At this moment, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have met each other more times than any Open-era male rivalry (no one can compare to the Evert-Navratilova rivalry which had around 80 matches). Rafa leads the rivalry 22-15 meaning they've played 37 times. Indeed, they met 6 times in 2011 and 7 times in 2009. Over
What? Not a provocative enough title? Most people were surprised when Nadal came back on tour in South America. Of course, Nadal is king of clay, but they thought, even with a weakened field, that he would struggle some. After all, Juan Martin del Potro took off a comparable amount of time (roughly February of
Of the two, John Isner generally has the more straight-forward strategy. He knows his liabilities: he doesn't return particularly well, and he doesn't run particularly fast. These two constraints dictate his style of play. Hit big serves, hope for weak returns, and go for big shots on the forehand. On the return of serve, take
There are different ways to win a match. Some fans like offense. Back when Steffi Graf was dominant, she sometimes had to play Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario. Graf brought a new level of power to the women's game. She was fast, had a big serve for the day, and the biggest forehand in the women's game (at
To me, one of the best matches played between Djokovic and Nadal was the finals of the 2012 Australian Open final. Some felt it dragged on and on, and certainly, played over 6 hours with numerous breaks between points, the match could have been played at a zippier pace. However, after the grueling 2011 US
When the draw for the French Open came out, the first big question was: where would Rafael Nadal end up? Nadal had a spectacular clay season which pushed his rank up to number 4, ahead of David Ferrer. This created a great deal of relief among the other top seeds because they didn't have to
Sometime in 2011, during Djokovic's historic win streak and his ascendancy to number 1, many tennis pundits felt Federer would never get back to number 1, would never win another Slam, or if he did, it would be a one-off. Federer was edging to 30. Federer kept saying that it was ridiculous to talk about
On Monday, Jason Collins came out as an active NBA player who is gay. Now, this proclamation is somewhat borderline. It's not like Collins is a star player, and while he is technically on a team, he's a free agent and will need to be signed. And, unlike, say Jackie Robinson, who played with actively
Although the French Open title is more prestigious, and thus where Rafa Nadal has secured the moniker "king of clay", it's Monte Carlo where his dominance has reached epic proportions. Monte Carlo is a strange Masters 1000. Of the Masters 1000 titles, it's the only considered "optional". You aren't penalized for skipping the event with
Sometimes, when we see players, we think of their game as fully formed. If you watch years of Jimmy Connors, his game doesn't seem that much different, though maybe he did things at 39 he didn't do at 29. But a player's game is always a work in progress, from technical changes to strategic changes.
