Well, this surely wasn't the final people were expecting. Head-to-head would have suggested a Nadal-Soderling final in a rematch of the fourth round where Nadal lost in Paris. Instead, Roddick upset Nadal and Berdych pummeled Soderling, winning 6-2, 6-2. Apparently, Berdych wasn't done winning after defeating Roger Federer. At least Fed can feel good about
The last two semifinalists were decided today. Robin Soderling again makes it to the semifinals as he did back in Indian Wells. He played a familiar opponent, Mikhail Youzhny, who he beat back in Rotterdam. Youzhny was unable to complete that match, but he did complete this one, losing 6-1, 6-4. Tomas Berdych had to
Fernando Gonzalez had chosen not to go to Indian Wells so he could head to Chile to assist with relief efforts. He returns to Miami, but had to face hard hitting Soderling. Soderling took the first set, 6-0, but Gonzalez worked hard to take the second set in a tiebreak. Gonzalez was testy, complaining that
If you were told that Andy Roddick and Andy Murray were playing today, and one lost, which might you pick? Of course, the answer would depend on who they were playing, but minus that information, you might say Andy Murray, since he's ranked higher than Andy Roddick. OK, so let's look at the opponents. Andy
The seeds, they keep a falling. It was already something of a miracle that Djokovic got this far. After watching his game spiral out of control in the second set in the previous around against Philipp Kohlschreiber, Djokovic had to scrap to fight off match points, get a break of serve back and eventually win
Robin Soderling had requested a wildcard from tournament director and former player, Richard Krajicek. Krajicek said he was having a difficult time deciding which low-ranked Dutch player should get one of the wildcards left for Rotterdam, so he was relieved when Soderling called him up. It was a no-brainer to give Soderling a wildcard, especially
With Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, last year's finalists, not playing, there were hopes that the top two seeds might meet each other once again, namely, Nikolay Davydenko and Novak Djokovic. So tournament organizers probably cringed a bit when neither made the final. If there's a player that Davydenko doesn't like playing, it must be
Here's a trivia question. Who is the number 2 player in the world? Unless you're an avid tennis fan, you probably wouldn't have picked Novak Djokovic. Unless you're an avid fan, you'll scratch your head wondering how Djokovic became number 2. It goes something like this. What's the last tournament Nadal won? You have to
On paper, this didn't look to be much of a match. Roger, being Roger, had proclaimed how well his training had been, how well he'd been hitting. And Igor Andreev? The last time we heard of him? It was the 2008 US Open where he took Roger Federer to five sets with big serves and
It was only late November when the men's tour wrapped up the year, and already, into the new year, 2010, we're only 2 weeks away from the first Slam of the year. Most of the men spent December training. There are maybe 2-3 times during the year to hone your fitness. December is one of
