Roger Federer used to fear Lleyton Hewitt. His groundstrokes, he knew, were better than his. Federer would come to the net and take his chances there. Federer knew, if he were ever to become number 1, that he needed to improve his baseline game. By 2004, when Hewitt had a 7-2 win-loss record, Federer turned
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
Queen's organizers must have looked up to the tennis gods and said "why has thou forsaken me?". Tournaments give seeds to top players to protect them from beating up on one another so that they might play in the later rounds. And yet Queen's has the singular privilege--if one can call it that--of all top
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
It's been a long road back. On May 9, 2009, it was reported that Richard Gasquet had used cocaine and was provisionally suspended. The amounts were considered rather small. Gasquet claimed this was due to kissing a dancer in Miami. Gasquet was eventually cleared to play just before the US Open and has spent the
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
Most of the top pros like to spend the week before a Slam putting in last minute prep work. For example, Federer, Nadal, Murray, and Djokovic are not playing this week. However, there's almost always a tournament that is played the week before a Slam because some pros want match practice all the way up
Novak Djokovic's allergies (really--allergies?) has been a bonus for a number of players, most notably, Filip Krajinovic, also a Serb, who reached his first ATP semi against Sam Querrey. Because of Djokovic's retirement in the quarterfinals, and because Isner upset Wawrinka, the stage was set for something rather unusual. An All-American final on clay. Krajinovic,
