Thanks DMan1 I could not have said it better. I would like to add that if Federer was not around Roddick's,  Hewitt's, and Nadal's resumes would be about as impressive as Edberg's or Becker's. Roddick would likely have 3 Wimbys, 2 USO, and perhaps a an AO, Hewitt would probably have another USO and  AO (2004), and Nadal a couple of ...

Dobey: I tried watching the Safina-Kuznetsova semifinal match but the ESPN crew of Chris Fowler, Mary Jo Fernandez and Mary Carillo made it impossible to watch more than the first set. Mary Carillo had to tell us at least 15 times that Dafina is Marat's little sister. How lame is that? First of all, Mary must assume that nobody in the audience ...

RP: A few of us from the board (Scoop and Redhead) went to Nike headquarters in December during Davis Cup and believe it or not, someone asked the Nike execs ''Why can't you design shorts so that Nadal isn't always picking at his butt before each point - that can't be a great selling point for the shorts?'' Their response was basically that ...

vinko:Roger's  problem is that he got old. Not old for normal humans but old for tennis pros. Borg, McEnroe, Wilander, Courier, and Chang never won another major after his age. Sampras did but he was Sampras. Roger at 26 is not old by tennis standards; Chang won only one slam at the age of 17 and his name should not be included with this ...

xiowa: I hink the chances ar real that Novak can take over the number one position barring any injury or illness. I will go on record saying I do not think Nadal will do it.  Although with the clay court season if he is close he possibly could do it.   How is that for hedging? It will be hard for Nadal to catch Federer during the ...

Djokovic is now about 1800 points behind Federer. If Federer does well in Miami, he could extend his lead to nearly 2300. Novak might have to wait quite awhile to catch Roger.

Harel Levy from Israel was in the top 100 for nearly 2 years from the Summer of 2000 to late Spring of 2002 and got as high as 30.

I think clay may be a factor for sure. BTW, I don't think Nadal's game is stylish at all - it's bang/ bang, grunt/ grunt, sweat/ sweat.

In reference to a poor turn out- are people referring to the DC semi in 1998 in Milwaukee. I don't remeber that one. That is a little surprising considering how close Milwaukee is to Chicago; but according to the DC website it was a second tier level of American players and they were playing Italy - not a big draw. This is the final in Portland ...

I live in Virginia and hoped to get tickets for the DC match in Winston-Salem, a much smaller city and metro area than Portland; it was an instant sellout and I could not get tickets. Seville is not a big city and Portland dwarfs it and Gothenberg. Portland is in a heavily populated corridor where most of the population of Washington and Oregon ...