Verdasco improved to 4-10 in career finals, and became the first Spaniard to win in the Bay Area since Manuel Santana in 1964. Verdasco had lost his prior 15 straight matches versus Top 10-ranked players. Roddick had previously won San Jose in 2004 (d. Mardy Fish), 2005 (d. Cyril Saulnier) and 2008 (d. Radek Stepanek).

A few surprises yesterday in the world of tennis both coming in Rotterdam really.

I’ll be interested in tonight’s result between Andy Roddick and Leonardo Mayer from San Jose.

Former Grand Slam great Pete Sampras was beaten by Fernando Verdasco 6-3, 7-6(2) in a singles exhibition.

Before I move on from the world number 1, I’d like to say that I wasn’t overly impressed with Federer’s speech during the ceremony. “I can cry like Roger,” Murray said. “It’s just a shame I can’t play like him.” How many players do you think nodded their heads when they heard this?

I want to comment on Murray’s approach to attempting to win, let’s say, the last two Australian Opens. Last year he played an exhibition in Abu Dhabi and a warm up event in Doha. He won both, beating Nadal once and Federer twice. He was coming off a great 2008 where he won two Masters and reached the US Open final. In Oz, he lost to Fernando Verdasco in the 4th round.

Roger Federer needed just under two hours to sink the hopes of locals for their man Lleyton Hewitt to pull the upset.

I wasn’t sure when to make a mid-tournament assessment.

Sean Randall recaps Saturday play at the Australian Open and looks ahead to Sunday.

I recently read an article about how in 2002, the official World Number 1 wasn’t the same as the best player in the world.