TENNIS TUESDAY: Big 3 Are All Top 3; Tsitsipas Beats Nadal; Djokovic Wins Madrid; Kiki Beats Halep

THE BIG THREE (DJOKOVIC, NADAL, FEDERER) ARE ATOP THE ATP RANKINGS AGAIN
The big 3 first occupied the Top 3 spots at the top of the rankings on July 9, 2007 (when Djokovic joined Nadal and Federer). Last week, Federer returned to the Top 3 where Djokovic and Nadal were holding down the two top spots. Together the three players account for an astonishing 792 weeks at #1, with Federer owning the record 310 weeks, followed by Djokovic with 251 and Nadal with 196.

TSITSIPAS BEATS NADAL IN MADRID SF, OWNS WINS OVER BIG 3 AT AGE 20!
The Madrid Masters ended with Rafael Nadal suffering his 3rd consecutive semifinal loss in a clay court tournament in 2019. He lost to Fabio Fognini (in straight sets) in Barcelona, to Dominic Thiem in Monte Carlo and he lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas in Madrid! This is the first time since 2004 that Nadal has reached this point in the season without having won a title. His last chance at a clay title will be Rome, where both World #1 Djokovic and (surprisingly!)  World #3 Federer are also playing. The key take-away from Madrid though is despite being just 20-years-old Tsitsipas already has wins over all of the members of the trivalry and is up to World #7 in the rankings. He beat Federer in the 4th round of the 2019 Australian Open, he beat Nadal in Madrid and he beat Djokovic in Montreal last summer.

KIKI BEATS SIMO TO WIN MADRID; RISES TO WORLD #4
Surprisingly, Kiki Bertens became the first player to ever win the Madrid Open without dropping a set when she defeated 2-time champion (2016 & 2017) Simona Halep 6-4 6-4. Bertens had lost the final last year to Petra Kvitova but she has had some of her best results in her career in the last year, including a win over Venus Williams at Wimbledon. With the biggest title of her career she becomes the highest ranked Dutch player ever, rising to World #4 this week!

DJOKOVIC RETURNS TO FORM WITH WINS OVER THIEM & TSITSIPAS TO WIN MADRID MASTERS
For the first time this year, the person who beat Nadal on clay did not win the tournament. Less than 24 hours after beating Nadal, Tsitsipas had to face Djokovic in the final, and was fairly easily dismissed, 6-3 6-4. Djokokic had more trouble in the semifinals against Dominic Thiem, whome he defeated in two tiebreak sets despite being down a service break in both sets! With his win, the World #1 cements his place at the top of the rankings, especially considering he has won the last three major tournaments in a row and now has tied Nadal with 33 Masters shields. Federer lags behind with 28.

FEDERER HITS 1200 WIN MILESTONE; DECIDES TO PLAY ROME
Roger Federer hit another career milestone by winning his 1200 match in Madrid (by coming from behind to beat Gael Monfils). After losing a tight 3-set match to Dominic Thiem (despite holding two match points) he decided to play Rome for the first time since 2016.

2018 MADRID MASTERS: Thiem Hands Nadal His 1st Clay Court Loss Of The Year

Rafael Nadal lost his first match on clay in over a year in the quarterfinals of the 2018 Mutua Madrid Open. Last year Nadal had won the tournament by defeating Dominic Thiem in the final, but this time he lost to Thiem in the quarterfinals. The King of Clay had won a record 50 consecutive sets on clay before losing two in a row (7-5 and 6-3) to the Austrian resident of the World Top 10.

Nadal's loss means that Roger Federer will regain the World #1 ranking, but if Nadal wins the Rome Masters, he can regain the Top ranking before the French Open begins on Sunday May 27. (NOTE: MadProfessah will be attending the tournament in person this year!)

TENNIS TUESDAY: Nadal 15-0 On 2017 Clay; Federer Withdraws From Roland Garros; Halep Defends Madrid Title

NADAL WINS MADRID FINAL; 30TH ATP MASTERS SHIELD; NOW 15-0 ON 2017 CLAY
Rafael Nadal, the King of Clay, is having another extraordinary clay court season this year. He won his 52nd career clay court title and 30th ATP Masters shield by extending his undefeated streak on clay by beating Dominic Thiem of Austria 7-6(8) 6-4 to win the Madrid Mutua Open. Nadal has now won his 5th title in Madrid and his 10th(!) title in Barcelona and Monte Carlo. Interestingly, Nadal notched up a win against Novak Djokovic on his way to the final, stopping a losing streak against the former World #1 and setting their head to head at 24W-26L.

