There are players on tour that have been there for some number of years. Not everyone who plays pro tennis hoists trophies week after week. Some labor even when titles are scarce. After all, they are still among the top 100 or so players in the world. More than ten years ago, Gilles Muller, from
More European clay results. In Hamburg, top seeded Nicolas Almagro beat Philipp Kohlschreiber, 75 75. Juan Monaco over Jeremy Chardy, 63 75. Marin Cilic over Albert Ramos, 64 76. Wildcard Tommy Haas over Florian Mayer, 61 64. In Gstaad, Switzerland, top seeded Janko Tipsarevic beat Jan Henrych, 61 61. Paul-Henri Mathieu over Ernests Gulbis, 46
Thirty years ago, in the early 1980s, tennis in the US was still predominantly American. Indeed, in the 1970s and before, only a handful of counties were producing top players, including the US, Australia, and well, maybe France. In those days, Swedish tennis was riding the surge of Bjorn Borg with players like Mats Wilander
You have to give credit to Lleyton Hewitt. For some reason, Federer's generation produced players whose bodies have broken down, most notably, Tommy Haas, but yes, Lleyton Hewitt. Many of his generation's stars play infrequently now or are retired: Hewitt, Haas, Ferrero, Nalbandian. Some of his generation continue to plod along working in the top
Newport is the only remaining ATP grass court event that's held in the United States. Once upon a time, the tour primarily consisted of grass, but grass is expensive to maintain, and unlike clay, it needs to be grown and maintained. Unlike golf, this grass is on a small area, so scuffs can be problematic.
It's easy, for even the most rabid of tennis fans, to only pay attention to the top players. Time and again, Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal show their ability to run deep in tournaments and, for the most part, staying healthy. There was a brief time, in the early 2000s, when Andy Roddick was expected to
It's rare for a match to end in a default. Even the famous Serena blowup incident where she threatened to shove a tennis ball down a ball-lady's throat in a semifinal against Kim Clijsters was not ended by a default (it was a point penalty that lead to a break of serve which ended the
Few people, outside the US, realize just how long the clay season is. The clay season begins just after the Australian Open with a swing through South and Central America. There is a small break as the two US Master 1000 hard court events are played in Indian Wells and Miami in consecutive weeks. Then,
Tennis has had its share of fairy tales, players that come out of nowhere to win a title. Usually, these players are young, like Mats Wilander who claimed his first title at Roland Garros when he was 17, or Boris Becker claiming his second title at Wimbledon in 1985 after capturing his first at Queen's
This isn't quite the same story as Jeremy Lin who hit a bright patch of success when he became the point guard for the hapless New York Knicks, full of talent, and short on quality result. The Harvard grad who grew up in the shadows of Stanford enthralled media and fans across the US as
