The buddy system was in play on Sunday at Indian Wells, when Rafael Nadal and his good pal/sometime doubles partner Marc Lopez beat the third seeded doubles team of Lukas Dlouhy and Leander Paes in the first round. Once again, the visiting martians hovering over the Indian Wells Tennis Garden would be forgiven for thinking [...]

Besides the Fed Cup diaspora, last week’s tennis action included three ATP 250 tournaments on three different continents. (And Major League Baseball’s “World Series” includes just Canada and the U.S.A? Pffft!)

Marin Cilic won his fifth career title at the PBZ Zagreb Indoors in Croatia on Sunday, beating Michael Berrer 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-3. He’s now 15-1 [...]

Feliciano Lopez cuddling a lion cub? If he still had the long locks, it would be a Harlequin Romance cover come to life!
He visited The Lion Park in Gauteng Province, South Africa, on Sunday, home to “over 80 lions, including the rare white lion and many other wildlife, including cheetah, wild dog, hyena, jackal, antelope, [...]

Photo by Miquel Benitez/Getty Images via Daylife
Two things we know without a doubt about the Spanish Davis Cup Team:

They’re unbeatable at home (final score after Sunday’s dead rubber play: 5-0, Spain.)
The U.N. is holding the team in a bomb shelter, in the event a nuclear apocalypse necessitates that a few choice human specimens repopulate the [...]

The Spanish Armada was in intimidating form against the Czech Republic this weekend in Barcelona, winning the first three matches of the final and claiming the Davis Cup title for the second year in a row.
A strong cocktail of red clay, home crowd and team spirit was just what Rafael Nadal needed to perk up [...]

Have you heard? ESPN The Magazine’s “The Body Issue” will feature nude or “semi nude” photographs of various athletes. (What is semi-nude, anyway? Is it the same as being semi-clothed? Like a glass half empty/half full kind of thing?)
According to USA Today, James Blake and Serena Williams will represent for tennis. (*UPDATE* -  James [...]

Czech it out! Photographer: Paul Zimmer
Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek took care of business on Saturday, pairing up after their epic five setters the day before to beat  Marin Cilic/Lovro Zovko in the doubles: 6-1 6-3 6-4. The Czech team is now 3-0 over the Croatians, and is guaranteed a spot in the Davis Cup [...]

Look out, Brooklyn Decker! Spanish ELLE did a photo shoot in Miami featuring the biological miracle that is Spanish tennis. Fernando Verdasco, David Ferrer, Feliciano Lopez and Nicolas Almagro frolicked in the sun and sand like a team of professional Zoolanders. Photos will appear in the May issue of Elle. Click here and here to [...]