NO CHANCE OF #FEDAL AT #RG17 AS ROGER PULLS OUT OF FRENCH OPEN
2017 Australian Open champion Roger Federer has finally confirmed what many of us suspected awhile ago after he won the Sunshine Double in March: The 18-time major champion would skip the entire clay court season to focus on the summer grass and hard court seasons. In a statement released on his website on Monday May 15th, he said "I need to recognize that scheduling will be the key to my longevity moving forward. Thus, my team and I concluded today that playing just one event on clay was not in the best interest of my tennis and physical preparation for the remainder of the season."

HALEP DEFENDS MADRID TITLE BY OUTLASTING KIKI MLADENOVIC
The hottest player on tour in 2017 is Kristina "Kiki" Mladenovic, who has reached 4 tournament finals this year (winning only 1). Simona Halep was pushed to a 3rd set against Kiki in final of the Madrid Open, eventually winning the deciding set 6-2, which was the Romanian's first defense of an important title. Halep's win means that she returns to the Top 5 in the rankings, while Mladenovic will rise to World #14.

KERBER REGAINS #1 RANKING, SERENA UNLIKELY TO BE #1 AGAIN IN 2017
Angelique Kerber has regained the #1 ranking by earning enough points in Madrid to surpass the total by Serena Williams. Since Serena is not playing any tournaments for the rest of the year it seems unlikely that she will be #1 ranked again in 2017, although it is possible that if Kerber does not defend the ranking points she earned in 2016 (US Open title and Wimbledon final) that the German's total may fall below Kerber's. However, it's possible that other players such as Karolina Pliskova (who currently leads the Race to Singapore), Halep or Dominika Cibulkova could reach #1 this year.

2017 MADRID: Djokovic-Nadal L in Semifinals, To Face Thiem-Cuevas Winner

For a record fiftieth time, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic will face off against each other in an ATP tour tennis match. This time it is in the semifinals of the Mutua Madrid Ope, the Madrid Masters. Although this tournament is in the capital of Nadal's home country, he has under performed here, with only 4 titles here (compared to 10 on the clay courts of Barcelona and Monte Carlo) and an insane 9 titles at the clay-court major, Roland Garros in Paris.

Interestingly, Nadal now leads the tour in 2017 with match wins (32) and although Djokovic is higher ranked (World #2) and the defending champion here in Madrid, he has been having a very rough year, and recently fired his longtime coaching staff.

As a result of winning their last 7 meetings, Djokovic now leads his head to head with Nadal 26-23, one  of the very few people on tour who can say that. If Djokovic were to beat Nadal on clay, it will probably resuscitate his entire year. It is a widely anticipated match, but I give the edge to the Spanish King of Clay right now. But it will be a very tough battle.

MadProfessah's pick: Nadal in 3 sets.

TENNIS THURSDAY: Halep,Nole Win Madrid; Murray-Mauresmo Split; Williams Sisters Play Doubles In Rome

HALEP AND DJOKOVIC WIN MADRID MUTUA OPEN
Simona Halep and Novak Djokovic won the latest  warm-up tournament for Roland Garros, the Mutua Madrid Open in Spain. World #2 Halep defeated Dominika Cibulkova and World #1 beat World #2 (and defending champion) Andy Murray in three sets 6-2 3-6 6-3. Murray was coming off an impressive win over Rafael Nadal, becoming the first person to beat the King of Clay in the same clay tournament in consecutive years. Djokovic now has 29 ATP Masters Shields and is tied for 6th on the all-time list with Pete Sampras and Bjorn Borg with 64 career ATP titles.

ANDY AND AMELIE ANNOUNCE END OF COACHING RELATIONSHIP
Andy Murray and Amelie Mauresmo announced a mutual agreement to end their coaching relationship after 2 years together. They are both relatively new parents (Mauresmo gave birth to a son in August, and Andy's wife gave birth to a daughter in February) and apparently the travel demands became too great for her. It was noted by several observers that Jamie Delgado was in Andy's coaching box in Madrid and this announcement was not too much of a surprise. Murray rose to #2 in the world under Mauresmo and was 7-5 in tour finals but was unable to win another major while being coached by the 2-time major champion. It will be interesting to see who Murray selects next. He was hailed for being the rare elite male athlete who had a female coach, and he should get a lot of kudos for that.

