It was surprising the players held up this well. Today's players have so much support with them, that they recover much better than they would have 30-40 years ago where a player might be lucky if they had a coach. Few would have any idea how to recover in such a situation. But today, both
The day began with many Americans looking somewhere besides the lawns of Wimbledon. Down in South Africa, the US team, in Group C, was fighting for its World Cup lives. The math worked liked this. If the US beat Algeria, then the US would be one of two teams into the main draw. However, as
It was five hours ago that I was reporting on the Roddick-Llodra match. At the time, the Isner-Mahut match was called due to darkness at 2 sets each. Most people felt the set would be over an hour later. Not. Even. Close. More than 6 hours later, with over 100 games played, a decision was
There's been a complaint that no one serves and volleys any more. The days of Patrick Rafter and Pete Sampras are gone, and no one seems ready to claim the mantle, so sure they are that today's players pass better than ever, and the percentages that used to favor the serve and volleyer has yielded
Early in the French Open, where daylight often lasts close to 10 PM, there was a significant controversy in the match between Gael Monfils and Fabio Fognini (that's Fognini in the photo). Originally, the referee had left it up to the players to play, and both seemed to agree. Then, Fognini's coach instructed him not
Given Day 1's scares, most people probably felt that Day 2 would return more to form with seeded players taking care of business, and basically that's how the day has started. Rafael Nadal played Kei Nishikori in the first round. Nishikori is only 20 years old having trained at Bollettieri's. Nishikori had a wrist injury
Roger Federer is rarely pushed to 5 sets in a first round match in a major. Indeed, he's rarely pushed to a fourth set in a first round match. You can thank seeding for that. The top 32 seeds usually consist of the top 40 players in the world minus a few who don't make
Secretly, Wimbledon must have been happy with this match. Due to Federer's five-setter, Djokovic's matches got a late start. This meant Wimbledon got a chance to roll the roof over the five setter that Novak Djokovic found himself in, and on the longest day of the year, have the longest day at Wimbledon, courtesy of
Wimbledon is such a different surface that it can be difficult to predict upsets. The top seeds tend to move on, but the lower seeds, who knows? Let's look at some results that concluded. Nikolay Davydenko had to withdraw from Indian Wells after the first round due to a fractured wrist. What was originally predicted
Martina Navratilova, who won a ton of Slams, used to say the women had it tougher to win Slams. In a best of 3 situation, you can't have a mental lapse. To be fair, the top women often have greater power or speed, especially during the Evert-Navratilova era. The women past 5 were so much
