After dodging a bullet (or 50 of them) from Ernests Gulbis, Nadal should settle back into his comfort zone against a compatriot who specializes in armor rather than bullets. Ferrer’s sublime defense should prove much less dangerous to Rafa than the flat, sometimes Soderling-like groundstrokes relentlessly pounded by the Latvian. Only if the defending champion is weary from…

Confronted with a lethal-looking draw at the outset of this week, Nadal now finds himself within two comfortable wins of tying Agassi’s record for career Masters titles (17). Although he had been projected to play Soderling, Federer, and Djokovic consecutively, ambushes by Wawrinka, Gulbis, and Verdasco erased all three threats from his path. The Latvian should connect with some…

Rarely does Djokovic whisper as he does here to his charming compatriot and Hopman Cup doubles partner, Jelena Jankovic. Generally, the ATP’s most engaging superstar proclaims his sentiments to the world in unambiguous fashion. Typical of this trait was the bravado with which he addressed his Friday confrontation againt Verdasco, who inflicted Djokovic’s worst defeat as a top-10 player two weeks…

I really do believe, that if you look back through over the years, you will see that tennis players who recently got married, or had children, then their game took a dip.

Lleyton Hewitt was a classic example.Your life changes, and if you are a pro sportsperson then it changes even more.

I really believe that his values will have changed a little, but he will be back, and I think Wimbledon will be his time.

I hope so, because to see him lose like…

Before discussing the volatile vixen above and her imposing task tomorrow, we wanted to share our thoughts from the scintillating clash between Radwanska and the second half of our pseudonym. Contested at a far higher level than their Miami meeting, this match demonstrated the progress that both players have accomplished over the last…

The cliche says that a girl’s best friends are diamonds, but the entry list for the Porsche event in Stuttgart suggests that WTA stars must be very good friends with splashy sports cars as well. Even after the withdrawals of Venus and Clijsters, the 30-player field is saturated with talent to the extent normally associated with the Sydney tournament just before the Australian Open.…

After enjoying one of the smoothest imaginable draws in Monte Carlo, Nadal now must tackle one of the most difficult paths imaginable in order to capture his fifth Rome title, which would tie him with Agassi for the Masters 1000 record. Just to reach the final, he likely will be forced to overcome Soderling and Federer, the two players who defeated him on his favorite surface last year. Should he…

One might have thought that Henin’s broken finger would have given Team Estonia some hope, for they’ll be confronting a Belgian team without the seven-time Grand Slam champion as its #2 singles player. But 13th-ranked Yanina Wickmayer (pictured above) represents the insurance policy of anyone’s dreams; the Belgian cup runneth over indeed. Although that tie is virtually a foregone…