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
One motivation for Federer to play Shanghai, regardless of whether he ends up at number 1 at the end of the year, was to extend his streak of weeks at number 1. Currently, Federer leads Djokovic by 835 points. If Djokovic wins Shanghai, an event he skipped last year, he would pick up 1000 points.
Lots of play today at the Shanghai Masters. It's the second round and the top seeds were mostly in action today. It's not unusual for players that do well in a previous tournament to fade in the next one. Raonic and Nishikori were finalists in the Japan Open last week. Nishikori lost to Querrey in
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.
Everyone's said that Milos Raonic is perhaps the best of the new bunch, and in this match, he began to show some of the reason people believe this. Raonic has a huge serve, but much like most men his size, he's opted to play big man tennis. Tall players like Querrey, Isner, and Anderson have
Some early round news before we head to today's quarterfinals. Many of last week's players that did well in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok faded this week showing how hard it is for players outside the top few to maintain levels of excellence from week to week. Often, a player ranked in the teens who wins
The French may not do well on their home Slam, but they love the hard courts. In the finals of Bangkok, Gilles Simon took on Richard Gasquet. In Kuala Lumpur, Julien Benneteau took on Juan Monaco. Three of the four finalists were French. Let's start with Bangkok. Gilles Simon has been a more successful finalist
The Asian swing of ATP tour starts up with two exotic locales: Bangkok, Thailand and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Let's start with Bangkok. Last year, Andy Murray decided to play Bangkok. None of the other top 4 players elected to play. He won the tournament. However, with the Olympic schedule, Murray has chosen not to defend
What a difference a few months make. For some reason, Europe seems to get John Isner in a funk. He's played well in Europe before, but the last two years, not so much. The solution, it seems, was return to home soil. Last year, Isner decided to play Newport. Newport is played the week after
