Black Tennis Pros

American James Blake has been sidelined for several recent tournaments, and will remain so for the French Open.

According to a statement on Blake's website dated April 23, 2010:

"James's knee is doing better every day, but unfortunately he still doesn't have a firm timetable for a return to the courts. Presumably he will be back for the grass court season, so he's announced his schedule for June, and that consists of Halle, Eastbourne and Wimbledon."

In a recent statement to the Associated Press Blake said, "I have been required to take a break from competition to treat pain that I have been experiencing in my right knee. "The good news is that I will not need surgery. However, the treatment will require me to take a six-to-eight-week break. I look forward to a successful rehabilitation period and returning to competition in the near future."

Hope to see him back in action soon.

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Here are the wild cards for the men's and women's singles draws at the 2010 French Open.


The eight wild cards for the men's singles:

Carsten Ball, AUS*
David Guez, FRA
Nicolas Mahut, FRA
Gianni Mia, FRA
Josselin Ouanna, FRA
Laurent Recouderc, FRA
Edouard Roger-Vasselin, FRA
Ryan Sweeting, USA*

The eight wild cards for the women's singles:

Stéphanie Cohen-Aloro, FRA
Claire Feuerstein, FRA
Stéphanie Foretz, FRA
Jarmila Groth, AUS*
Mathilde Johansson, FRA
Christina McHale, USA*
Kristina Mladenovic, FRA
Olivia Sanchez, FRA

* Agreements have been reached with the Australian and US Tennis Federations, meaning that a wild card is attributed to a player from each of these countries in the men's and women's singles.

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IVIS is a revolutionary new product that has been more than a decade in the making. The acronym stands for “Interactive Virtual Instructional System.”

As you will learn when you visit the website, IVIS is an instructional tool able to identify the most common tennis related problems and offer specific insight and practice strategies. IVIS works!!

Here is an introduction to IVIS by it's inventor, Bob Davis:



IVIS is the most revolutionary development in the history of personal sports instruction. Yet, it's so simple, you wonder why it took so long!

Here's why: Instruction for most sports typically occurs with a live instructor at his/her place of business, during regular business hours, or, possibly, using a non-interactive DVD, videotape, etc. in a living room or den.

IVIS renders this type of instruction obsolete by offering a personalized, interactive diagnosis of your tennis-related problem and provides immediate solutions and practice strategies.

This is accomplished in the privacy of your home or office, even on your laptop while away at a competitive event. IVIS is available 24/7 without the need to schedule an appointment and without the inconvenience or prohibitive cost of traditional private lessons.

IVIS was designed for club-level players and offers easy access to sports related performance solutions by having the user follow a few easy instructions. Through a series of filters, the user will define his/her problem by describing the end result of the troublesome shot. In this way, technical solutions are provided to the individuals' specific problem.

Visit IVIS at http://www.tennisvideotraining.com, your game will thank you.

"Bob Davis has created a website that reinforces the basics of tennis. More importantly, both technique and tactic are interlinked. This site is a potent reminder to execute basics correctly for beginner to professional level players. Relevant articles and videos add a nice touch for players and coaches."

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Madrid, Spain - Unseeded Aravane Rezai upset Venus Williams to claim a straight sets win the final of the Madrid Open.

Frenchwoman Rezai, 23, earned only her third career title after defeating fourth seed Williams 6-2, 7-5 in one hour and 41 minutes at La Caja Magica.

Despite the loss Williams is set to return to second place in the world rankings for the first time since 2003 following her run this week, while she also won the women's doubles title at the Madrid Open with sister Serena on Saturday night.

Rezai, who won in Bali and Strasbourg last year, swept aside Williams during a superb first set in which she broke her opponent in the third and seventh games before serving out to love to take the upper hand.

It was a convincing start by Rezai, but she needed to dig deep during the second set to stage a remarkable fightback.

Williams, who had a 12-1 record on clay coming into the match, looked to be cruising towards levelling at one set all as she built a 5-2 lead and then, after Rezai had got back to 5-4, earning five set points on the Frenchwoman's serve in the 10th game.

However, Rezai saved all of them and, with the momentum behind her again, she broke Williams in the next game before serving out to win the match and the title.

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MADRID, Spain - A dream clash between one of the greatest teams of all time and the hottest team of the year took Manolo Santana court for the doubles final of the Mutua Madrileña Madrid Open on Saturday night - and it was the Williams sisters who managed to come out on top.

