When the draw came out a few days ago, Roger Federer looked like he had a tough draw, relatively speaking. Murray landed on his half of the draw. His first round opponent is the talented Benoit Paire of France. Nikolay Davydenko, who gave Roget a scare in 2010, at the Australian Open and who recently
This was the first real match that I've seen Janowicz play. My first mental note was: this guy hits a lot of drop shots for a big guy. Janowicz stands at 6'8" in the rare air of Isner, Karlovic, and Anderson. I amended that note: this guy hits a lot of drop shots for anyone.
Ah, puns. When the ATP Tour decided that pros needed more rest in the off season, they removed the week between Paris (Indoors) and London (World Tour Finals). Surely, organizers had to realize that such a move would create a bit of havoc with the schedule--and it has. Djokovic lost in his opening round. Murray
Lots of play today at the Shanghai Masters. It's the second round and the top seeds were mostly in action today. It's not unusual for players that do well in a previous tournament to fade in the next one. Raonic and Nishikori were finalists in the Japan Open last week. Nishikori lost to Querrey in
The French may not do well on their home Slam, but they love the hard courts. In the finals of Bangkok, Gilles Simon took on Richard Gasquet. In Kuala Lumpur, Julien Benneteau took on Juan Monaco. Three of the four finalists were French. Let's start with Bangkok. Gilles Simon has been a more successful finalist
The Asian swing of ATP tour starts up with two exotic locales: Bangkok, Thailand and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Let's start with Bangkok. Last year, Andy Murray decided to play Bangkok. None of the other top 4 players elected to play. He won the tournament. However, with the Olympic schedule, Murray has chosen not to defend
Gilles Simon is a peculiar player for a high-level tennis player. Male tennis players have a certain machismo when they play tennis. Perhaps no one embodies this more than players like Fernando Verdasco or Fernando Gonzalez. These two would rather hit you off the court with big shots than to win playing finesse. Some players,
What a difference a year makes. Last year, Donald Young was on something of a roll. He reached the semis of Washington DC. He reached the fourth round of the US Open. His ranking was high enough that he could skip Challenger events. However, rather than continue on that win streak, Young's career went into
Let's take a quick look at some of the more interesting matches from Day 1. Andy Murray vs. Alex Bogomolov Jr. Last year, Murray had part 2 of a post-Australian Open loss funk. He had lost to Novak Djokovic, then lost to two "American" "juniors" as in Alex Bogomolov Jr. in Miami and Donald Young, Jr.
When Roger Federer was slated to play Julien Benneteau in the third round of Wimbledon, few expected that the journeyman Frenchman would push the Swiss maestro to the brink coming within 2 points of the upset. After all, Federer rarely loses to players his age. So when Benneteau was slated to meet Federer after his
