Everyone's said that Milos Raonic is perhaps the best of the new bunch, and in this match, he began to show some of the reason people believe this. Raonic has a huge serve, but much like most men his size, he's opted to play big man tennis. Tall players like Querrey, Isner, and Anderson have
Some early round news before we head to today's quarterfinals. Many of last week's players that did well in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok faded this week showing how hard it is for players outside the top few to maintain levels of excellence from week to week. Often, a player ranked in the teens who wins
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
Four times David Ferrer has made the Barcelona finals and four times he's met Rafael Nadal. Nadal is to Ferrer as Federer is to Roddick except occasionally you get glimpses that maybe Ferrer could break through. In all respects except possibly heart, Ferrer comes up second best against Nadal. His serve is comparable, but with
If Monte Carlo is Nadal's most successful tournament, then Barcelona has to be number 2. Nadal recently won his 8th consecutive title at Monte Carlo. He might be going for the same feat now had he not, in 2010, skipped the event, presumably to save his fragile knees. But, for whatever reason, Nadal changed his
Well, you knew Federer had the edge after the first game. Murray came into the match hoping to keep up a streak that has meant a winning record over Federer in the past few years. With a new coach, Ivan Lendl, Murray had elevated his game. He beat Novak Djokovic who, frankly, was not looking
This time, del Potro kept the match close. In Rotterdam, Federer got out to a fast lead then had to hold in the second set to beat the resurgent Argentine. In the semis, del Potro kept toe-to-toe with Federer. Fed was actually doing a much better job of holding his serve, nary seeing a break
The two kept even early on at 2-all. But that was as far as it would go, as Murray went on fire the rest of the set. Neither Murray nor Djokovic had played exceptionally well to get to this point. Murray, in particular, had seemed a bit nervous in an effort to close his match
The fourth seed at Dubai is Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and newly ranked number 5, ahead of David Ferrer. With his upsets over Federer in 2011, everyone said Tsonga was going to be in the top 4, and of course, replace Andy Murray, since the top 3 seemed pretty solid. This, despite the fact that Juan Martin
One wonders whether Djokovic will have a 2012 like he did in 2011. It almost didn't seem that way after an indifferent match against Russian, Sergiy Stakhovsky, who took a minibreak lead twice in the first set tiebreak, but gave up minibreaks as well to lose the first set. Stakhovsky went up an early break
