- ESPN Tennis Power Rankings

- Five players who have lots riding on the summer hardcourt season

- Richard Gasquet kissed the wrong woman.

- Latest mailbag from Jon Wertheim.  Fair warning, that mailbag is dedicated to Roger Federer’s Wimbledon wardrobe.  For a bit more diversity, go here.

- Attempting to debate Tiger vs. Federer is much like trying to decide what was the better 80’s franchise (Karate Kid or Rocky), utlimately impossible.  But Joe Posnaski, of CNNSI, gives it a shot.

- Serena Williams named America’s favorite female athlete.

- Updates on the return of everyone’s favorite Belgian, Kim Clisters.

- Selena Roberts on Roger Federer.  She treats him slightly better than she did A-Rod.

- Vote for your favorite tennis town.

- Brad Gilbert on the US woes in Croatia.

I’m not going to bother reviewing the last couple months of tennis news, as that would be a waste of all of our time.  So, with that in mind, I’ll skip right ahead to yesterday.  It was 80 degrees and sunny, and for the first time since seemingly my last blog post, a perfect day to be outside.  But like so many of you, I was glued to the TV for about 4.5 hours watching one of the better tennis matches every played. 

I was pulling for Roddick, but found myself surprisingly not disappointed in the end.  Maybe it was because watching Federer win his record breaking 15th slam singles title was amazing (and perhaps more amazing, was he didn’t flop to the ground and cry).  Or maybe it was just because I was relieved it was finally over.  While sitting on the couch doesn’t mentally wear you out, I was so involved in that match I felt mentally drained when Roddick mishit the last shot high into the air.

It’s terribly cliche to say, but Roddick deserved to win as much as Federer.  I think once the pain of this loss wears off, Roddick will realize it and be a better player for it.  He will realize that once again he will be thought of as a favorite at every event he plays, mentioned in the same breath as Federer, Nadal, Murray, Djokovic, etc…Not to mention I have a feeling he gained millions of fans around the globe with the effort he put forth.  To me, he is like Rocky Balboa in the first Rocky movie, and stood toe to toe with the Champion, Apollo Creed.

Only in this case it was Roger Federer. I’m not going to get into the whole comparing players across era’s concept, so I wont say he is the greatest player ever.  Claiming his 15th at Wimbledon is certainly fitting, as is recovering the ATP World No. 1 ranking, taking it back from Nadal.  He will lose it again, quite possibly later this summer, and quite probably to Nadal.  But once again, Federer has climbed above his current rivals like Nadal & Djokovic; and perhaps more important has also moved above and beyond rivals like Sampras, Bjorg & Laver, and is considered the Greatest Champion in the history of the Game.

More posts, and as always, links to follow later this week! Glad to be back!

James Martin agrees. So does Jon Wertheim.

Bonnie Ford weighs in (with words, not grams).

Pat McEnroe advocating that Americans ‘embrace’ clay.  Well, it should be noted that Blake made it to the Finals in Estoril last weekend, and is in the Round of 16 in Madrid.

Serena, the ‘best player in the world,’ has lost 4 matches in a row.

Retractable roof in the plans for Roland Garros.

New CNN/SI feature.

Ad In/Ad Out.

Just a few months after claiming Murray should not be talked about in the same category as the “Big 3,” Djokovic finds himself ranked behind him.

I thought betting on tennis was illegal?

Great piece by Tandon on a ‘legend‘ of the ATP circuit.

Newest Wertheim mailbag. And Ad In/Ad Out Feature. (An ‘ad in’ for Coria, really?)

Congrats to Hewitt.

I feel terribly for Jelena Dokic, and anyone else her nut of a father has hurt.

Scroll down to May 4th to read tweets from Courier live during a match!

See, I knew Federer was still the best.

Let me start off by saying I respect and admire both Venus & Serena as players.  They are thrilling to watch (especially against each other), and helped to revitalize interest in Women’s tennis that was sorely lacking after greats like Steffi Graf started to leave the game.  I am tired of them, though.  I doubt I’m alone with these thoughts.  When I woke up on Monday, poured my bowl of Frosted Flakes, put some blueberries on top, and checked ESPN.com, I saw two headlines that annoyed me.  They were not ‘bad,’ in the Dayydenko Betting Scandal/Dokic had an abusive father kind of way, but as I said, they were simply annoying. 

The first one I crossed, “Venus, Serena ‘would love to play’ Fed Cup Final,” is clearly a good thing.  But it’s still annoying.  Consider the following – this is only the second final Team USA has reached this decade (2000 doesn’t count because as everyone knows the new millennium didn’t actually start til 2001); and out of a possible 22 ties since they began playing in 1999, Serena has played in four 4 them, and Venus has played in a more respectable (but still undesirable) 8.  To me, this screams “I don’t want to work too hard…but I want the glory,” a la Roger Clemens that time he signed with the Astros when he only had to pitch home games.  This might not be true in the least, but it certainly appears to be, and that’s the point.  If you want my opinion, Mary Jo should say “thanks, but no thanks,” go with the team that got here there. 

