Mental tennis topics are some of the most popular on the Essential Tennis Podcast, but did you know that mental toughness for a single player can be very different from mental toughness on a team? Listen to Raj talk about being tough as a team whether you play USTA tournaments, club matches, or on high
Andy Roddick's path to winning a Masters 1000 has been a long. He recently reached the finals of Indian Wells, but lost to Ivan Ljubicic. Roddick won Cincinnati in 2006. All his Masters 1000 titles have been in North America. He beat Tomas Berdych without dropping serve, winning 7-5, 6-4, breaking Berdych once in each
Prior to Indian Wells, if you were to ask who the favorites to win Indian Wells and Miami, few would have said Andy Roddick. Of course, fewer still would have said Ivan Ljubicic who won Indian Wells. Most were predicting Roger Federer, with Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, nearly as often, and perhaps Rafael Nadal
By the start of 2009, people were looking at Nadal as being the next champ. He had claimed the number 1 spot, beat Federer at a Slam besides Wimbledon or the French (the Aussie Open) and left the number 1 in tears. Few expected 2009 to turn out the way it has. Nadal went into
It's time to wrap up our earlier conversation about Olympic lifting and how we can incorporate it's elements into our tennis fitness regiment. Today we'll look at one of the most complex lifts and break it down into smaller elements that we can more easily apply to our own routines. Why Learn the Clean and
Well, this surely wasn't the final people were expecting. Head-to-head would have suggested a Nadal-Soderling final in a rematch of the fourth round where Nadal lost in Paris. Instead, Roddick upset Nadal and Berdych pummeled Soderling, winning 6-2, 6-2. Apparently, Berdych wasn't done winning after defeating Roger Federer. At least Fed can feel good about
I won't do point by point blogging, because that is completely distracting when it comes to actually watching the match. I'll do it game-by-game. Surprisingly this is the early match, rather than Soderling-Berdych. On the other hand, it is a Friday, so you can imagine someone skipping work to watch this, and still having Friday
The last two semifinalists were decided today. Robin Soderling again makes it to the semifinals as he did back in Indian Wells. He played a familiar opponent, Mikhail Youzhny, who he beat back in Rotterdam. Youzhny was unable to complete that match, but he did complete this one, losing 6-1, 6-4. Tomas Berdych had to
Unlike the surprise loss by Federer yesterday, both Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal won quarterfinal matches. Roddick has never played Nicolas Almagro, but apparently found easy work, winning 6-3, 6-3. Nadal appeared to have a tougher challenge in Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Tsonga had a chance to break early, but wasn't able to do it while Nadal
I'm not much into predictions. I just use head to head matchups to see how things might be. So let's do this. Again, we'll be denied a Federer-Nadal matchup mostly because Fed is struggling. Berdych plays Verdasco next. Berdych has a 5-3 record, but they tend to go back and forth. The two met in