Having recently won their 11th Grand Slam title together at the Australian Open and seeded No.1 here, Venus and Serena came out on fire against No.8 seeds Gisela Dulko and Flavia Pennetta, flying out to a 6-2, 3-0 lead. Dulko and Pennetta won five of the next six games to lead 5-4 with Pennetta getting a chance to serve for the set - but the Williamses regained control in a big way, taking 12 of the last 15 points of the match to dust off a 6-2, 7-5 victory.


"We're really excited to win. We've worked really hard. Today we played a team that is doing really well, too," Serena Williams commented. "We just try to be the best and have fun, whether No.1 comes with that or not. Our goal right now is to do well at the French - we didn't do well there last year.

"Venus is in the singles final here too - she's playing really well."

The Williams sisters now have 18 doubles titles as a team: 11 Grand Slam titles, two Olympic gold medals and five Sony Ericsson WTA Tour titles. They have an incredible 140-18 win-loss record together as a team (an 88.6 winning percentage). On Monday, they will rise from co-No.3s on the doubles rankings to co-No.2s - the highest they've ever been in the team discipline.

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MADRID (AFP) — Venus Williams will bid for a 44th career title on Sunday when she tackles unseeded Frenchwoman Aravane Rezai in the Madrid Masters final, the day before her elevation to the world number two spot is confirmed.

Williams swept the last nine games in a dominant semi-final display on Saturday as she crushed Israeli Shahar Peer 6-3, 6-0 and earn her fourth final from six events in 2010.

Rezai won an unseeded match-up when Czech Lucie Safarova quit after one set trailing 6-1.

Their 24-minute affair came to a quick conclusion a day after Rezai had earned her third career win over a Top-10 opponent when she beat seventh seed Jelena Jankovic in the quarter-finals.

The ailing Safarova won just six points out of 16.

American fourth seed Williams, who will move to second in the world behind her sister Serena on Monday, overcame a minor niggle through an opening break of serve by the 22nd-ranked Peer, who upset fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova in the opening round.

Williams improved to 12-1 this season on clay, requiring just 66 minutes to complete her rout.

"We exchanged a couple of breaks, she's (Peer) a really tenacious player," said Williams. "She's very talented, with a never-say-die spirit.

"I was ready for that, and after those (early) games I just seemed to be able to find the corners. I can't complain about being able to play that well against a player like her.

"To have come out on top so far feels good. I've been happy with my form and I'm going to try to keep it going tomorrow (Sunday)."

Williams, who turns 30 in June, now stands 5-0 against Peer, having never lost a set in their series.

The victory, marked by 17 winners and six breaks of serve, was also her third of the year over Peer after Dubai and Rome.

Williams got her powerful game together from the fourth game of the contest to ease to victory, winning three love games in the first set and another in the second.

On Sunday, she will be bidding for her tenth career claycourt title, but has claimed only two at the top WTA tournaments, in Rome 11 years ago and Charleston in 2004.

"I feel like I've had a good career on clay courts," said the American.

"The ultimate is to win the French Open, and I've come close (she reached the 2002 final).

"I think I've won every other tournament except the French on clay, so I'd like to take it one more step."

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At the Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open on Friday, Frenchman Gael Monfils and Spaniard Rafael Nadal hit the court in matching Nike attire for their quarterfinal match, and Nadal busted out of the gate in the same 'take no prisoners' form that he has displayed in each of his previous matches.

It wasn't as if Monfils didn't make the effort, he managed to get four games off of the Raging Rafa, but there was just very little else he could do to counter Nadal's assault. The longer the match went on, the more rattled Monfils seemed to get, serving double faults and over hitting on Nadal's serve whenever he could get a racquet on it. Nadal cruised to a 6-1, 6-3 win.

It's good to see Monfils again, and this was not a bad warmup tournament for his first back since his hand/wrist injury after Indian Wells.

We'll see what happens at his home grand slam... here's hoping.

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In today's quarterfinal action at the Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open, American Venus Williams, who won her third round match against Italy's Francesca Schiavone on Wednesday, will meet Australian Samantha Stosur against whom she currently stands 3-0. All of those matches came in straight sets, and none of the sets went past 6-4.

It would appear that Stosur has her work cut out for her.

On the men's side, Frenchman Gael Monfils, who has been on the injury list as of late, will meet Spain's one and only Rafa. Rafael Nadal, who is undefeated on clay this season (12-0), holds a 5-1 career mark against Monfils.

Monfils obviously has his work cut out for him too.



Lastly, No. 1 doubles seeds Venus and Serena Williams who are well on their way to becoming the world no. 1 doubles team, will go up against Iraeli Shahar Peer and her Italian teammate Francesca Schiavone.

The sisters defeated Russian Maria Kirilenko and Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska 6-2, 6-4 in the quarterfinals.

Should be good tennis on tap for today!!

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