The second headline  actually did more than annoy me, it incensed me - ”Serena: ’Despite Rankings, I’m still world’s best.’”  No Serena, right now, you are actually the world’s second best.  Dinara Safina is the world’s best.  Ok, I am going a bit overboard, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that ultimately I think Safina is a better tennis player than Serena, but in the article Serena frankly says, “We all know who the real number one is…” referring to herself, of course.  And it’s not true, the real number 1 is in fact DINARA SAFINA.  Serena has been on the tour for quite awhile now, is she not aware that the ranking system favors those who play tournaments on a more consistent basis than she (or her sister) does? 

Listen to Safina’s defense, “It’s not luck. Nobody gave it to me. I played two Grand Slam finals and last year I won four titles. This didn’t come out of sky.”  I love it…here’s to hoping they are in the same quarter in Paris this year.

One piece of startling news from Rome is Andy Murray crashing out early to qualifier Juan Monaco, he certainly seems to be taking it in stride though.

Weakest No. 1’s in history.

John McEnroe offers Federer a phone call.

Wertheim mailbag & Ad In/Ad Out.

Andy Roddick discusses his wedding.

Great idea here from Jim Courier.

Some great news here if you are a fan of reality TV, and Jennifer Capriati.

Todd Woodbridge has some harsh words for the ITF.

Latest Wetheim mailbag.

Great piece on an up and coming player.

Monfils not sure about his status for Roland Garros.

Ravi Ubha of espn.com offers up some players who need to turn it around ASAP.

Great article from Joel Drucker on player development.

First and foremost, Dinara Safina took over the No.1 spot on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour this week.  She took over the spot from American Serena Williams, who Safina actually lost to in the finals of the Australian Open earlier this year.  Safina takes over the top spot, much like Jelena Jankovic, having never won a Grand Slam.  Some people complain about that.  I don’t.  I simply think it is reflective of the major problem in Women’s tennis right now where so many of the big names don’t compete as much as they should (if you think that comment was pointed in the Williams sisters direction, you are correct).  Bottom line is Safina has been the most consistent player over the past year and as a result, is also now  considered the top player.  Furthermore, she and her brother Marat are the only sibling pair in history to both be ranked No. 1. Kudos.

Here are some other headlines:

Nadal wins in Monte Carlo again.  Color me shocked.

Andy Roddick married his future ex-wife last weekend.  As soon as they get divorced, she will be my wife.  Just kidding, hope they are a star couple that actually lasts.

Safina may be a Russian No. 1, but she is not Russian’s No. 1.

Ad In/Ad Out from Jon Wertheim.

Bonnie Ford interviews Monica Seles about some rather intense topics.

The new roof on Wimbledon’s Centre Court has been raised.

UPDATE: As of 4pm EST the quote from below has been removed from the tennis.com news ticker (although it still remains a headline on the main page)…Ill keep updating if anything new happens.
Patterns are a very important part of tennis.  For example, Rafael Nadal has formed a certain style of play to continually beat Roger Federer and take over the number one ranking.  Another example would be how Novak Djokovic has shown a pattern of quitting in big matches when the chips are down.  And still another example would be how Argentine Martin Vassallo Arguello gets himself wrapped up into gambling allegation with Russian players.  Lest we forget his match against Davydenko in August of 2007, and the melee that followed, here is a link with the story.  Fast forward twenty months or so to this year’s Monte Carlo Master’s Event.

According to Tennis.com, the first round match between Arguello and Igor Andreev created suspicious gambling patterns.  Here is a direct quote from the Tennis.com Newsticker -

“Tuesday’s first-round match between Igor Andreev and Martin Vassallo Arugello at the Monte Carlo Masters has raised suspicions of potential match-fixing because of unusual betting patterns, writes Charles Happell of crikey.com.au.  Andreev the higher-ranked player of the two, won the opening set, but a substantial amount of money was wagered on Vassallo Arguello nonetheless.  These betting patterns continued throughout the match, which Vassallo Arguello eventually won in three sets – after Andreev had failed to convert on three match points.  Roughly $7 million was be on this match, more than 10 times the amount for a match of this variety.”

While this time the two players a ranked a bit closer (Andreev is 22nd, Arguello is 49 compared with Davydenko’s # 3 ranking vs. Arguello’s 87th at the time of their questioned match), is there a doubt in anyone’s mind that something fishy is going on here?  As more develops I will keep my devoted reader posted.  I mean ‘readerS.’

Oh, one more thing…Roger Federer will not make the Monte Carlo Finals for the fourth straight year, he fell today to fellow countryman Stanislas Wawrinka in straight sets.

- In ‘other’ news from the past few days, Roger Federer got hitched.  This is one step in a long road for Federer to put a nix on these rumors.

- As Peter Bodo points out, Easter weekend brought a resurrection for certain tennis players. 

- Great article from Joel Drucker on time management for tennis and life.

- Just learned some American gals have started a successful campaign in Charleston, as Bethanie Mattek-Sands and qualifier Shenay Perry advanced to the second round.