Technically, Davis Cup play doesn't start for the French for a little over two weeks. Next week, the tour takes a one week break, then only the top 8 will play in the year-end ATP World Tour Finals. The week after that, the Davis Cup finals between France and Serbia takes place. Even so, it
In the last few years, Spain has won the battle of the Pyrenees. Indeed, the French style of play seems so antithetical to play on clay that it's amazing that any Frenchman has contended for clay's greatest title. Monfils has reached the semifinals before. And yet, as athletically gifted as he is, he plays like
Today, most of the top 16 seeds played, and 12 of the top 13 seeds advanced. The toughest match for a seed that won was probably Andy Murray's win over David Nalbandian. The two last met at Toronto when Nalbandian was particularly hot. Since then, Nalbandian has not played as well. Even so, Murray dropped
Andy Murray is a chameleon. Most of the times, he plays a steady form of tennis, getting crosscourt angles. Early in his career, he fell in love with the drop shot and his slices and his change of pace and incredible speed and anticipation made for a deadly combination. Players would find themselves making errors
Both men's semifinals were played today and both were somewhat easier than expected. Well, OK, most folks probably gave Monaco little chance to beat Andy Murray. Murray got an early break against Monaco and was threatening a second break. However, it never came and indeed, Monaco broke Murray to tie the match up, but Murray
Robin Soderling has a peculiar kind of game. The rangy Swede doesn't have a lot of variety in his game. He hits some of the hardest shots in the game. He doesn't play the ball to conventional spots on the court. He's got a huge serve. He's not fast, but he's not exactly slow. If
It's almost unheard of. Nadal is almost always good to the quarterfinals of every event he plays. Hot off the heels of his win in Tokyo, Nadal faced veteran Jurgen Melzer, a lefty that Nadal last beat at Roland Garros. One could argue that Nadal's toughest match came against Melzer who pushed him to a
What a difference a few months make. Nikolay Davydenko, the defending champ at Shanghai, has been out of sorts ever since his return to tour. Last year, in 2009, Davydenko had injury issues. He returned just before the French Open, and lost to Robin Soderling. Davydenko hit his stride just after the US Open winning
Mardy Fish must feel his buddy, Andy Roddick's pain. Roddick had not lost serve until the final game that gave Wimbledon 2009 to Roger Federer. Fish hadn't been broken either, until 4-all in the third set, when Fed got to 30-40 and Fish netted a shot. Fed had had chances including a marathon third game
Roger Federer might point to his match in Indian Wells where he lost to Marcos Baghdatis in three sets as the first of a series of disappointments. He went to Miami and lost Tomas Berdych after being up match point. He went to Rome and lost to Ernests Gulbis in the 2nd round. He went
