This is why it's difficult to predict who will do well at a Slam. The semifinalists are: Robin Soderling, Tomas Berdych, Rafael Nadal, and Jurgen Melzer. Raise your hand if you have more than 2 of 4 correct. Based on past history, you would surely have put Roger Federer instead of Robin Soderling. Berdych would
During his interviews, Djokovic would say that he played 3 good sets and not to worry about the silly set that he dropped. Throughout the tournament, Djokovic had a pretty easy draw. Expected to play Ferrer or possibly Roddick, Djokovic must have thought he had a free ride to the semifinals. Playing the Austrian veteran,
Not nearly the huge upset that knocked Nadal out of the French last year, this was still an amazing performance by Robin Soderling to prevent Roger from getting to his 24th consecutive semifinal at a Slam. It didn't end the way it started. Roger was comfortably holding serve, then managed a break, and won the
Fans have been anticipating a Federer-Nadal final ever since the French Open started. After all, Nadal had pulled off the "triple" by winning Monte Carlo, Rome, and Madrid, the first time any player had won three Masters 1000 events on clay. And Federer, who keeps reaching Slam finals. The last time Federer failed to reach
I was at the Essential Tennis Clinic, Day 2, in Baltimore (it's really closer to Towson, but good enough), so most of what I'm going to cover is just reaction from hearing the scores. The only matches (or parts of) was the Sharapova-Henin third set. Since there weren't that many matches, let's go over each
Going into the French Open, you'd give it a toss-up as to who was playing better after Rafael Nadal: David Ferrer or Fernando Verdasco. I mean, sure you could point to Roger Federer, but he only had one good tournament, and two "bad" ones (Estoril and Rome). You wouldn't have expected David Ferrer to struggle
This is one of those matches that shows Roddick isn't exactly a clay courter. Gabashvili is one of those dangerous players who hits hard but whose errors typically do him in. But not today. Gabashvili kept hitting balls hard and Roddick, in an effort to keep up, made a few too many errors. Roddick came
With all the rain that affected play on Wednesday and Thursday, matches were backlogged. Matches that were supposed to be played Thursday were pushed into today. In an effort to catch up, matches that were originally planned for today, i.e. 3rd round matches, were played today. All top 5 seeds play Friday which include Federer,
Perhaps the most peculiar match of Day 4 was the one between Gael Monfils and Fabio Fognini. That the match needed to go to an extra day to get finished was a "shame on Gael" situation. Gael Monfils was winning comfortably, up 2 sets to none. His athleticism should have been enough to win. Fognini
For a while, Gael Monfils was cruising to an easy win over his Italian opponent. Up 6-2, 6-4 and a break in the third, Monfils began fooling around a bit and eventually lost the third set 7-5. Monfils was also up two breaks in the fourth set, but again lost this set, 6-4. At 4-all,
