Day six of the 2010 Australian Open could have been compared to an exhausted runner who, after finishing a race and drinking ample fluids, immediately finds a soft bed and blacks out for 10 hours of deep, reviving sleep. Indeed, the end of the third round in the year’s first major tournament marked a point [...]
QUESTION: Can Nikolay Davydenko break through? Much like the Kim Clijsters-Justine Henin debate on the women’s side, tennis aficionados are wondering if Davydenko, the sixth-seeded Russian, can become a force at major tournaments, beginning with this event. Davydenko has defeated Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in two separate events over the past two months, at [...]
Will the real Nikolay Davydenko please show up in Melbourne? The 28-year old Ukrainian star marched past Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal for the second consecutive tournament. As usual, anyone who beats the top two players in the world deserves to win the tournament. Davydenko set Federer down in the semis and stormed past Rafa [...]
Imagine the two best days of tennis you could possibly have on the ATP Tour. Imagine a 48-hour fantasy ripped straight from the headlines. Imagine finding a zone of confidence you’ve never felt before. Now you’re ready to enter the current existence of one Nikolay Davydenko. In two days in Doha, Qatar, Nikolay Davydenko – [...]
After all he’s been through in his life, Tommy Haas finally found reason to smile at the end of another long journey on a tennis court. The German, along with Croatia’s Marin Cilic, produced a third-round match of considerable quality at the 2009 Wimbledon Championships. The slugfest evolved into a sprawling and soaring showcase that [...]
When Roger Federer won his fourteenth Grand Slam singles title a few weeks ago in Paris, the number one storyline for the 2009 Wimbledon Championships became etched in stone. But as the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament gets set to start in suburban London, the gentlemen’s singles competition now owns a second supreme theme: Life’s [...]
The 2009 French Open men’s singles final offers a surprising matchup, but anyone who’s watched the first 14 days of the 15-day event at Roland Garros would find it hard ignore the notion that Robin Soderling should be the man standing in the way of Roger Federer‘s path to an added measure of tennis immortality. [...]
Robin Soderling, once in command of his French Open men’s singles semifinal against Fernando Gonzalez, had to feel that the world was crashing down on his slumping shoulders as a Friday afternoon grew late in Paris. After two hours of dominant play, Soderling had attained a two-set lead against his Chilean challenger, but as soon [...]
Sunday, May 31, 2009, will be remembered for one thing and one thing only in the history of tennis. The date has become etched into eternity as the day Rafael Nadal lost his first match at Roland Garros, to Sweden’s Robin Soderling. Anything else that happened in Paris on 5/31/09 will be forgotten by casual tennis [...]
If tennis fans wanted explosive action on day four of the Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open, they were sorely disappointed. Two retirements on the men’s side deprived spectators (and TV viewers) of compelling combat, while the women–with their tournament bracket thrown upside-down by a spate of upsets–provided just one eyebrow-raising result in the round of 16. [...]
