Before we talk about "the streak", let's talk about a smaller match. Fabio Fognini vs. Albert Montanes. Both made some news last year in the clay season. Fognini was in a prolonged evening match with Monfils well past ten when neither player could see well, but Monfils was hoping for a pro-Monfils support to help
It's just about halfway through the French Open. The men have completed the third round matches. The fourth round begins on Sunday. Let's see how all the seeds are doing. Rafael Nadal Rafa started off the tournament in a new situation: a five setter at Paris. He played nervous in the two tiebreaks he lost,
Yesterday, Djokovic seemed a bit edgy. It was getting dark. del Potro was clocking the ball. Djokovic's timing seemed a hair off, and he was spraying balls just fractionally wide. Would the former top tenner take his biggest victory and the streak stop? Djokovic must have wondered how del Potro, a man who pretty much
Early in the second set, after a dominant first set, and with chances to break Berrer, Murray was chasing a drop shot down. As he approached, he twisted his right ankle and managed to hit a good down-the-line shot as he came up hopping on his left leg. Berrer seemed to notice something from the
As the hour headed to about 7 PM, there was a battle brewing on Court Philippe Chatrier. The ESPN announcers astutely observed that if Tsonga didn't win the match in straight sets, he would lose in 5 sets. The reason? Stamina. Tsonga, like his countryman Monfils, is susceptible to injury. When you're injured, it can
Before I talk about today's early results, I want to talk about yesterday's results. Tennis really needs a better way to report its scores. Scores are fine, but they really don't tell you the story. I'll give you three examples from yesterday, two from women's matches. Maria Sharapova is down 6-3, 4-1 down, double-break. It
Nadal is the kind of player that generally doesn't play two bad matches in a row. It happened at Wimbledon last year when he was taken to five sets by unheralded Robin Haase and Philipp Petzschner. But it rarely happens on clay. Indeed, Nadal had never been taken to five sets at the French Open
It's rare for this to happen. Roger Federer was scheduled to meet the winner of two wildcards. Normally, wildcards are ranked too low to get into the main draw. If this were Wimbledon, the wildcards could easily be ranked 300 or worse since UK has a dearth of quality players. However, France has a plethora
OK, this is a theory and may not be completely valid, but I think Djokovic's transformation comes partly from learning how Davydenko beat Nadal. (For the curious, this was last year in London after a round-robin match. They swapped shirts like soccer teams often do). Up to Davydenko, the way to beat Nadal was to
It's hard to believe, but over the 6 years that Nadal has played the French Open, he's never played a 5-setter. They don't call Nadal the king of clay for nothing. He has played two French Opens without dropping a set. It's perhaps not surprising that John Isner might be the kind of guy that
