Give it 16 months and then come back, womyn.

Amelie Mauresmo has officially called it a season after pulling out of her last two tournaments of the year, Linz and Luxembourg.
 

 
Let’s just say that the dreaded “R word” has been mentioned for the 30 year old champ:
 
Since my return from the US Open, I tried to practice, but I haven’t found the thirst to [...]

Cincy/Toronto Day 1: Ummm …

I was going to write a Day 1 wrap up, but then I saw these pictures…
… And forgot what I was going to say. 
 

 
Such hair godliness the world has ne’er seen. 
 

 

Credit to anutam from RF.com, polaroided by me for extra McDreaminess.
 
Twas a peaceful day over in Cincy with very few upsets. Karlovic took out 13th [...]

Final Tidbits: Goodbye to all that.

Wait – there are tennis tournaments going on this week? 
Sometimes I just want to stop the world for a bit and savor the moment, but that can’t be done, so it’s bye bye, Wimbly. You’re not my favourite slam. Actually, I hate you like an unloved child. And just because I’m a Federer fan, doesn’t mean I [...]

Order and Chaos: Picking the Impossible.

I just can’t shake of this nasty feeling I have for Roger Federer this Wimbledon. Why? Roger Federer is majorly due for an early round upset, that’s why. That 20 consecutive semifinal streak is just a sitting duck, a gross statistical anomaly waiting to be snapped. It’s not rational of course for me to suppose [...]

Not an upset, and not a surprise.

You might’ve noticed that Ana Ivanovic lost to Nadia Petrova, or maybe not. Ivanovic hasn’t been all that noticeable lately unless you subscribe to the Serbian Hello magazine. The most pathetic part is that we can’t even call it an upset since Nadia is seeded No 7 in Eastbourne and Ana is … unseeded? Have we really [...]

crushed bricks, smashed hopes.

Trivia: who in the WTA has the highest winning/loss ratio this year? (answer at the bottom of the post) 
 
Not much I can say about the men’s draw – take a wild guess as to who I think is going to win.
 
The only thing I might add is that the Draw Gods have not been kind [...]

Pic-spam time: the Buzz before the Storm.

The players are all down to business this week, trying to get some extra match practice before the French Open. 
 
Maria Sharapova went out over night to Alona Bondarenko, making a whole lot of unforced errors along the way. Perhaps even more disturbing is how weak the serve was, not in terms of service percentage, but [...]

Beating the Clay-Monster Crunch.

Proof that TNSMF reads this blog – he got a wild card to Monte Carlo. And his website now has a retro 70s orange background. I feel rejuvenated already. 
 
That is however not the topic of this post. As much as I love TMF and on occasion TNSMF too, watching Roger on clay, or any other [...]

Would you like me to wrap that up for you?

So I never did my usual 10,000 word tirade for the Australian Open. Truth be told, the tournament’s taken a bit more out of me than expected. To go from not knowing anything about what happened after Round 2 to images of Roger Federer sobbing his nose off on TV was a bit like diving [...]

The Match Denied

Rotterdam Results:

Rafa def Monfils 64 64
Murray def Ancic 61 62

 
“Ohhh yeth”. This is the match that I felt we were denied of at the Australian Open this year. Mind you, the semifinal that we did get more than made up for it. But Rafa v Murray match ups intrigue me more than Fed v Murray match [...]