Kei Nishikori, Japan's best player, played a good amount of tennis in the US training at Nick Bolletieri's during his formative years, so in a way, the US is his home away from home. Nishikori won the biggest title of his career by winning Tokyo on home soil over Milos Raonic. This event is an
The semifinals on Saturday were mostly meh. Berdych crushed Tursunov in one semi. Anytime he went for a big shot, Tursunov made an error or couldn't reach the shot. Gilles Simon didn't fare much better against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga making more errors than usual. Neither loser won more than 4 games. The final, by contrast, was
San Jose has to have a special place in Milos Raonic's heart. In 2011, Raonic made a run at the Australian Open to the fourth round, and everyone thought this Canadian would have places to go. He began to fulfill this promise by reaching the San Jose SAP Open in 2011 shortly afterwards. At the
Well, that was somewhat anti-climatic. Although the big four continue to dominate the men's circuit, there's always been speculation of the "next four", the players that might go to the top of the game after Federer and Nadal finish their careers. Among the names that are most frequently mentioned are Bernard Tomic, Milos Raonic, and
Let's rewind the clock some--back to 2008. 2008 was the year of the previous Olympics, back in Beijing. Andy Roddick decided not to play the Olympics that year, hoping that he could do well in the US Open series with a depleted field due to the Olympics. Heading into Los Angeles, he reached the finals
No, Ferrero did not simply retire. He had long since decided to retire at Valencia where he and David Ferrer partly own the tournament. Ferrero was part of the Federer generation, the players that followed Agassi and Sampras and hung around a few years before Djokovic, Nadal, and Murray came up the ranks. Like Hewitt
Shanghai is one of Murray's favorite tournaments. He won the event in 2010 and again last year in 2011. He's rarely dropped sets in this tournament (one prior to this against Stan Wawrinka last year, but this year, Radek Stepanek took a set off Murray, and had him on the ropes. Stepanek is a clever
2012 hasn't been the same kind of year that 2011 was to Novak Djokovic. Djokovic hasn't won as many tournaments. He hasn't won as many Slams. But one plus out of this is his health. Historically, Djokovic plays pretty well after the US Open. Last year, however, the toll of winning so much, many of
Ever since Murray and Djokovic rose to the top sometime between 2007 and 2008, tennis pundits have wondered who the next generation would bring. When Raonic made a breakthrough at the Australian Open in 2011 reaching the fourth round, then won his first event in San Jose and reached the finals of Memphis, his name
The Australian Open used to be the one tournament where you'd have surprise finalists. Maybe the Christmas holidays lead many a pro to complacency. Throughout the early 2000s, you had finalists like Schuttler, Clement, and Fernando Gonzalez. These are all solid players, but compared to other Slams, they are not the best of the best.
