Clash of the titans at the Paris Masters

November 7, 2015

No sooner had The New York Times announced in a brief that Roger Federer had moved into the third round of the Paris Masters with a dazzling attacking display than, oops, he lost in the third round to John Isner and his 27 aces.

Ah, those Federinas. They always live in the hope that each Fed win will spell the return of the king – until, of course, the moment when he’s tripped up by someone who’s a one-trick pony. The truth is Isner is a big guy (6 feet, 10 inches) with a big serve. Period. When he’s on, though, he’s tough to beat, as Feddy Bear himself acknowledged in his delightfully solipsistic manner. ...

A wide-open French Open

May 23, 2015

Who will it be? The once and future king (Rafael Nadal) or the kid bro all grown up and in the driver’s seat (Novak Djokovic)? The maestro (Roger Federer) or the Murrah (Andy Murray)?

One of the new guys perhaps – the teen dream (Borna Coric) or the princes in waiting (Kei Nishikori, Nick Kyrgios, Grigor Dimitrov)? Or will one of the vets (Tomas Berdych, Marin Cilic, David Ferrer) flash the old brilliance?

This year the French Open, which starts Sunday, May 24 and ends Sunday, June 7, is both Novak Djokovic’s to lose and anybody’s guess. There are several factors at play here.

Nine-time winner Rafa is seeded only sixth, thanks to a dismal season. (He would’ve been seeded seventh but an injured Milos Raonic dropped out.)

Wimbledon seeds according to the player’s performance on the surface (grass), not based on his ranking. So last year Nole was No. 1 even though at the time he was ranked No. 2.

But Wimby is Wimby. The French Open seeds according to the rankings and, even before the draw came out, you just knew that Rafanole – as their rivalry is known – would be renewed. Sure enough, they are set up to meet potentially for the 44th time in the quarterfinals, with one of them set potentially to meet Andy in the semis.

Meanwhile, Feddy would appear to have the easier path to the final but not so fast. There are people on his side of the draw like Berdych, Gael Monfils and even countryman Stan Wawrinka who could prove nettlesome.

So there are lots of questions:

Can Andy continue his sparkling play on clay?

Can Fed continue to dazzle at age 33?

Can Rafa recapture the magic in Roland-Garros, site of nine of his 14 Slam titles? ...

Curtain comes down on tennis’ ‘comedy of errors’

November 18, 2014

What a frigging mess.

The World Tour Finals – which some clever headline writer at Tennis magazine called “WTF, Indeed” – were a disaster with pull-outs, flame-outs and shutouts from start to finish this past week.

I blame Rafa’s appendix. It all started there. Rafael Nadal had his appendix removed so he couldn’t play in the round-robin, season-ending London tournament that features the top eight players. David Ferrer, asked to be an alternate, showed up and promptly lost to Kei Nishikori. But at least he showed up. Grigor “Baby Fed” Dimitrov, also an alternate, didn’t bother to. Steve Tignor, author of the “WTF” article, explains the Dimitrov philosophy of declining invitations with a baseball analogy.

Marin Cilic might not have bothered to show up either for all the good it did him. The US Open champ looked flat, as did Tomas Berdych, as did just about everyone, except new daddy Novak Djokovic.

And then there was the battle of the Swiss, known for their peace-loving neutrality. Apparently, Roger “Feddy Bear” Federer – who was breezing through the tourney, on track to play Nole in the final smackdown of baby daddies – and Stan “the Man” Wawrinka got into it after their semifinal bruiser, exchanging heated words in a makeshift locker room (a huge tournament and it doesn’t have a locker room?) sparked by Mirka Federer’s supposed “heckling” of Stan courtside.

But wait...

Stan the man

January 27, 2014

Wow, you gotta hand it to Stan Wawrinka – the everyman who has played in countryman Roger Federer’s (aka Feddy Bear’s) shadow for so long – electrifying Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open final. This is the first time that someone other than one of the Big Four (Rafa, Fed, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray) has won a Grand Slam since Juan Martin del Potro defeated Rafa in the US Open final in 2009. Yes, that’s right, four years of domination over.

Stan’s win over Rafa was huge, bigger than his win over Nole and not just because that was the quarterfinals. Nole, the former defending champ who has won the tournament four times (including three in a row) is nonetheless the Maria Callas of men’s tennis: There’s so much drama in his matches. Indeed, when the tennis experts cull the top 10 matches each year, several of his are always in there, because the outcome is never certain. Read more

Getting over the hump

December 31, 2013

Lots of people work over the holidays – me, everyone in the retail, food and hospitality industries, emergency workers in any number of fields and tennis players. Tennis players never seem to stop, with locales like Abu Dhabi presumably taking the sting out of what must sometimes be a grind.

On Saturday, Dec. 28, Novak Djokovic won his third straight Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi, once again defeating David Ferrer. Rafael Nadal settled for third place. That’s a 24-match win streak for Nole and while you can say all you want about Abu Dhabi being a mere exhibition tune-up for the Australian Open, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the fact remains that Nole is looking good. Read more