Although Lukas Lacko had a 6-0 set against Nadal in Doha, Nadal chalked that up with being ill. And that Lacko, who was aggressive against Nadal looked like a deer in headlights. Lacko (pronounced Latch-ko, apparently), who looks like Shaggy from Scooby-Do, just looked dazed. He didn't appear to have much of a game plan.
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
Ivo Karlovic is one of those unusual players. He grew up poor, so he didn't get all the lessons the top juniors got and practiced the one thing you can practice by yourself: his serve. Karlovic not only hits the biggest serve in tennis, he is pretty consistent too. Like Roddick, Karlovic hits about 70%
Looking every bit like a sandy brown Apollo Ohno, soul patch included, or perhaps that faithful stoner buddy of Scooby Doo, Lukas Lacko, the Slovak Shaggy, had Rafael Nadal on the the ropes. Lacko (pronounced Lack-so by the announcers) is not exactly a young player. At age 23, he's been on the tour for a
Once upon a time, there was a split between pro and amateur tennis. Amateur tennis was more of the Olympian ideal. No money except for basic expenses (food, travel, etc). Of course, the lack of money meant that most good amateurs had to become pros to make money, and the poorer you were, the sooner
When Pete Sampras captured his 14th and final Slam at the 2002 US Open, many figured it would be years, if not decades, before someone came along to break this record. After all, Roy Emerson won his 13th Slam in 1967, which was some 30 plus years earlier. It's even hard to compare Emerson to
The last two years, Roger Federer didn't have a spectacular post US Open. One year, he didn't make the semis, and this past year, Davydenko upset him in the semifinals. Roger Federer, however, knows better than anyone, the value of the ATP World Tour Finals. Even if a sizable tennis audience ignores tennis after the
Although Federer has lacked the dominance that marked his game during the mid-to-late 2000s, people forget that he still has gaudy records against even very highly ranked players. In Group B alone, Federer had a 14-1 record over Soderling, the vast majority of these matches played since 2008. He had a 10-0 record over David
Let's start with the top seed and work our way down. Rafael Nadal Rafa's level generally never drops too low. Everyone points to how he never gives up, and while that's certainly one factor in his incredible ability to win, everyone says that about Lleyton Hewitt, and he's struggling to get in the top 20.
