Much Ado About Clay
Madrid is mercifully behind us, and hopefully we can soon stop hearing the lingering refrains lambasting the blue surface at the tournament this year. While Roger Federer kept his usual calm demeanor, rolling with whatever conditions came his way and needing no excuses en route to his third Masters title in the Spanish capital, his fellow contenders in the triumvirate at the top of the men’s game bombed out and blamed the court for their struggles.... Read More
Taking Drug Testing TOO Far
The war against doping in sports has ramped up significantly in the past several decades, with drug testers administering more and more tests both in and out of competition for more substances than previous generations could imagine would ever even exist. Under the guise of “fair play”, the war is justified despite the fact that its deterrent effect has proven less than entirely effective in actually deterring the pursuit of enhanced performance. And... Read More
Thoughts on Men’s Draw Before U.S. Open Semifinals
The chalk held, that’s all that we can say when we look at the final four that survived the first five round of the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows. There were no real surprises in the end, nothing out of the ordinary that would really leave anybody with a legitimate suspicion that things are in disarray in the men’s game. There’s the world’s top player, Novak Djokovic, is there after Janko Tipsarevic withdrew from their quarterfinal... Read More
Stats and Sensibility: Three Ways to Rethink Serve Stats
I decided to wander over to the ATP World Tour website for no other reason than to see if the leaders in the various statistical categories were the leaders in the rankings. By and large what I saw was what I expected to see. There were a few oddities there at the top of some of the categories, for sure, but for the most part the top players in the game were the statistical leaders as well. Do the statistics really tell the whole tale of greatness?... Read More
A Few Early-Round Musings from Wimbledon
With the second round closing up today at Wimbledon and the start of third-round matches, we’re nearing the first weekend with the brackets and the shape of this year’s slice of history beginning to crystallize out of the raw materials of pre-match expectation. The first two rounds are the place where we discover the very best that tennis has to offer… and bring out the very worst for those who fail to deliver on expectation. With... Read More
