Going to lead by saying it’s tough to get too frustrated about lack of Americans in both Men’s and Women’s tennis this weekend (unless I’m missing someone, only the winner of the Isner vs. Odesnik match will remain), or the lack of pop in the Red Sox offense yet, when tragedy strikes the sports world.  Thoughts and prayers go out to Nick Adenhart’s family, the Angels Organization, and other families affected.

Heading out a bit early for Easter weekend.  Actually, make that Passover weekend.  Actually, make that watching the Red Sox and Masters with my father and brother weekend.  Yes, that sounds much better.  Just some links for today:

Peter Bodo offers up 5 Questions for the Clay Court season.

Congrats to the Safin/Safina’s…who in a couple weeks will reach a historic milestone.

Kamakshi Tandon’s thoughts on the top of the WTA.

Article on Andy Murray from latest issue of Sports Illustrated.

Latest Wertheim Mailbag.

Federer, after all, will play Monte Carlo.

Power Rankings, via ESPN.

Remembering a happier time for Roger Federer.

So there are a couple relatively meaningless tournaments going on right now, only a few headlines have arisen from them -

- James Blake failed to get off the snide in Houston, falling to Canas in the first round.  I’ll cut JB some slack here, as Canas is an extremely tough first round clay court opponent.  Mardy Fish, seeded second behind Blake, also fell in the first round…and 3rd and 4th seeds (Meltzer and Chardy, respectively) have both lost as well.  John Isner, Taylor Dent and Wayne Odesnik are still representing the Stars & Bars in the singles.

- American women make waves across the Atlantic Ocean.  We’ll start out with the negative waves…Serena Williams lost her first round match in Spain to the 95h ranked player in the world.  She blamed an injury.  This loss came just days after Serena got destroyed in the Sony Ericsson Final by Victoria Azarenka.  She blamed an injury.  I’m not doubting that Serena is indeed injured, but it would be nice if once in awhile she gave credit to her opponent first, then injury second.  In better news, 14 year old Madison Keys made her WTA Tour debut this week in Ponte Vedra Beach (a bit north of her Boca Raton home) and won her first match, against Alla Kudryatseva (a Russian ranked 81st) before falling to 9th ranked Nadia Petrova 6-3, 6-2.  Just 14, Keys could be a cornerstone of American Women’s tennis once the Williams start to fade. Read the rest of this entry »

Federer just lost a semi final match in which he won the first set, again.  He needs a coach.  Maybe this is the guy for him.  That’s it.  Happy Friday.

Since I don’t have the pleasure of giving you any kind account of the Sony Ericsson Open, I’ll leave that to other people.  By the way, I don’t begrudge my boss for not sending me, I begrudge television in general.  I am not exactly sure how it all works, but someone should figure out a way to let me watch the Roddick-Federer match from last night.  I am a Celtics fan, a rather big one, but even I was upset that Comcast Sports Network (formerly known as Fox Sports New England) was airing the Celts instead of the tennis.  A Celtics game, which by the way, was won because Ray Allen is one of the best clutch shooters of all time.  Seriously though, television people, especially tennis television people, are on my bad side right now.  Without further ado, some links – Read the rest of this entry »

Anytime the best four men in the world make it to the semifinals, you know you are in for a treat.  And yes, for those keeping track, I am talking about Nadal, Murray, Federer and Roddick.  I know Roddick is ranked 7th, but so far this year he is playing as well as anyone, and better than Novak Djokovic (whom he destroyed 3 and 2 in the quarterfinals).  And for the most part, the Semi’s did not disappoint.  The only disappointment was how Federer seemed to check out at 1-1 in the third set against Murray, leaving even the most diehard Federer supports to question just where Federer’s head is at right now (maybe with his unborn child…).  Up to that point, however, the match definitely lived up to billing.  Even better though was the Nadal Roddick match.  Although it was only two sets, Nadal won 6-4, 7-6, it felt much closer.  Roddick seems to have this new Rocky Balboa type mentality, and can grind it out with the best of them, no longer relying on his cannon of a serve to win him matches.  Down a set and 5-3 in the second, Roddick fought back to break serve and force a tiebreaker – something that I swear the Roddick from a couple years ago would not have done. Read the rest of this entry »