Hopman Cup Let's start with an exo, only because I caught the tail-end of this. This is like a mini-Davis Cup. One man. One woman. Two singles. One mixed doubles. The finalists, this year, were Spain and Serbia. Of course, with Novak Djokovic, Serbia won the men's singles. Anabel Medina Garrigues then won a touch
Often the opening tournaments of the new year tell you more about the players ranked outside the top 5 than they do the top 5. After all, it's not only the best of the best that use the off-season (which lasts maybe two months for lower-ranked players) to ramp up their game. So here are
With the start of the new year, the tennis cycle starts afresh. It was only about 6 weeks ago that the last official ATP event was played, namely, the Davis Cup finals. Since then, some players have used the extra time for exhibitions. Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Juan Martin del Potro, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga were
I'm not the kind of person that likes to predict Slams. These tend to be "wish for" exercises. You never know when, say, Rafael Nadal will get injured, and then all your Slam predictions go bye-bye. Instead, I'll try to look at the form of the top few players. Novak Djokovic 2011 was a great
Andy Murray's a bit of a chameleon. He seems to play a variety of different ways. If you saw him play, say, back in 2008, he would play patient ball, standing way behind the baseline, varying his spins and placement. He didn't hit harder than anyone else. Indeed, once he got to number 4, the
Well, it's come down to number 1 (Djokovic) and number 2 (Federer) in the year-end finals. Some had hoped that del Potro would have come all the way back and challenge the top players. However, Djokovic (and Murray, for that matter) had a good record against del Potro even when del Potro was at his
Federer had been hoping to get back on the winning track beating del Potro. Ever since del Potro returned to tour after nearly a year off from playing, he has slowly, but surely been ascending up the ranks. Federer has, in the meantime, been able to beat del Potro on a regular basis, biding his
There are some who believe that Andy Murray shouldn't have gotten credit for the US Open because it was played in windy conditions and Djokovic performed worse in the wind than Murray. But Murray's made a good point about why he's lost so many times in Slams. Consider Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer. Nadal's first title
People had been wondering whether Murray was choking with an advantage. In the last three matches, Murray held match points, but was unable to seal the deal. In Tokyo, match points were held against Raonic. In Shanghai, it was against Djokovic. In Paris, against Janowicz. Of course, when match points are lost, it's often a
The year-end championship has gone through a lot of changes over the years. Initially, it was a round-robin event, but back in 1981, there was some gamesmanship by Ivan Lendl. Bjorn Borg had won enough in his group to qualify for the semifinals, so he took some strategic losses. This left the unheralded Gene Mayer
