Nikolay Davydenko has been struggling with his game ever since he came back from a broken left wrist around Wimbledon of last year. Things were so bad that, during a Davis Cup match in Russia, Davydenko wanted to take himself out of the reverse singles and was only convinced by his wife to continue to
Before we talk about Federer, let's review the late matches yesterday. Yesterday afternoon, it began to rain and this cancelled all play except Centre Court which has, surprise, a roof! When the roof was ready to go in Wimbledon 2009, there was very little rain. Andy Murray played a 5-setter against Stan Wawrinka, and was
Nadal is the kind of player that generally doesn't play two bad matches in a row. It happened at Wimbledon last year when he was taken to five sets by unheralded Robin Haase and Philipp Petzschner. But it rarely happens on clay. Indeed, Nadal had never been taken to five sets at the French Open
OK, this is a theory and may not be completely valid, but I think Djokovic's transformation comes partly from learning how Davydenko beat Nadal. (For the curious, this was last year in London after a round-robin match. They swapped shirts like soccer teams often do). Up to Davydenko, the way to beat Nadal was to
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
This year, the ATP organizers shuffled up the clay court schedule. Historically, it was Monte Carlo, then an ATP 250 event (or events), then Rome, then more ATP 250 events, then Hamburg, then ATP 250 events, then the French Open. Hamburg was demoted and Madrid converted from an indoor tournament to a clay event. Players
Let's start in Estoril, Portugal's only ATP level event. Last year, it was Albert Montanes, who upset Roger Federer, defending his title over local, Frederico Gil, who was trying to be the first Portuguese player to win an ATP singles event. This year, Federer didn't show up. Instead, we have Juan Martin del Potro trying
Now there's a name we haven't heard in a while. James Blake was once a top ten player, someone who came back from scoliosis (affecting his spine) where had to wear a back brace for most of a day, then from shingles and the death of his father. His ranking has since dropped, and he
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
Last year, at this time, Nikolay Davydenko was coming off a great end of 2009 and looking to continue his winning ways in 2010. He had been on a hot streak, winning Kuala Lumpur, winning in Shanghai over Djokovic and Nadal, and winning the year-end championship beating Nadal, Federer, and del Potro, the three Slam
