Tomas Berdych wasn't getting enough love. He had just upset Roger Federer, but it was Novak Djokovic that was slightly favored. Two reasons: Djokovic had never lost to Berdych (they'd only played twice, to be fair) and Djokovic had beaten Hewitt, considered a dark horse to win Wimbledon, and then demolished Lu. It was felt
Everyone felt that the easiest of the quarterfinals was Novak Djokovic vs. Yen-Hsun Lu. Lu was reaching his first quarterfinals ever. He had upset Andy Roddick. Novak had just come off a solid win over Lleyton Hewitt. He had not reached a semifinals in quite some time. This was a perfect chance for Djokovic to
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
Roger prefers playing players he's played a long time. There was a time that a handful of players gave Roger trouble. Lleyton Hewitt, David Nalbandian, and, yes, even Arnaud Clement. Federer overcame many of his nemesis by 2004 when he started becoming the Roger Federer of today. You have to credit Arnaud Clement, at 32
Wimbledon is such a different surface that it can be difficult to predict upsets. The top seeds tend to move on, but the lower seeds, who knows? Let's look at some results that concluded. Nikolay Davydenko had to withdraw from Indian Wells after the first round due to a fractured wrist. What was originally predicted
You'd like a semifinal to be about great tennis, each player summoning reserves they never knew they had, making incredible shots. But tennis is such a solitary sport, and with such isolation, you have to deal with confidence. A 5 set match gives you time to work out some of those issues, and so there
This is why it's difficult to predict who will do well at a Slam. The semifinalists are: Robin Soderling, Tomas Berdych, Rafael Nadal, and Jurgen Melzer. Raise your hand if you have more than 2 of 4 correct. Based on past history, you would surely have put Roger Federer instead of Robin Soderling. Berdych would
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
