Dan Martin on Tennis, Life and Occassionally Other Sports
Down Goes Nadal?!?! Rafael Nadal is an absurd 277-12 on clay since 2005. 2 of those 12 losses have come over the past two weeks. Unlike, Rafa’s 2011 Madrid and Rome losses to Novak Djokovic neither of these losses came against men with Grand Slam titles or in the championship match. Make no mistake…
Rafael Nadal Fans On the anniversary of his very first title in Barcelona, Rafael Nadal defeated Croatian Ivan Dodig 6-3, 6-3 to reach the quarterfinals at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell. He will next play against Nicolas Almagro. Rafa reached another milestone today: He is now level with tennis great Arthur Ashe in the 11th place on…
Tennis champions have typically broken through in their late teens or early twenties. A lot has been made of the lack of teenagers in the top 50 and the success of players over thirty in recent years. The explanation, and it seems to be a sound one, is that tennis has become so physically demanding…
2014 Power Ranking #5 – Monte Carlo Crowns a New Number One Stanislas Wawrinka – Good to Great … sounds about right. The 2014 points totals are competitive, but Stan has wins over Rafa, Nole and Federer along with a Slam and Masters 1000 title. As strange as it sounds to me, Stan is my #1…
Rafael Nadal Fans Rafael Nadal made his clay season debut at the Monte Carlo Rolex Masters with a victory over Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia, 6-4, 6-1. He made another record by surpassing Brian Gottfried’s 679 victories on the all-time wins list. Rafa’s next opponent will be Andreas Seppi. Our champion looked every bit the King of…
Rafael Nadal starts his quest for 9 (NINE!) Monte Carlo titles in 10 years. Under a lot of grading scales 90% is a B+ or A-, but if ATP Tennis is graded on a curve, Rafa just gave a failing grade to everyone else on tour. Fabio Fognini’s 7-6, 6-4 win over Bautista Agut delivered…
Roberto Bautista Agut vs. Fabio Fognini is the best round of 32 match one could expect on clay. Rafael Nadal and Pablo Andujar are one match away from a re-match of the best clay court match of 2014 to this point. I don’t want to read too much into David Ferrer’s 6-3, 6-0 demolition…
Tennis Abides: Dan Martin on Tennis and Life 