The clay court season starts with Monte Carlo and culminates at Madrid. Technically, there's one more clay tournament (in Nice, France) prior to the French, but the likelihood is no top seeds will play that tournament. There are three Masters 1000 (Monte Carlo, Rome, and Madrid) with Monte Carlo considered an optional tournament (the other
There are so many misunderstandings about watching the ball during your tennis play. Watching the ball is an incredibly simple concept, but so few recreational players do it well. Find out what steps you can take to start making better contact with the ball, stop losing your concentration! Ian also talks about the journey we
Rain was the only thing stopping Nadal from yet another Masters 1000 title. There was a rain delay at 4-all and then once again 2-1 in the second set. They came back shortly after 8 PM. Ferrer won one more game, while Nadal won the rest, taking the second set, 6-2. At 23 years of
Most had predicted that Nadal would win over his countryman Ferrer. The only hope was that Nadal's somewhat indifferent play would continue to the finals giving Ferrer a chance to use his steadiness to steal the match. Turns out, not so much. Ferrer kept even throughout the first set, but eventually Nadal was able to
Last year, it was not too hard to talk about the clay season. The clay season referring to the tournaments between Monte Carlo and the last tournament prior to the French Open. Think of this as a prelude to some grand symphony. The clay season used to have less significance because the top players didn't
There's only been a handful of players that have pulled off the Nadal-Federer double, that is, to beat both at the same tournament. They include David Nalbandian, Nikolay Davydenko, Juan Martin del Potro, and Novak Djokovic. The two play such disparate styles that beating both is a task. And yet, the most shocking person that
So much for predictions (I predicted Djokovic, Ferrer, Lopez, and Nadal--only 2 of 4 correct). Verdasco continued his mastery over Djokovic although Djokovic did make a match of it. Verdasco wins: 7-6(4), 4-6, 6-4. David Ferrer shows that his defeat of Andy Murray was not simply a slumping Murray (Murray's main problems were first serve
It was only two weeks ago when Verdasco decimated Djokovic in the Monte Carlo semifinals, 6-2, 6-2. Djokovic promised that he would acquit himself better this time around. And so, Djokovic did, but the second hottest player on the clay circuit, Fernando Verdasco, still won, in a 3 hour plus match. Verdasco has taken a
On paper, Andy Murray's loss to David Ferrer looks like an upset. In practice, perhaps not so much. Ferrer is ranked 17th in the world, but has been ranked as high as number 4 in the world, as recently as 2 years ago. Ferrer is, what's known in the tennis parlance, as a clay court
It's been a while since Italians had a top male player. Back in the golden age of pro tennis, in the mid 1970s, the Foro Italico, site of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, once called the Italian Open, was a raucous arena filled with rowdy Italians. Whistles could sometimes lead to throwing of coins. Such was
