Most tennis experts felt Nadal would get a challenge from Robin. Only, they figured it would be Robin Soderling, not Robin Haase. Haase was considered a potential up-and-comer, perhaps not at the level of Ernests Gulbis. Haase had defeated a few top players including Andy Murray at Rotterdam in 2008, Ivan Ljubicic, Tomas Berdych, and
Given Day 1's scares, most people probably felt that Day 2 would return more to form with seeded players taking care of business, and basically that's how the day has started. Rafael Nadal played Kei Nishikori in the first round. Nishikori is only 20 years old having trained at Bollettieri's. Nishikori had a wrist injury
For the tennis cognoscenti, and these are the "true" fans of tennis, those who pin their hopes on players, and then complain when these players are unable to fulfill expectations, Sam Querrey went through a mini-brouhaha when he admitted that his heart wasn't into tennis shortly after a loss to fellow American, Robby Ginepri. With
Few players have won on three surfaces. Sure, we look at the best of the best, at players like Nadal and Federer who have either won career Slams or may win career Slams. But the average top 100 player does well to win maybe a dozen matches in their careers. It's not easy when you
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
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
The closest I've ever heard someone making comments like Sam Querrey was the brief disgust that Roger Federer had shortly after losing in the semifinals at Miami. Federer said he was glad to leave hardcourts and was eager to play on clay again. After Querrey lost to Robby Ginepri, admittedly a guy he lost to
Is it worth playing a tennis tournament the week before a Slam? One player that has a habit of playing up to a Slam is Fernando Verdasco. Last year, Verdasco played the Pilot Pen Classic the week before the US Open and beat Sam Querrey to win the title. He reached the quarterfinals of the
