In the US, there's this thing called the BCS. It stands for the Bowl Championship Series. It's a solution to a problem: how do colleges award a American football champion? There are so many teams that play college football, and football is such a violent sport, that there's no way for a reasonable number of
No one had expected the US to make it this far. In the opening round, the US was pitted against Switzerland, on clay, with Roger Federer playing, but Isner pulled a big upset, and the US got past them. Then, the US plays against France, at France, on clay, even though the French might actually
If you really had to press Roger Federer and ask him whether it was more important, for his legacy, to win Slams or Davis Cup, you know what the answer would be. If Nadal has had master over Federer, he's also had a sidekick named David Ferrer, ranked 5th in the world, who makes Davis
Roger Federer doesn't play much Davis Cup. It's hard enough for him to stay healthy for Slams, so he frequently skips Davis Cup even though he has a reasonably solid number 2 in Stan Wawrinka behind him. Andy Murray, for example, skips a lot of Davis Cup too, but he has no one ranked in
Much like Roger Federer, who has often bowed out from playing Davis Cup because of the additional demands it places on his schedule, Rafael Nadal informed the media that he would not play Davis Cup in 2012. 2012 is an Olympic year and Nadal wants to focus on defending the Olympic gold that he won
Entering the third day of competition, the big question was who would play for Argentina. On paper, it was going to be del Potro. But del Potro had not only the misfortune of losing to Ferrer, he did so in five sets, unable to muster the energy in either the fourth or fifth set to
Justin Gimelstob doesn't know what "overrated" means. He called the Spanish doubles team of Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano Lopez overrated. You can say a player like Andy Murray is overrated or a player like Caroline Wozniacki is overrated. That is, players that have won a lot but can't close the big ones out. But Lopez
The last time these Argentina and Spain faced each other was in the finals of 2008 in Argentina. The Argentinians had to be feeling good. They played on a hardcourt instead of clay because they had no idea whether Nadal would play or not. Then Nadal didn't play, so Argentina was hoping to pull a
Last year, in 2010, the current top two players of the world, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic decided to play doubles at the Rogers Cup. Djokovic had been asking Nadal and Murray if they would play doubles, just for fun. The Rogers Cup is held in Canada, and the two were paired against an unheralded
The French only had a puncher's chance. They hoped that puncher was Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. But with Nadal's withering pressure, Tsonga had no answers. Much like Gasquet, Tsonga was forced to hit winners off both sides, and missed frequently. The third set was only marginally better because his serve was helping him hold serve. Tsonga would
