One reason Federer struggled against Seppi was due to a back injury, which Federer said was a muscle spasm. Although he did play against Seppi, he wasn't able to hit as hard as he was accustomed which may explain how Seppi took a set off the Swiss maestro. Federer said his back hadn't improved enough
Andy Murray must be thinking--finally. Murray had played two three setters in a row and claimed maybe he was too relaxed coming out of the gates leading to rusty play in opening sets against Kukushkin and Muller. Against Marcos Baghdatis, who Murray had a losing record against, Murray steamrolled to a 62 62 win getting
Doha These four players have nearly met before. Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and Gael Monfils were all at the Abu Dhabi exhibition last week. However, Djokovic beat Monfils and Ferrer beat Tsonga, so the two Frenchman never played Federer or Nadal. This time, Federer will face his nemesis in Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who beat
After struggling initially with Philipp Kohlschreiber in the first round, Rafael Nadal found things considerably easier with Denis Gremelmayr in the second round. Gremelmayr had to hit winners from all over the place just to hold what few serves he had, but he couldn't do it enough to bother Nadal as Nadal tightened up his
The five weeks between London and the start of the year go by quick, don't they? They coincide with holidays and other sporting events. Most players trained about 3 weeks. The news was that Nadal, due to an injury, had to rest and didn't get a full workout. Of course, he's still very good and
With the finals of Vienna and St. Petersburg being played today, there's only two more weeks where players can qualify for the year-end championship, namely Basel/Valencia next week, and the last Masters 1000 event of the year in Paris. This week, two events are being played, one in Vienna and one in St. Petersburg. Last
For a guy who struggled to win his first tournament title (losing 4 finals before winning his first), Janko Tipsarevic is hitting his stride. With his win in Kuala Lumpur, Tipsarevic become Serb #2 ahead of Viktor Troicki. Novak Djokovic credits his success due to the Serbian maiden win in Davis Cup last year, but
The US Open series is often used by Americans to showcase their talents. It starts in Atlanta and ends in New York City at the US Open. Many non-Americans often skip the first month of the US Open series and start play in Canada. The downside of all this play is Americans generally play poorly
It's always tough to summarize a match when all you see is a final score. Yesterday, I caught some of the Tipsarevic-Davydenko semifinal in Moscow. Alas, Davydenko is still struggling with control issues. He lost the first set 6-2, but had game points to keep it to one break. Yet, Tipsarevic broke anyway. The story
Jarkko Nieminen might be the best player to come out of Finland. Scandinavians have mostly been represented by Sweden, which is pretty impressive given it's a county of less then 20 million people. The Swedes are struggling a bit with Robin Soderling being the only top player, but at least, they have a history of
