Before I talk about today's early results, I want to talk about yesterday's results. Tennis really needs a better way to report its scores. Scores are fine, but they really don't tell you the story. I'll give you three examples from yesterday, two from women's matches. Maria Sharapova is down 6-3, 4-1 down, double-break. It
It's rare for this to happen. Roger Federer was scheduled to meet the winner of two wildcards. Normally, wildcards are ranked too low to get into the main draw. If this were Wimbledon, the wildcards could easily be ranked 300 or worse since UK has a dearth of quality players. However, France has a plethora
Perhaps one player Roger Federer didn't want to see in the first round was Feliciano Lopez. Lopez pushed Federer to 3 tiebreaks in Madrid to win. Federer did have a break opportunity to take it in straight sets. Despite this, I figured Federer would feel more confident playing Lopez and not be as vulnerable to
Of the eight quarterfinalists in this Barcelona event mostly owned by Nadal, 5 were Spaniards. This included Nadal, Ferrer, Ferrero, Almagro, and Lopez. The other three were Gael Monfils, Jurgen Melzer, and Ivan Dodig. Ivan who? Yeah, basically. Is Dodig a up-and-coming 19 year old ready to make a big splash? No, not really. He's
Monfils isn't such a good match for Nadal. You would think he would be. Tall, French, and flashy, you might think his athleticism would make a difference. But there are reasons Nadal tends to own Monfils. First, Nadal is quick enough that even when Monfils goes for a big shot and makes it, Nadal is
For all the talk of Novak Djokovic's amazing 2011 run, still undefeated with 3 wins over Federer and 2 wins over Nadal, the missing man has been Andy Murray. When Andy Murray put in a less than stellar effort in the finals of Melbourne, it was thought that he choked another final. While that may
It's hard to recall the last time a player ranked as high as del Potro (a top 5 player) that was sideline for most of a year. del Potro played 3 tournaments in all of 2010. He reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, then lost in two first round tournaments in the Asian swing
After being pushed to 5 sets, Roger Federer got to play Xavier Malisse, someone Roger has known since he was a teenager. Roger has generally fared very well against his generation of players, whether it be Andy Roddick or Jurgen Melzer or Lleyton Hewitt or, indeed, Xavier Malisse. Although Malisse was able to break Federer
I didn't catch any of the early parts of this match, but Querrey had a 2 set to 1 lead, but then lost the fourth set, 6-1. When I saw the fifth set, both were on serve, but Kubot seemed more aggressive, especially on return. Querrey escaped a few tough service games, but it generally
Most of the times, Davis Cup captains don't have much work to do. Most of the work is convincing the top players to play, and then you play them. Rarely does a team have options that it might ponder. For example, if Switzerland could ever convince Roger Federer to play for Davis Cup again, he'd
