Federer is ever the optimist. At least, that's how he portrays himself in interviews. He feels, with a little more work, he can beat anyone. This, despite the fact that Andy Murray has beaten Federer the last two times they played. Murray beat the Swiss maestro in Toronto using a new-found aggressive play. He beat
Andy Murray, the only player in the field from Britain, knew the drill. Decked out in an argyle outfit that recalled the early years of Ivan Lendl, but using black as the background instead of white, Murray was a man on a mission. Last year, he, Roger Federer, Juan Martin del Potro and Fernando Verdasco
Technically, Davis Cup play doesn't start for the French for a little over two weeks. Next week, the tour takes a one week break, then only the top 8 will play in the year-end ATP World Tour Finals. The week after that, the Davis Cup finals between France and Serbia takes place. Even so, it
In the last few years, Spain has won the battle of the Pyrenees. Indeed, the French style of play seems so antithetical to play on clay that it's amazing that any Frenchman has contended for clay's greatest title. Monfils has reached the semifinals before. And yet, as athletically gifted as he is, he plays like
Today, most of the top 16 seeds played, and 12 of the top 13 seeds advanced. The toughest match for a seed that won was probably Andy Murray's win over David Nalbandian. The two last met at Toronto when Nalbandian was particularly hot. Since then, Nalbandian has not played as well. Even so, Murray dropped
Roger Federer has a sense of history, doesn't he? He chose to play Stockholm, a tournament he hasn't played since 2000, because he knew it would be a relatively easy draw. He could always point to Peter Lundgren, one of his earliest coaches, who was from Sweden as one reason he played the tournament. Winning
Let's start in Basel. Roger Federer is a five-time finalist at Basel. He reached the finals back in 2000 and 2001 before he became the Roger Federer. He also won the title three times in a row starting in 2006. However, last year, in 2009, Djokovic decided to play on Roger's home tournament. In a
The semifinals are set for Basel and Valencia. Basel is Federer's home tournament, no doubt one reason it is an ATP 500 event. Fortunately for tournament organizers, Federer is still in the tournament. The semifinals include Roger Federer playing Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic playing Victor Troicki. Let's took at the top of the draw.
The big news is that Andy Murray, defending champ of Valencia, lost in 3 sets to Juan Monaco. Murray has lost to Monaco before, but on clay. He did mention that, due to his brother's wedding (last week), he wasn't as prepared as he had hoped to be. He is now pinning his hopes on
With the Paris Masters and the ATP World Tour Finals and the Davis Cup finals up ahead, the end of the men's tennis season is wrapping up very soon. This week, a pair of ATP 500 events are being played: Valencia (in Spain) and Basel (in Switzerland). Last year, Djokovic went on Federer's home tournament
