Black Tennis Pros

The lights are still shining bright in Las Vegas, Nevada, but they dimmed, just a bit on the game of one of its daughters, American Asia Muhammad.

Asia waged a beautiful tournament. She was given a wildcard and she made the most of it. Today Asia's run at the Las Vegas Hilton Cup was stopped by Frenchwoman Camille Pin. Camille defeated Asia 6-4, 6-1.

In the first set Asia fought as hard as she could, and she gave as good as she got from Pin. With quite a bit more experience on her side, Pin was able to prevail. Unfortunately it was down hill from there. Asia very simply ran out of steam. She wasn't able to put up the fight that had been serving her so well all week.

It's just a matter of time, she'll get her sea legs.

Asia's mom and dad, Ron and Faye Muhammad sat in the stands alongside her coach, and not too far from her mentor, the great Andre Agassi.

When asked whether she realized that Andre Agassi was in attendance today, Asia said "I did not, I wasn't trying to look into the stands, especially in the second set."

I can only take so much drama on Mondays, it is not my best or favorite day of the week. As I was updating the list of upcoming ATP tournaments for the month of March, I saw a photo of Federer on the Dubai Tennis Championships home page. I was very glad to see him because when you can't count on anything or anyone else in tennis, Federer is the player to look to. For what, five years now? Federer has virtually been unbeatable. Of course the Spainard with the cute butt came along and changed that dynamic a bit, but other than that, Federer was still your man.

I must admit, Federer shook me up at the ATP Masters Cup in Shanghai, China at the end of 2007, where as defending champion, he lost to Fernando Gonzalez and suffered his first consecutive match loss in 4 1/2 years. At that time, I asked if we had just seen "The First Sign of The Apocalypse." Now, in the first round of the Barclay's Dubai Tennis Championships, he is defeated by Andy Murray 6-7, 6-3, 6-4.

To make matters worse, the annointed one mildly blasted Murray's game saying, “I don’t think he has changed his game a whole lot since the first time I played him and I really thought he would have done ...... He is going to have to grind it very hard in the next few years if he is going to play this way." When asked to elaborate Federer said, "He stands way behind the court. You have to do a lot of running and he tends to wait for the mistakes of his opponent. I gave him the mistakes today but overall in a 15-year career you want to look to win a point more often rather than wait for the other guy to miss. Who knows he might surprise us all."

I am just going to take this as a very disappointed Federer not knowing how to respond since losing has been a rarity for him. Oh well, I hope that I wake up on Tuesday to automobiles, not chariots.

Americans Angela Haynes and Mashona Washington have teamed together to play good game at the Regions Morgan Keegen Tennis Championships in Memphis, Tennessee. The doubles team defeated American Varvara Lepchenko and Russian Evgeniya Rodina 6-3, 6-1.

Haynes and Washington have their work cut out for them tomorrow. Their opponents are none other than fellow Americans Lindsay Davenport and Lisa Raymond. Get some rest tonight ladies, you're gonna need it!

On the men's side of the same tournament, the Young one made it to the quarterfinal round, but did not pack enough punch to finish off Swede Jonas Bjorkman. Bjorkman defeated American Donald Young 1-6, 6-2, 7-6(6).

Young had match point on Bjorkman at 5-6 in the tiebreaker, but the veteran played very smart on the next few big points, and it was Young who would finish himself off by hitting a backhand into the net. Of course Young took the cause of the error out on the usual culprit, his racket.

When asked about the possibility of being in the semifinal and whether that was on his mind, Young said "I was definitely thinking about it ...... how could you not? .... But I still had to play and win the point. He wasn't going to give it to me. He took it."

That's okay Donald, you dramatically improved your match play in this tournament. Keep it going!

Sixth-seeded Venus Williams lost to Dominika Cibulkova on Thursday in the third round of the Qatar Open. In their first meeting, Cibulkova defeated Venus 6-3, 6-3.

"This is the best win of my career," the 18-year-old said. "Today I played my game and beat my favourite player. I admired her as a child."

It's been a dream ride for Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, but he had to wake up at some point, and tonight's final was it. Tsonga was defeated by world no. 3 Serbian Novak Djokovic 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (7-2).

With his father Didier and mother Evenlyne looking endearingly on, Tsonga came out strong in the first set, won it, and looked as if he was ready to take this tournament on to the finish line. In sets two, three and four, Tsonga had bursts of that blazing speed and produced some of those amazing shots, but you could see that he was fatigued and a bit rattled by that incessant ball bouncing of Djokovic's. He complained to the umpire several times, but to no avail.

The electricity that preceded this final had a lot more voltage, and with good reason. Both of these young men have fought long and hard to reach this point and they have taken a lot of wear and tear. Djokovic took an injury timeout and received treatment. Regardless, they continued to put as much into this final as they had left to give, and it was worth seeing.

In accepting his trophy Tsonga apologized for his English and said "I am sorry for my English, I think I play better than my English." Tsonga also thanked Djokovic and said "for me it was a good moment." He ended speaking to the fans, and to a rousing applause, "and the last one is you, thank you very much. See you next year."

The Australian Open comes to an end and the dream run of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at this grand slam is over. At the same time, it is only the beginning of the 2008 tennis season, which means that we will be seeing a lot more of the magnificent Tsonga.

South Africa's Jeff Coetzee and his compatriot doubles partner Wesley Moodie were knocked out of the doubles semifinal by the French team of Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra. The score was 6-3, 7-6(11/9).

