It's nearly the semifinals everyone had hoped for. The top three players were there. Federer, who nearly got booted playing Feliciano Lopez, escaped then had a good win over Xavier Malisse and Robin Soderling, was meeting Rafael Nadal who hasn't had too much difficulty on the clay since Monte Carlo when Andy Murray put a
No one seems to believe it, but Federer's having a pretty good year. Oh, he hasn't solved Nadal. Djokovic appears to have passed him by. But Federer has lost to only 3 people this year. They are, yes, Nadal and Djokovic, and an old childhood buddy, Jurgen Melzer. Say what you will, Federer hasn't had
Lopez seems like a poor man's Verdasco. He's a lefty, but hits his a one-hander to Verdasco's two-hander. He has a big forehand, but probably not bigger than Verdasco. He relies on the slice. He might have a bigger serve than Verdasco, but not by much. In any case, he had never beaten Roger Federer,
It's hard to fathom 7 times in a row. With his tight victory over fellow Spaniard, David Ferrer, Rafael Nadal just won Monte Carlo seven times in a row. There are "couldas and wouldas". Had Federer won Wimbledon 2008 then captured it in 2009, he would have 7 Wimbledons in a row. He's had 5
When racquets were tiny, and the ability to hit a good shot merely meant to keep the ball in play, the ultimate in strategy was pure steadiness. Before Nadal was king of clay, there was Bjorn Borg. Thin, wiry, iconically Swedish, Borg was the stoic player. When the world was playing slice and Continental grips,
The match almost didn't start at all. An announcement was made at the start that Murray wasn't ready to play right away due to a possible injury and it would start 15 minutes late, if at all. But Murray did show up, and the question became, what's his health like. Murray immediately opened with a
It was said, when you had a player that scored as much as Michael Jordan, that he would get his. You just hoped to contain everyone else. When Nadal is on clay, he generally gets his. You have to be playing some amazing dirt ball, and then, you have to hope he's injured. If you
Gilles Simon was expected to give Murray a tough test. He is very steady player, The French do, as a group, tend to perform better on faster surfaces. However, given they are the home of clay tennis, they do know how to play on the stuff. Gilles Simon was at his best in late 2008
