It may be the start of the new year, but tennis has made a roaring start with three tournaments just concluding, plus an exhibition in the Hopman Cup. The tournament with the most star power is in Doha, Qatar, which featured Federer, Nadal, Monfils, and Tsonga, Brisbane was the only men's tournament in Australia. The
Doha tournament organizers surely didn't expect this. When you have Federer and Nadal in the draw, you hope for Federer and Nadal in the final, or at least one or the other. Federer had to withdraw due to a back issue that had him in danger of missing his match against Seppi. He worked a
Doha These four players have nearly met before. Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and Gael Monfils were all at the Abu Dhabi exhibition last week. However, Djokovic beat Monfils and Ferrer beat Tsonga, so the two Frenchman never played Federer or Nadal. This time, Federer will face his nemesis in Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who beat
After struggling initially with Philipp Kohlschreiber in the first round, Rafael Nadal found things considerably easier with Denis Gremelmayr in the second round. Gremelmayr had to hit winners from all over the place just to hold what few serves he had, but he couldn't do it enough to bother Nadal as Nadal tightened up his
Paris is the last event of the year prior to the ATP World Tour Finals in London which invites the top 8 qualifiers. This is a Masters 1000 event which offers the most points after the Slams (not including the year-end final). Deciding who has qualified in the top 8 is a bit complex, because
Kei Nishikori has been Japan's best hope since Shuzo Matsuoka, and right now, he stands a good chance of doing far better than his compatriot. Nishikori has an intriguing style of play. He's fairly quick, has a good sense of how to hit a lob, but what separates him from most of his opponents is
Roger Federer has come to an age where, in the rare circumstances he plays someone his age, he's generally overwhelmingly favored. After all, Roger Federer is 30 years old, the age that many tennis players begin to fade. And even if Federer hasn't faded much, his competition has. Indeed, many of Federer's rivals reads like
It's always tough to summarize a match when all you see is a final score. Yesterday, I caught some of the Tipsarevic-Davydenko semifinal in Moscow. Alas, Davydenko is still struggling with control issues. He lost the first set 6-2, but had game points to keep it to one break. Yet, Tipsarevic broke anyway. The story
Jarkko Nieminen might be the best player to come out of Finland. Scandinavians have mostly been represented by Sweden, which is pretty impressive given it's a county of less then 20 million people. The Swedes are struggling a bit with Robin Soderling being the only top player, but at least, they have a history of
Here are today's results from Stockholm. Monfils d. Anderson 75 75 Raonic d Dimitrov 75 64 Nieminen d Kame 36 75 61 Blake d Nalbandian w/o The semis put Monfils against Raonic. Again, a good opportunity for Raonic to get to another final, but Monfils should be favored. Then Blake gets a break and doesn't