VENUS AND SERENA PLAYING DOUBLES IN ROME, PREPARING FOR RIO?
World #1 Serena Williams finally returned to the WTA tour in Rome, winning her first match over Anna-Lena Friedsam. Venus Williams won her first match in Rome as well, defeating Coco Vandeweghe in straight sets but the when the two sisters played doubles (for the first time in nearly two years!) they lost pretty easily, 1-6 5-7 against the team of Katarin Srebotnik and Andreja Klepac. The two do intend to play doubles at the Rio Olympics, where the tennis program runs from August 6-14. The Williams Sisters are the winningest tennis team in Olympics history, with each winning a singles Gold medal (Serena in London in 2012 and Venus in Sydney in 2000) and together they have three golds (Sydney, Beijing and London).

2016 MADRID: Serena Withdraws, Roger Enters

The 2016 Madrid Mutua Open begins this weekend but the #1 seed will be Agnieska Radwanska since Serena Williams has withdrawn from the tournament due to a high fever caused by the flu.

On the men's side, Roger Federer has added the tournament to his schedule.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Federer Releases 2016 Schedule, Murray Keeps Mauresmo, Kvitova Engaged!

FEDERER'S 2016 SCHEDULE LIMITS CLAY AND BOOSTS GRASS, SKIPS 4 MASTERS
Roger Federer has released his tentative 2016 ATP tour schedule and the 34-year-old has decided to only play one clay court tournament (Roland Garros) and will increase the amount of grass tournaments he plays, adding Stuttgart to his schedule the week before his traditional Wimbledon warm-up in Halle. (This is especially exciting news for me, because I am planning to visit Germany this summer and if I could also see Federer play on grass that would be an incredible experience!) Because of the length of his career and age Federer is deciding to skip a surprising FOUR of the 9 Master's Series tournaments: Miami, Monte Carlo, Madrid and Canada (Toronto/Montreal).

COACHING MUSICAL CHAIRS CONTINUE: MURRAY, KEYS, HALEP, FEDERER
The musical chairs among coaches of the major tennis players continues. This week's announcement was that Andy Murray is going back to having Amelie Mauresmo as his main coach, ending his professional relationship with Jonas Bkorkman. A few weeks ago Federer announced Stefan Edberg would not coach him in 2016, instead that role would be taken by Ivan Ljubicic. Previously it was announced that Jesse Levine would be coaching Madison Keys (instead of Lindsay Davenport) and that Darren Cahill had been named Simona Halep's official coach.

PETRA KVITOVA ANNOUNCES ENGAGEMENT TO RADEK (NOT WHO YOU THINK)
2-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova surprised many tennis players by announcing via Twitter that the 25-year-old was now engaged to be married to 27-year-old Czech hockey player Radek Meidel.

DJOKOVIC AND SERENA WIN 2015 ITF CHAMPION TITLES
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced that Novak Djokovic has won the title for the 5th time and Serena Williams has won the title for the 6th time. They both won 3 major titles in 2015. Serena won the first three, while Djokovic lost in the finals of the French Open. The ITF is the official governing body of international tennis and is the group that sanctions the Grand Slam tournaments and manages international team competitions like Davis Cup, Fed Cup and Hopman Cup. The ITF champion almost always is the person who wins the most singles majors that year.

SURPRISE AT 2015 IPTL WHERE DEFENDING CHAMPS INDIAN ACES LOSE FINAL SINGAPORE SLAMMERS
The Indian Aces were the most dominant team in the off-season exhibition competition called the International Premiere Tennis League (IPTL) for the second year but this time they lost the championship match against the Singapore Slammers. The Aces had stars like Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna while the Slammers had Belinda Bencic and Stan Wawrinka. Major champions like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Marin Cilic all competed this year.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Raonic Now #4, Murray Stuns Nadal in Madrid, Nole Returns, Kvitova Ends Serena's Streak

New ATP World Rankings Are Very New Indeed
This week's ATP World rankings have two important features: Canadian Milos Raonic reaches a career high at #4 while Rafael Nadal slides to World #7 which is his lowest ranking since May 2, 2005. Showing the impact of a major win, somehow Marin Cilic still remains in the Top 10. It's not all good news for the big Canadian, as Raonic announced that he will be having foot surgery and will likely miss tournaments in Rome and Paris.

