Deuces Riled

-By Trenton Jocz -Was this always the plan? No one knows but my guess is yes, for one reason. Yes, Rafa is the massive favorite for Paris, but he's the only favorite right now. I think if Roger was ever serious about RG, he'd have waited to see if Rafa self-destructed in Rome (I see no reason why he's playing when he's such a big favorite for La Decima). Nadal has overplayed himself before and Fed had until next Friday to withdraw. If something were to happen to Rafa (God forbid), Roger might be the favorite, which makes me think he knew he didn't have a great chance whether Rafa was there or not. Nadal playing Rome and Fed calling it a day on May 15th seems more indicative for Fed's thought process than Rafa establishing himself by winning MC/Barca/Madrid. -How does this change the tournament? Federer was a top 5 contender, more threatening than the Thiem/Goffin types IMO, but he was an all-or-nothing type. We'll just never know if Fed could have rea...

Is it fair that Maria Sharapova was allowed back to the WTA Tour on Wednesday in Stuttgart, Germany? Is it fair that Maria Sharapova was allowed back to the tour without having to serve a longer suspension? Is it fair that Sharapova got a wild card to the main draw of the Porsche Grand Prix, in which she defeated an error-plagued Roberta Vinci to move into Thursday's round of 16? Will it be fair if Sharapova receives a main-draw wild card to future tournaments she enters before cracking the top 90 or 50 or 20 (assuming she hits each of those markers at some not-too-distant point in time)? Those are all valid questions. They're the questions everyone who follows women's tennis is asking this week. Everyone has an opinion on these matters. I have mine... but my opinion isn't worth anything, in the sense that no governing-body bigshot, nationally-known tennis commentator, or top-five WTA player cares one whit what I think. (For the record: I think a qualifying ...

Roger Federer’s first tennis match in Seattle represents a fusion of sports and philanthropy. It is the product of an athlete’s rise to the status of a global figure, someone notable enough to join Bill Gates in raising money for children’s education in Africa. The everybody-wins nature of the event on April 29 is impossible to ignore: Tennis fans in the Pacific Northwest – whose best chance at seeing Federer live has been to travel to Southern California for the Indian Wells event every March – will finally welcome Federer to their neck of the woods. They will gladly pay decent money for a light exhibition, as Federer spends downtime before the French Open and Wimbledon. The point is not to watch a high-level display of tennis, but to raise money for a great cause. The Roger Federer Foundation has proved itself worthy of Bill Gates’ support, becoming an example of an athlete-supported philanthropic structure which elicits trust. In this tennis exhibition, a simple but pow...

Saturday, April, 22, 2017, became an explosive tennis day for many of the wrong reasons, and while Cedric Mourier's terrible call cast a pall over the Rafael Nadal-David Goffin match in Monte Carlo, that was the least of the turbulent instances which disrupted a sports-filled Saturday. Ilie Nastase, one of the better tennis players of the 1970s and a Romanian tennis icon, created news which wasn't merely negative in nature, but appalling, humiliating and -- worst of all -- harmful to other persons. A good nuts-and-bolts summary of the full day's events comes from Simon Briggs of The Telegraph. Start there. That's a lot to take in, most of it disgusting, some of it deeply sad, and much of it very complicated for Simona Halep and Sorana Cirstea, the Romanian players left to deal with the fallout, some of which Cirstea added to. Where to go from here? Ben Rothenberg of The New York Times helpfully tweeted out this archived New Yorker commentary from Martin A...

The devil is in the details, mon ami. Hercule Poirot, being a good Belgian, certainly appreciated that pearl of wisdom in his detective work. One can only wonder how he would litigate the call which sabotaged fellow Belgian David Goffin's attempt to make his first Masters 1000 final on Saturday in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France. Let's cut right to the chase: Up 3-2 and serving at game point in the first set, Goffin won the point on a ball from Nadal that was multiple inches behind the baseline. The crowd applauded Goffin winning the point and the game. Then, several seconds later, umpire Cedric Mourier checked a mark and said the shot was good. Replay showed the ball was well beyond the baseline, removed from any "margin of error" discussion which sometimes clouds the issue of correct calls on clay. (More on that shortly.) Nevertheless, the point was replayed, Goffin lost it. The aftermath: Following a prolonged battle in that sixth game, Nadal broke Goffin for 3...

-By Trenton Jocz It feels appropriate for my first entry at this blog to be about Rafael Nadal. For those unfamiliar with me, I'm a big Nadal fan, but objective and not "territorial" about the other guys (even if I'm annoyed by Federer's occasional condescension or Djokovic's post-match "share the love" routine among various other things, they're fine overall and I don't see outright villains in this incredible era of men's tennis). Anyway, wanted to share some thoughts on the bizarre second rounder between Nadal and Kyle Edmund, the first meeting between the two: -I mention deceiving in the headline because the scoreline isn't entirely fair. I thought Edmund played more of a 6-2 set in the first despite his flying forehands, while Nadal's double fault on his first time broken obscures that Edmund was lucky to break, thanks to two netcords that messed Rafa up. -Given Nadal's patterns this year, the hold/break splits were ...

This post will not focus so much on what tennis needs to do -- reform X for problem Y -- as it will deal with the way the sport should consider various tension points in ways which shape the culture of the sport. Everything is capable of evolving, and over time, most things actually do evolve. (Negative entities can evolve as much as positive ones, to be clear.) Tennis is no different. If you recall from last year, Tennis Channel produced and aired Barnstormers, a documentary on the growth of men's tennis and its transition from the amateur era to the Open era. Making that switch from amateur to professional tennis required planning, foresight, and an understanding of how the landscape of tennis: A) had already changed; B) needed to continue to change to support a future vision. Tennis (for men and women alike) had to walk through the thicket of considerations which had to be handled, managed and absorbed in order for the sport to find a more profitable and modernized...