“This completes a five-year process of reinventing the television and digital landscape for the sport of tennis in North America,” said Arlen Kantarian, CEO Pro Tennis, USTA. “Tennis will now be prominently featured for eight straight weeks on ESPN — the premiere destination in sports; Tennis Channel — our sport’s namesake network; and CBS — our longtime network partner. This new partnership will provide more tennis, to more people, in more ways than ever before.”

Now be honest, who would really have believed that after four days of tennis in Rome that Rafael Nadal, David Ferrer, Nikolay Davydenko and David Nalbandian would out and Andy Roddick and James Blake would still be in? There’s no one on the planet who would have thought that four days ago. No one.

BURN SOME CALORIES, THEN HAVE A FEW BEERS: According to Consumer Reports magazine, tennis ranks among the top five activities for the most calories burned per workout. While playing just a half hour of singles tennis, a 140-lb. person will burn 254 calories and a 200-lb. person will burn 364 calories.

Sayonara North America hardcourts. Hello, European clay. For the Americans, it’s a time of anguish, when even such simple matters as making a phone call or ordering dinner exacerbate the tensions of playing on a less than familiar surface.

If the powers-that-be are trying to raise the popularity of tennis in the U.S., they’re not getting a lot of help from the ATP.

HE READS BOOKS TOO: Mardy Fish after beating Roger Federer last week in Indian Wells: “Actually when I won that first set I remembered something from James’ (Blake’s) book. It was a quote from [Fish's former coach] Todd Martin who told him, ‘If you can win one set, you can win two.’ So I stuck [...]

Watch out Roger Federer. Novak Djokovic is coming to get you.

Journalists and fans world-wide have been cringing in anticipation after the ATP’s announcement that in 2008 it will change the well-established “Masters Series” designation for its top tier of events to “1000s.”

One week into the year’s final Grand Slam event, let’s do a quick round up of what we have seen so far.
The Home Team
Serena Williams and sister Venus both won a Grand Slam this year, but other than that, it hasn’t been an exceptionally great year for American tennis. Now that the tours are back [...]

“It was an honor that he asked me to play at his last US Open, but it was hard to say no to Isner.”