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.”

“It’s kind of mind-boggling,” Navratilova told Newsday. “When you have a football team and Joe Montana becomes available, you don’t say, ‘Oh, we already have a quarterback,’ but that’s exactly what happened.”

The ATP Masters Series inducted a new rule in 2007, where the Top 8 seeds received byes for their first round matches. This to make sure that they can get enough rest in between events, to compete in back-to-back Masters Series tournaments. It was a good move by the ATP, but Cincinnati is still suffering [...]

The next generation of U.S. men’s players were on display Monday at the Masters Series-Cincinnati in a week where Top 10ers Andy Roddick and James Blake became the ONLY AMERICANS RANKED IN THE TOP 50.