TENNIS TUESDAY: Murray Is British Again; Serena Sabbatical; Federer in Africa, Venus Loses

Andy Murray Wins Three Matches In Davis Cup Tie With France
Andy Murray continues his excellent 2015 season by almost single-handedly lifting Great Britain to the semifinals of the annual Davis Cup team tennis competition by defeating two former Top 10 players from France: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon in singles and then teaming up with brother Jamie to win the doubles match in order to advance past France for the right to face Australia the weekend of September 20th (with home court advantage).

Serena Pulls Out of Bastad and World Team Tennis To Rest Before US Open
Despite going to Sweden immediately after winning her 6th Wimbledon title, World #1 Serena Williams withdrew after winning her first match and then promptly pulled out of World Team Tennis as well. She is still scheduled to play Stanford, Cincinnati and Toronto but if I was the tournament director at any of those tournaments I would start to sweat: I doubt she'll play all three.

Roger Federer Goes To Africa (To Open A School)
The President of the Roger Federer Foundation, i.e. the World #2 player, went to Malawi to open a school.

Venus Should Have Stayed Home; Loses 1st Round In Istanbul
Meanwhile Venus Williams maybe should have taken a page out of her sister's book and taken a sabbatical after Wimbledon. Instead she went to Istanbul as the top seed and lost in the first round to Kateryna Bondarenko!