It's hard to fathom 7 times in a row. With his tight victory over fellow Spaniard, David Ferrer, Rafael Nadal just won Monte Carlo seven times in a row. There are "couldas and wouldas". Had Federer won Wimbledon 2008 then captured it in 2009, he would have 7 Wimbledons in a row. He's had 5
When racquets were tiny, and the ability to hit a good shot merely meant to keep the ball in play, the ultimate in strategy was pure steadiness. Before Nadal was king of clay, there was Bjorn Borg. Thin, wiry, iconically Swedish, Borg was the stoic player. When the world was playing slice and Continental grips,
The match almost didn't start at all. An announcement was made at the start that Murray wasn't ready to play right away due to a possible injury and it would start 15 minutes late, if at all. But Murray did show up, and the question became, what's his health like. Murray immediately opened with a
It was said, when you had a player that scored as much as Michael Jordan, that he would get his. You just hoped to contain everyone else. When Nadal is on clay, he generally gets his. You have to be playing some amazing dirt ball, and then, you have to hope he's injured. If you
Gilles Simon was expected to give Murray a tough test. He is very steady player, The French do, as a group, tend to perform better on faster surfaces. However, given they are the home of clay tennis, they do know how to play on the stuff. Gilles Simon was at his best in late 2008
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
The first two Masters 1000 events of the year are held in the US, first in Indian Wells, then in Miami. Both are week and a half events. After that, every Masters 1000 event is played in a one week tournament. We move to the clay of Europe and the opening tournament is Monte Carlo,
My thinking was, despite Djokovic's win-streak, Nadal gave him all he could handle in Indian Wells. If Nadal's serve hadn't given out on him, Djokovic's streak might already have ended. To counter Djokovic, Nadal went for big serves and big groundies in the first set and it worked. Djokovic struggled to keep up. But, by
The count is 24 and running. Novak Djokovic is still on his winning streak although the world number 1 gave him all he could handle. This was exactly the kind of match that Djokovic would have had issues with even a year ago. The warm Miami weather. The slow conditions. The humidity. Everything seemed to
It was close for a game. Federer played aggressive and held his own serve. But as Nadal is wont to do, he made it tough for Federer to make a dent on his serve. Federer would lose his next serve as he tried to be aggressive but kept making too many errors. Federer seemed frustrated