Murray Gets First Win On Clay Against Nadal In A Final. In Madrid!
Amazingly, Andy Murray had never won a clay tournament despite nearly a decade playing on tour. In the last two weeks he has won two. He won a rain-delayed final played on a Monday to win the BMW Open in Hamburg and then 6 days later he dominated the greatest clay court player of all-time by defeating Rafael Nadal 6-3 6-2 in the Madrid Masters final.

Clay Court Season Continues In Rome
World #1 Novak Djokovic returns to the tour in Rome, while Murray may decide to take a break to save energy for Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Nole has won the first three Masters series tournaments he played this year (as well as the first major) and is the defending champion here. Nadal is the finalist so is defending 600 points but there is little likelihood of him falling out of the Top 8 before the French Open starts in two weeks.

Kvitova Returns And Hands Serena First Defeat Of 2015
Petra Kvitova demonstrated again that when she is on, she can beat anyone, even 19-time major champion Serena Williams. It is true that Serena was not on, but the World #1 was undefeated on the year despite playing 24 matches, a streak which ended in a 6-3 6-2 defeat in the Madrid semifinals. Kvitova went on to win the title, her 16th and pundits again wondered if this marks the beginning of when the Czech player will go on to dominate the WTA tour.

2015 MADRID: Murray Stuns Nadal To Win 2nd Consecutive Clay Title, 9-0 Since Getting Married

In one of the most surprising results in a final since last year's Australian Open, Andy Murray defeated 2-time defending champion Rafael Nadal 6-3 6-2 to become the 2015 Mutua Madrid Open champion. It was Murray's 2nd ever clay tournament title (coming less than a week after his first one), the first time he had ever beaten Nadal on clay and only his 6th win in 21 meetings). The loss means that Nadal will fall to #7 in the ATP rankings, the first time the 14-time major champion has been outside the Top 5 in a decade. This could greatly impact his chances to win his 10th French Open title when that tournament starts on May 25th in Paris.

Murray is now undefeated on the ATP Tour (9-0) since getting married to longtime girlfriend Kim Pears on April 11. He won his 10th ATP Masters shield, cemented his hold on the World #3 ranking and improved his ATP tour finals record to 33-16. His win-loss record for the year is now 30-5.

2015 MADRID: Kvitova Wins Title Over Kuznetsova; Nadal Faces Murray In Final

As expected, Petra Kvitova defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova in the women's final of the 2015 Mutua Madrid Open to win her 16th WTA title. The score was 6-1 6-2 and the result of the match was basically never in doubt.

On the men's side, Rafael Nadal will meet Andy Murray in the final. Murray is coming off winning his very first clay court title in Germany earlier this week over Philip Kohlschreiber. Unfortunately for him, Nadal owns a 15-5 advantage in their career head-to-head and has never lost to him on clay. Murray did well to get past Kei Nishikori in the semifinals while Nadal dispatched Tomas Berdych. Top seed Roger Federer had lost a squeaker to Nick Kyrgios in his first match of the week. Nadal owns the all-time record of Masters series shields (27) and is looking for a 5th title in Madrid.

MadProfessah's pick: Nadal.

Federer Wins 85th Career Title in Istanbul

World #2 Roger Federer won his 85th career title in Istanbul by defeating Pablo Cuevas 6-3 7-6(11). It was Federer's 3rd title of 2015 (d. Milos Raonic in Brisbane and d. Novak Djokovic in Dubai) and he improved to 85-43 in ATP tour finals.

The ATP Master Series 1000 tournament in Madrid starts this week.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Djokovic Skips Madrid; Kerber On Clay Hot Streak; Isner Turns 30; Mauresmo On Maternity Leave

Kerber On 11-Match Winning Streak On Clay; Keys, Sharapova, Wozniacki In Her Wake
Building on her win on the green clay of Charleston a few weeks by coming back from 1-4 down in the final set to defeat Madison Keys, German Angelique Kerber has been absolutely on fire during the clay season so far. She defeated the reigning French Open champion on Thursday and then continued her winning ways by coming back from 3-5 down in the final against Caroline Wozniacki to ride the hometown crowd support to snatch the Stuttgart title. This is her 5th career title and she had to defeat two Top 5 players to do it, which she did in two 3-set thrillers.

