0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/4/2016
The 2016 Miami Open might become something very different in the course of time… and that’s part of what made it such a fascinating tournament to observe. We could look back on the past week and a half in Key Biscayne, Florida, and realize that the journey led to predictable endpoints in 2016: Novak Djokovic […]
Canada’s Milos Raonic celebrates victory during his men’s singles match against France’s Gael Monfils on day ten of the 2016 Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 27, 2016.
0 comments by Chris Abshire on 1/27/2016
Tennis fans have waited years for another men’s tennis player to take the proverbial leap, becoming a player not necessarily on the level of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer or Andy Murray, but clearly a step above the rest of the top 20. We might be watching Milos Raonic make that move. The Canadian dispatched Gael […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 7/13/2015
The ATP side of the Wimbledon divide offered plenty of fascinating stories. Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer will get their own stand-alone treatment, so here are the five big non-final observations from the past two weeks at SW19: * 5 – CANADIAN SUNRISE There was no Canadian Sunset at Wimbledon — not when one realizes […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/26/2015
The gentlemen’s singles draw for Wimbledon 2015 has been released, with seeded players in white: Here are the items of foremost importance after the revelation of the brackets: The biggest question in the men’s draw, in terms of pointing the path to the eventual champion, was whether Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer (the top two […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/21/2015
In the Southwestern United States, Cox Communications has been running a series of commercials for a number of years. The point is rather simple: Cox guarantees its products in ways that competitors are prohibited from making certain statements: This is what a lot of tennis journalists and commentators (though not all of them) are doing […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/11/2015
Every year (since 2011), the chatter builds before the French Open: This is Novak Djokovic’s year. This is the year Rafael Nadal fails to win Roland Garros. Every year, Nadal gathers himself and his resources — no matter how many setbacks he suffers in the month of May — and conquers Paris in early June. […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/24/2015
Everyone has his or her own dividing line for when to start — or stop — measuring anything under the sun. In terms of measuring the extent to which the Big Four have dominated the ATP Masters 1000 tournaments, two dividing lines come to mind after Novak Djokovic defeated Roger Federer — again — in […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 2/3/2015
The Australian Open is done, and so is daily coverage of tennis at Attacking The Net… for now. This is still a major-tournament-focused blog. We hope to branch out in the coming months, but at the present time, our resources only enable us to cover the majors in full. We will provide Sunday or Monday […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 1/28/2015
At the 2015 Australian Open, the quarterfinals went quickly, with seven of eight matches (four for both genders) concluding in straight sets. Boring, right? Well, not exactly. Not exclusively. Not even close. Yes, on Tuesday, the women’s quarterfinals fell flat when Simona Halep and then Eugenie Bouchard both had “one of those days” at the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/17/2014
In reviewing a full year of men’s tennis, there’s no need to cover new ground — it’s been covered. You know the major stories. The time spent looking back at 2014 on the ATP World Tour is best used in the service of perspective and, in spots, appreciation for what’s happened since early January. The […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/16/2014
The ATP’s season-ending championship (before the International Tennis Federation puts the capper on the tennis year with the Davis Cup Final) is called the World Tour Finals. The acronym for the event, as you can plainly see, is WTF. This year in London, “WTF” was the universal reaction to the showcase singles tournament held in […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/2/2014
The BNP Paribas Masters — informally known as “Bercy,” distinguishing this Parisian event from the major championship held at Roland Garros every spring — represent the last stop on the road to London, the site of the ATP World Tour Finals. With 1,000 points being awarded to the winner and stacks of points in play […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 9/9/2014
The last major tennis tournament of the year is over. The Davis Cup semifinals begin this Friday, and there are a lot of points to be won (or defended, depending on the player) in the Asian swing and the fall indoor portions of the tennis calendar. Both the WTA and ATP will unfurl their year-ending […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 9/6/2014
We kept waiting. We, the global community of tennis reporters, bloggers and fans alike, kept waiting for the moment when Novak Djokovic — tired, listless, dragging, generally lacking answers — would do what he’s done dozens upon dozens of times in the past, including and especially in the U.S. Open men’s singles semifinals. In the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 9/3/2014
Tuesday — not counting the 2:26 a.m. finish from Monday’s order of play between Kei Nishikori and Milos Raonic, written about here by Juan Jose Vallejo for Rolling Stone magazine — was not an exciting day at the U.S. Open. Three men’s fourth-round matches were decided in straight sets. The fourth match was a drawn-out […]
