Perhaps I’m writing a blog about men’s tennis in the wrong language.  Spain on Saturday won their fourth Davis Cup in this decade, securing their grasp on the claim on the world’s best tennis country of this century.  When you consider the Davis Cup quartet combined with the year-end rankings of nine players in the world’s top 50, [...]

Beyond the stories of crystal meth and his mullet toupee, here is the serious tennis fan’s summary of what Andre has to say:  His dad was an insane tyrant (this is the most convincing, believable part of the book); Nick Bollettieri took over as warden/slave driver (and doesn’t really know jack about tennis strategy or coaching); Pete Sampras [...]

Imagine traveling all the way to China to play tennis in front of almost nobody.  The nearly non-existent crowd for the fourth round match between Gael Monfils and Ivan Ljubicic yesterday on the grandstand court at the Shanghai ATP Masters 1000 tournament was comparable to a high school tennis match on a cold, windy spring day.  There couldn’t [...]

I have been longing for the USTA to do something big and fantastic for the next Davis Cup home match, instead of recent choices of smallish venues in tired indoor arenas in second-tier cities like Winston-Salem, N.C., Portland, Ore., or Birmingham, Ala.  The call for proposals from prospective hosts for a quarterfinal match July 9-11 went out [...]

Reigning NCAA champion from Ole Miss Devin Britton played the big match in the spotlight on Monday, losing in three to Roger Federer on the Ashe Court, but it was former two-time champ Somdev Devvarman and one-time runner up John Isner who came through with the big wins.  
Isner, a former University of Georgia star ranked 55 [...]

Launching a campaign for your sixth straight U.S. Open to tie Bill Tilden’s epic record apparently does not merit a prime-time match.  Roger Federer and Devin Britton will play the second match of the day on Arthur Ashe on Monday, meaning I’ll have to get out a video tape to record it and much of America will [...]

As a Joe Ely song I heard recenlty says, you’ve got to lift your leg a little higher to run with the big dogs. Green Valley Tennis Club members were 0-3 on Saturday, but performed admirably for a bunch of local old dudes.  Here’s the run down:
Jim Lewis and I gave away a combined 40 years in [...]

What Tom Watson accomplished Sunday in the British Open is beyond belief — at 59, with an artificial hip, he almost won a major, the third leg of golf’s Grand Slam. It says he’s tough, tenacious and a great competitor.  It also says a lot about the difference in athletic ability required of the game of [...]

Fabrice Santoro’s dizzying career of twenty years of competing in Grand Slam tournaments will come to an end either at the U.S. Open or perhaps next year’s Australian Open.   He is profiled in the August edition of Tennis magazine that arrived in my mailbox yesterday, and last week was featured in an excellent piece in The New York [...]

“Dr. Ivo” came back from two sets down to beat James Blake in five sets in the first match between the U.S. and Croatia Friday.  The pressure is now on Mardy Fish to earn the U.S. a point against Marin Cilic.