John Isner Turns 30
John Isner had a big birthday on Sunday, turning thirty years old. The Top American has not made as much an impact in the majors as Andy Roddick but in this era of men's tennis it is very possible for 30-somethings to have success on the tour and hoping that continues with Isner in the next few years.

Djokovic Says Enough Is Enough; Gives Someone Else A Chance To Win Something!
After winning the first three Masters series titles of 2015, World #1 Novak Djokovic has decided to withdraw from next week's Madrid Masters. Since he also didn't play last year he is not losing any ranking points. I'm sure the rest of men's field thanks Nole and wishes him a peaceful week!

Mauresmo Is Pregnant And Taking Time Off From Coaching Andy Murray 
Andy Murray has made an important statement for women's equality in sports by naming former WTA #1 Amelie Mauresmo as his coach. Mauresmo, 35,  announced recently that she is expecting her first child in August, and while she is on maternity leave (an issue which has never come up before for the coach of an elite men's player) she will be replaced (temporarily) by Jonas Bjorkman.

Wawrinka Getting Divorced And Nobody's Happy
Stan Wawrinka had previously separated from his wife (ostensibly in order to focus on his tennis) but later reconciled well before he won his first Grand Slam title in Australia last year. Recently he announced that the two are definitely getting divorced and his wife issued a statement of her own clarifying her side of the story. His results have been spotty in 2015, with the former World #3 now down to #9 in the latest rankings.

Serena Officially 3rd Longest Stay At #1 (Behind Steffi and Martina)
Serena Williams has now been World #1 for 114 weeks in a row, which is third all-time, behind Martina Navratilova's 156 weeks (3 solid years!!) and Steffi Graf's 186 weeks and just 1 week ahead of Chris Evert's 113 weeks. Her current streak is exactly twice as long as her longest previous hold on the #1 ranking at 57 weeks. She has been #1 on 6 different occasions in her career. In her current #1 streak only 8 players have beaten her, but bizarrely Alize Cornet has done so three times!

2014 MADRID: Nadal Wins When Nishikori Withdraws, Sharapova Outlasts Halep

As I predicted, Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova won the Mutua Madrid Open on Sunday, cementing their status as favorites to win the clay court major in Paris in two weeks.

However, no one predicted that the two challengers, Kei Nishikori and Simona Halep would come out so strong and essentially blow away the eventual winner in the first set. Nishikori was up 6-2 4-2 before his back went out and he basically could no longer hit the ball, eventually retiring down 2-6 6-4 3-0 having lost seven consecutive games. This should actually give the rest of the field some hope because if Nishikori had been able to sustain his level of play for just 10-15 more minutes, he almost certainly would have earned his first victory over Nadal. Many commentators that the victory was a karmic one for Nadal, as he lost the 2014 Australian Open to Stanislas  wawrinka primarily due to an injury suffered in the warm-up! Today he was the recipient of a win due to an injured opponent. I'm sure Nadal would rather have another title in Melbourne instead of four in Madrid.

As for Sharapova, she simply started badly, and as she got better in the match, her opponent got worse. It wasn't clear if it was fatigue, but Halep's movement dropped off, her groundstrokes started to have less firepower just as Sharapova was gaining in confidence and pulverizing the ball into the corners, with the score of 1-6 6-2 6-3 the inevitable result.

By winning in Madrid for the first time (after making the final last year), Sharapova earned her 9th career clay court title, 31st overall and improved to 47-3 on clay since 2012, with all three losses coming to Serena Williams. If Serena is not healthy in Paris, she better watch out! I do believe other players on tour can beat Sharapova on clay (Li Na, Petra Kvitova and Simona Halep come to mind) but somehow they have not managed to do so over the last 24 months is a significant fact.
Sharapova will rise to World 37 while Halep remains at World #5.

Nadal's win was his 4th in Madrid, his 63rd career title (44 of which have come on clay). He improved to 30-5 for 2014, the best record on tour and defends his title from last year. He also extends his lead in Masters 1000 events to 27, now six ahead of Roger Federer who has 21.

Generally the person who wins the most of the available 9 Masters shields in the year ends up at #1. Novak Djokovic has 2 (Indian Wells and Miami), Wawrinka has 1 (Monte Carlo) and Nadal has 1 (Madrid) with Rome starting on Monday. Nadal is the defending champion and if he does not repeat as champion and Djokovic gets past the quarterfinal stage, there may be a new #1 in time for the French Open.