Well folks, it is done. American James Blake has had his eighth shellacking by Swede Roger Federer and must try again to get to the top of a grand-slam tournament. Federer defeated Blake 7-5, 7-6(7/5), 6-4.

It wasn't ugly though, Blake did what few are able to do, he pushed Federer hard throughout the match. Federer has been pushed before during the Australian Open, and nearly toppled by Serbian Janko Tipsaravic. But only the elite few have had the ability to bring the man of steel down.

"He seems like one of the guys in the locker room," Blake said. "Then you go out there, he beats you. You come back in the locker room and he's one of the guys."

"Playing against James, it's always great fun," said Federer, dressed in all-black again for a night match. "He's dangerous when he's even behind in the game. He made some incredible shots."

I really like Roger Federer and honestly want to see how far he can ride this bullet train. At the same time, when someone like James Blake is having such a great tournament, I really wanted to see him at the finish.

"I really went in thinking I had a good chance to win," Blake said. "I thought I played pretty well. But he came up with some of his best at the right times, and that was the difference."

Ah, c'est la vie!

Defending champion American Serena Williams simply could not pull her game together sufficient to move into the semifinals today. She looked tired and lackadaisical throughout the entire match. Serena appeared to try to modify and control her game to fit whatever may have been ailing her, but it did not work. That big booming serve of Serena's couldn't even save her today.

At one point both ladies were receiving medical treatment.

Serbian Jelena Jankovic, who had all kinds of issues in her initial match, played just well enough, and benefited greatly from Serena's errors, to pull out the win and move into the semis. Serena was defeated 6-3, 6-4.

In the post match interview Serena said, "I'm not going to sit here and make excuses, I lost because Jelena played better than me and I made too many errors..... I think regardless, the match was on my racquet, and I gave it away.

"I didn't move the way I traditionally want to move, and I wasn't feeling 100 percent. But as an athlete you know not every day you're going to feel 100 percent, and some days you have to win feeling 30 percent."

Bob and Mike Bryan became the first team to win at least 10 titles in a season since 1996 - when Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde captured 12 titles – at the Davidoff Swiss Indoors on Sunday.

The top-seeded Americans overwhelmed the first-time pairing of James Blake and Mark Knowles 6-1, 6-1 in just 43 minutes.

It was their third title in Basel, following victories in 2002 (d. Knowles-Nestor) and 2004 (d. Arnold Ker-Hood).

The Bryans didn’t allow their opponents any chance to establish themselves in the final. The pair ran through the first set in 21 minutes, with breaks of serve in the fourth and sixth games.

It was a similar story in the second set, as Blake and Knowles dropped their serve in the first, fifth and seventh games. The Bryans won all 12-service points in the second set - and 28 of 35 points overall.

The Stanford ATP Doubles Race winners have a 72-9-season record, which includes titles at the Australian Open, Las Vegas, Houston, Los Angeles, Washington and ATP Masters Series events in Miami, Monte-Carlo, Hamburg and Madrid.

The Bryan brothers are at No. 5 among all-time doubles title leaders with 43 trophies, after Woodbridge/Woodforde (61), Peter Fleming/John McEnroe and Bob Hewitt/Frew McMillan (57) and Sergio Casal/Emilio Sanchez (44).

Blake drops to 5-2 lifetime in ATP doubles finals, while Knowles falls to 46-34 in title-matches.

The Bryans earned the first prize of €45,750, while Blake and Knowles split €26,900 in prize money.

Source - ATP

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Davidoff Swiss Indoors Doubles

THE BAD NEWS FIRST: Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's winning ways were brought to a halt today by countryman Sebastien Grosjean. Earlier today in a semifinal match in the Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon, Grosjean defeated Tsonga 6-1, 6-2.

THE GOOD NEWS: Tsonga and Grosjean are teammates in the doubles draw of this same event, and they defeated the doubles pairing of fellow Frenchmen Arnaud Clement and Nicolas Mahut 6-2, 6-7(4), 10-4.

Well, Halloween is coming, it's time for weird things.


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Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon

Tree-top Croatian Ivo Karlovic, the tallest man in tennis, rained down 24 aces on American James Blake to drive the fourth seed out of the Swiss Indoors 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 on Thursday.

The second-round setback against the 6'10" Karlovic leaves Blake with all to play for next week at the concluding Paris Masters, where final positions for the eight-man Masters Cup in Shanghai will be determined.

Blake, last year's losing finalist in China against Roger Federer, stands provisional tenth in the race for the eight-man season wrap up.

Against this month's Stockholm champion Karlovic, Blake got off to a good start as he lifted the opening set.

But the huge serves of the 6'10" Croatian began to tell, with Blake's baseline game unable to make an impression.

Blake, who last played Basel in 2003 found himself facing three Karlovic match points, saving one before going down in defeat with a return into the net after just shy of two hours.

Source - Sports Plus

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American Angela Haynes is making some serious noise on the Pro Circuit. After a recent doubles title, Haynes made it to the final in Lawrenceville, Georgia this weekend. After a tight match, Haynes was defeated by American Julie Ditty 7-6(6), 6-4.



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I felt neither here nor there about American James Blake being ousted in the first round of doubles, I mean that's not his claim to fame. But I am a bit disappointed that he bit the dust in the first round of singles. What tha??? He didn't even seem interested today.

I thought with Blake being only within points of potentially sliding back within range of the top eight for the year-end championships that he'd be hell to beat. Guess I was wrong.

A sixth-seeded Blake was sent packing by Croat Mario Ancic, 6-3, 6-4 on Day 3.

'Nuff said.


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