andre agassi

There Are No Easy Matches

Andy Roddick is hands down one of the best tennis players in the world (no. 5 seeded, to be exact), and he probably knows better than anyone never to take victory for granted. You never know when your opponent is posed to play the match of his life, as unseeded Yen-Hsun Lu did at Wimbledon on Monday, beating Roddick in a five set quarterfinal upset.

If you’re not on your game, anyone can beat anyone

One of the most exhilarating things about sports is that upsets happen all the time. In singles, all bets are off. When you’re all alone on the court, every player becomes a team of one. When things aren’t working, you have to coach yourself back to being the better player on the court, or else you’ll lose.

Even the best players lose focus

Wimbledon is the home of many upsets. In 1965, Manuel Santana became the first defending champion to lose in the first round. And then there was no. 1 ranked John McEnroe’s loss to Kevin Curren in ’85. Defending champion Steffi Graf’s first-round upset to Lori McNeil in ’94. Andre Agassi’s first-round loss in ’96. Pete Sampras’s second-round loss in ’02. Maria Sharpova’s second-round loss in ’08. The list goes on and on. … And on Monday, Roddick fell short on his returns, and he knew it. “I don’t view what happens today as an impossibility,” he said in a post-game interview. “It wasn’t my serve. It wasn’t my service games. It was my returning. That was crap. It was really bad.”

There are no easy matches

At the end of the day, seeded or unseeded, world renown or unknown, the player with the most fight and focus usually wins. Speaking about his state of mind going into the 5th set, Lu said to the journalists, “I don’t believe I can win, because he’s a better server than me. I mean, for chance, I don’t believe. But I just tell myself, ‘Even if I don’t believe, I have to fight….’”

andre agassi

The King of Clay!

Rafael  Nadal is maybe the greatest clay court player of all time. In his first clay court tournament of the year in Monte Carlo he lost a total of 14 games and won the event for his 6th straight year. He is now tied with Andre Agassi for the most Master Series tournament wins with 16 and he will probably surpass Agassi next week when the men’s field heads to the Rome Masters.

What makes Nadal so great on clay?

-tenacity

-how he wears his opponents down

-never gives up

-grew up playing on clay

-his speed (lets him run down more balls)

-clay courts play slower, which allows time for his big looping groundstrokes

We will all have to wait and see how he finishes the clay court season. I believe Nadal will finish strong and win this years French Open.