There's barely a grass court season, so the transition from clay to grass can be a rough one. Were the grass court season comparable to, say, half the clay court season, say, 4 weeks of tuneup events prior to Wimbledon and maybe 1-2 Masters 1000 events on grass, perhaps we'd see a different set of
Federer probably wishes his game would have taken him back to the 1960s when so many tournaments were played on grass. He'd have to adjust, admittedly, to wooden racquets and such, but his game seems so much better suited to grass. Today, in a second round match marked by rain (and a quick roof that
Once, the Australians dominated amateur tennis, in the days before Open tennis, and even in the early years of Open tennis. Then, 3 of the 4 Slams were played on grass, the lone exception being the French, always played on the terre battue. If you were an exceptional grass court player, you could dominate most
Not nearly the huge upset that knocked Nadal out of the French last year, this was still an amazing performance by Robin Soderling to prevent Roger from getting to his 24th consecutive semifinal at a Slam. It didn't end the way it started. Roger was comfortably holding serve, then managed a break, and won the
I was at the Essential Tennis Clinic, Day 2, in Baltimore (it's really closer to Towson, but good enough), so most of what I'm going to cover is just reaction from hearing the scores. The only matches (or parts of) was the Sharapova-Henin third set. Since there weren't that many matches, let's go over each
With all the rain that affected play on Wednesday and Thursday, matches were backlogged. Matches that were supposed to be played Thursday were pushed into today. In an effort to catch up, matches that were originally planned for today, i.e. 3rd round matches, were played today. All top 5 seeds play Friday which include Federer,
One wonders where this Roger Federer was a few weeks ago with backhand flying out and losing early. It seems Roger's priorities are to win Slams and that early losses are not bothersome to Roger, or for the conspiracy-minded, Roger selectively loses so as not to tempt injury or to keep some of what he
Most of the top pros like to spend the week before a Slam putting in last minute prep work. For example, Federer, Nadal, Murray, and Djokovic are not playing this week. However, there's almost always a tournament that is played the week before a Slam because some pros want match practice all the way up
I'll do one preview now and maybe a modified preview once the draw is out. This preview is primarily based on how players are playing now. Let's start with the top contenders for the French Open. Favorites Rafael Nadal You have to give Rafa the nod heading into the French. Although there were some issues
All things considered, Federer played pretty well. Expected to lose to Nadal, Federer actually broke Nadal a few times, had him in trouble. Nadal seemed poised to take a stranglehold in the match, but then Fed would break and leave the result in doubt. It always seems Fed was a bit behind and needed to
