220 points. That's all that separates Roger Federer from Rafael Nadal. It seems slender. But the gap is much bigger than that. The reason is two-fold: Roger Federer is defending champion, and Rafael Nadal skipped Wimbledon last year. That means, just to keep the gap the same, Roger Federer would have to win Wimbledon again,
For all of Federer's troubles since 2008, he showed an amazing consistency in Slams. By the end of this year's Australian Open, he had reached his 23rd straight Slam semifinal. He had reached his eighth straight Slam final. He had reached 18 of his last 19 Slam finals. This is an imperious record, showing a
Well, what can you say? Berdych is always a dangerous player, and he proved it again. Federer looked like he was hitting his stride especially with easy wins over Clement and Melzer. To be fair, these two players are actually older than Federer, and neither hit with the pace of Berdych. Federer tried to keep
On this, the most match-laden day of any Slam, all fourth round matches are played. Federer was up early and won his match quickly over Jurgen Melzer. There were eight men's matches scheduled for today. Two more are completed not including Federer's win. Tsonga played countryman Benneteau and got off to a quick start winning
Federer usually has a few easy matches en route to a Slam. Sometimes it's one or two, as in the French, when he had one easy match against Gael Monfils, and technically, the final was pretty easy too. Already, Federer has beaten Arnaud Clement, someone that he hasn't lost to in years. Today, Roger faced
It was five hours ago that I was reporting on the Roddick-Llodra match. At the time, the Isner-Mahut match was called due to darkness at 2 sets each. Most people felt the set would be over an hour later. Not. Even. Close. More than 6 hours later, with over 100 games played, a decision was
Roger Federer is rarely pushed to 5 sets in a first round match in a major. Indeed, he's rarely pushed to a fourth set in a first round match. You can thank seeding for that. The top 32 seeds usually consist of the top 40 players in the world minus a few who don't make
Martina Navratilova, who won a ton of Slams, used to say the women had it tougher to win Slams. In a best of 3 situation, you can't have a mental lapse. To be fair, the top women often have greater power or speed, especially during the Evert-Navratilova era. The women past 5 were so much
Roger Federer used to fear Lleyton Hewitt. His groundstrokes, he knew, were better than his. Federer would come to the net and take his chances there. Federer knew, if he were ever to become number 1, that he needed to improve his baseline game. By 2004, when Hewitt had a 7-2 win-loss record, Federer turned
After spending weeks in Europe doing the clay court thing, Sam Querrey had had enough. Many players may have experienced what Sam experienced, but few show the bravery (or stupidity, as some may call it) to tell the world that he didn't want to be on the court. He had just come off a loss
