The bottom half of the men’s draw was cut up into mulch on Sunday. Juan Martin del Potro withdrew due to the wrist injury and then Tomas Berdych, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon were all knocked out of the tournament. Berdych’s loss to Roberta Bautista-Agut was particularly surprising based on his excellent start to the…
This week, I made a few slightly risky predictions and they have not paid off at all! On Saturday, Stanislas Wawrinka made a fine start to his Indian Wells campaign with a 6-3 7-5 victory over a dangerous opponent in Ivo Karlovic. I thought he may struggle in his first action on the ATP tour…
The top half of the women’s draw looks really inviting with a number of marquee match-ups for Monday. In the other matches, Alisa Kleybanova has a great chance to make the fourth round. Her victory over Garbine Muguruza really went under the radar. The match between Ekaterina Makarova and Dominika Cibulkova should also be very…
Saturday’s match between Ana Ivanovic and Elina Svitolina was a real cracker. The first two sets were high quality and the third was tremendously awful, yet gripping in its entirety. There was a lot to get excited about with Svitolina’s game. She served very well for a set and a half, and is a terrific…
Victoria Azarenka’s miserable year continued as she laboured to a 6-0 7-6 loss to Lauren Davis in Indian Wells. Her foot injury, which she described as inflammation and nerve damage in between the bones of her foot, doesn’t sound promising and she is now a major doubt for Miami. Predictions-wise, Friday was a pretty ropey…
The seeds come out to play on Friday in the women’s draw with Agnieszka Radwanska, Victoria Azarenka and Jelena Jankovic all in action. There were some snapping streak wins on Thursday with Francesca Schiavone and Donna Vekic both recording their first wins of 2014. Can Vinci follow suit? Indian Wells and Miami have always been…
The first ATP Masters 1000 event of the year in Indian Wells promises to be a fantastic tournament. This will be Stanislas Wawrinka’s first appearance on the ATP tour since winning his first Grand Slam and he is joined by familiar faces with Nadal, Djokovic, Murray and Federer all competing in the desert. David Ferrer…
The first Premier Mandatory tournament of 2014 begins on Wednesday with a strong field that as usual, is lacking the Williams sisters. The draw looks wide open with Li Na and Agnieszka Radwanska the top two seeds. Note that the 32 seeds all have byes into the second round and will begin their campaigns on…
Acapulco wiped the floor with Dubai this week in terms of producing high quality and competitive matches. I had several gripes about the scheduling with five consecutive days of matches finishing past midnight. However it didn’t seem to affect the quality of tennis and the crowds were pretty spectacular all week. When the Murray-Dimitrov semi-final…
Roger Federer won his first ATP title since Halle last year and his biggest title since winning the Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati in 2012. Federer’s win has set up the first Masters 1000 event of 2014 in Indian Wells next week rather marvellously. Here are my thoughts on Saturday’s final and the tournament as…
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