On Sunday (April 19) Spain’s Rafael Nadal made tennis history by winning the Monte Carlo Masters title five times in a row. Congrats to the hunky tennis star! Nadal defeated third-ranked Serbian Novak Djokovic 6-3, 2-6, 6-1. Nadal is known to be great on the clay surface, but he knows there is always room for improvement.
“Everyone can improve in every surface, no? No one is perfect. Sure, I can improve,” Nadal said. “I always work to improve because when you feel you can’t improve, is difficult to wake up and go on court and practice.”

Nadal was not too happy with …read more

Due to rain delays on Thursday (April 16) Rafael Nadal had to win two matches on Friday (April 17) to move him one step closer to winning his fifth straight title at the Monte Carlo Masters. Did he succeed? Of course he did!

Nadal defeated Nicolas Lapentti 6-3, 6-0 and Ivan Ljubicic 6-3, 6-3. This takes him to 25 winning matches in Monte Carlo.
“I don’t remember ever winning two singles matches in one day, only doubles,” Nadal said. “I didn’t have a very long match (in the morning), so I was totally 100 percent to play the second. That’s …read more

Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina has defeated Igor Kunitsyn of Russia 6-4, 2-6, 7-5 at the Monte Carlo Masters today, Monday, April 13th. Do you know what this means? It means we get to see a second round match between Chela and Rafael Nadal. Nadal has defeated Chela in four out of five matches. Three of those defeats have been on clay, a surface which Nadal plays excellent tennis on.

Although Nadal had beaten Chela on clay every time, he’s still aware that Chela is a good player on the clay court.
“Chela is a good clay-court player. I have to …read more

Roger Federer was offered a last minute wild card to the Monte Carlo Masters next week and he has accepted. Federer has been a finalist three times, but has never won the tournament. He was defeated by Rafael Nadal last year 7-5, 7-5. Nadal will be going for his fifth straight title here, which includes 9 of the top 10 players in men’s tennis. The only one missing this event who is included in the top 10 is Andy Roddick.

 
The Monte Carlo Masters is on a clay court and Nadal is one of the top clay court contenders. Can …read more

What a week of clay court tennis it has been! If there was any doubt that Rafael Nadal still owned the clay court crown, he dispelled those doubts with 7-5, 7-5 victory over Roger Federer in the Monte Carlo Masters final.
Rafa was facing a dismal 4-0 hole in the second set but clawed his way out of it for the big W. It was the fourth consecutive title win at Monte Carlo for Rafael which tied the record by Anthony Wilding in 1911-1914. 1914…!!! That’s some serious years for that record to not be matched; it also makes what Rafa …read more

Like one it says in one of those old western movies I used to watch with my pa, “You fit a good fight, Querrey.”
And he did. Sam Querrey was ousted by Novak Djokovic at the Monte Carlo Masters 6-4, 6-0 in the quarters, but boy, did Querrey give the American tennis fans something to bank their hope with.
I was following the live scoring on the internet through the first set and Querrey did a remarkable job in fighting back to save his service games. He won his first service game pretty handily but his next two, he was in …read more

Holy smokes! Apparently I started talking about Sam Querrey at just the right moment, because he’s doing some American Wonderkid stunts. Querrey just beat Richard Gasquet at the Monte Carlo Masters.
Querrey got soundly beat in the first set 6-2 by Gasquet. Querrey showed his tenacity and mental strength by winning the final two sets 6-4, 6-3. In fact, Querrey broke Gasquet to go up 5-3 in the third and then closed out the match with a strong service game. Actually the last two games of the third set were all Sam Querrey: he won both at 40-15.
Image details: Sony Ericsson …read more

So Roger Federer almost lost in the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters. Down 5-1 in the third set, he won five games in a row and won the tiebreak over 137th-ranked Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo. But really, what’s the big deal? I’m tired of talking about Federer and what his recent slump means. I’d rather talk about the recession of our economy than the supposed recession of Federer’s game. And I’m not a financial fanatic.
Instead, I want to talk about Sam Querrey. I mentioned him earlier this week, and Tennis.com did an interview with Querrey. Actually “interview” is a …read more

The Monte Carlo Masters kicked off today. Juan Carlos Ferrero needed three sets to beat out Michael Llodra; Ferrero lost the first set 7-6 but leveled Llodra in the final two sets at 6-1 apiece.
Andy Murray and Mario Ancic persevered in the first round as well, but the Cinderella story (if you can have one of those in the first round) was Sam Querrey of the United States.
Querrey upset Carlos Moya 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 to move on. Woo, the lone American hope!
But whoever is writing for the Associated Press needs some help. One of the points made about Querrey’s upset …read more