When Andy Roddick came up around 2000, he was the next Pete Sampras. The problem? Roger Federer. When Pete Sampras retired, he left something of a vacuum. There were supposed successors to the mantle of Sampras. Two came from men who beat Sampras in 2000 and 2001. Those were Marat Safin and Lleyton Hewitt. Those
Let's look at the top 8 seeds and see how they're doing Roger Federer Federer had easy opponents the first two rounds. Donald Young has been struggling to beat anyone this year, so he wasn't ready to beat Federer. Bjorn Phau is quick, but doesn't have enough weapons to bother Federer. Verdasco was his first
In his third round match, Murray struggled a great deal in the heat and humidity. This allowed Feliciano Lopez to take big swipes at the ball and hit a larger share of winners. Murray had to resort to hitting shots up the middle of the court and to Lopez's backhand so he could stay in
One of the biggest questions about Tomas Berdych is, well, the prounuciation of his last name (though his first name is also a challenge for non-Czechs). It's mostly pronounced Burr-Ditch. Some umpires have said Burr-Dish. There's also, Burr-Dick. Recently, Martina said the correct way to pronounce it was the third way. After checking out a
Isner is getting used to marathon matches, but these days, he's as apt to lose them. Indeed, since winning the marathon match in 2010, Isner has lost 5 five-setters, and won only one. Certainly, this match, which didn't get started until 11, will have been his latest, ending at 2:30 AM, tied for the latest
Andy Roddick might love nothing more than to have a Jimmy Connors-like run through the US Open. One might never see a 39 year old make a deep run in a Slam again, though as recently as 2005, Andre Agassi, in his mid 30s, made a run to the finals. Roddick just turned 30 years
This was a strange match, and Murray explained some of the reason he looked so lethargic in his win over Feliciano Lopez. Great Britain isn't known for its sunny, hot weather, so players like Murray generally heads to some place warmer--for Murray, it's Miami, so he can acclimate his body to the heat and humidity.
Many top players have a last hurrah. Kim Clijsters said at the start of the year that she planned to retire at the US Open, so people knew, ahead of time, that this was it for her. No one expected she would lose in the second round to Laura Robson, but so it goes. The
When commentators talk about Bernard Tomic, Florian Mayer, Alexandr Dolgopolov, they talk about their quirky playing styles that makes it difficult for opponents to handle. In this lineage, however, Andy Murray predates them all (though Fabrice Santoro predates Murray). When I first began watching Murray, I'd wonder "How did this guy win?". He seemed to
If you hadn't watched Murray's first round match, a 62 64 61 straight set match over Alex Bogomolov, you would have thought he had a comfortable win, without too much stress, but it was anything but. Bogomolov was able to break Murray 4 times, quite impressive, given the lop-sided score in the Russian's favor, but
