It's fair to say that the Federer playing in Madrid is not the same Federer playing the last few months. But it's fair to say that this Ernests Gulbis was not the same that played Roger Federer a mere two weeks ago. Ah, the journey of Ernests Gulbis. Two years ago, many touted this man
Oh Roger, how could we doubt you? Just because you've been mishitting balls since Indian Wells, and then Miami, and then Rome, and then Estoril. You kept telling us "everything is fine--I'm having good practices", telling us not to panic. But how were we to know? If you could play like today, then what was
Andy Murray's game has never been well suited to clay. The closest the game has to a finesse player, Murray generally doesn't like going on the offensive. Those who watched clay matches from the 1980s will naturally assume the game is still slow play from the baseline, but it is really about finding good opportunities
Ernests Gulbis. Loves. Drop shots. I mean, the man really loves them. In the 1980s, when clay court tennis meant interminably long rallies, the drop shot seemed a rarity. Few people could hit it well and some chose to almost never hit it. For every horribly awkward Lendl drop shot, there was a Mats Wilander
That's more like it. Federer had been struggling with his game, including a loss to Albert Montanes in Estoril last week. Although there was a tiebreak in the 2nd set, Federer will look to several positives. First, his serve percentage was way up, almost near 70%. More importantly, Benjamin Becker never had a break point
Rain was the only thing stopping Nadal from yet another Masters 1000 title. There was a rain delay at 4-all and then once again 2-1 in the second set. They came back shortly after 8 PM. Ferrer won one more game, while Nadal won the rest, taking the second set, 6-2. At 23 years of
Most had predicted that Nadal would win over his countryman Ferrer. The only hope was that Nadal's somewhat indifferent play would continue to the finals giving Ferrer a chance to use his steadiness to steal the match. Turns out, not so much. Ferrer kept even throughout the first set, but eventually Nadal was able to
There's only been a handful of players that have pulled off the Nadal-Federer double, that is, to beat both at the same tournament. They include David Nalbandian, Nikolay Davydenko, Juan Martin del Potro, and Novak Djokovic. The two play such disparate styles that beating both is a task. And yet, the most shocking person that
It was only two weeks ago when Verdasco decimated Djokovic in the Monte Carlo semifinals, 6-2, 6-2. Djokovic promised that he would acquit himself better this time around. And so, Djokovic did, but the second hottest player on the clay circuit, Fernando Verdasco, still won, in a 3 hour plus match. Verdasco has taken a
On paper, Andy Murray's loss to David Ferrer looks like an upset. In practice, perhaps not so much. Ferrer is ranked 17th in the world, but has been ranked as high as number 4 in the world, as recently as 2 years ago. Ferrer is, what's known in the tennis parlance, as a clay court