2014 MADRID: Sharapova-Halep, Nadal-Nishikori Finals Set

The finals of the Mutua Madrid Open are set. orld #1 Rafael Nadal will face soon-to-be-Top 10 Kei Nishikori while on the women's side Maria Sharapova will face Simona Halep. Nadal has never lost to Nishikori in 6 meetings and Sharapova has not lost to Halep in 2.

I would be unsurprised if both Nadal and Sharapova win clay titles on Sunday, and should be considered favorites for Roland Garros, especially with their main rivals, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams, recovering from injury.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Federer Twins (Leo and Lenny) Are Born!

Roger Federer withdrew from the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid on Tuesday, hours before his twin sons, Leo and Lenny were born. This is the second set of twins for Roger and wife Mirka. They also have twin girls named Charlene and Myla Rose who were born July 23, 2009.

Congratulations, Roger! What impeccable timing! Now you don't have to miss the Rome tournament next week, where you are defending finalists points. With Novak Djokovic also out of the tournament due to injury, things look good for Rafael Nadal to try and get his mojo back by winning his first clay court tournament of the year. (We often do not have to say that in May!)

Roger Federer Releases 2014 ATP Tour Schedule

Roger Federer has released his 2014 schedule. Hopefully I will be able to see Roger in person (up close!) sometime in 2014 like I was able to do in 2013. I am thinking of perhaps visiting the Cincinnati and/or Toronto tournaments. I will almost certainly be at the Indian Wells tournament again in 2014.

Brisbane	30. December 2013 - 05. January 2014
Australian Open	13. - 26. January
Dubai	24. February - 02. March
Indian Wells	03. - 16. March
Miami	17. - 30. March
Madrid	05. - 11. May
Rome	12. - 18. May
Roland Garros	26. May - 08. June
Halle	09. - 15. June
Wimbledon	23. June - 06. July
Toronto	04. - 10. August
Cincinnati	11. - 17. August
US Open	25. August - 07. September
Shanghai	06. - 12. October
Basel	18. - 26. October
Paris	27. October - 02. November

Hat/tip to Sports Illustrated 

ROME 2013: Federer-Nadal XXX Goes To Nadal 61 63

Rafael Nadal continued his startling 2013 run of good form by defeating his arch-rival Roger Federer  6-1 6-3 in the final of the 2013 ATP Rome Masters in just over an hour. (Interestingly, this was the identical score that Serena Williams beat Victoria Azarenka to win the WTA title right before, although that match took 93 minutes. Nadal has won a tour-leading 6 titles (in 8 finals) in 2013 and has only lost twice while playing 38 matches so far (the vast majority on clay). The 2013 BNL Internazionali d'Italia title is Nadal's 41st clay court title (of 56 ATP tour title) and his record 24th ATP Masters shield. and 7th title in Rome. (Federer is #2 on the all-time list at 21.) In fact, Nadal has already won 3 ATP Masters shields this year Indian Wells (d. Juan Martin del Potro), Madrid (d. Stanislas Wawrinka) and Rome. He lost the ATP Monte Carlo Masters title to Novak Djokovic and lost his first final of the year against the unheralded Horacio Zeballos. World #1 Djokovic failed to reach the final in Madrid (losing to Grigot Dimitrov) and Rome (losing to Tomas Berdych) but I still think if he reaches the final against Nadal in Paris he will have the mental advantage and achieve his career grand slam. He was well on his way to beating Nadal last year when the weather interrupted their match in the fourth set with Djokovic up a break of serve. The question is, will Nole reach the final? The 2013 French Open draw will be released Friday this week and may well be the most important factor in who wins, including whether Andy Murray withdraws (due to a back injury sustained in Rome), thus opening up a spot in the Top 4 for Nadal.

Nadal is now 20-10 in his career head-to-head with Federer and even though the Swiss player is considered the greatest player of all time, it is clear that both the physical and mental matchup with the lefty spin of the Spaniard is something that Federer is unable to handle at this stage of his career. It must be mentioned though that fully half of their thirty meetings have been on clay, with Nadal sporting a 13-2 lead on that surface. On the non-clay surfaces Federer still has  a slight 8-7 lead.  Two-thirds of their meetings have been in finals with Nadal leading 14-6 (but again, they have met in 13 clay court finals, with Nadal leading 11-2 there). Today's final was their first meeting in a final since the 2011 Roland Garros which was won easily by Nadal. Clearly, Federer has been the 2nd best clay-court player for the last decade, but Nadal is the best clay court player of all time.

