Milos Raonic is doing the best of the "new 4" which is Raonic, Tomic, Dimitrov, and Harrison. Raonic has done the best of the four having won a tournament (San Jose) and been runner up at another (Memphis). Raonic's big weapon is his huge serve. This wins him a lot of free points. His weakness
Well, this was a sloppy match. When Murray stepped on the court against Nadal last week in Tokyo, he had the courage of his convictions. Murray knows that, against Nadal, he has to hit well. When the final shot hit wide and Murray had completed the 6-0 set, Murray fans must have felt elated at
Let's start with the first semi of the day. Feliciano Lopez played David Ferrer. Despite Ferrer being the third seed and ranked number 5, Lopez lead their head-to-head on hardcourts 6-1. To be fair, the two hadn't met on hardcourts since 2009. This is an important observation because David Ferrer, despite having been a very
Last year, Andy Murray had a bit of luck winning Shanghai. The draw was set for Murray to meet Nadal in the semis. Except Nadal never got to the semis, losing early to Jurgen Melzer. Murray didn't face his first true tough competitor until the finals, but Murray dispatched Roger Federer pretty easily. And, to
Last year, around this time, Andy Murray was looking for a good tournament win. In 2010, Murray reached his second Slam final at the Australian Open and lost once again to Roger Federer. Not only did tears flow for the Scot, but Murray's game went into a mini tailspin. Murray finally righted the ship and
China, the site of the Shanghai Masters, has been on a quest. They want to produce a top 200 male player. Obviously, top 100 would be great too. They've done plenty fine producing good women players, most notably, French Open champion, Li Na. And they've done well enough producing players that can win a few
They may eventually become the new "fab four", but they have yet to show the kind of talent that Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray have shown. These "fab four" are Tomic, Harrison, Raonic, and Dmitrov. All four are playing this week at the Shanghai Masters 1000 and three of them played today. Of the four, Tomic
Shanghai is the penultimate (that means "next to last") Masters 1000 event of the year. Due to its late position, it can be a challenge to get all the top players here. In particular, Federer announced some weeks ago that he would be skipping Shanghai. Djokovic announced last week that he, too, would skip Shanghai.
It may have been prophetic. Novak Djokovic was playing a match against Tomas Berdych. Berdych has secured a break in the middle of the first set on the heels of an amazing point. Although Berdych held to lead 5-3, it would be the last game he would win. Four games later, Novak Djokovic claimed the
And then there was four. At the beginning of the tournament, there was some hope that the top four seeds might make it to the semifinals. Such occurrences are rare enough. There were question marks hanging over the heads of 3 of the top 4 players who lost early in Montreal. With the loss of
