is pretty impressive given it's a county of less then 20 million people. The Swedes are struggling a bit with Robin Soderling being the only top player, but at least, they have a history of
Here are today's results from Stockholm. Monfils d. Anderson 75 75 Raonic d Dimitrov 75 64 Nieminen d Kame 36 75 61 Blake d Nalbandian w/o The semis put Monfils against Raonic. Again, a good opportunity for Raonic to get to another final, but Monfils should be favored. Then Blake gets a break and doesn't
As the "new four" try to climb their way to the top (whether they can do this is another question), they need to secure big victories at some point. Let's think about the big four. Roger Federer's big win was beating Sampras in the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2001. At the time, Sampras had
In the US, you have to be a diehard tennis fan to watch tennis now. Many people stop watching after the US Open, especially if they follow American football. With the paucity of games in a football season (16 total, as opposed to 82 in basketball, and nearly twice as many in baseball), every game
Well, this was a sloppy match. When Murray stepped on the court against Nadal last week in Tokyo, he had the courage of his convictions. Murray knows that, against Nadal, he has to hit well. When the final shot hit wide and Murray had completed the 6-0 set, Murray fans must have felt elated at
Let's start with the first semi of the day. Feliciano Lopez played David Ferrer. Despite Ferrer being the third seed and ranked number 5, Lopez lead their head-to-head on hardcourts 6-1. To be fair, the two hadn't met on hardcourts since 2009. This is an important observation because David Ferrer, despite having been a very
