Murray's camp probably didn't expect this. After the quarterfinal matches, many felt that Berdych was peaking, hitting hard shots, having upset Roger Federer in four sets. Berdych had given Murray problems in the past. He had a 4-2 head-to-head. Berdych's power is something most players struggle against, but he plays so up-and-down that lesser players
Let's look at the top 8 seeds and see how they're doing Roger Federer Federer had easy opponents the first two rounds. Donald Young has been struggling to beat anyone this year, so he wasn't ready to beat Federer. Bjorn Phau is quick, but doesn't have enough weapons to bother Federer. Verdasco was his first
Andy Roddick might love nothing more than to have a Jimmy Connors-like run through the US Open. One might never see a 39 year old make a deep run in a Slam again, though as recently as 2005, Andre Agassi, in his mid 30s, made a run to the finals. Roddick just turned 30 years
If you hadn't watched Murray's first round match, a 62 64 61 straight set match over Alex Bogomolov, you would have thought he had a comfortable win, without too much stress, but it was anything but. Bogomolov was able to break Murray 4 times, quite impressive, given the lop-sided score in the Russian's favor, but
Competed over 9 days, the Olympic tennis has half as many participants, but runs in half the time. A full 128 field takes two weeks to complete, another 5 days more. This compressed schedule means three rounds on played on consecutive days, and for half the players, four rounds are played on consecutive days. Every
You have to give credit to Lleyton Hewitt. For some reason, Federer's generation produced players whose bodies have broken down, most notably, Tommy Haas, but yes, Lleyton Hewitt. Many of his generation's stars play infrequently now or are retired: Hewitt, Haas, Ferrero, Nalbandian. Some of his generation continue to plod along working in the top
Newport is the only remaining ATP grass court event that's held in the United States. Once upon a time, the tour primarily consisted of grass, but grass is expensive to maintain, and unlike clay, it needs to be grown and maintained. Unlike golf, this grass is on a small area, so scuffs can be problematic.
When the Wimbledon draw came out about two weeks ago, fans had to be thinking, oh no, not again. Roger Federer was once again put in the same half of the draw as Novak Djokovic, a trend that seems to defy statistical odds. And that meant, once again, Andy Murray was put in the same
As many a tennis journalist will remind you, Brian Baker had no ranking a year ago, had asked for a last minute entry into a Pittsburgh event--which he had to drive from Nashville and to qualify for--an event that he won, that spearheaded Baker's unprecedented rise through the ranks. A year later, he had entered
Today, the Americans played. On court today were Brian Baker, Andy Roddick, Mardy Fish, and Sam Querrey. But before we start, the upset of the tournament has, alas, gone down. Lukas Rosol, who showed no nerves, in a boldly played fifth set, and took the number two seed and ostensibly, the favorite, out, found himself
