A busy, surprising and hot, hot, hot day (and night) in NYC on Wednesday. Take this, for example: Pre-tournament favorite and No. 10 seed Victoria Azarenka suffered the second Major retirement of her career on Wednesday at the US Open (she retired against Serena Williams at the 2009 Australian Open), literally falling to Gisela Dulko [...]

Friday was an exciting and surprising first day of Davis Cup quarterfinal action. Let’s take a look. France leads Spain: 2-0 in France Wha? Michael Llodra, bluntly described as France’s “oldest and lowest ranked player” on the Davis Cup website, took out World No. 10 Fernando Verdasco on Friday in four sets. It was the [...]

The 2010 Davis Cup quarterfinals are here, less than a week after the Wimbledon finals. Who is ready to fight on? SPAIN VS. FRANCE: Wimby champ Rafael Nadal has pulled from the anticipated Spain vs. France quarterfinal in Clermont-Ferrand, France, to rest his knees. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is also out with a knee injury. As the [...]

It’s the Monte Carlo Rolex Masters Players Party! A.K.A. the party where everyone really makes an effort to dress sharp. Hello, gorgeous, gorgeous and gorgeous! Hola! Novak Djokovic and Jelena Ristic up the glam factor. I guess Tomas Berdych rolled up on his Harley. Oh, uh, sorry. Lost my train of thought for a second. [...]

When a big tournament starts, all of us – fans, reporters, bloggers and even the players – look for the familiar story lines. A Nadal vs. Federer final used to be as regular a climax as a torture sequence on 24. Now it’s more elusive, like a Mr. Big appearance in Sex and the City. [...]

It’s nice to be able to write Congrats, Rafa! on the same day the Spaniard suffered his biggest upset since last year’s Roland Garros. He’s also projected to fall to No. 4, behind Andy Murray, when the ATP updates the rankings. But Rafa squelched his disappointment by returning to the court on Saturday night, where [...]

In case you didn’t have four hours free on Saturday to watch the Indian Wells semifinals (really? you had something better to do?) here are some highlights from Nadal vs. Ljubicic and Roddick vs. Soderling: Shot of the day goes to Ivan: And a hastily made finals preview: It’s not exactly Fedal grade, but us [...]

Ivan Ljubicic took out Rafael Nadal today in the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (1). I think even Ivan would admit that this was a surprising result. Before the match, he said the strategy against Nadal was to “hit five winners per point to win every point” for [...]

The Andy Murray vs. Robin Soderling quarterfinal was the most dramatic singles match in the desert on Friday. After surviving four break points in his first service game, the Swede went on a tear. It took Murray most of the first set just to win a single game. Things got interesting in the second, when [...]

Thursday was a busy day at Indian Wells, with the women finishing up their quarterfinals and two men booking spots in the semis. Here’s the report going into the weekend: Ivan Ljubicic backed up his big Round of 16 win over Novak Djokovic with a three set victory over Juan Monaco in Thursday’s quarterfinal. Before [...]

Indian Wells is getting woozy. Big wins, puzzling losses, falling seeds, big match hangovers. Makes me glad I’m not a betting woman. Here’s a quick report on Wednesday’s action at Indian Wells. Grrr. Marcos Baghdatis failed to follow up his career best win over Roger Federer, losing to Tommy Robredo 5-7, 6-0, 4-6 in his [...]

Why so serious, guys? Sad that Roger pulled out? REUTERS/Mick Tsikas via Daylife The top guys did press on Tuesday in advance of the Kooyong AAMI Classic exhibition tournament, which starts on Wednesday. The line-up is led by Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin del Potro along with Robin Soderling, Fernando Verdasco, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Fernando Gonzalez, [...]