The main draws in Birmingham, Queens and Halle all kicked off today. My first round predictions for Birmingham are following a similar trend to 2013. Looking at my full draw predictions, i’ve never seen such a solid cluster of red. There were a number of surprising results; one of the more eye popping was Victoria…
After a reasonably quiet day on Thursday, the upset train kicked into gear again as Ajla Tomljanovic knocked out the highest remaining seed in the womens draw, Agnieszka Radwanska, 6-4 6-4. After failing to serve out an upset win over Sloane Stephens at the Australian Open, Tomljanovic steadied herself in Paris to record the biggest…
Saturday will deliver four equally enticing semi-finals from the Internazionali BNL D’Italia. There were some excellent quarter-finals on Friday with Novak Djokovic’s 7-5 4-6 6-3 victory over David Ferrer and Ana Ivanovic’s 6-4 3-6 6-4 win over Carla Suarez Navarro the pick of the bunch. As I write this, Nadal v Murray is still to…
The ATP results in Rome have been pretty baffling. Well, they have been for me as I sit pretty with 9 correct picks out of a total 24 for the first round. My recent form has made me consider retirement. The WTA draw has been marginally better although I missed out on a few surprises…
Maria Sharapova came from a set and a break down to defeat Ana Ivanovic and claim her third consecutive title in Stuttgart with a 3-6 6-4 6-1 victory. This was a huge, huge win for Maria who has been struggling to find her best form after a long lay-off at the back end of 2013…
Away from Stuttgart, there is plenty of tennis going on this week, which I just haven’t had time to keep up with. In Barcelona, Nicolas Almagro was unable to back up his quarter-final win over Rafael Nadal as he was beaten by Santiago Giraldo, who will play Kei Nishikori in the final. In Bucharest, Grigor…
The huge headline news on Friday came in Barcelona as Rafael Nadal was upset by Nicolas Almagro in the quarter-finals, losing 2-6 7-6(5) 6-4. A whole heap of credit must go to Almagro, who was actually able to close out the match! Almagro has endured some crushing blows in his career (2013 Australian Open QF…
Like Indian Wells, Miami offers up all eight of the fourth round matches on the same day. To be honest, I am unenthralled by the line-up and perhaps that is just me feeling a downer on Miami. However if the matches go the way I think they could (they won’t) then the quarter-final line-up could…
Jelena Jankovic was the most high profile loss on Friday as she wasted a 5-1 third set lead to go down in what sounded like a strange match to Varvara Lepchenko, 6-3 2-6 7-6(2). The coverage of the womens draw has been slack, but I did manage to watch the first set of Serena William’s…
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…
Moo's Tennis Blog 