Looking through the draw of any Slam, you're likely to notice a lot of Spaniards. And a lot of Frenchman. Who knew the Pyrenees would divide two prolific tennis playing countries? You wouldn't see a lot of Americans, certainly, not many top 50 Americans, and it might lead you to ask "What happened to all
Everyone knew that Igor Andreev was a tough opponent. Two years ago, the wily Russian with the big forehand and the big serve gave players like Rafael Nadal trouble. In his 2008 US Open run, Roger Federer needed five sets to beat Andreev. Since then, Andreev's rank has dropped some, though he remains in the
On paper, this didn't look to be much of a match. Roger, being Roger, had proclaimed how well his training had been, how well he'd been hitting. And Igor Andreev? The last time we heard of him? It was the 2008 US Open where he took Roger Federer to five sets with big serves and
Sam Querrey merely tweeted "worst day ever". Did he have a loss? Well, of a sort. Querrey sat on a glass table. The table broke and he cut his right forearm requiring emergency surgery and is expected to be out 4-6 weeks. What began as a tour of Asian tournaments to bolster his rankings now
This year, the US Open brought with it a lot of questions. Could Roger Federer win his 6th straight US Open and 16th Grand Slam title? Could Andy Roddick return from a good, but not great hard court season where he lost twice to del Potro and once to Querrey? Was Sam Querrey ready to
Due to an amazing match between Italy's Flavia Pennetta and Russia's Vera Zvonareva, the Murray-Dent match got a late start. Pennetta saved 6 match points, almost everyone on aggressive winners showing the kind of mental toughness that often seems in short supply in the women's tour. Zvonareva, meanwhile was going through an emotional roller coaster.
Jesse Witten's ranking was apparently so low that he needed a wildcard for qualifying. Who knew they gave wildcards for qualifying? Witten's rank is 276. He wasn't ranked high enough to get a wildcard into the main event. By the time he reached the third round, he was getting ready to play his sixth match
At 32 years old, Nicolas Kiefer has been on the tour for 14 years. Watch enough tennis and pay enough attention to the players playing Slams and you'll notice the players you don't know are not 19 year old wunderkinds but 29 year old veterans, who have grinded on the tour for years. On the
How did Jesse Witten do it? His second round match was against a guy named Gonzalez. Gonzo! Yet, Witten was not willing to go down. He was having too much fun. OK, so the way he did it was by not playing the guy named Fernando Gonzalez, but instead playing Maximo Gonzalez. Maximo is from
It's rare, in tennis, to have a double-header, that is, to play two matches in one day (the term comes from baseball, where double-headers are often used to make up for games that were canceled due to weather). Due to Hurricane Danny, the mid-Atlantic coast up through to New England got doused with rain. This
