James Blake is a stubborn man. Blake kept his old racquets strung at some ridiculously high tension for years even when he didn't have a contract, even when the racquet was no longer being made. Blake's style is to be aggressive. In a way, he's like Roger Federer. He wants to attack the ball early,
This is what you get with a Masters 1000 event. You can have a tough first match right off the bat, and even more if you are a top seed. Juan Martin del Potro has been on the comeback trail. He's ranked 19th in the world, but would be 11th if the rankings were only
Wimbledon is a good time to take the temperature of tennis. It's about halfway through the tennis season, but because tennis is played mostly in the northern hemisphere and played mostly outdoors, it must usually be played in summertime or certainly late spring lest we subject our pros to cold and we prefer to subject
It's 2011, but the question has been asked of Roger Federer since 2008. Is Roger Federer in decline? The obvious answer is yes. Federer no longer dominates the calendar like he used to. In his heyday, Federer would lose maybe half a dozen times a year, and most of them to Nadal on clay. He
If you were to take a bet as to who would make it deeper, Roger Federer or Stanislas Wawrinka, surely you would have said Roger Federer. Of course, Roger Federer had to play Tsonga, a former top tenner, where Wawrinka played Kevin Anderson who is hoping to be in the top ten. Roger Federer was
Let's face it. Niklolay Davydenko hasn't been playing at the top of his game for nearly a year. He's lost in numerous opening rounds. So, while his game has headed south, Djokovic, by contrast has gone swimmingly. Even so, there were a little concern. First, Davydenko has started to play better. He won one round
Sometimes Brad Gilbert is wrong. Perhaps more often than he expects. He thought that Roger Federer would steamroll over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He had only lost to Tsonga once, in a meltdown with a 5-1 lead in the fifth set. Federer took an early break and rode that to a first set. Then, he took the
Now that we're through "Manic Monday", the day where all fourth round matches are played, we're getting to the business end of this Slam. Let's look at the matchups. Nadal vs. Fish Tomas Berdych was the expected seed, but despite not having dropped a set, Berdych's place has gone down since Wimbledon. Berdych clings to
del Potro must know what Andy Roddick felt like when he faced Roger Federer in the finals of Wimbledon in 2009. Roddick had not been broken all day long, but at 14-15, he finally cracked and lost serve and with it, his best opportunity at winning a second Slam. del Potro has lost to Nadal
The Federer generation's first success didn't start with Federer. It started with Marat Safin. The Federer generation includes Marat Safin, Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Carlos Ferrero, David Nalbandian, Andy Roddick, and Roger Federer. Excluding Roger Federer, this group has won 6 Slams (Safin and Hewitt with 2 each, Ferrero and Roddick with 1 each). The key