(Yes, I'm still on my Caribbean vacation but of course I'm still following tennis! Sadly I was unable to see either match this year, although last year at this time I was in Rome.)

MADRID 2013: Serena Defends Title, Retains #1

As I predicted, Serena Williams continued her domination of Maria Sharapova with a 6-1 6-4 win in 78 minutes in the final of the Mutua Madrid Open. With her 12th consecutive of win over Sharapova, the 31-year-old Serena won her 50th title of in her 66th career final, becoming only the 10th person to reach that milestone. 26-year-old Sharapova is now 29-21 in WTA tour finals and 2-13 lifetime against Serena.

The WTA reports:

Williams is now the 10th player all-time to win 50 or more WTA titles. The first nine were Martina Navratilova (167), Chris Evert (154), Steffi Graf (107), Margaret Court (92), Evonne Goolagong (68),Billie Jean King (67), Lindsay Davenport (55), Virginia Wade (55) and finally Monica Seles (53).

And with seven, Williams is now in third place among active players for most WTA clay court titles, tied with Sharapova and Flavia Pennetta; Venus Williams is second place with nine, and Anabel Medina Garrigues - the player who was on the verge of victory against her in the quarterfinals - is first with 10.

Williams is now 28-1 on clay since the start of last year's clay court season, Sharapova 27-2.

The result of the match was only in doubt for a brief time. Sharapova opened nervously and was broken easily. Serena was sharp from the very first point and was serving well over 80%. She came close to winning the first in a bagel but had to settle for a breadtstick 6-1. In the second set, Sharapova came out sharper held her first service game and was able to break Serena to go up 2-0. However, Serena was able to hold serve (after saving a break point) to stay close and then was able to break Sharapova to even the set at 3-all. There were three service holds and then in the 10th game, serving to stay in the match the Russian fell behind 0-40 and was quickly broken after a short rally.

MADRID 2013: Federer Loses To Nishikori

Roger Federer failed to make the quarterfinals of the Madrid Masters tournament for the first time in his career today when he lost 6-4 1-6 6-2 to Kei Nishikori in the 3rd round. In other upsets, Ekaterina Makarova followed up her surprising dismissal of Victoria Azarenka with a win over Marion Bartoli 6-3 6-2.

The men's quarterfinals will feature a blockbuster showdown between Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer, Nishikori versus Pablo Andujar, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga versus Stanislas Wawrinka and Andy Murray versus Tomas Berdych.

The women's quarterfinals are Angelique Kerber versus Ana Ivanovic, Sara Errani versus Makarova, Maria Sharapova  versus Kaia Kanepi and Serena Williams versus Anna Medina Garrigues.

The matches to watch are Nadal-Ferrer, Tsonga-Wawrinka, Berdych-Murray and Kerber-Ivanovic.

MADRID 2013: Dimitrov Stuns Djokovic in 3-set Upset!

Grigor Dimitrov, one of only a handful of players to win a set from Rafael Nadal on clay in Monte Carlo in the last decade, and possibly more well-known for his good looks and rumored to be dating Maria Sharapova, actualized his on-court talent with a stunning 7-6(6) 6-7(8) 6-3 win over world #1 Noval Djokovic in the 2nd round of the ATP Madrid Masters. The win was the biggest of the 21-year-old's career and was the longest 3-set match of the year n the ATP tour. It was especially impressive considering that Dimitrov started cramping in the 2nd(!) set but still managed to get an early break in the 3rd set and was able to nurse that 2-0 lead to gut out the win against the best player in the world.

Most observers said that Djokovic was not at his best, but it was still an important psychological win for the World #28, widely expected to become one of the best players in the next generation of players currently under-22 that includes Milos Raonic, Bernard Tomic and Jerzy Jankowicz. Dimitrov has yet to win an ATP Tour title, something Tomic and Raonic have done. Despite winning Monte Carlo over Nadal a few weeks ago, Djokovic has suffered some shock defeats this year, such as against Juan Martin del Potro in Indian Wells and Tommy Haas in Miami.

In other happenings in Madrid, 2012 defending champion Roger Federer won his first match in over 8 weeks when he defeated Radek Stepanek 6-3 6-3. Andy Murray won his 400th career ATP Tour match with a gripping 7-6(11) 7-6(3) win over Florian Mayer.