Playing Roger Federer for the first time can be daunting, especially after Federer has taken off some six weeks to recover and to train. Roger Federer found himself in the same scenario as last year, or possibly even worse. Last year, Federer had won only one Slam and lost early at the French and Wimbledon.
If you looked at the semifinal lineup at Valencia (which the announcers have taken to calling "Valenthia" to imitate the lisp that Spaniards have), you would have seen del Potro vs. Granollers and Ferrer vs. Monaco. Granollers is ranked 34 in the world, and he's the fifth ranked Spaniard behind Nadal, Almagro, Lopez, and Verdasco.
For a while, Nishikori seemed to be in a fog. Djokovic was hitting deep balls and Nishikori was unable to track them down, hitting errors. It didn't help that his serve was not finding the target. It seemed like this would be a quick match with a 6-2 double break. But early in the second
When Pete Sampras was playing Andre Agassi, he seemed to have supreme confidence. No matter how well Agassi had been playing or how poorly Sampras had played, if the two met, Sampras believed his serve and his groundies could bother Agassi. Agassi would think he could play with Sampras but he'd lose a few points
Kei Nishikori has been Japan's best hope since Shuzo Matsuoka, and right now, he stands a good chance of doing far better than his compatriot. Nishikori has an intriguing style of play. He's fairly quick, has a good sense of how to hit a lob, but what separates him from most of his opponents is
Basel Djokovic steamrolled over Kubot, 61 62. Stan Wawrinka was bullied by Robin Haase for a set but came back strong and took sets 2 and 3: 46, 61, 62 Andy Roddick also dropped the first set to Radek Stepanek before coming back in 3 sets: 26, 63, 63 Quaterfinals have Djokovic taking on Baghdatis,
Breaking News Rafael Nadal has opted to skip Paris next week for the second year in a row. He wishes to focus his training on the year-end championship and Davis Cup. Valencia Sam Querrey's biggest goal may be staying healthy. Two years ago, he had a freak accident in Bangkok where he sat on a
Roger Federer has come to an age where, in the rare circumstances he plays someone his age, he's generally overwhelmingly favored. After all, Roger Federer is 30 years old, the age that many tennis players begin to fade. And even if Federer hasn't faded much, his competition has. Indeed, many of Federer's rivals reads like
Andy Murray accepted a wild card late last week for what promised to be a powerhouse lineup in Basel, but Murray dealt the tournament a blow when he withdrew this morning citing a right gluteal muscle strain. Murray said we woke up early Tuesday morning and felt pain. Although he did have a light practice
It looked like Djokovic would have a nice clean win over Xavier Malisse continuing from where he had left off at the US Open. Six weeks of no tournament play appeared to leave no rust as Djokovic strolled to a 6-2 first set over the veteran Belgian player. But there were still a bit of
