In a surprise move, Viktor Troicki retired after losing 6-2 in the first set after an abdominal strain. I'm sure someone is likely to suggest that this might have been "arranged" so Djokovic would not tire himself early on, at least in hushed whispers. In any case, Djokovic is the first player to reach the
Only 5 matches done so far. Let's look at each in turn. Roddick d. Kunitsyn. The key, it seems, to many matches, is winning the first set. Kunitsyn beat Pole Prysiezny, who only seems to get in Slam draw due to his relative low rank. He kept even with Roddick, but once Roddick won 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
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
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
Around the time of the US Open, Andy Roddick finally admitted that he had been suffering a bout with mono. Keen fans of tennis will recall that Roger Federer was afflicted with mono at the start of 2008. He "only" reached the semifinals of the Australian Open. That year was the duo surprise of Novak
Last year, Rafael Nadal had a "beautiful disaster" losing all three of his round robin matches with nary a set. This year, he was able to turn it around. He came into today's match with a 2-0 lead and playing Tomas Berdych, the man who he beat to win this year's Wimbledon. Berdych's style seems
Let's start with the top seed and work our way down. Rafael Nadal Rafa's level generally never drops too low. Everyone points to how he never gives up, and while that's certainly one factor in his incredible ability to win, everyone says that about Lleyton Hewitt, and he's struggling to get in the top 20.
Of the top 6 seeds, the 6th seed, Tomas Berdych looked most vulnerable. Since losing in the finals of Wimbledon, he has had a subpar year. He lost to Llodra in the opening round of the US Open (a bit of an unlucky draw as Llodra just barely missed getting seeded), in the quarters in
